Standing Here Again
Standing here again. 4 months in, and the optimism of the New Year has faded. I look at my list of goals and feel uninspired. I don't want to go to the box. I don't want to exercise. I don't want to give up sugar. I don't want to eat more protein. The fact is, I REALLY like Lucky Charms. I like drinking Coke, and I would rather curl up with a good book than go out and do new things. Goals are over-rated. And no one ever really accomplishes what they say they will each year, anyway. Right?
I know I have a lot of company out there. I read Facebook posts all the time of folks talking about "real life" and fumbling and others applauding them for the same. I write those kinds of posts too, and there is a real encouragement that comes in knowing we all are still figuring out life, how to do hard things, how to grow and change and become.
But this week, late at night, when I haven't been able to sleep, I started thinking about my goals differently. Looking at a list of things which seem impossible and which honestly, have been on my list of goals for years . . .something about the process isn't working.
So, I've started to think instead about WHO I want to be.
Do I want to read my life away, never actually DOING anything I read about? Do I want to spent my time "pinning" things for inspiration, and never BE a source of inspiration myself?
Do I want my identity to be one who hangs out in coffee shops? Um, no.
I want more out of life. I want to be who I'm called to be. I want to be stirrer of the pot. I want to be the rally cry for justice in the environments I find myself in. I want to be someone who changes others by the life I lead.
When I stop and think about WHO I want to be, rather than what I want to accomplish, everything changes.
I can put off a diet and a workout. But I cannot put off becoming a person who is self-disciplined and has enough respect for myself to take better care. I cannot put off stewarding my health, so that I have as many years on earth as possible to walk out God's purpose on the earth.
It's easy to look at my Spanish verb book, and tell myself I'll memorize them another day. I've been doing it for 15 years. But when I think back to the night the most accurate prophet I know prophesied over me----and told me I needed to learn another language because God wanted to take me to other nations to lift up the hands of those who labor there----it changes everything.
I have to stop thinking about goals as tasks. I have to start seeing the work before me as character, as stewardship, as stepping stones to what I'm called to be and WHO I AM.
What about you? Who are you called to be? And what have you done today to become that person?
Time is Life. How we spend it, is who we are and who we are becoming.