Have Cheap Luggage, Will Travel

Being pulled along by the train we call life. Rushing past the destinations of new relationships, a friend’s wedding, a friend’s hospital visit…My interaction consists of rushing off the train to say quick thank you’s and I love you’s, step into a few pictures and then I get back on the train to rush to my next destination. It’s not the stops that build my concern; it is the trips in between. The scenery blends together in a blur of colors with no distinct features or connections. Sigh. I want to fix this, but who has the time…

That’s really the problem isn’t it? To really develop a deep connection with life we have to make choices and sometimes choices between good things. That is never comfortable for the overachiever or people pleaser. I hate to say no to people so I end up saying no to myself. Cutting short my sleep, scheduling dinners to chat with a friend every night, maintaining long hours at work, and drinking way too much coffee to keep going. All of these things eventually wear me down and my body takes me out. Yesterday I stayed in bed with an awful headache unable to do anything productive because my body had had enough.

I usually try and develop intricate organizational systems to tackle to flow of work and people in my life. In my room there are 3 months worth of desk calendars taped to my closet door and they chronicle my overextended life so I won’t forget anything. At work, I made a daily to do list for the rest of the year and the funny thing is, I fully intended on keeping to it. Eventually I have to come up with a new system because life refuses be controlled by me, it gets out of control and my well plotted organizational system fails. The reason, I am not God.

Now, I think we can all agree that life is unpredictable and the only assurance of unwavering consistency we have is a faith in God. However, my vises whisper sweet nothings in my ear until I catch myself noticing the blur between life train stops again. Crap.

So my first reaction is to do something – Quit my job, schedule times of rest for myself, anything! But I have lived enough life to know that different circumstances produce the same result if you are the same. It is at these times that I am so grateful that I believe in something bigger than me because this kind of change is impossible on your own.

Do you know when somebody tells you something about yourself that is hard to hear simply because it is true? Your first reaction is always defensive, right? Who are you…I am not…and a whole other list of excuses on why they don’t know what they are talking about, when deep down your first reaction is a cringe of guilt.

A close friend recently shared with me her concerns over my attitude to leadership positions in my life and my desire to avoid them.

“Responsibility has found you if you like it or not.”

-Cringe-

Let me explain how I got here. The main struggle of my life is to avoid the legacy of control left to me by my father. However, it seems that my worst fear has become my reality just disguised as something different.

My Dad and I have pretty much been at war with each other since I was young. He would try to control me, I would refuse to be controlled and many of our disagreements have made a nest of bitterness in my heart where I now attempt to control the leadership opportunities that God puts in my life by not participating in them because I am afraid of being my Dad.

How that plays out day to day is I focus on putting myself behind people to push them forward instead of leading the way. That is exactly why my friend shared with me the quote of my year…

“Responsibility has found you if you like it or not.”

My friend was asking me to be a leader but I was checked out and she had to plead with me to wake up from my complacency. Let’s be honest, committed complacency is control with different pants on.

-Cringe-

Since I have decided to be more open to leadership opportunities, a comforting peace has been infecting my days and I can see where my committed complacency has done more than just make me run from responsibility. I have been running from God’s plan for my life.

So, I don’t know if you have come to terms with your legacy that God has laid out for you but I can bet you that it is scary and will require you to lean on the Lord in order to not screw it up. However, it is not worth avoiding it because it will eventually chase you down.

In conclusion, let us raise our glass in celebration of
…friends that can say I love you but hate you right now
…to the committed pursuit of our hearts from the God of the universe
…and to the opportunity to reshape legacies.

Read: Psalm 66:10
Ask: What does this verse tell us about the origin of some trials? How does that make you feel about some difficult things that you are facing today?

Read: Daniel 11:33-35
Ask: How does this verse help you have grace for flawed leaders in your life?

Read: Jeremiah 29:11-13
Ask: How do these verses give you peace about difficulties in your life?

Some friends and I are going through the book of Mark together and one of the most interesting things to me is the style that Mark tells his story about Jesus.

There’s nothing creative about it. In fact it’s not even eloquent. Mark runs quickly through miracle after miracle straight into the crucifixion without weaving even the slightest bit of metaphor through his story.

It goes a little like this. Step one - Jesus performs a miracle. Step two – the disciples do or say something stupid. Step three – repeat. That cycle continues for the whole book which makes me feel a little bit better about my own hardheadedness.

Anyway, I guess you could say that there is not much use in studying this gospel if you are searching for the deep waters of Biblical theology but the simplicity of reminder is something not to be missed.
What I mean is, sometimes even though you were there, you forget what happened. We need to be reminded occasionally as to not to forget what does not need to be forgotten.

Recently I have had a funk chasing me and I am just getting tired of being me. But after reading through Mark, I think I just need to remind myself of why I am here and would like to share a part of that with you.

- The Lord was always a part of my home growing up but I always kept Him at arms length, more interested in myself. Despite that, I saw His hand for the first time in college.

- Once, my car died for real and I needed to replace the long block in the engine which was going to be a couple thou and I literally had $20 to my name. All of a sudden, an old employer popped up and asked me if I would work for them over the summer. They offered me $10 hour cash, paid for my car repairs on their personal credit card and let me work off the debt. On top of that, they gave me their car to drive while the repairs were getting done.

- Apparently the education system in Texas frowns on you taking out financial aid for 6 years of college and will eventually cut you off. I found that out the hard way and one semester was faced with having to drop out of school with now way to pay. A friend’s family called and wanted to pay the bill no questions asked. They even took me to New York on vacation to celebrate.

- At the tail end of school, I worked on a contract basis for a company called Women of Faith during but never considered working there full time. A few years later, I was juggling 2 jobs to try to make ends meet and needed help. I called a friend on staff at WoF to see if she had any job leads in other companies. That friend I called told me how glad that she was that I called because she was moving and they needed somebody to start in 2 weeks. She was looking for my cell phone number that very moment I called. I had not talked to that girl in almost a year. That job has now affected almost every area of my life.

- I had a friend that wasn’t a Christian and pretty much violently opposed to hearing anything about it. So we never talked about my faith, but about a year into our friendship out of the blue God hijacked my prayer life. I could not pray about anything else and my friend’s soul lay heavy on my heart. So I prayed. The next week she asked me if she could go to church with me – she started asking if she could come to my home group – I gave her a Bible and she read the Old Testament in 1 week – on and on. That girl is a Christian today and her life is completely different, out of nowhere.

Just the facts jack. There are so many more but here are just a few examples of miracle after miracle that God has done in my life. Did you know God is real? My funk may still be chasing me but the simplicity of reminder prompts me to look beyond tomorrow. Be encouraged by your past and take the time to write down your own Mark story. You never know when you might need it to pull you out of the pit.

Read: Psalm 139
Ask: This Psalm was written by David who was named by God, “a man after my own heart”. (Acts 13:22) Despite that call on his life, David lusted after a married woman and had her husband killed so he could be with her. There are some of you who are not encouraged by your past but are shamed by it. How do David’s words in this Psalm make you feel about your past knowing David’s past?

Read: Mark 6:30-44, 8:1-21
Ask: The disciples saw amazing things happen in their time with Jesus but they still seem to doubt his power when faced with trouble. Even when the situation seems exactly the same as in the passages above. How do you react when impossible situations emerge in your life?

Read: Jeremiah 29:11-14
Ask: God reminds us of His ultimate goal for our lives in this passage. Can you see the truth of this scripture in some difficult times in your own life?

I was in Anaheim,CA for a Women of Faith event this weekend and overheard several comments that got me thinking.

“I hope I am able to expend every bit of energy I have for the things I believe in.”

That was how one of our special guests, Nicole C. Mullen, responded to a journalist who asked her if she ever got tired of how much she traveled on top of having a family.

“What should have been a devastating tragedy in my life has put me in a position to lead an amazing prison ministry and more than anything this tragedy makes me lean on my God because I have nothing left personally to give.”

Carol Kent, whose son is prison for 1^st degree murder with no possibility of parole, now co-leads a prison ministry with her son. She was talking to a journalist about the beauty of a broken spirit.

“I’m afraid to marry a woman from the states. They want to get married for themselves, for their own pleasure - not because they want to raise a family. Americans are beautiful people but they are never happy because they are so self-indulgent.”

This last comment is from my Iranian cab driver on the way to the airport. He was talking about how he has lived all over the world and loves to hate Americans because it is frustrating to watch them be so close to happiness and still manage to keep themselves from it.

All of these comments basically reminded me about how life is just not about us but we still struggle to try and make it that way anyway.

Maybe that is why so many of us get divorced. We get married to fill that hole in ourselves with a person but in the end that never works because there is nothing fulfilling about pursuing your own pleasures. Essentially, we just keep one upping ourselves and needing a better toy or relationship to fill our void.

For example, I have a friend that is always putting himself in debt to get another four wheeler, jet ski, boat, house and the list goes on and on because he is bored with his life. I always say that he is just entertaining his eyes until he dies. People! We were meant for something greater than this.

Living your life for your own pleasure will eventually get you to the end of yourself and it is a shorter trip than you think. I was glad for the reminder that life is not about me – especially because I am Christian.

Read: Ephesians 1:11-14
Ask: Salvation is often talked about as a very personal event but is it possible we are not the main for God’s work of salvation? What does this scripture indicate is the final goal of salvation?

Read: Philippians 1:12-26
Ask: As Paul wrote this, he was being imprisoned for preaching the gospel. How would you react in the same situation?

Read: Galatians 6:7-10

Ask: This verse talks about pleasing our own sinful nature and how that leads to destruction. Can you think of a time where that statement was true for you? What does the verse say about our opportunities?