Category Archives: Dreams

07.10.17
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Passion: A Parable

adventure-1836217_1920A long time ago a father built a campfire with his son.  The father had to go away for a few hours, and night was getting close, so he warned his son to be careful not to let the flame go out.

The son received this responsibility with great care and seriousness at first.  He added wood to the fire every few minutes for the first hour or so, until the flames grew to three times his own height.

But after realizing the great size of the fire, as well as the fatigue that was beginning to set in from running back and forth to collect wood, the boy sat down on a log to admire what he had created.

As time passed he just sat and watched, until eventually the flame stood no higher than his shins.  He then got up and added a little more wood, but not as much as he had at first.

He did this several more times, letting the fire rise and fall, rise and fall, until eventually he fell asleep.

The boy awoke several hours later when he heard his father return to the campsite.

“What happened to the fire?” the father asked.

“I don’t know,” said the son.  “It just went out.”

“It didn’t just go out,” said the father.  “It went out because you stopped watching it.  You can’t expect a fire to stay lit if you only admire it and never attend to it.”

The son, in his shame, kept his eyes fastened on the ground, that is until he heard his father poking around the inside of the fire ring with a stick.  Digging through the gray ash like a miner in search of a diamond, the boy’s father finally stopped when he uncovered a glowing, red ember.

“Look here,” his father said.  “See that?  The fire may be gone for the moment, but if we care for what’s left the way we cared for the fire at first, we might yet see the flame restored.”

 

03.14.17
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Pace yourself or push yourself?

Pace yourself

My mom is a marathon runner, and I’m a martial artist.  She’s used to running for hours at a time, whereas I’m used to short explosions of hand-to-hand combat.

Long-distance runners like my mom have to learn to pace themselves during their runs, to spread their energy evenly over a distance of several miles and a time of several hours.  Martial artists have to learn to push themselves, to expend their energy in bursts that last just a few minutes at a time.

But if you think about it for a moment, you’ll realize both kinds of athletes need to learn how to both pace and push themselves in order to be truly successful.  Marathon runners have to pace themselves, but in training they must gradually push themselves, otherwise they will never achieve faster times.  Martial artists must push themselves, but if they expend all of their energy at the start of a fight and fail to defeat their opponent quickly, they’re going to be in big trouble.

So you see, neither of these approaches is bad, unless you completely exclude the other.

There are some people who use “pace yourself” as an excuse to never rise above the challenges they face, to never test the limits of their potential.  Just when they’re about to break a metaphorical sweat over the work they’re doing in their lives, they quit in the name of not doing too much too fast.

Then there are those who push themselves not simply because they are hard workers, but because they don’t believe in the value of consistency.  They work really hard at achieving their goals for a short while, expecting progress to come quickly, but they burn themselves out and yo-yo between grueling effort and extensive, unproductive rest.

So find the balance in your life.  As a believer, I think that balance comes when we really start trusting God and the plan he has for our lives.  Trusting God means I don’t have to push myself past my breaking point, because I believe God is working even when I’m not.  It also means I’m motivated by the purpose for which he has created me, and I’m ready to push the limits of what people perceive to be possible because all things are possible with God!

 

 

 

02.07.17
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You can stay stagnant, or you can get agitated

you-can-stay-stagnant-or-you-can-get-agitated

There’s a part in many washing machines called the agitator.  It’s job is to…well…agitate.  It does so by swishing back and forth, stirring up the water and detergent and clothes.

If it weren’t for this particular part, the clothes would never truly get clean.  Filling up a tub with laundry, soap, and water, then letting the whole concoction sit still for an hour, won’t make them as spotless as you’d like.  You have to shake things up–literally.  It’s in this chaotic swirling that things are made right again, and your clothes come out as fresh as a spring rain.

Isn’t the same often true of our lives?  We don’t like to be agitated, but it’s for our own good, because the opposite of agitation is stagnation.  So many of us get bogged down in the same-old-same-old of everyday life that we feel like we’re standing still while the world around us is pressing forward.

Here’s the thing: The situations we lament as inconvenient obstacles are often God-given opportunities in disguise.

I was recently speaking to the students at my church, and I told them that good friends always tell the truth.  Sometimes truth is painful to receive, but in the long run it makes us better.  I used Jesus as an example, showing them how he constantly shared truths that, even to this day, pierce the hearts of men and women, revealing their sin and their need for a Savior.

Jesus’ words are agitating, because if they weren’t they wouldn’t benefit us.  If he didn’t challenge our way of life, we wouldn’t have known there was a better way at all.  He made us uncomfortable for a moment so we could experience eternal comfort with him later on.

So don’t just endure the agitations in your life, identify and embrace them!  Ask God, “What do you want me to learn from all this?”  Discomfort is a friend of progress, so if you want stop being stagnant you’ll have to start getting a little agitated.

02.02.17
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A letter to me

a-letter-to-me

What are you waiting for?  What is holding you back from doing what you need to do to get to where you want to be?  You have to stop waiting for the planets to align.  It’s just not going to happen.

Ecclesiastes 11:4 says, “Farmers who wait for perfect weather never plant.  If they watch every cloud, they never harvest.”  We root our excuses in reason, but at some point you have to step out in faith.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t plan and prepare for whatever your dream is, because you should.  Proverbs says, “Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty” (21:5).

But I suspect most people get stuck in the planning stages of their dreams and never get to the execution part.  Why?  Because they’re waiting for everything to be perfect.

Listen: The road to your dreams is not paved and perfect. It’s muddy and messy and, at times, miserable–but it’s worth it.

Don’t delay.  Seize the day.  Live without regrets.  Execute well.  Trust God.  Remember what matters.  Keep a good perspective.  Breathe…now go get it.