If not here, where?
If not now, when?
If not you, who?
I have found that most of us are pretty good at qualifying and disqualifying ourselves in various aspects of life. Areas we feel secure about quickly become qualifications that others should just as quickly recognize and praise. And the areas we feel more insecure are immediate deadends and disqualifications; ignored, hidden, and riddled with excuses - or possibly insufficiencies we pour our energies into fixing.
"Follow me and I will make you fish for people..." Mark 1:17
In scriptures we see that when Jesus called His disciples, the command "follow me" was connected with a promise "I will make you."
The command to "follow me" is a clear invitation for relationship, which is where Jesus begins with all of us.
The promise "will make" is clearly focused on Jesus' activity, not ours. The word "make" is translated from the Greek verb poieo, which is the root of the words "poem" and "poetry". He is forming and crafting our lives as an author writes a story.
He doesn't call the qualified. He qualifies the called.
How has God written a story through your life?
Are you still disqualifying yourself? Or are you following and letting Him do the making?
"... you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God." II Cor. 3:3-5
/ Audacity / Recklessly bold. Eager. Daring. Disregard of normal restraints.
Some men arrived carrying a paraplegic on a stretcher. They were looking for a way to get into the house and set him before Jesus. When they couldn't find a way in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof, removed some tiles, and let him down in the middle of everyone, right in front of Jesus. Impressed by their bold belief, he said, "Friend, I forgive your sins." Luke 5:18-20
For this rule-keeper, it's pretty bold action tearing into someone else's roof. At first read, it is very hard to put myself into the position of the friends or the man on the mat for that matter. I get a little nervous and uncomfortable with this brazen behavior of taking matters into their own hands.
However, as I dive into the story a little deeper, I begin to consider the paraplegic and what it must be like to have no freedom of movement. Or to be a friend of someone who has been bed-ridden with no hope of ever walking. And I consider the moments I have thought or said if I could do anything for a suffering friend I would do it.
When they couldn't find a way - they made a way.
There's a fine balance to be found between acceptance and resignation. To find it, I think the question we must ask is, "Am I making a way?"
With resignation there is no way to find and you give up. You've hit the dead end and declared it to be. You disengage from the rejuvenating gift of life and the process of dying sets in.
With acceptance, you embrace the opportunity to make a way. You see the dead end and begin to look for roofs to cut through. You breathe deeply the air you are blessed to breathe and engage more fully in life than you ever have, knowing full well your life or someone else's may depend on it.
Living in sync is not always the path of least resistance, but it is always the path of life. Go ahead. Be a little reckless and bold. Take every set back and obstacle as the opportunity to make a new way forward. And while you are at it, don't forget to do it for your friends, too.
I really enjoy running. It's like a simultaneous exchange of releasing energy and gaining it at the same time. A breathing out of my tension and stress, and a breathing in of oxygen and life.
Typically, I run alone. My schedule is not very structured, so I carve out time when I can to exercise.
Last night, we ended up a the Y and I was running on the indoor track. Here is the place I find my occasional fellow runners. While we don't necessarily run together, we do by the nature of being on such a small track.
Without thinking about it, I began to gauge the speed of others and determine my own pace. Clearly wanting to avoid running over walkers or whacking into each other on the corners. Can anyone tell me why these tracks have to be so small that you almost feel like a hamster wheel going round and round and round?
At one point, a high school girl jumped in right behind me, shadowing my run. Well, I thought. This is my opportunity to pick up my pace and see if I can stay ahead of her. Maybe, just maybe it has to do with being over 40 and facing another birthday this month. Or possibly the adrenaline of running was taking hold.
So, I did pick up my pace. And she stayed right there, about two steps behind. We rounded corner after corner and I hit the sweet spot of my running. Fast enough to be stretching myself out of a lethargic jog and steady enough that I wasn't exhausting myself or getting a side stitch. It was pretty darn fun.
After several laps, my daughter popped her head into the track and I knew she was ready to go home. I held up two fingers, announcing two more solid laps. Then I pushed into overdrive. Could I hold a sprint for the final two laps without fizzling at the end? Would my running partner stay in step with me?
Off I went, and off she went. Right with me, in step with my every step. Two laps later as we slowed down for a cool down my spontaneous running partner looks over with a grin and says, "Good job".
Not only did this make my run more fun... but I think there's a principal of life caught up in this little moment we shared. Make the most of every moment. Live it with the people around you. Let the energy of moments & people spur you on to accomplish more than you could do alone.
Live life at its best!
