Release the Reigns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9DICw3J914

^^^
This is one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands.
It doesn't have a ton to do with this post, I just like it.

Maybe it has a little to do with the post.

We'll see how it goes.  I'm going to try something new and write stream-of-conciousness.
Sometimes that is a better method of thought collection, albeit a poorer method of literary expression.



Life is hard.

Life is hard for almost everyone.

I heard it said once that you are either headed in to a storm, in the middle of a storm, or headed out of a storm and getting ready for the next one.
This is a pretty good piece of imagery.

We can do everything within our power to avoid a lot of the more obvious cracks in the pavement, and still fall in to a sinkhole.
Sometimes we can ramble around blindfolded and hope we don't bump in to anything too hard.

Either way, if you engage the world in any significant way, there is no possibility of missing the challenges along the way.
It is what we do with these things; mistakes, challenges, trials, hard times, whathaveyou; that matter.  It is what builds us and strengthens us.

Taking the events of your life and using them to shape yourself in to the person that you want to become is the goal.  By any means necessary.

If you are willing to put in the work, and face parts of yourself or your life that you may not be comfortable or satisfied with, I promise it will be worth your time

Along the way, there will be people, and things, that will be measures of comfort, guidance, and solidarity.
When the real challenges present themselves, some of these things will be there, and will come up short.
The only true sufficient source will be you.  Your character.
At the center of this will be Christ.

I don't mean this in an uber-preachy way.  I mean this sincerely.

I have a very difficult time keeping this perspective.

It's like a perfect resource book resting on my shelf that I never dust off an read.
I pass by it every day and think "maybe I should open that up and take a look", but never do, then trip and fall down the stairs.


I do know that God never said that life would be easy and clean.
He never said that you could move through it smoothly with all of the dots lining up just right along the way.
It will be hard, confusing, messy.  Regardless of what our expectations are going in.


The point is, in some roundabout way, you have to deal with what is in front of you in the best way you can.  Head on, and with a clear heart.

If your struggling heavily at your job, have relationships that are falling away, aren't where you think you might need to be, and feel run down in general, it's easy to say "Well, at least I have all of my fingers and toes".
But that is a momentary reprieve from the task at hand.  What needs to be done to address what's on your heart?

This may seem counter-intuitive, but I think that an emphasis is too often place on the journey, rather than the destination.
You read that correctly.

Yes, the path along the way is very important, and largely shapes whatever the destination ends up being.

However, I think the end-goal is often undervalued or, rather, underutilized.


What is it that you ultimately want?  What does that look like right now? 
Who do you ultimately want to be?  What would that person do right now?



It's late.  I'm tired.