hey.
It’s been a while. Not even going to attempt to make excuses.. completely forgot about this thing, but for some reason I was reminded of it recently and decided to write something so isn’t that exciting!!! ( hopefully )
You guys know the drill by now, I am just going to start typing and we will just see where this thing ends up. Anyone who has ever texted me knows exactly what I am talking about. Probably wont edit it, I actually prefer it that way. I feel like it is important for people to know what they are reading. This text is a bunch of 20 year old’s unedited, raw, thoughts. Simple as that, I mean look at how I started this thing. hey. I mean how else do you address a group of people who the last time you communicated with them was almost 9 months ago? The whole “new phone who is this?” thing isn’t really gonna work here so we are just gonna go with it. I apologize in advance for the scattered thoughts, bad punctuation and even worse grammar. (Somewhere my mom is cringing) ((She was a teacher)) (((I’m sorry mom))) okay lets start.
So, I’ve been home for slightly over two months now and, being the naturally stubborn person I am, am just now starting to have it sink in that I am home. Why did it take two months? Great question. A lot has changed, I am now a student at the University of Arkansas and recently started working as a cashier at a grocery store as well. So that’s all well an dandy but that’s not why I wanted to write a blog. In fact I don’t really want to talk about what my life looks like at all in this blog..
I want to talk about what I want it to look like.
What if at ever opportunity we had, we decided to take the stairs?
Now, by take the stairs I don’t mean intentionally make life extremely hard for us and strip ourselves of any pleasures or blessings the Lord has given us. I think if you are too prideful to let the Lord bless you that’s ignorant and kinda dumb. And that’s coming from someone who just started a sentence with the word “And” and also probably hasn’t used a comma correctly this whole time. But, what if every time we had the opportunity, we chose the option that was productive, that grew us, that grows his kingdom. Seriously, what if? I have wrestled with it for maybe a week now. What would my life look like if for a week, a work week, or hell even a day, at every opportunity I challenged myself and did something productive. What if we changed napping into working out, and Netflix and movies into reading (not just scripture) and educating ourselves. What if we all lived our lives in a way that had people watching us going “what is going on with these people?”
The other day I watched a commercial, I think it was a Gatorade one. They have the best commercials, but it talked about how in sports or life, your “Why?” is what motivates you. Your “Why?” is what drives and propels your life. I think this is true. Then I thought about it, as Christians, our “Why?” literally can’t get any bigger or more important. If this is true, then why are there so many Christians who are still living for themselves?
Now, this is not a blog where I am about to tell you how I have been living this way and life is so great and you just need to do this and everything will be sunshine and rainbows. This blog is about how I want my life to look not how it actually is, remember? Lately, I have actually been terrible with this. I honestly have no idea what life would look like if for every second of the school week I choose to be productive. But I am going to find out, or at least try.
Living back in America it has been astonishingly easy to get distracted and be lazy. Weeks fly by and while I haven’t experienced it myself I can totally see how people look up one day and go “How the hell did I get here?” A nap or two there, a netlflix or youtube video here, and boom. Your day is over. It happens to me all the time. The fact that I am in my third week of classes is crazy.
I tried reading the other day. Somebody gifted me “7 habits of effective people” or something like that for graduation and over two years later I thought I would open it up. I sat and read this thing and just got lost in it. I read and read and read, attempting to soak up every bit of knowledge I could, it must have been at least a couple hours. I looked up and it hadn’t even been 20 minutes. I almost laughed with embarrassment.
What do you think the difference between a Sunday afternoon of watching the cowboys absolutely demolish whoever they are playing that week compared to an afternoon of reading, sitting outside in prayer and just soaking up what the Lord did in our lives for this week. Again, I am not asking the question because I know the answer, I don’t. While I think in the life experience department I think I am doing pretty well, I am by no means a seasoned veteran with this whole life thing. I am still a 20 year old kid and technically a freshman in college still. Think what would happen if for the work week, just Monday through Friday, we just attacked it. Gave it everything we had. Then used to Sunday to genuinely rest and reflect. That was an aspect of being on the field I really miss and so desperately need to put back into my life. By rest I don’t mean sit around and twiddle your thumbs. Go do something that brings you life, fills you up. One of the most restful things in the world for me is to play sports.
Recently, (by recently I mean like an hour ago) I took a piece of paper and wrote out my priorities. I have never been one to write things out but it really cleared things up for me so if you are somebody who likes to pretend like you can schedule everything in your head, humble yourself. Try it out. After I wrote out my priorities I wrote ideas on how I can practically grow in that area or what does it look like for me to make this a priority. For two months now I have been saying that my faith is a priority, I had no idea what I was doing, now I have a plan. After that I wrote out my entire schedule. I have these little two or three hour pockets everywhere just dying to be filled with unproductive, unfulfilling things. My mind started rolling, “well here I have two or three hours to maybe schedule lunches with people who are spiritually more mature than me” or “here I have an hour maybe I will go set up the hammock and just sit and be in God’s creation”
My schedule isn’t filled out yet. I am still praying into things but that should give you an example of the direction I am taking my life.
A long time ago, I was given a book called the principle of the path. (Probably graduation again) I don’t think I even finished the first chapter but something from that book has stuck with me for a while now. “Your direction determines your destination” Now, remember, I didn’t finish the book, let alone the first chapter but if that statement is true then that is exciting. I can pretend like I know my destination all I want but at the end of the day God is going to do what he’s going to do. I can; however, control my direction.
Almost done people don’t worry.
I have spent most of my life rebelling against things my parents say, just completely disregarding anything that came out of their mouths. (They are either smiling while reading this, or frowning. I’d put my money on like a little smirk and head nod almost to say “yup, you people have no idea how true this”) While I will never admit this to their faces, some of the stuff they pounded into my head as a child has stuck there. My dad, almost religiously, has said “the only thing you can control is your attitude and effort” I have never wanted a statement to be more false. Years of eye rolls and sarcastic “yes sir”s later, he was right. He is right.
Last thing.
The other thing ingrained into my mind is the saying “Carpe diem” which means “seize the day” He said it almost everyday as I would get out of his truck and head into school.
people…
What if that was our attitude. What if everyday we woke up and just attacked. But we attacked the day with the right attitude. The right effort. More importantly, the right “Why?”
Let’s go find out.
