Day one of four on a bus again (I kid you not even the locals think we are insane. Our hostel manager kept trying to correct us by saying airport and train station. He thought we were just using the wrong word….)
I started the bus ride off right. Catching up with Ré and processing out this month. After a few hours we each switched to being entertained by our phones. Netflix has this glorious feature where you can download tv shows and movies for the times when WiFi doesn’t exist – bless up!
After I read half a book I decided to watch a movie I had previously downloaded.
This is the part you can’t judge okay? (Well you can just don’t tell me you did…)
Growing up I was just a smidge too old when Hannah Montana came out. But thankfully I have a younger sister and so I had a good excuse to watch it. The first couple episodes I was not a fan but like most people ended up loving it. Netflix (Well the Vietnamese-license-version) has Hannah Montana the Movie available for download.
It’s fun and lighthearted and reminds me of my little sister and I hadn’t seen it in forever so I chose to watch it.
It hit harder than I thought.
The premise of the movie is Miley (who has a stage persona of Hannah Montana so she can have a normal life as Miley but still live her dreams of singing) loses sight of the important things in her life. She gets caught up in the materialistic glory of being a celebrity and risks hurting the relationships in her life. (I won’t tell you more cause I hate spoilers).
She writes a song called “The Climb”
The chorus goes “there’s always gonna be another mountain, I’m always gonna wanna make it move. Always gonna be an uphill battle and sometimes I’m gonna have to lose. It ain’t about how fast I get there, it ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side. It’s the climb.”
If that isn’t the story of life I don’t know what is. This race has been full of mountains. Challenges I just want God to speak to and move. But He climbs them with me. He fights the uphill battle by my side – and let’s be honest the last two months, He’s been the one carrying me up the hill.
I’ve lost this month. And I don’t mean it’s been a waste or a blackout. I mean that this month I lost my intentionality. I fell down on the job because I put others ahead of my own personal needs for so long that I crashed. It was my fear honestly. I have a fear of failure and a fear of success. Both stem from the fact that I view my worth in my own performance. If I fail then I’ve disappointed or let down those I love. If I succeed then I have more responsibility and more resting on my shoulders that one day might drop when I can’t stand beneath the weight anymore.
My mentor Madie shared with me an article about Failure in Christianity. In it the author wrote “God’s will for our lives can include failure. In other words, God’s will may be that you fail, and He may lead you into failure!”
What is that?!? God wants me to fail? He wants me to lose? He goes on to say “True success lies in the realm of the spiritual, or to be more specific, lies in getting to know God better.”
My definition of failure and success is fundamentally wrong. I base it on job status, report cards, bank account levels, or hours of volunteer work. In short – performance. But how I should define success is “Did I get to know my Father, Brother, Best Friend, Lover better today? Did I see who was on His heart and show them He sees them? Did I obey His voice? Did I invite Him into the conversation? Or did I hide Him?”
This month I lost. I accomplished the goals set before me by leadership. But I didn’t spend time daily with my Jesus. We didn’t go on a date. I shut Him out when He tried to heal me.
I got so focused on my pace. Getting to the goal I forgot that the ultimate prize isn’t about getting to the other side. But climbing with Him.
So thank you God for putting me on a 36 hour bus tour instead of a 2 hour flight. Thank you for using my Netflix addiction for your glory. Thank you for old Disney channel and memories with my amazing little sister. Thank you for speaking to me through song like you often do and reminding me what this race is about.
link to the failure article: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/practical-issues/failure/
