Grow up in a white, middle class family.
Graduate high school.
Go to a university for 4 years. Graduate.
Maybe get your master’s, maybe not.
Find a job that pays well enough to live comfortably.
Settle for believing that money equals success.
Devote the rest of your life to being a slave to your 9 to 5.
Meet a guy or girl. Get married. Have children.
Sometimes not in that order.
Maybe that will fulfill you enough.
Surely it will distract you enough.
Wake up. Work. Come home. Sleep.
Wake up. Work. Come home. Sleep.
Wake up. Work. Come home. Sleep.
This song on repeat for the next 45 years.
The only thing that changes is the date on the calendar.
This is the American dream, right?
Being removed from my American life and my routines has opened my eyes. Ya know, I don’t even know where I am going with this blog; but I feel it in my heart to tell you there’s so much more to life than we allow ourselves to experience. We were made for so much more than to just survive.
Everyone deserves to live a life that takes your breath away. One of my favorite songs is This Is Life by Carrollton. I believe this song is speaking about the American dream, the typical American lifestyle—too busy or distracted or consumed by things of this world to look up and see what else this life has to offer—what God has to offer.
“We go a thousand miles and hour, and we don’t look back.
We go a thousand miles an hour, and never stop to look around.
…
There has to be much more to life than just these hands spinning around.
And if our time is spent inside the lines, we’ll miss what we could’ve found.
…
I wanna live, and I wanna breathe like it’s my last before I leave.
I wanna sing and dance with your symphonies.”
I’m praying that you throw out the excuses we as Americans so easily make. The excuses that you are too busy, or too old, or too young, or not good enough, or too good, or too tied down, or afraid, or whatever excuse you’re making. What good is it for us to gain the whole world yet forfeit our soul (Mark 8:36)? The difference between complacency and contentment is a scary one—a difference that causes us to live our lives like robots being controlled by what’s familiar or one of living a life that takes our breath away. I pray that you never lose the excitement of life.
And this doesn’t mean that desiring to have a job and a house and to get married and have children is wrong (I desire these things one day). And it also doesn’t mean you need to quit your job and up and move across the country, or even leave the country. It can mean this, but it doesn’t have to. The Lord wants us to bring the Kingdom of God to wherever you are, no matter where you are. Submit to the plans the Lord has for you- whether that is being a stay at home mom, a doctor, a basketball coach, or a third world missionary. Whatever you do, do it for the glory of the Lord (Colossians 3:17 “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him”).
If you’re a stay at home mom, love your babies well. If you’re a doctor, be a doctor to the best of your ability by taking care of your patients. If you’re a basketball coach, be passionate about it. But you can be all of these things and still be living for yourself. What is going to set you apart? Don’t get too caught up in the mundane routines that you miss out on the beauty of life God has in store for you right where you’re at. Psalms 34:8 says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”
I don’t know what your heart desires. God does though (Psalm 139). And he tells us he has so much to offer. Stop drinking the poison of the American dream and instead taste the sweetness of the Kingdom dream.
With love,
Hals
