This meant to be posted about 2 months ago. But this is the only internet I have had sense then to post! So here it is!! Sorry it has been so long to all of my readers sense I’ve posted a blog.
As I write this, I find my self cuddled up with a blanket in a hammock as the sun is setting here in Manzini Swaziland. Sometimes you just have to take a second, sit back and breathe life in…
“Humans naturally seek comfort and stability. Without an inciting incident that disrupts their comfort, they wont enter into a story. They have to get fired from their job, or be forced to sign up for a marathon. A ring has to be purchased. A home has to be sold. The character has to jump into the story, into the discomfort and fear, otherwise the story will never happen”
Donald Miller – A Million Miles and a Thousand Years
It is kind of insane the natural ability we have to shy away from living out great stories with our lives… We can get so comfortable with having “control” over our lives – no matter how much we want something different – that we forget how to let go… We become the masters of our lives, masters who are sickly addicted to the ordinary and familiar… And we get bored of it… It happens no matter how badly we want otherwise UNLESS we go after it. Life looses its ability to change. When plans don’t turn out like we’ve planned, we start to second guess our intentions, feel like failures, or make our selves think that we have made a mistake by walking that way in the first place. Although I think God puts doors in our sights so that we start walking towards it. Along the way however, we find a hallway that leads through the door he wants us to walk.
“Somehow we realize that great stories are told in conflict, but we are unwilling to embrace the potential greatness of the story we are actually in. We think God is un-just rather than a master story teller”
This idea of the inciting incident has challenged me sooo much over the past couple of days. A few days ago I started applying it to my own story, and how I have been shoved, either with, or against my will, into living out this insane journey He has me on. And on that note, I think it is immeasurably important that we understand our stories. If we don’t, how can we understand who we are? Even though we have lived them, I think we have to look back with intentionality to realize the turns that we have taken and may have not even noticed or even realized the power of what they have done for us. So I began to think of these instances where you must be “fired from your job” or other crazy circumstances that initiated me to getting off the beaten, rutted path that I was on to get me from an existence into a story. God was shaking me up and making me daring. These are just a few of the many.
#1 Not getting excepted for Athletic Training – Out of My Hands
I was class representative, top of the class with grades, and at the end of the semester, I was not offered a position in the program. I got “fired”. Looking back, I felt a failure, but this forced me to look for something different, to find the next chapter of my story.
#2 Reaching out for a mentor – Asking For Help
Not sure of the likeliness of pulling it off, I decided to send an email to someone I respected, who had walked that trail before and whom I believed could help me run a successful tournament as a fundraiser. I didn’t think much of it but started the conversation that eventually snowballed into an overwhelming successful tournament. Without that accountability, I probably would have seen the chaos more than the promise, and flaked out after realizing how much work it would take.
#3 Applying for the World Race – A Shot In The Dark
Honestly, I thought it was a long shot…. Not from getting accepted, but the “ok, lets just do it… ” It is something I knew I would love doing, but nothing I thought I would ever do. I let my mind control my actions and what I thought was possible, or even wise… But I sent in the application, I sent an inciting incident that could, and would, later pull me further into the depth of my story.
And let me get one thing straight, being here, on the World Race is not my journey, my grand adventure. Although I love it and it is one heck of an adventure, this “journey” I keep talking about, is not the Race. This “journey” that I am on is the willingness to go after whatever crazy thing God puts on my horizon.
An “inciting incident” doesn’t always have to be against your will or happen by chance. But we can do things that will put bait in the water. You can put something small out there that will bring back something 20 times the size. These “incidents” are the things that force us out of stagnancy and in to our stories. People are able to dream up some of the most exciting ideas, brainstorm, and think of all the wonderful ways their life would be if this, that and the other would happen. People paint beautiful horizons, but sadly just stop there. They may even have the courage to take a step or two, but back off when they loose site of the shore. This is my challenge, in your life; create as many “inciting incidents” as you can. Reach out and send that email for more information, ask the question, take an action step, as little as it may be, because it may be the thing, however small it is, that drags you into the depths of who God has created you to be. While on this race, my expectations have been blown out of the water. Both in things that I thought would happen, and things that I thought wouldn’t happen. This year hasn’t been a year of loosing control, but giving up the control I THOUGHT I had.
“It is true while ambition creates fear, it also creates the story”
