Monday, November 26, 2012

When You Have Goals You Don't Want



We inherit goals from our family. We adopt goals from our culture. We are taught goals by the previous generation. But what do we want our goals to be?

Most people living life don't know where they're going, and if they do they don't really know why. There's not a lot of direction these days. It's hard to find it, honestly. Life happens, and we try to keep our heads above water. For most people, thinking about what they want out of life is a privilege, almost a dream and goal in itself. But we need to think about these things or we will find ourselves floating along.

We've been given life, and we shouldn't live it halfway. I don't mean we should throw away responsibilities and go dream chasing or adventure hopping. That's not practical. What I do mean is that each life holds incredible potential, especially in today's world. The world is at our fingertips. All information ever know to anyone from any culture in any place on this planet is accessible to us in some form thanks to the internet. It's a shame to not follow our dreams.

I often find myself on autopilot. It's easy. I work a lot, I get tired, I let the routine kind of run itself and I just show up. We have to be intentional or we'll miss it. Our whole life will pass by and maybe it will have been a full one, but for most of us, it could have been fuller.

So what are your goals? Are they goals that you want or are they goals someone handed to you somewhere along the way? Are they the goals people your age and in your culture are 'supposed' to have or are they the ones you want to see played out in your life? It's never too late to start pursuing them. I think a good measure for if a goal is worth pursuing or not is to ask 'If I pursue this goal for the rest of my life and never attain it, will it still be worth it?' Enjoy the process, enjoy the learning that comes with each step. Make a list. Push yourself. Live life.

What are some goals you have been pursuing that you didn't really choose but were given to you in one way or another? What are some goals you want to start working towards?

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Power in Honest Words

"Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer; from the end of the earth I call to you when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I, for you have been my refuge..." Psalm 61:1-3

I love words. I particularly love poetry. I love that people with the gift of writing can take words and express the most intense of emotions with them. They truly are a tool, being used to craft, mold, build and shape the message that we want to get across.

Words can be used for good or bad. Very gifted orators such as Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, D.L.Moody and Jesus Christ have, through given speeches and conveyed messages that have stood the test of time and are still studied, recited and applied today. Likewise we have people in our history like Hitler and Stalin who used words to gain people's confidence and lead movements that we look back on in shame.

The beauty of words though is that you don't have to be a gifted orator to write powerful things. You don't have to be trying to push an agenda or to make your words convey a certain thing. The most powerful words are simply the ones with emotion behind them.

Some say David was the greatest poet of all time. Obviously, his poetry in the psalms is beautiful, powerful, meaningful. But I don't think it was because he took classes on how to convey meaning through words or how to become a better writer. I believe David was unashamedly honest before God. These are the words that we see, his private thoughts and conversations with God. I don't think David wrote for an audience, I think he wrote from his heart, often a broken one at that. And because of this, his words are so powerful and emotion-driving, because they are real.

This is one of my favorite portions of the psalms because you can feel his honesty. He is not simply coming before God and asking for something, or making a request known. He is desperate and pleading. When his heart is faint-the King, with everything at his disposal, the most powerful man alive at that time. His heart is faint. He begs God to hear his cry. Not his request, his cry. He pleads to be led to 'the rock that is higher than I'. He knows he needs something other than himself, he knows it is out of his control.

I hope my words can always be this honest and transparent. I believe there is power in honest words.

My Words, My Voice


I've been trying to learn a good deal about boundaries lately, and by lately I mean the whole of 2012. I've learned a lot, grown a lot, and overall have a lot to share (in the future). One of the biggest challenges I've worked through and gotten a grasp on this year is the concept of individual responsibility. No matter how much you want to see someone change, no matter how much you want to save people you care about from making bad decisions, no matter how much you wish to help them get away from the consequences of those decisions, you can't. Some would even say you shouldn't.

If you know me at all, you know I am a Christian and have been heavily involved in ministry and volunteer/mission work for the last several years. I think this is an especially hard concept for people like me to grasp. Why? Because we have huge hearts and we easily take on other people's burdens. (Hold on, not tooting my own horn...). That may sound like a positive quality, and it can be. But it can also be a huge set back to actually helping and ministering to people. It's very easy to see a problem or a need, and to start a plan of action to fix it. It's a lot harder to look at the root cause of the problem or need and try to solve it in such a way that the situation wont repeat itself. It's ridiculously, incredibly, suck-the-life-out-of-you hard to realize that the answer and solution to the need or problem is to let the person in trouble work it out for themselves. In my experiences this is hard because people typically have to reach a point where they've hit bottom before they will stop and change they're behavior. That's really hard to see, really hard to watch. And for people gifted (cursed) with big hearts that easily empathize, makes you want to cut your own heart out just so you don't have to feel it.

If you've ever made a mistake or a bad decisions or a series of bad decisions (am I the only one?), then you know what I'm talking about. You learn sometimes more through failing than you do through a hundred conversations about how to do it right.

Now, I'm not an advocate of the 'I want to make my own mistakes and learn my own lessons' mindset. I think that's dumb. I want to 'stand on the shoulders of giants', learn and gain wisdom from other peoples experiences, mistakes, trial and errors, and get as far ahead as I can.But in my own life I have found that sometimes there is a fear of doing the wrong thing to the point that instead of doing anything, I think about everything. Every possible outcome, every way it could go wrong, every possible response and how I will in turn respond to that hypothetical response. I'm learning this has a lot to do with my personality type, but I'm also learning that all humans have all traits of all personalities (just at different mixtures and levels), so we can all typically relate.

About a year ago someone whose opinion mattered greatly to me told me that my writing was immature, that I was doing more harm than good, that I had a very influential 'voice' but that I was wasting it. Now before I go further, let me discourage those of you who are and have been fans for a long time from painting a picture of me as the epic heroine and Pulitzer prize winner while this evil being dared to attack my precious words. It's not like that. The criticism was given in a well meaning way, and the criticizer (although extremely off in timing, wordage, and method of delivery) did not at all (I think) know that their words would have such an impact. None of that matters to me now, or to you reading this post. My point is that those words were said, and they stuck, and I've been stuck since. I've been stuck worrying about how my words will be interpreted, what kind of reaction people will have and if I should change this or that to avoid that or this. I've worried if my thoughts and words are wrong, if it will lead people astray or give them the wrong view of a certain topic. I've even worried that my words will have too much influence on people- more influence than they should, over-riding other people's authority and opinions. All silly things. Why? Because of boundaries. While we need to be careful about what we say and always seek to use our influence wisely, ultimately, what other people do, think, feel, say...the ways they react...ultimately that's their area of responsibility.

I've grown, I've learned, I am learning still and hope to always be doing so. But I'm at the point of realizing and being confident in the fact that we learn as we go. We grow as we go. Two thirds of doing it right is doing it. Practice makes perfect. I could go on and on, but you get what I'm talking about.

I believe that words hold incredible power. I believe that for whatever reason outside of my understanding, my voice and my words influence people. I believe that you can't wait until you are absolutely sure of everything in the entire world before you form an opinion on anything. I'm learning to own my words. They are mine after all. And my voice, it is my voice. If I don't use it, I waste it. And sure, I'm going to say things and write things now that five years down the road I may realize I was completely wrong about. But that's okay, it's a part of life. And sure, people may get angry, or offended, or tell me that I'm wrong-there will be times when these people are right. But I can't let that overshadow the people that get encouraged, or inspired, or challenged, or comforted, or learn something new, or start asking questions that lead them in the right direction.

There is one voice that matters more than all the others, and I've been praying lately that it would be louder than all the others so that I can distinguish it clearly. I pray that people would be more intune and influenced by that voice's words than by mine, and that if they ever contradict mine would be tossed aside. I hope and pray to channel that voice in my words and my writings. If you read them, know that they wont always be right, they wont always be perfect, they wont always be worthy of your time. But I promise they will always be with good intentions and good motives, learning and improving as they go.