Fighting for Life

So this little experiment is off to a miserable start. No sooner had I penned the first post, then I proceeded to go about my life as if nothing were different. For a week. It probably didn’t help matters that I was sick for about 4 days.

I keep coming back to a line from An Ordered Life. “In following the Divine Office, I am done when it is time to be done, and my goal is no longer what I accomplish in a day, but who I become in a lifetime.” Wow.

My goal is no longer what I can accomplish in a day, but who I become in a lifetime? I hear such freedom in this line. Freedom from the pressure to perform. Freedom from the treadmill that mistakes movement for success. Freedom from keeping up with the Jones’ (or at least trying to).

For some reason, I’ve been thinking a lot about who I have become over my own lifetime. I’m not an old man, although I joke with my kids and my Middle School boys that I am. But I am certainly in a season where there is not an insignificant amount of water under the bridge. Paul says, when I was a child I spoke like a child and thought like a child but when I became a man I put off childish things. I wonder, have I done that? Really?

I guess I’m pondering these things because I struggle to see that I am making an impact on the world. I ponder these things because as I watch my children become young adults, I see them struggling under the weight of their doubts and questions. I see the pull and hold the world has on them and I wonder if my failings as a father will cause them to miss the kingdom of heaven. And, if I’m really honest, I wonder if I have missed it. If it’s too late for me.

I’ve been uneasy and unsettled much of the day and into the evening. So after dinner, I retreat to the bedroom. I put on some worship music and just sit. Then I begin to sing. And my heart begins to quiet. Then I pick up my lenten reading and engage my brain in a different direction. And my mind begins to quiet. I feel a return of His presence in a tangible way. And I lift my eyes away from the immediate and they are refocused on the eternal.

I realize now, looking back on the moment, that this is what my heart cries for: freedom. The freedom of focusing not on the immediate or the urgent, but on the eternal. If I focus on the eternal, my heart is quieted. If I focus on the eternal, my mind is clear. If I focus on the eternal, I love well. If I focus on the eternal, I serve without complaining. If I focus on the eternal, I am at peace.

The best part? It has taken me longer to write this down than it did to live it out. Making space, cultivating that capacity, doesn’t have to be overwhelming – or require hours of solitude. It requires intention and willingness and a decision.

God help me to make that decision…for freedom…for You.