Restart
Restart! That is what I am going to try. Let me explain. Sunday night we had the Flatland Oasis service. Pastor Bart summarized the past sermon series “My Three” during his sermon and emphasized the fifteen spiritual disciplines that were a focal point of the series (see the other It’s Monday post for a complete overview). Pastor said it is very easy to slip up and stop practicing those disciplines. But he also said, “Restart!”
Pastor said something that at first I wanted to argue with but I am having to now argue with myself instead. He said just as easy as it is to stop following the disciplines one can start up again, to restart. Now I was thinking more general, not just about the spiritual disciplines but also about all the other goals I have including exercise, blogging, and photography.
Now, I initially was thinking, “Discipline in and of itself is difficult but it is even harder to get started.” And I still think it is hard but pastor said something that took some time to sink in — “just start.”
One of my most favorite books is The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. One passage that I have always liked is where Frodo quotes Bilbo. “‘It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.'”
That first step is difficult. Sometimes we just don’t want to step outside our doors. It is scary out there. Its comfortable to just stay inside, cozy up the fire and ignore that we are going no where in life. In some ways, I guess I felt pastor was saying to us tonight, “Take a mulligan, it’s ok. We all need a restart every so often”
In some ways, I feel as if I have failed miserably already from what I had determined to do and stated in just a few posts ago. One can feel, “whats the use, I will just fail again” but the old saying that the biggest failure is to fail to do anything is so very true. Yes, I will falter, I will fall, but I also know that God is right there with me to help pick me up, dust me off, and get started again. Pastor is so very right. When we start wandering the wrong way, He is right there to take us back on the right path. Even if we try to run from Him, He chases after us.
I am determined to restart, to take that first step once again and trust God to sweep me off to where He wants me to go. It is a dangerous thing. God may sweep me off to places I would not think of going. He may sweep me along the path that I believed He was calling me to follow and I blogged about in an earlier post. But no matter what His will is for me, I have to take that first step. And so here I go…
…again.