What if you took the life walk that God has prepared for you?
Life is not a tryout, it is a walk in. Walk into the purposes you were created for. Walk in to the lives that cross your path. Walk in the freedom that comes from rejecting the life limitations that regret delivers. Walk in the knowledge that you are valuable because of your life experiences as opposed to regret-filled thinking of you are limited by those same experiences.
“Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God. It cost God plenty to get you out of that dead-end, empty-headed life you grew up in. He paid with Christ’s sacred blood, you know. He died like an unblemished, sacrificial lamb. And this was no afterthought. Even though it has only lately—at the end of the ages—become public knowledge, God always knew he was going to do this for you. It’s because of this sacrificed Messiah, whom God then raised from the dead and glorified, that you trust God, that you know you have a future in God.” 1 Peter 1:18-21 MSG
I was recruited in the early ‘90’s to serve as a senior manager of a company located in Birmingham, AL. A part of the hiring process was that the president of the company, who would be my direct boss, and I went to Dallas, TX for three days of individual personality analysis and then team dynamic feedback from the corporate consultants. As they put my soon to be boss and me together and we discussed things openly, it was clear that we were an oil and water mix, never likely to blend. As many good executives do, born out of my thirty years of consulting experience, we dismissed the findings and moved forward. The length of contract was 3 years and those were three of the longest years of my life and even longer for my boss, I’m sure. The findings were interesting, my personality being a perpetual optimist and his leaning more negative, or pessimistic. The consultants said, “R, you are a pessimist and Myron will drive you crazy.” To which R responded, “I am a realist.” And the counselors responded, “every pessimist labels themselves a realist.”
I jokingly say that in the church, the Church and in Kingdom building the term fiduciary responsibility is used in place of truth telling terms like lack of faith and fear of the unknown. The modern day Biblical comparison might be the parable of the talents entrusted to the servants and fiduciary responsibility’ comments assigned to the servant given the single talent who buried it for fear of losing it.
When we choose to limit our life for reasons of doubt, fear, risk, etc, we rob ourselves first and then deny those around us of the fullness of who we were designed to be. Consider, just consider walking in the full life that God created you to live. Consider being willing to try and fail. They try and again and succeed because of the rich life experience that the failure bore. Then risk. Risk walking into love. Risk walking in a new career path. Risk opening yourself to those closed off and freeing them to be who God designed them to be. Life without risk is akin to desiring heat from a fireplace where no fire exists.
What if you accept that your life matters exponentially more than your mind currently grasps? It does. Today take a step forward. Every walk starts with a step. Every journey starts as a walk. Every fulfilled life involves a journey of faith that unveils purpose too awesome to grasp with the first step. You matter.