Lost my mind? Perhaps!

Well, I'm reading a new book now, its pretty good I'm about half way done with it and every page is as interesting to me as the previous one. The book it "Chasing Daylight" by McManus and it is all about living a life that is fully alive. One of the statements that McManus makes is that life should be lived with intentionality, meaning we choose to live life and make active choices about moments then to just let them drift by.

I have I must admit been guilty of this in the past. For the longest time I have been a spectator watching my own life go by. There have been moments I can look back that if I had just applied more effort or done anything at all things might very well be different right now. Not saying that I'm in a bad place right now but I'm not really in a better place though either, its more like I'm stuck in neutral, or rather I have been for quite some time.

After making it only half way through the book my eyes have been opened to these kinds of things, not to say that I know all there is to know about such things. I just know that as long as God helps me I will use the strength that He has given me to live a life with as much life packed into it as possible. I have spent most of my years up to this point being continually instructed on what is good and just and pure and so forth, never have I really just said "Ok I know what I shouldn't do and what I should do so I'll go forth and do what I should." Now, I've had times when I would think this and it would last for a bit but then go away now however I resolve to walk forward with all I know to be good and to do that while still remaining open for God to show me other things.

One very scary comment that McManus makes multiple times in the book is that when you do what is right you are not always assured that you will succeed. This is perhaps what frightens us, both as individuals and as the church, the most the fact that we could do all that is right and good and just and still fail in the end. This has crossed my mind before and I am ready to make the statement that no matter if I fail or if I succeed I want to at least give it all I have. Gus once told me at work that if I was to reclaim my manager position I would have to work harder then anyone else that I would have to give nothing less then 100% or more even when I was only getting 12 hours a week and nothing seemed to be going good at all. You know what Gus was right because no matter what could be said it could never be said that I didn't try hard enough after that point.

I guess it has just taken me a long time to see the need in other areas of my life, and even longer I suppose to actually apply them to those areas. So now I've had a revolution of sorts with in my own heart, in many areas. In one such area I had almost given up hope but now I know that if I want anything to happen in this area, you know the whole me finding a girlfriend then wife thing, that it will demand of me all the courage that I can call forth and require that I step out of what is comfortable to me, to appear as if I have lost my mind, and to then leave all the results in the hands of God, because ultimately He decides if and when He shows up and if I am to be with the one He has for me then He will need to show up more then ever before.

So if you who read this see me in the real world and you can see my courage falter then hit me real hard and tell me to live, or at the very least tell me to live. Or if you see me do things that on the surface appear to be out of character for me, and it is good not bad mind you, then know that I have and I haven't lost my mind.