This New Year was truly the turning of a page. I graduated from seminary last month and so now I feel like I have this wide expanse before me. The only problem is I don’t know which way to go. I’ve got a lot of ideas rolling around in my head. However, many of these hair-brained ideas lead to the five years that prefaced my coming to seminary.
During that time, I had three different jobs and watched my business fail. In the process of that business failure, I incurred a good bit of debt that I’m still paying off. Several relationships became strained and instead of working things out, I walked away from the church for a time. My last job before coming to seminary, I quit while on a business trip. So much of that pain and heartache I believe can be attributed to my thinking. So many times, I just chose the idea that seemed right instead of seeking guidance from the Lord. I would give lip-service that I was praying about it, but even if I did, I wasn’t listening.
As I stand on the precipice of my future, I want to learn from my mistakes. I know that there will still be hard times. But I don’t want those hard times to be a result of my stubbornness and failure to listen. I also don’t want to waste anymore time. One of my bad habits is over-analyzation. I will evaluate every contingency of a decision. Then I make edge cases and evaluate those and it becomes a vicious cycle. I fail to act because I “need” all the facts. So I find myself in a tug-of-war on this precipice. I don’t want to make a foolish decision but I also don’t want to fail to act. As each day passes, I find myself increasingly restless. I have experienced this restlessness in the past. It contributed to many of my past decisions.
So as I wrestle with all these issues, the only thing I’m sure about is that I want to do something. Something of significance. Someone asked me the other day what I ultimately want out of life. I surprised myself. My answer. “I want my life to matter. When I reach the end of my life, I want to hear, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’”