Today has been a very long day. I think for a large part of it, I feel like my brain is clenched. Yes, my actual soft, slimey, flesh brain.
If we don't process, the activities of our lives just slip by. We'd remember so much less. We'd commit a disservice to ourselves by not reflecting. The purpose gets lost. I come back so many nights exhausted physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally. I have little strength to journal or to pray. But if I don't, I rob myself of realizing the moments where God was very present in my day.
I am learning so much about myself and so much about God. I'm frustrated because there is so much that I want to do, but I know I can't do them all. So I need to intentionally invest in a few areas, a few people, a few projects, so that the product would lead to more sustaining work. So I wouldn't be needed. So that the work does not cease without me. So that the value and purpose of my work is carried and continued onward. So that's the vision of leadership. That's the vision of being an influencer.
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Reflecting on a lot of things. Unfulfillment, loneliness, waiting. Realizing if I had what I orginally wanted, I would have forgotten God. I was so foolishly happy. I was foolishly happy.
What am I doing with my life? When I look back years from now, even months from now.. I cannot count my students or their souls, their gratefulness, or their change. That reward will not be able to satisfy me. It will never be worth the best years of my life. My prize can only be God. Day by day, the Lord is my prize. Growing in intimacy with him, and becoming more and more like him. Not in the power-hungry way, but as the child bears the image of his father. May I resemble my Father. May this life I live be a pleasing offering. I've committed. I'm all in. Jesus, it's you, and it's all or nothing. There isn't really even the nothing option. It's simply all you.
As I stumble around to learn this abstract idea of being more like the Father, I struggle. Day by day, I see my will, my plans, my hopes, and my desires. Night by night, I surrender them. Again and again. As years past, as wrinkles and baggier eyes appear, it certainly becomes harder and harder to say yes. Saying yes involves tears, anger, and heart break. Saying yes demands surrender and vulnerability. Saying yes costs your life, and it's a lifetime of learning what that life is worth, what that life is capable of, what suffering it can endure.
I've tasted and seen, but I've only tasted and seen so much. There's still so much ahead. I have no idea what lies ahead.
