This post comes while I feel God is leading me through a transition in both my family and professional lives. And since I haven’t been on the trails, I don’t have running to help me process this season as I would have liked.
Sometimes we see a vision of ourselves and become excited to touch the objects of our hope. In my case, I want to be a man whom God uses freely, a father to my kids in every way, a husband, a nonprofit founder, and an influential professor. At the time the objects of our hope become tangible, we see that there is some distance between where we stand, and where we would be if our hopes were instantiated. It is this distance that motivates us to undergo the changes necessary to touch what’s in our hearts, but this distance also makes it difficult to keep pursuing specific plans because we may be discouraged by the gulf between our reality and our hopes.
I am reminded of when I was training for the Baltimore 10-miler earlier this year to counter the stress of teaching. While I can run 10 miles now on minimal training, at the time 10 miles was more than double the longest distance I’d ever run in my life. I created a 3 month plan starting at 3 miles and working all the way up to 10. At the beginning, I was starting from my current station, with my mind on the place where I wanted to be. Covering all that distance made me reflect on how gracious God is to give us the discipline and ability to faithfully take the little steps that will allow us to ultimately reach our biggest goals. Although 10 miles was well beyond anything I’d ever run, and the long runs were just long enough to make me consider quitting, each successful run propelled me towards my ultimate goal and gave me a sense of joy that God had rewarded faithfulness to the smaller goals.
The only difference between life goals and fitness goals is the wait. In fitness goals, we control much of the circumstances that permit us to attain the goal. We set a fixed time period, and re-evaluate our status at the end of that time. With life goals that are meaningful, we often control only our reactions to the circumstances we find ourselves in. While many things about life are frustrating, often the most frustrating thing to us is the wait for our hopes to be realized. We cannot control the time that we will be held accountable to the standard that we have set in our hearts. Unlike fitness goals, where the schedule and itinerary are often fixed according to our agenda, we can often attain life goals only while walking in a state of suspended preparedness, waiting to avail ourselves of an appropriate opportunity. Those of us who continue walking find ourselves at the right station at the right time: those of us who stop find ourselves stopping just short of where we need to have been.
As we prepare to share the holidays with family and think about what we will plan as families and individuals, let us remember to bless God for the ability to meet individual goals, while setting ambitious targets that will make us rely on Him. Let us remember that we cannot manipulate our friends, families, and colleagues to satisfy our ambitions; but we can prepare, walking faithfully on the path God has set until we come to the right station.