Make Good Choices
From April 7 until April 22: Nothing.
I had to take a few days off blogging. The imaginary outcry of invisible readers in mass created great pressure to write, but I stood strong. As I looked at my upcoming schedule, cranking out a couple of 600-word pieces per week, along with other activities, did not make it to the top of the priority list. Between work, school, and a pregnant wife, I had enough on the life plate. In some way, this probably did hurt my readership. Blogs survive on consistent content, and I simultaneously averted both consistency and content. But I had made a choice, and a stagnant blog was the consequence.
God designed our earth to complete a full rotation on its axis every 24 hours. We have dubbed this 24-hour period of time, a day. It is within this structure of the day that we must make our choices. We are all affected by it. No one has more time than the other; no one has less time than the other. It is universal. Because of the constraints a day presents, choice, determining one option over the other, becomes a necessity. We cannot do everything. This is a tough reality for the ambitious.
Our lives are a culmination of our choices. This is caused by consequence. Consequence is the inherent byproduct of choice. Our present reality can be traced back through a series of decisions, some we would do again, others we regret. We make choices all of the time, most without much thought. Sometimes we appropriately gauge the consequences, sometimes we gravely misestimate.
Most choices are seemingly small, like writing a blog. But, as we know, the accumulation of several small decisions can result in one big outcome. When we find ourselves in a place where we must ask, “How did I get here?”, the most probable answer is an accumulation of small choices. The seemingly insignificant decisional pieces melded into significance.
The problem with choices is that we can rarely go back and re-choose in the same manner as the original choice. This is produced by the incessant ticking of time. It always moves forward and locks into its history past choices. Even if we try to go back and pursue a different route, the environment in which we made the original choice has changed. It is contaminated by the wrong choice. Trying to go back may make matters better, but they will never be the same as if the alternate choice had been initially selected.
So, here we are, operating in a universal, 24-hour structure, bound to make decisions. With each choice, a consequence. Several small choices can result in a big consequence. And rarely does time allow us to go back and reconfigure a decision as if the original choice had ever existed.
What does all of this mean?
Make good choices.
Figure out the priorities God wants in your life. Allow those priorities to dictate your decision-making. This includes the small decisions. What would the natural outcome of similar accumulated small decisions look like? Would it further or hinder your priorities? You are developing your life’s masterpiece and every brush stroke matters. Your decisions are so very important. God has given you the gift of life. Be careful not to lessen your potential by reducing the significance of your choices.
Today’s choices are tomorrow’s reality.
Comfort is Boring
A true writer would be in the lobby, immersing himself in the environmental happenings of the night. A true writer would want to be in the moment, smelling the smells, seeing the sights, and hearing the voices as he clicked his keyboard. His experience would drive his words. And tonight, in this hotel, there was an experience to be had.
He would be in the lobby.
But there I stood, starring at the elevator as it taunted me. Elevators aren’t supposed to taunt. They are there to invite. But this one, it taunted me. Its door was wide open and shaking. Literally, shaking. It was wide open and shaking when I arrived. Who knows how long it had been like this. In most hotels, this would not be normal. But in this hotel, it fit.
Curiously, my mind raged in debate until one side overcame the other. I chose not to risk the elevator. Not tonight. The elevator had taunted me and won. So here I sit in my hotel room, pretending to be a true writer, knowing that I am not.
I look around at the room. The hotel was supposedly historic, and maybe it was. But hailing the structure as historic is somewhat deceiving. Old and creepy. That would be more accurate. I believe that one has the right to call a place creepy when ghost tours are sold next door. Of course, I wouldn’t be here if the advertisement revealed this place to be old and creepy. According to them, it was historic. So I guess they won as well. First the elevator and now the advertisers. Tonight, I am winless.
The walls are high and there is a tear in the window curtain about ten feet up. I bet there is a good story behind that tear. It was probably from a guy much like the one I met in the hallway. His choice cologne of the night was bourbon. He joked that he probably would drink more than I would tonight. I told him that he was right. I guess that actually makes me 0 – 3.
Over the phone, my wife asked me why I continued to stay here. I had told her about how the ceiling fan’s dust accumulation indicated that it had not been turned on in six or seven years. And it would not be me that relinquished the dust’s triumph over the fan. I told her how the fan had a single light bulb dangling from it. It would not turn on. Why should it? The only light came from two lamps; both required some ingenuity to make them work. I had told her about the persistently, overpowering, sweet smell that seeped up from the restaurant directly beneath me. I told her how that restaurant became a bar from about 10:00pm to 3:00am. I could hear every song’s lyrics perfectly. Sometimes, I could even make out the conversations when the patrons screamed loud enough. I had also told her about the bathroom, how the shower never seemed to get hot, but the sink’s water boiled as soon as it was released from the faucet. Of course, what would one expect from a place where the room number was hastily handwritten with a blue ink, ballpoint Bic.
I guess she had the right to ask her question.
I told her that I would stay for the story that would inevitably occur. This place reeked of story potential. I could have moved to the Hyatt, but what type of adventure happens at a Hyatt? I did not mean to be in a place like this, but I was here nonetheless. And it was here that I would spend the next few nights.
Over my few years of existence, I have learned that we miss the good stories when we pursue lives of comfort. Good stories rarely surface from comfort. They arise out of uncertainty, difficulties, or anything that causes a stretch in our lives. From these things comes the material that you desire to tell others. From these things comes the material that others desire to hear.
I could connect this to the life God desires of us, the stories he desire of us, but I hesitate to do such a thing. The above illustration does not qualify for such a connection. So I will let you, the reader, come to your own conclusion on this matter.
I do feel comfortable saying that if you are an author looking to write a story or a person looking to live a story, you will struggle to find such a thing in comfort. Comfort is boring.
Do not look back in regret on the stories that you did not write. Do not look back in regret on the stories that you did not live.
A Bee’s Paradox
This is a pre-editted version of an article that appeared in Christian Single Magazine
Bees fly.
Aero physicists (flight scientists) and entomologists (bug scientists) were baffled by this . Of course, most of us do not even think twice when see the insect hover from flower to flower, flower to hive. If we do have a thought, it might be one of fear, maybe of a sting, maybe of an allergic reaction. But if you really observe a bee in flight, really study its movements, you see something peculiar.
Big body.
Little wings.
And yet it moves through air like it belongs, challenging all previous understanding s of aerodynamics. Scientists have just begun to uncover the mysteries of the wings’ paddle-like movement that keeps the picnic pest in flight. For a while, bees’ air travel did not make sense; it did not line up with amassed human knowledge. How does a big bug navigate through air with such small wings?
It was a paradox.
Or was it?
I guess the real question we need to ask is are there any real paradoxes? A paradox occurs when two ideas, statements, propositions, seem to contradict each other. One train is heading north, another is heading south, both on the same track, going through the same station. It is a collision of confusion.
But let’s think about this. Paradoxes occur when humans create them. You see, the bee’s flight was never really a paradox. There was nothing contradictory about its hovering even if it seemed impossible. In fact, for the bee, it worked quite well. We just didn’t understand it. And so it is with anything in nature. Everything has an explanation; we just haven’t figured it all out yet.
And so it is with life. And so it is with God. There are no paradoxes, unless we create them.
There is a story about a man named Naaman in 1 Kings. Naaman was commander of King Aram’s army. The Bible tells us that Naaman contracted leprosy, a disease that could shun him from society. To heal him of this disease, Namaan went to the house of Elisha, a prophet.
Namaan was met at the door by Elisha’s messenger. Per Elisha’s instructions, Naaman was to wash himself seven times in the Jordan River. After the washing, his leprosy would cease its grip on Naaman’s body.
But Naaman had expected something else, something more. He had expected this great prophet not to send a messenger, but come out in person, wave his hand over the disease, and cure him. He wanted the dramatic, but received something he considered less. Naaman was not happy with the directions he received. Not until Naaman’s servants urged him to bathe in the Jordan did he follow Elisha’s orders. And after he dipped in the water seven times, the leprosy was healed.
God sometimes does things in ways that we just don’t understand. And we question. We question a lot. We question whether His way is the best way. We wonder why He doesn’t use our ideas on how life should work. We sometimes wonder if we could do a better job on our own.
Sometimes God delivers us paradoxes in life. Well, that’s what we call them. There are situations in life in which we find ourselves that the answer seems so obvious, yet God does not provide it.
A parent is dying.
Why doesn’t he just heal her?
A friend is suffering from addiction.
Can’t He just remove the desire?
We are lonely.
Why doesn’t He provide a spouse?
We are presented with the body of a bee, and we want to make it fly.
“God, maybe if you gave it feathered wings like a bird, then it would fly. Or maybe if you fashioned aluminum wings like a plane, then it would definitely fly. If you can get something together that fits into these aerodynamic formulas, I am sure that you can get it to fly. ”
But God says “allow me,” and places a tiny pair of wings on the bee. He says that this is how it should fly.
And it doesn’t make sense. It goes against everything that we know, everything that our human mind understands. It’s paradoxical.
But there is no real paradox. There is no contradiction. God’s plan is perfect. His will for our lives is perfect. And though we may not understand it now, we will. It is the Jordan River that healed Naaman. It is the small wings that make a bee fly. It is faith in God’s plan even when we don’t understand.
