Don't give up on gods calling just because it gets complicated

​Yesterday, I drove to southwest Virginia to help my friends Meg and Celia get started on their latest segment of their attempt to run the entire Appalachian Trail. They are both working moms, so they are tackling it by running a hundred plus - sometimes a lot of plus - miles on weekends every few weeks.

On the way over there, I listened to a sermon. The sermon was about not giving up on things God has called us to do just because those things get complicated.

Riding with Meg and Celia on the way from where they will end up Monday to where they were putting in yesterday - a couple of hour drive away - I got a lesson in how you practically go about navigating complicated to stay focused on callings.

Almost the entirety of the drive, these two were problem solving.

They were talking about the best ways to keep enough calories in them. The best way to keep their food distributed in their packs to make the weight manageable. The best way to stay warm when the weather turns colder later in the journey. They talked about spots where they could put more miles in. They talked about managing injuries and fatigue.

I think one of the most telling conversations was Meg talking about how to best include her family in the celebration when they finish the adventure next year.

Because that is 100% their mindset. Finish the calling.

Every single word of their conversation was about navigating the calling. There wasn't one hint of conversation entertaining the possibility of bailing on it.

I think that's because when you get so focused on what you know you're called to do, when you focus on the life you know you were created to have, your mind gets good at seeing complications as something to problem solve, not excuses to abandon the calling all together.

Here's the thing, I don't think we're all born with that kind of thinking. I'm not sure any of us are.

I've had the chance to get to know Meg and Celia a bit. Their lives have not been struggle-free. They aren't two of the baddest women I know because they were uniquely gifted with badness.

No, somewhere along the way they both trained themselves to start looking at struggles as something you work through, no matter what. Somewhere along the way they stopped seeing struggles as derailments.

On the drive home, after I dropped them off, Meg and Celia's words became the sermon I listened to going home. They had no idea they were preaching it on the way to drop them off, but these two moms were every bit the pastors on my way home the pastor was I listened to on the way there.

Both sermons, the one in the morning and the one in the afternoon - they were both timely. Because I'm working on that harder than I ever have - seeing struggles as something I work through on the way to achieving my calling, and not something that derails that calling altogether.

Meg and Celia were reminders that derailments are often a symptom of our own flawed thinking.

I dropped Meg and Celia off knowing this weekend was going to be a success for them - that the adventure itself was going to be a success - because all they talked about was solutions.

There wasn't a hint of bailing.