I think our dreams about the future can be limited by what we've done in the past.
I remember several years ago when I completed my first half marathon. I had just recently taken up running. When I crossed the finish line of that race, I was sure I had just reached the pinacle of what my body could do as a runner at my age. Thinking about running races further than that - well at that time - I just didn't think about it. When you've reached what you believe is the ceiling, there is little to motivation to look above it. I've come to understand, when I crossed that first half marathon finish line, I was being introduced to my potential, not my limits. I've since run a dozen races further than that one - a couple of them a few times further. The key was I had to stop basing the possibilities in my life on what I'd already done in my life. If I'm not careful, my prayer life can fall into that trap as well. I can get caught up asking God to help me repurpose my old life - one filled with challenges and habits and hurts - instead of trusting God to introduce me to a brand new life. A life I'm not capable of imagining. I shouldn't fall into that trap. I shouldn't because there are many days I walk through moments in my life and think, I never imagined I could be here. I never imagined it, because my imagination is largely shaped by where I've already been. But God's imagination - His imagination is shaped by where he knows I can go. There is something liberating about that. So much of the angst in my life is because I'm not where I think I should be. I'm not where I think I should be with my job or relationships or writing or my health. Well, when you come to realize you're not fully capable of knowing just where you can go, you come to realize you're maybe not the best person to decide exactly where you should be. You come to realize you're creating stress by measuring yourself against measures that aren't really true. These days, I'm trying to spend less time talking to God about where I want to go and who I want to go there with and what I want to be doing when I get there. These days, I'm trying to spend less time asking God to amaze me with his power to deliver on my dreams, and more time asking God to amaze me with his power to deliver on dreams I don't have the capacity to dream. These days, I'm spending more time walking with God toward my potential, and less time clinging to the life I've alread done. Some days, it's helpful to just say 'point me to where you know I can go' instead of 'deliver me to where I think I should be.' We too often want delivered to places that have ceilings, but with God, the sky is the limit....
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Robert "Keith" CartwrightI am a friend of God, a dad, a runner who never wins, but is always searching for beauty in the race. Archives
February 2025
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