Life Yells At Us To Get Our Attention

​So, full confession, I have yelled at my boys. Maybe more than once.

It's been a bit, thankfully, but I can still recall those times.

There were times when yelling was frustration. Others, it was anger. Sometimes it was some lunatic invading my body who just happened to be a whole lot louder and crazier than I am - I was never a fan of that guy.

With that said, there were and are times when the tone of my voice changes - quite choreographed - because I want them to know that these next words - pay attention boys - they're important. I'm about to tell you things that are more about passing on my wisdom than transferring my emotions.

Yesterday, my buddy Solomon and I were out running on a trail. And we got somewhat lost - if, indeed, there are varying degrees of lost. But in the midst of that challenge, I noticed something.

Life got quiet.

All of our attention turned to noticing the signs on the trail. We began to look around - haven't we already come this way? There's the lake over there, so the car must be the other way. We were suddenly in the middle of conversations with life that helped inform our next steps in life.

Sometimes, when life gets challenging, we can feel like life is yelling at us. Maybe, even, it feels like God is yelling at us. He's angry.

But I wonder if the challenges in life might be choreographed in a way. Maybe life challenges aren't life frustrated with us, or angry, or life overtaken by some lunatic version of life. Maybe it's life saying, hey Keith, what I'm about to say, it's important. I'm about to share wisdom with you, not transfer emotions.

Sometimes I think we spend so much time trying to undo the challenges in life - get unlost - that we miss the conversation the challenge is trying to have with us.

In the middle of being lost yesterday, in the middle of being a little more mindful of each next step and each next turn, my buddy Solomon and I found ourselves standing on a little bridge in the middle of the big woods, a small stream running beneath it. There wasn't another soul in sight.

I said, you know, like almost no one in the history of man will ever stand on this bridge, and experience that water, that sound and those bare trees around us. It was like life - in that very moment - had thrown down a challenge to say I need you to fully embrace this space.

It was like life had no other choice. If it hadn't gotten our attention, we would have run over that bridge.

And it would have been just a bridge.

Instead, it was wisdom. It was life saying I should pause on my own a little more often - prevent life from going hoarse from all it's yelling at me.

Our challenges in life aren't meant to stifle us, or scare us - or keep us lost. No, more often than not life challenges us to help us get found.

I don't think life likes yelling at us, but like me with my boys, because I love them, there are just some things I really need them to know. And sometimes a change in tone is the only way to let them know those things are coming.

And us..