on the walk

I have spent a lot of my life setting and resetting my timetable. Plans were made with dates attached, “By 22 I will have done….” “By thirty I will be….” When a milestone passed and the goal wasn’t there I will toy with depression and then set a new date.

As I have analyzed this behavior I have know for some time that it was not serving me well. In the first place, my goals were often unreasonable. In the second and more importantly my failure to reach these goals was not a function of laziness or a poor sense of direction but rather that the good and godly choices of my life were leading a different pace. It turns out that my fascination with a schedule was creating an unnecessary and distracting measuring stick that was making me judge myself for following the leading of God and the needs of the moment just because the leading of God hadn’t kept pace with my plan.

Even as I began to question this behavior, I didn’t really doubt it until I began to raise my children. The doctor’s kept reminding us, “Don’t worry about the milestones, worry about growth. The milestones are just there to help us pay attention in case there is a problem.” When I got nervous because my oldest couldn’t roll over “on-time” she assured me that he was healthy and growing and that I needn’t worry about that fact that we wasn’t yet a baby gymnast.

My bad habit of date setting and my uncollected thoughts questioning this habit all achieved clarity in one line from Bill George. He was quoting someone who was quoting someone so I forget the exact context but the line was this:

Follow your compass, not your clock.

That was the yearning I was feeling. I felt guilt for not being on schedule, but I could not look back and see that it was a mistake that I had “fallen behind.” That line has given me the freedom to look again at scripture and see how God calls and guides people. God calls people to a task and to a vision but God does not give time tables. I have returned to the story of Abraham. He followed his compass, and there was no clock. He met no timetable. His time ran out, and yet he was faithful. What if perhaps the vision you have for your future - the vision that you never seem to reach - is not the goal God has in mind for you but rather the beacon with which God intends to draw you on a journey through all the places God wants you to be.

This revelation about how dreams and vision could function in the life of one chasing after the will of God has been revolutionary in my life.

So this is me.

Following my compass and not my clock.

on the walk

-Ethan

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