Life is full of choices. This road sign I jogged past brought with it one aspect of the manly, chivalric life I need to remember. If life’s a journey, right now for me it’s a journey in a 15 passenger van with a wife and a passel of kids. And most days I just want to coast that big ol’ van on autopilot down a straight road. But the road diverges whether I like it or not. If I’m the driver and I’ve really got a plan for my family’s destination, I’d better pick a turn and take it.
It’s too easy for us to blame failures to lead or act on everything but our own laziness and lack of decisive leadership. I see my dearth of initiative for family worship and many other topics slide by with the ticking of the clock as I do nothing. This goes beyond family life to the personal as well. I can get really frustrated when I don’t have time to write.
The natural thing is to put the fault on all the things outside myself that take my attention. There’s my job to go to, there’s my lovely wife to help, there are my kids to take care of, there’s extended family and friends and church and hobbies: always something else. But you know what? Now and then (more often than I realize) I have time to relax and read a book or watch a show or play a game. How is it I don’t use times like that to write? It’s because I haven’t decided it’s important enough.
This is a matter of initiative. There comes a time we need to stop whining and blaming, and do something. We must choose the turn we will take. It’s a matter of needing to make a decisive choice and stick to it. There is no telling what we could accomplish if we would spend all the emotional energy and time it takes to fret and whine about how hard life is and just use that to make life better.
Here in the post-apocalyptic world of 2021, I see around me more and more men and women suffering from the same lack of cheerful decisiveness that I suffer from.
You know what, friends? It’s time to stop moaning about the terrible state of politics. It’s time to throw aside the fear of COVID that keeps us trembling in our beds. It’s time to stop wasting our hours smashing everyone else on social media.
Get up! Come with me. Make the best choices starting now. Let’s brush the sweat from our faces, wipe the tears from our eyes, and go cheerfully on with our lives being useful to our Lord and everyone He’s put in our path!
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