Better now than never

I've been toying with the idea of wiriting. What? I don't know. Poetry, a book, devotionals. Who knows. I haven't worked that out yet.

This past Sunday I stayed home and I watched me some church on TV. I tellya..that TV church sometimes is the best! I listened to a man talk about his life and his blessings, and the many times he stepped out on faith and sacrificed a little, with belief, to be blessed abundantly in the end.

There is a seed in me that is starving for the water of release. I believe there is self-watering seed in all of us. Sometimes we need a push, or some encouragement. But I believe the very thing that consumes us, or the thing that nags us - if we give in to it and let it live in us and thrive, it feeds itself and produces fruit, the sweetness of which is beyond our imagination. I don't know if I'll make any money, or end up on Oprah, but I know this. I will have the satisfaction of pursuit of a dream. Pursuit beats stagnation and complacency any day, even when success is not attained.

The problem with me is that I am the kind of person who doesn't want the spotlight. And like Job, I sometimes question why I was made this way. With this creative gene that has taken me from music to art to dance to poetry...all these things lay dormant in me and I feel the heat buidling inside...I can't take the heat.

It is time...time to do something. Better now than never.

The Next Level

I have this app on my phone that's a word game. It gives you jumbled letters and you have a certain amount of time to guess all the words that can be made with those letters. At the end, it tells you what words you missed, and if there is a word you don't know, it guides you to a dictionary site that gives the meaning of the word. Kinda cool. But there's this one thing...even if you don't guess any of the rest of the words, if you guess the biggest word possible, you move to the next level on the next round.

Aren't we like that sometimes? We haven't mastered the little things, and yet we want to upgrade...now. We want to move to the next level but we are unprepared and ill-equipped to handle what the next level brings. We can't handle the expenses we currently have, the relationship we are in, the life we are living, and yet we want more. The solution is often not a change, but deeper commitment and attention to that which we think is inadequate. The job we hate...could it be that if we worked a little harder we would get more out of it? The partner we can't stand...could it be that if we paid more attention to him/her instead of focusing on our dissatisfaction that the sentiment would be reciprocated and our relationship would improve? We never have enough money...could we cut back on the weekends at the club, the shoes, the clothes, takeout, etc? Many of our problems are those we create ourselves, and the solutions we come up with sometimes lead to even more trouble than we had in the first place.

Take time to get to know who you are, what you want, and what you can handle. MASTER what you have on your plate right now before you reach for more. In the meantime, dream and pray for the strength and wisdom to get to the next level, and be prepared to wait. It may take a while. Yes, there is a place for ambition. We were created for greatness, but there is a process to go through and a price to be paid to reach it. In order to get what you want you have to be prepared to make an INVESTMENT. Life doesn't just give you what you want just because you want it. You have to work for it...EARN it. It's an investment in your life's equity.

Check out The Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30) , and check out the reward: "His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!' (verse 23)

Be blessed!