What can you do with a day?
Twenty-four hours, 1,440 minutes, 86,400 seconds.
Doesn’t seem like much.
But that’s a lot of time!
We assume that if we have weeks, months, years: THEN we can build that perfect thing, accomplish that daunting goal, achieve that dream we’ve been chasing…
But that’s not how achievement works.
…don’t believe me? That’s understandable.
I spent much of my life thinking I was behind. I had to catch up, hustle, crush it in order to make a real impact for my future. Oh, what I could accomplish if I just had more time!
I felt like the obstacles I faced and the skills I lacked were insurmountable, and I couldn’t handle the internal disappointment and rejection of not seeing something monumental come to pass that I had built…or at least kind-of repaired after all my mistakes.
So I worked hard. I achieved a college degree, and then another. I obtained a license to practice, and then another. I acquired national board certification, and then international certification.
Success began to follow. No more minimum wage jobs and being talked down to by superiors that couldn’t even spell the reprimands they were giving. I had benefits, retirement, paid time off. I bought cars and houses.
It seemed as though I was living the dream, so I’d invent another, repeat the process, and live that dream, level after level, always climbing upward.
But when the accolades lost their luster, when the job turned into a nightmare, when popularity waned and those I’d placed my self-worth in turned their back…
I realized I was back at square one. I needed another mission, another dream…more time.
So back to the hustle I went. I worked harder, moved faster, became more persistent and determined not to fail but to ascend.
I “knew” I was back on top but somehow it felt hollow. And, somewhere along the way, three realizations set in.
First, I learned you can never correct your internal insecurities by amassing external successes. Something deep inside me had to change but I wasn’t sure how to bring that change about.
Until I saw myself as complete and whole, nothing on the outside could bring about this sense of peace and confidence.
Second, this fire at my back I had tried to outrun like a madman, this insatiable hunger for more and better or this feeling that nothing I did was ever really good enough were all simply different manifestations of my own unrealistic expectations.
Realistically, as the Alabama song goes, “all I really gotta do is live and die.” The pressures and burdens slumping my shoulders with their crippling weight were enemies of my own creation. Seek first the Kingdom and all these things will be added to you. My focus was wrong, which wrecked my walk.
And my third realization was that my perceptions were flawed. I saw victory in matters of money, status, and power as the ultimate indicator of my worth. But they have nothing to do with it.
My worth flows from my purpose for being, from my calling to know my Maker and thereby share His love, His plan, His victory with others.
These realizations changed everything…
When things went wrong, it wasn’t up to me alone to fix them. When things went right, it wasn’t my singular glory. No, there was something greater behind and working through it all: moving, shaping, growing, changing, repurposing, restoring, fueling, transforming…and it wasn’t me.
And there I found freedom. I allowed the Fire from which I’d been running to consume me. It burned away the exterior “successes” like dross melting from purified gold. Something far wiser, more powerful, and exquisitely beautiful was revealed in the process, and its revealing continues to this day.
And because this process was not of my doing, but rather the result my trusting submission, success became like breathing and failure a wind that lifted resilient hope higher into the sky.
Then the concept of time changed.
Maybe you can relate to what I’m feebly trying to describe with these inadequate words?
The other day I was swaying in my backyard hammock while contemplating how few things I’d accomplished now that the work day was done (old habits die hard, the struggle is real, lol). But while I thought on this, the seed pods shown in the photo for this post fell directly into my lap.
Startled a bit, I picked them up and realized that I’m constantly waging war with these things, sweeping off clusters that fall upon the table and chairs, littering the area with their clutter. Again and again, I brush them off and to the ground, huffing with frustration at their intrusion.
But my perception, my expectations changed this time. This time, I noticed that they were not leaves or twigs or mere stubble, inconveniences that disrupt my leisure moments. No, they were seeds, hundreds of seeds. Each of them contained an opportunity for something new, something grand. Though small, they carried within them the blueprint of trees like the one shading and supporting me that very moment.
And then my eyes widened as I glimpsed the truth that, like these seeds, every choice of my day is an opportunity, a moment pregnant with the potential of greatness. How many had I merely brushed away as though they were miniscule and worthless? How many have you?
I wonder what we could accomplish if we focused less on “crushing it,” scaling the mountain peak, and snatching a trophy from the clouds, and more on seizing each tiny expectant choice, and making it count.
What might happen if we meant every “How are you doing?”, stopped to give that encouraging word, slowed down enough to truly notice the needs of others, or stopped and just felt the wind on our faces? How long does it take to uplift a soul, lend a hand, or say the words, “I love you?”
Not long at all. And every day that seed pod falls into our lap anew. What can you do with a day?
Until next time, don’t just be transformed: be Kinged.
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