In this morning’s devotion: Champions do daily what average men do occasionally.
That got me thinking. I’m not the best at anything. I loved Air Force radar work and consistently earned Combat Crew badges, yet washed out of the FAA academy. I did my best as a pastor, loved preaching and teaching, yet repeatedly wound up with challenged, wounded congregations others wouldn’t take. I love to sing, yet there’s something about my voice that benches me unless I volunteer. I love to write, yet it seems few read after me and fewer yet respond.
Not exactly champion material anywhere in there.
So–what do I do daily?
- I get up, clean up, and show up. I start my days early. Coffee, Bible, quiet time, and prayer. Somewhere in that process, writing ideas begin swirling so . . .
- I write. It’s further work on book projects, 2nd Cup of Coffee blog posts, Quiet Time Musings, 100-Word Strolls, or free writing few ever see. Occasionally it’s readable on first draft, but mostly it’s dismal, messy, wooden and as pleasant as ‘that 5-year-old’ in Walmart.
- I encourage. Facebook has thoughtful, sometimes funny things that edify and lift the spirit. Those things take time and effort to find. I believe it to be a worthy investment. I’ll never be the best, but I can sure make myself useful by appreciating and honoring those who are.
- I’m focusing on things I can do, not fretting about what I can’t. I work at not letting my ‘can’ts’ steal my joy in embracing my ‘cans’. Though marvelously, stunningly healed by God, that healing is designed specifically for me. There are boundaries, limitations on what I can do, and how and when I get ’em done. I do test them and am creative in assuring I’m not giving in to laziness or discouragement; I do not get foolish and brash in the doing. Okay, not twice, anyway. Usually.
Summing that up, I’m consistently, daily persistent in those things. Some call it ‘stubborn’. Call it what you want; I’m it. I’ve earned my wisdom highlights – what some call gray hair – yet if I stay at it long enough, often enough, something good will eventually come from my stubborn persistence.
I have little patience for, “You’re too (old, physically challenged, etc)”. David Bowie once remarked, “Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.” The boxes others try to stuff me in? Trust me: I don’t – won’t – fit. I’ve always been years ahead or behind my peers in something or other; sometimes it’s not a matter of being a good fit, but not being as awkward in not fitting at all. It’s challenging to be a study in contrasts, baffling onlookers who keep trying to define who and what I am.
I am God’s. He’s the only One whose orders I follow and I refuse to quit being persistently stubborn until He says it’s time to come in. Until then?
I will never be the best, yet I’ll always be giving it my best. Nothing less is worthy of my time or of His call.
Average doesn’t interest me.
© D. Dean Boone, April 2017