If your life seems as dry as dust and you feel like you are going around in circles;
you just might be wandering the Wilderness.
In the Wilderness you feel like you are living by the rules but no one wrote the rulebook yet.
In the Wilderness you feel like you are doing all the work but it feels unappreciated or at worst, taken for granted.
In the wilderness it seems like endless wandering in circles, never achieving any real or lasting or desirable results.
In the Wilderness progress seems aimless and often the hoped for oasis becomes a mirage.
Hope deferred makes the heart sick. In the wilderness it is often difficult to even hope and anxiety in the heart causes depression. We might wander in circles producing very little and even lose whatever little motivation to continue. Perhaps it is because we are maintaining the wrong hope.
The wilderness is really a place where we continue to do the same things and expect different results. It is often there after we are faced with a daring and demanding change that would require a leap of faith to enter into but we chose the status quo instead.
Life should be an adventure; not a Wilderness. I heard a story once about some explorers seeking the hidden treasures on the other side of the jungle. After days and days of thrashing the underbrush to slash their way through some men took leadership of the situation and climbed some very tall trees to get a clearer vision of where they were going. The men shouted from the tree tops STOP! Wrong Jungle! The workers thrashing below led by managers and copers murmured back Stop Shouting; we are making progress here!
How many times are we caught up in the next thing in front of us that we begin to view our wanderings as progress? We may be making progress; but what if we are in the wrong jungle!?
When we are wandering the wilderness we need to yell STOP. We need to climb that mountain or high tree and look down at our lives with an overview. We need to re-determine the direction in our lives and see where it is we really want to go. When we do this we are taking leadership of our lives instead of just managing or coping. This is January 2009; it’s a new year. 2008 is past and we can no longer change it or get it back. Isn’t it time to leave it in the past then and reach forward to what lies before? It may mean switching jungles.
When we stop and pause our lives in order to take the overview of where we are headed we are really taking leadership of our lives. It takes time away from the present thrashing and slashing in order to climb that tree or mountain alone but once we have the overview of our lives and see the direction we need to aim then we gain purpose and resolve. If others won’t follow – well – they can continue eating that dry dust.
Ask yourself two questions:
1. What one thing is it that I can do today that if I honestly applied myself to do would have the most significant impact in my life?
Think deeply and long before answering. Place your answer here._____________________.
2. What one thing is it that I can do today that if I honestly applied myself to do would have the most significant impact in my work?
Think deeply and long before answering. Place your answer here._____________________.
Your answers to these questions is a start on getting the overview you need and the new purpose that will lead you out of the wilderness and into the adventure of your life with renewed hope.
Then one final question:
What would prevent you from applying yourself to these answers and to taking leadership of your life?
Circumstances can be what we make them rather than what happen to us
