How Did I Get Here?

We all have dreams of what we wanted to do or what we are going to do with our lives. Am I the only one that has ever looked at their life and wonder…"How in the world did I ever get here?" May I bore you for a moment? May I take you down the path that I believed I would be on and then let you know where I am? I will try to make this a brief and as painless as possible.

In May of 2000 I graduated from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, TX. In my mind, all of my dreams were finally coming true. I was married the greatest woman on the plant, had a brand new baby girl, and was setting to make my mark on the history of this small blue marble floating through space. If you would have asked me what I saw myself doing by the time I was 37 years old I would have said that I was going to be a minister (you notice I said minister…some come out of seminary saying they are going to be pastors, youth ministers, or missionaries…I didn't care…as long as I was doing what God wanted me to do) that gave everything to his God, his family, and his church. (Yes, in that order) I was going to be an author. In my mind I was going to be another Max Lucado. My words were going to leap off of the page and penetrate the hearts of the readers and inspire them to be great, both for themselves and for God. (Yeah, I know. Many that read these words will think…."Really, your blog is fun to read but you are no Max Lucado." I know, but a man can dream can't he.) I was going to be a sought-after speaker traveling around the world sharing with people how Christ can change our lives for good if we will just allow Him to move us freely. My dreams were set, and I knew that every one of them were exactly what God wanted for me. They had to be; look at all the great things that were going to happen in God's name because of my dreams.

Where I am at 37 years old is nowhere near what I just shared. I have been working for the last three years in the Records and Information Management field (people in the industry like to call it Information Architecture or Knowledge Management…it sounds cool) and have just recently been hired as the RIM Supervisor for a major company. I get up at 5 am to go to work and spend all day digging through boxes, working with information in our ECM system (Electronic Content Management) and managing our entire process to make sure that information can be stored and retrieve easily for all of our employees in the Americas Region. I then go home to a wife that also works and we begin dancing. Not in the romantic way you are thinking about. We begin a ballet set to the music of _______ (Add any hard rock band here…whatever would cause that feeling inside that your insides are shaking) and spend the rest of the day taking kids to whatever practice they have to go to, helping with homework (I now have three that are school age…wow), helping with dinner, getting baths, brushing teeth and putting to bed just in time for me to pass out either on the couch or in bed by about 9:30 pm or 10:00 at the latest. Then, I wake up at 5 am to do it all over again. (Not a lot of time for writing in there…hence almost a year without a post) :)

There have been many days that I stand there and look at my life and think, "Where is the church I am suppose to be ministering to? Where are the books on the bookshelf that I was to have written by now? Where are all of the speaking engagements that are supposed to be on my calendar? What happened with all of the dreams that I had? I then stand outside in my backyard with my hands raised to sky and cry out to my Lord….Thank You!!!!!

Yes, I know that this entire post has been set up to make you think that I believe that there is something missing in my life, and there very easily could be if Christ were not in charge. You see, there have been many times (and I'm sure there will be more) that I have sat in my chair at work or at home and thought that the path that God has me on is the wrong one. But as soon as those thoughts start to try to take control, Christ reminds me that I am not here to walk the path that "I" want to walk. I am here to walk that path that "HE" wants me to walk. Casting Crowns has a song named "Somewhere in the Middle." Biblical Truths flow from the lyrics of this song as strong as the Mississippi River. The chorus says this:

Fearless warriors in a picket fence, reckless abandon wrapped in common sense
Deep water faith in the shallow end and we are caught in the middle
With eyes wide open to the differences, the God we want and the God who is
But will we trade our dreams for His or, are we caught in the middle?
Are we caught in the middle?

There is enough here in the chorus for me to write pages, but once again…I will try not to bore you. :) The part that really catches my eye for this post is this one, "With eyes wide open to the differences, the God we want and the God who is. But will we trade our dreams for His or, are we caught in the middle?" How powerful are those words.

There have been so many times in my life that I have tried to make God be what "I" wanted Him to be. I tried to put Him in a nice neat little package that made me feel comfortable with where I was in life and what I was doing. But we cannot expect God to stay in the little boxes that we build for Him. His is just too big and much too great to be limited in such ways. We have to be willing let go of the "God we want" and allow Him to be the "God He is". When we do this we begin to see life in an entirely new light. We begin to see that the dreams we have may not be exactly what He wants for us, even if they seem to do so much for Him. It then becomes easier for us to think of the possibilities of allowing ourselves to lay down "our" dreams and pick up "His" dreams for our lives. If we do not, then we are caught in the middle.

So, I may not be living the dreams that I dreamed earlier in my life but I can say that I am living the dreams that God has for me right now, and these dreams are pretty sweet.

Lord help us to see that when our dreams for our lives die, all we need to do is pick up Your dreams for our lives.

(Just so you know…this was going to be a topic of a book I wanted to write…I'm just too tired) :)