Thursday, January 7, 2010

If I was faithful...

to writing on this on this blog, you would see something every day, or couple of days, or at least once a week. But I am not faithful to writing. And that bothers me, probably much more than that bothers you.

Why are we not what we choose to be? What is in us that fails to live up to our own expectations and desires? In a perfect world, I would decide to be a generous, fun-loving, happy man who forgives easily, loves readily, and enjoys heartily. Simply decide to do that, and then do.

But the world is not perfect, and neither am I. And I can decide to be happy, and caring, and I can tell myself to be faithful to the writing or to God or to my hobbies. But none of those things happen simply by a single choice or desire.

In concert with the big life cahnging resolution, I must decide daily what I will or won't do. I must resolve continually to become that which I desire to become. Over and above the resolve and decision, then I must actually do. It is the performing of the deed that counts. It is the giving of love that counts as love and it is the writing of the words that makes one a writer. The old proverb reminds us that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

The apostle Paul said eloquently in 1 Corinthians 15, I die daily. In context, Paul was speaking of the surrender and submission of the human nature in order to more fully experience the divine. It must be continual, It must be built as a habit.

And I think that applies broadly, in whatever area of life that we want to point at. As we are becoming something, we must be loosing something else. If I am becoming the writer I wish to be (or the husband, or the pastor, or the musician, or you fill in the blank) I must deliberatley and intentionally be loosing the person that prevents me from writing.

So that is my journey these days. Perhaps the title of my blog is more apt than I thought.