I realize...Shortcuts

I haven't posted many pictures on here recently. I'll try to change that, I think. When I'm off reading other blogs, I expect to see pictures along with the stories and I have realized, I stopped doing that. I'll work on that.

The latest thoughts swirling around in my conscience have to do with shortcuts and freedom. I know. I don't know if they actually fit together or if I've had separate experiences with each yet at parallel times.

Are you like me? Do you look for the fastest, easiest way to do, get, or finish something? Are you expectant that it's not so much about the getting there, as it is the FINALLY being there? "Are we there yet?" Is this not ingrained in us as children? Who taught us that the theme park is more fun than the ride getting there? Why do we dread the ride? Maybe we're in too much of a hurry, maybe.

This is just what I've been thinking about. And realizing that it's taken me this long to go back to school because I wanted the easy way to...happiness, I think? Imagining that this "happiness" or rather purpose and feelings of purpose would come once I had arrived. Time is a powerful, wise teacher. Time has taught me otherwise. Along the journey forth, I'm going to make decisions that others question. I'm going to be crippled by the direction I feel God, my Savior, leading me because I'm looking for the shortcut, the easiest, the fastest (and therefore best) way instead of the long way, which changes and challenges me. I'm always on the lookout for EVERYTHING to work out cohesively, in every single decision and movement. It does not. Again, it does not. Though this is often how my actions play out in strategizing the most direct method, this is NOT how or what I truly believe. I don't think the well-groomed path is the best. I believe it when the Bible says the way to God is narrow. I believe it is filled with sorrow and desperation (as well as joy and delight, but somehow the first two are often discarded) causing us to cry out and cling to the Man who is greater than all we are or face.

I often listen to music on repeat. I think it reflects the part of my personality that is trying to squeeze every little bit of life and wisdom out of something that catches my attention. I've learned, time has taught me, to pay attention to those details. The song on repeat? This new artist I discovered? The lyrics? Desert Father, Josh Garrels, "The Lord's Spirit calls, He's singing, Follow my road to sorrow and joy, Be intertwined". And that's precisely IT, intertwined.

So, shortcuts. I'm starting to think they're a drag! I'll take the long way and gather every bit of the morsels of wisdom kept there for me. After all, isn't it how we finish so much of want we learn? "In the long run, I discovered.............."

This, this might be where freedom fits in. If I'm taking the long way, I'm gonna have to learn to live under freedom. Freedom to live by faith. Faith-not knowing the exactness of something and still stepping into action. Stepping into action and trusting that the freedom I live in is for me grace, the grace, which was so costly for Jesus and a gift for me. (And you.)