It's Never Too Late To Reinvent Yourself

I attended a men's breakfast at church yesterday and we discussed a verse from Ephesians. One line the pastor said, while setting up the discussion, really stuck with me:

> Jesus is on the move and requires one to take action to follow him.

And I fully understand that not everyone here is religious or a christian, but bear with me because the message still applies.

One of the discussion questions for each table was "Where do you most consistently see a tendency to 'sleep-walk' in your own life? What is the larger spiritual impact of this tendency?" and this question hit me much harder than I would have liked. For a couple months now I have been having these recurring debates and discussions with myself on what I want to be, who I want to be, where I want to go and how I will get there. I have hundreds of visions for how I want my life to go, but very rarely do I take any sort of step to get there. These past few weeks I have been bumping into different people all saying the same message of roughly "if you don't like where your life is headed, it is up to you to change it."

If you don't know where you are going, you just might end up there

My mom has this phrase hanging by her front door. And at first glance it seems kind of absurd. Then you ponder it for a second and you fully grasp what it is saying. If you don't have a guiding light, a north star, an end goal then you have nothing to focus your decisions. You end up just wandering aimlessly until death.

I was listening to a sermon from an old church I attended when I still lived in Colorado and the pastor was discussing marriage and the future of the church. He said that in January they are going to kick off a new series highlighting the future direction of the church and during his planning for that series he was studying General MacArthur from World War II. MacArthur was the general in charge of the fighting in the Pacific for the United States and his task was to continue going North, capturing every island and to eventually get to Japan and win the war. Because his mission was so clear and obvious it made his decision making incredibly simple. When presented with options for just about anything to do with the war he simply asked "does this get us to Japan faster?"

"Does this get us to Japan faster" scales down just fine. Should I eat out. Should I go for a run. Should I buy the triathlon bike. Same question, smaller stakes.

Jesus, and your goal life, requires you to take action

All of the apostles had to give up everything they had going on in life in order to follow Jesus. Some of them made larger sacrifices than others, but all were willing to drop everything they were doing, leave everything they had behind and shrug off everything they knew about themselves to follow a man they had just met. For their willingness to take action and do it with such conviction they were rewarded with an everlasting life and a fulfilled life.

During our discussions at the breakfast most of us talked about the things we "sleep-walk" through in our daily routines. We wake up, we take the dogs for a walk, we eat breakfast, we go to work, we exercise, we eat dinner, we do the dishes, we read the bible and go to bed. On the weekends it's chores, church, football.

It is only when you are forced to re-examine that routine that you notice how much of life is just passing you by. After that breakfast I went home and did some chores, went for a run and then went antiquing to try and find my dad an hour glass to add to his collection for his birthday. It was this break in the routine, on top of the discussion at the breakfast, that made me realize I was heading nowhere, and fast.

I was praying for God to help change my course in life, but I wasn't taking any action to help Him. I was reaching out to friends to get their assistance in getting me out of the house and meeting people, but I wasn't putting in the effort to do those things on my own. I was complaining to my family about how much I don't like about my life, but I wasn't thanking them for all the help they were giving me to pursue my new life. I talked a big game, I dreamed the grand life and I watched YouTube instead.

Sometimes God Nudges, Rather Than Shoves

On the drive home from the antique mall empty handed I turned off the music and just drove in silence. I was once again on auto pilot driving myself back to my house not even having to think about the directions to get there. This gave my mind the chance to wander and all of the breadcrumbs started to become like boulders in my path.

I started seeing all of the different things that had been popping up in my life telling me what I should be doing, where I should be looking, how I should be acting. The longer I drove the more examples I could come up with. God had been talking to me through multiple avenues. I apparently was expecting a hand written letter with a map to treasure to be delivered in my mail box. Instead, God chose to inundate my conversations, my social media feed, my spotify suggestions, my wandering mind while walking my dogs with all of the answers I had been seeking, but because they were subtle and require action on my part, I ignored them.

It's Never Too Late

This past week I have been assembling a robot arm (future post to come) from a kit I bought online. It has really pushed me to learn new skills with wiring and soldering. Once it is completed it will teach me even more skills when it comes to programming. I was telling my family about this project and they asked me what I was planning on doing with the arm when I was done putting it together and I told them I had no idea, which is the truth. To me the joy is in the assembling and the learning.

I've been in the middle of a project recently of moving the items stored in my basement from cardboard boxes into plastic bins to protect them from all the moisture my basement gets when it rains. Doing this project I was reminded of how much I like building and assembling things. I have countless Lego sets fully assembled and wrapped up waiting to be displayed. I have numerous computers that I built myself. I love bringing home shelving units and assembling them and organizing items on them. But to me, once the assembly is complete, the item becomes boring. I don't play with the Lego, I don't particularly care to display them and stare at them like art. I really just like assembling them.

With the rise of AI and the upheaval it is about to lay on the digital economy, I'm looking elsewhere to see how I can reinvent myself and make myself happy and useful again. I'm partly nervous about the future, but now that I'm more awake to my "sleep-walking," I am conscious of God speaking (nudging) to me.

If you aren't feeling aligned with where you are headed, it isn't too late to change course. I still don't know what my Japan is. But for me, changing course means leaning into assembling this robot arm and putting more of myself into the physical world again — and seeing where God takes it from there. For now, it's just servos, wiring and listening.