Beyond Me

I believe a person of integrity is able to find a balance between knowing when to push themselves beyond their comfort zones for a greater good and when to take time to be comfortable in what they enjoy. There are those who love to go from sun up to sun down, I don’t mind that sometimes, but I don’t enjoy doing that all the time. I believe this is almost never a perfect balance, because of the pulls towards other needs, living a life that is balanced is very difficult. That is to say, that a perfect balance for you may not be a perfect balance for others. In that, people may have need of you that you cannot provide. So how do you balance?

I find this my struggle often.

I want to be a person of integrity.

I want to be the man that I am supposed to be in all my relationships, but if I have several relationships, I find that there is an overlapping need and I can fill only one or two at the most. Prioritizing seems to be an abstract thought as well, because there are many different variances as to what is the highest priority. Others have different expectations than you might and all of a sudden there is friction. Then out of guilt you may over compensate and try to meet one or two people expectations, but in that you end up throwing several people and their expectations under the proverbial bus.

What a quagmire.

I have found that this is my folly, my stumbling block, my shortcoming…but I have found, for better or worse, the best combatant for this matter is not trying to please others but to be honest. I cannot meet everyone’s needs, I never could. Christ didn’t even meet everyone’s needs…or did He? The problem isn’t so much meeting everyone’s needs as much as their wants. Many wanted Christ to rush to meet Lazarus before he died, Christ took His time. There are other accounts of people expecting something of Christ, but He did as He was led by His Spirit.

I can’t make everyone happy, I can’t fulfill your desires, and my ideas of where my time should be devoted may differ than yours. I have also found that even if I devote time to where I want to, I still falter there because many things don’t work out as I expect and I fail to meet all of my own priorities. I will strive, in this, for honesty and I am not going to be completely overwhelmed with guilt because I cannot meet everyone’s needs or desires the way they thing I should. If I fail to meet your desires, realize that I love you, it was never my intention to hurt you, I ask for mercy and grace.

For me to meet all of everyone’s desires of me…

…is beyond me.

My striving is to meet His desires for me, and I shall surely stumble, but never feel as if I didn’t do something I “should” have because I was purposefully being selfish. I ask you to judge on the side of giving me (and others) the benefit of the doubt for good.

God bless you all, have a lovely Thanksgiving!

**This is not aimed at anyone in particular; just something I have felt freedom from recently and just wanted to get my thoughts out there.