Now What?

I am entering a stage of life where I kind of feel like I need to put up or shut up.

At least, that is kind of how I feel.

I have a great life.  I have a loving family.  Beautiful wife, adorable kids, a job that is more than a job to me and the people I work with/for (so to speak) accept me, I have all that I need and enough to have some of the bonus items in life.  

Up till this point, I was able to find something else to blame for why things didn’t work out, why I thought things could be better, and carried them out with the attitude of “Well if it were up to me, it would be done better because… .”  

Now, I’ve got nothing.  I have no excuses, it is time to be the husband that I swore I would be, the guy that would never treat his wife like the husbands I had seen displayed before me as a child treated their wives.  It is time for me to be the dad I promised myself I would be and love my kids unconditionally with a nurturing care that a father should provide.  It is time to be the man of integrity when faced with the top of the mountain joys or the bottom of the valley trials.  It is time to be the man of God that I have been called to and carry out the things that I always said I would when I faced resistance.  

I know all of this, I know it is time, I know it is time to man up.

To be honest, I only have one problem.

How?

It isn’t about being a person out of spite.  I think that has been my motivation for too long.  For example, “I will be so much better than so and so, because I refuse to be like them.”  The problem is that my good intentions are rooted in an impure motive.  

How successful can that be?

I am sure that there can be some success, but will you be a more complete person if you reach that goal…or will you be the same spiteful person but in a different location?  

Now that I am here, I am finding it hard to sit back and just live here, reside here, and be comfortable here.  I have found the book, “Abba’s Child” by Brennan Manning has brought me some great insight to living a life that is… basically… lived.  What I mean by that is, focusing on the living of the life and not the struggle to become what you feel will work better, become what others expect you to be, and not letting guilt be the steering wheel in life.  The trials and victories that he has faced has forged a deep understanding that he shares in “Abba’s Child” that would do us all some good to read.

So here I am, recently entering into a new season or stage of life.  It is time for me to live this life, and live in a healthy spiritual manner.  I kind of feel as though I am in this new place and while it is exciting, it is very foreign.  It is kind of like starting a new school or something. There is a lot of mystery and unknowns, but I can't think of a more exciting journey than having God leading me and having a supportive cast that He has placed around me.  I hope and pray the same for you.