Success

One of the most incredible people I ever had the chance to work with told me that I had the chance to live my life any way I wanted to. But then he dampened the spirit of that freeing statement by warning me that I could only live it once. It's true, you can live life any way you want but you can only live it once.

So far I've succeeded in making a big mess of my life. Not a total wreck, of course, but it certainly is pretty bad. I don't doubt that God loves me and that in some slight way He might be able to use me. But sometimes I do doubt that anyone else will be able to love me. Human love is so very conditional - especially among Christians. I have known many guys who have kept themselves in pretty good shape, religiously speaking. They have kept their virginity intact (as have I) and then assert themselves as deserving the same. Because they've kept themselves virgin they think they deserve to marry a virgin. Notice, by the way, that I am saying virgins, not pure. There is a big difference. Christians, more so than others, are conditional. They pretend that these conditions are really expectations, but even this is no good. As Christians we are held to a higher standard, but that is a personal thing, not something we throw about at other people. Lets pick at the logs in our own eyes first.

But that's diverging from my point. My point is that I often sense a fear of being unloved or unlovable. Or a fear of only doing small things for God. Of course I am glad for the opportunity to do anything for Him, but I am not a by-stander. I am ambitious enough to want to succeed, and success for me means something big. I don't want to do little things for Him, I want to do something big. That might be my pride, in fact, it probably is. But don't get me wrong, I want to do the little things too. I just want to go all the way. To spend and be spent, as the apostle Paul said.

These fears haunt me because of my past failures. Yet someone once said, "The pages of your past cannot be rewritten, but the pages of your tomorrow are blank." I know for a fact that they are not blank. I know for a fact that God has already mapped out awesome plans for me. It's up to me now to follow what He has traced out for me. If I do that then I will have success. If not I will continue to be a failure.