Fishing Boats and Mirages

Three questions frequently stir the pot of thoughts in my head...

1. What am I supposed to do with my life?

2. Where am I supposed to live?

3. What am I supposed to write about?

These questions are common questions, especially if I expand the third one to include any type of creative process. And, they all relate to one another. Where I live will effect what I'm doing and vice versa. What I'm doing will determine what I create or how much time I have to create outside of providing for the necesseties in my life.

If you think I'm going to tackle all three questions in one post, think again! Instead, I'm going to tackle the problem of how to approach these questions. We must begin with how we view the current answers to these three questions.

1. What am I doing with my life?

2. Where am I living?

3. What am I creating (this could involve writing, art, mentoring relationships, raising a family, teaching, establishing oneself in the business world?)

You are doing something; you are living somewhere; the experiences and thoughts that will shape your creations are taking place now. Do the answers to your questions displease you?

I'll be honest. Mine sometimes do. I'm an adventurer, always waiting for the next bend in the trail, the next breathtaking view, the next rocky climb that will knock the breath out of me. Instead, life often plods along, more akin to the pace of a fisherman drifting in his boat in the bayou, waiting for the fish to bite. I feel aimless when I don't catch any fish, but my skin is bright red and my face dripping with sweat.

My parents tried to warn me. Life doesn't move at the exciting pace you imagine it will as a little girl reading stories, playing pretend, and having all the necessities provided for you without a moment's worry. Like many of my friends, I sit a year or so out of college still wondering what's next. When does the pace pick up? I don't think it's when I get married. Enough of my friends have already taken that jump only to land once again inside the slowly drifting fishing boat. And I don't think it's when I move because even my friends overseas have their routines and waiting periods.

You may be thinking, "Well that certainly doesn't describe me and my group of friends. We are all so busy that we barely have time to get together and catch up. We are rushing around trying to take all the necessary steps to reach our career and family goals." I would respond with these questions, "Are you absolutely certain you are going to reach those goals and that they are the ones you are meant to be chasing? Is there anything you are waiting for? Is there a "next" always in the back of your mind?" If you answer, "No. Yes. Yes." to these questions then you are in the slow moving fishing boat with the rest of us. You are chasing the mirage that is the bend in the road. I would argue that the three questions I began this post with are also part of this mirage. We chase the answers, and they always seem to allude us. Or, the answers ultimately disappoint us when they have become the answers to the second set of questions - "What am I doing? Where am I living? What am I creating?" We reach what we have been striving for and there is still a "trudging along" quality about our life.

I realize that I sound cynical, which is funny because I am not typically a cynical person. What I am realizing is that life is much more about the process than it is about the ultimate answers to these questions about what we are going to do. How we interact with God as we fish and maybe catch nothing is more important than exploring every twist and turn along the river.

"He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" Micah 6:8

I am learning to let these questions bounce in and out of my mind. Maybe I have a new sense of direction today about my life, but I am foolish if I make an idol out of that sense of direction.

"For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him." Psalm 62:5

"O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry weary land where there is no water." Psalm 63:1

If I long, if I wait, if I thirst, may it be for God alone. His steadfast love is better than this earthly life I cling to. (Psalm 63) My answers to both sets of questions are the same - Walk humbly with my God, a song of praise on my lips, both tomorrow and today as the story of my life continues to unfold.