Pick Up Your Head

One of the most useful tools developed in the last decade is the smart phone. I will admit I have a difficult time imagining how to get work done without one. It's also incredibly useful for my personal life and helps me keep track of important items and reminders. They have also become a handy distraction for when we have to wait. It only takes a minute or two waiting in a line before we pull our phones out and start scrolling through social media, texting someone, or playing a game. While this might seem to help pass the time, I think it can actually be a detriment to real relationships.

I think we've forgotten how to engage in conversations. I think we've neglected the art of being in a moment. Our first reaction when we are forced to wait is to escape to some other place. What if we stopped in those lengthy moments and noticed the people around us? What are we missing out on because our faces are pointed downwards towards our devices? I don't intend this to be a rant against technology because in truth, I am a big fan of technology and find it to be extremely useful. I can only speak from the personal conviction I feel to not jump to my phone when I have a moment of inaction.

Put down your phone and engage in the life around you.

Farther Along

I keep learning tough life lessons as I work at developing the habit of running. Today was another difficult moment as I barely eked out two miles of running before having to call it quits. This comes on the heels of a week where I hit five miles for the first time ever and followed it up with a good pace on another eight combined miles over two days. I know that there will be up and down days in this relatively new lifestyle, but I find myself a little discouraged because I think I should be farther along than I currently am. I've got to keep reminding myself that I've only been running distances for two months and that I can't expect large, consistent leaps on the journey.

This accurately describes many areas of my life. I make changes, work to develop new habits, and expect to see the results quickly. My impatience can often lead to frustration as I have told myself, "I'm doing the right things and I should be seeing results!" I've got to remember that the process of adaptation and transformation take time. Growth happens not just by doing what is right, but in the maturity found on the journey.

Slow Pace

I was driving down the road the other day behind a driver going 10 miles below speed limit. As often happens in these circumstances, I found myself getting aggravated at the slow pace. I couldn't understand why someone would willingly choose to drive that slow on a somewhat busy road. Didn't they have somewhere to be? Didn't they realize that those numbers on the sign were supposed to be the lower limit of our traveling speed? 

The truth is that I wasn't late for another appointment and in fact, i wasn't even really in a hurry. It was really about the fact that I was being inconvenienced by slow driving. Things were not happening at the pace that I would have preferred for them to happen.

Doesn't that describe us in many phases of our lives? Our change in physical discipline isn't producing the quick weight results we desire, our efforts to change our relationships aren't working fast enough, our increased productivity isn't bringing that job promotion we've been eyeballing, and our prayer and Scripture reading hasn't changed our faith like we want it to do. The world around us isn't moving at the pace we want and we're aggravated about it. 

The truth is that I can't make some things speed up. No matter how much I want to see things move more quickly, sometimes that tempo is just going to be slow. I can either stay aggravated because life isn't fitting into my carefully crafted agenda or I can enjoy the slower pace while recognizing that things are still progressing.