"They Really Are Quite Lovely..."

"They're beautiful, aren't they?"
"What?"
"The stars. We never look at them anymore, but they are really quite lovely..."
(Men In Black)

I'm realizing that I've spent the majority of my life someplace that I really don't belong. Not that I've wasted my time, or that I've just been coasting along, exchanging oxygen for CO2 but not doing much else.

(Ok - my pre-surgery years were pretty much like that, so I've been trying to breathe less to make up for it...)

But I've spent my "career" someplace that, if all things were even, I'd never have been hired for in the first place. If I compare my gifts and abilities to those who are currently "at the top of the food chain" around here (for total and absolute lack of a better analogy...), I realize that my talents are way, way down the scale comparatively.

Now ease up there, Sarge - I'm not about to go off on a tirade about how I'm worthless and not gifted and poor pitiful me, that others may post glowing comments about my abilities and general existence to feed my starving ego... For the record:

1) I am gifted in ways I can't take time to number (although I do number them privately, not to shore up the aforementioned crappy self-image, but rather to acknowledge just how loving my Father is), and am aware of just how much grace and mercy has been given me;

2) I only have 3.78 readers, so if I'm looking for an outpouring of comments to feed my starving ego, it's gonna be a lean year;

-and-

3) My ego was removed along with most of my stomach when my innards were re-decorated three years ago. I really don't miss it, but get some phantom pangs now and then from where it used to be. For some reason it used to reside just above my right leg, slightly north of the region where the hip bone is connected to the back something-or-other.

"Now hear the Word of the Lord."

(Don't even try to tell me you weren't singing the song in your head - you know you were, and so do I. *waves hand in mystical mind control gesture* "This WAS the song you were singing in your head."

Told you I did.)

Let me address one more thing before I continue to wallow in the sea of "My life is a series of futile meanderings and wasted potential."

I don't believe the will of God is a one time thing - stay on the narrow path on the edge of the cliff, because if you put one foot off of it, you miss God's will for your life, you plummet down the mountainside, and forever have to wonder what might have been God's "best" for your life if you just hadn't missed that one step.

Rubbish.

(And for the record, this was one of the first times where I realized that my own walk of faith can, and should, sometimes diverge from my parent's walk. That believing something different about how I put hands and feet to what I believe could look different than my mom's, and that God thinks it's cool when His kids figure stuff out on their own, instead of being spoon fed by others. That whole "work out your own salvation" thing...

Not that I ever told mom that. I'm not that dumb.

And yet, I think she knew and approved. She was fancy like that.

*I pause for a brief "I really miss my Mom" moment............... Thanks. Moving on.*)

I think seeing God's will as a little path where "if we miss a turn, we're done" is pretty much a denial of sovereignty. That doesn't mean we're little robots, all is pre-determined, and we're just going through the motions here until we croak.

I think, in my unlearned, 'never-graduated-from-college-and-was-a-tuba-major-so-you-can't-expect-too-much-from-me' way, sovereignty kind of works like this: We're gonna mess things up. But He kind of takes that into account, so it doesn't really surprise Him.

And it delights His daddy's heart when we start making more of the better choices than the not-so-better ones, just like any parent.

Here endeth the lesson on sovereignty. Let the flaming arrows of correct doctrine and righteous indignation fly - I'm wearing Teflon underwear, so I should be good. 

Back to wallowing in missed opportunities and wasted potential...

Hmmm...

Having said all that, my original premise that I'm really drifting, my only income-gathering employment in an area that I'm really not all that gifted in, really seems a little meaningless at this point. Let's see if I can get back in "the zone..."

"But a man will grow tired,
and his soul will grow weary,
living his life in vain."
- Ammonia Avenue, Alan Parsons Project

Hmmm... Didn't do it.

I guess looking at sovereignty is kind of looking at the stars - we may not do it all that often, but it gives some perspective when we do. And when we look, it's really quite lovely.

I might indeed be drifting, but He commands the currents. 

I may not feel like I fit in this place in the puzzle, but I can't see the box lid anyway, so I have no idea what the picture looks like.

So I guess I keep putting one foot after the other, even if I don't think they fit on the path or are the wrong style shoe to wear at this party, and keep going. I'll screw it up, but my Daddy takes that into account. And He loves it when I start making more of the better choices than the not-so-better-er ones.

"They're beautiful, aren't they?"
"What?"
"The stars. We never look at them anymore, but they really are quite lovely."

Maybe we should look at them. Way more often.

Thanks, Father - all I ask is a leaky ship, and Your stars to steer her by. I'm a flawed and less-gifted helmsman than many others around me, but I'll stay at the wheel and try to stay on Your course. I'll slip, I'll get distracted, I'll doze off at the wheel, so thanks in advance that You know all that and already planned the corrections to keep me from drifting off the edge of the world.

Second star to the right, and straight on 'till... someplace. Let's go, Daddy...