Drifting Closer?
Wouldn’t it be awesome if people drifted closer rather than apart?
I was listening to a Michael Hyatt podcast (“This is Your Life – Episode 3”) recently and he was speaking about how nearly every area of our life is susceptible to drift if we aren’t careful. It reminded me of one of the funniest things I’d ever heard spoken from the stage at an alumni event at my high school. A rather large lady representing the 50-year reunion class was standing behind the mic and in a dry voice said, “A pound a year sure doesn’t sound like much…” It took a couple minutes for the audience and her to compose themselves.
Whether it is our health, finances, relationships, devotional life, garden, connecting with our kids, or a thousand other things, we tend to drift from order to chaos.
Neglect doesn’t improve things, and going with the flow has led me to many regrets.
I’ve done a bit of an inventory and noticed that I’ve lost touch with most of my friends, not because of a disagreement or choice, but simply because life became complicated and our friendship wasn’t a priority.
So, back to my question, stated differently. Is it possible to maintain our priorities in a world that has an imperceptible, but swift current pulling us away from purposefulness and into loss and regret?
To try to find my answer, I decided to take some time and study some different types of real currents and try to make some connections to “life drift”. As I studied real life currents, it became clear that there is a lot to learn from things like rip currents, jet streams, and rivers. But, before I spend some other articles writing about specifics, I think it’s important to realize that we are always in some sort of current.
Nothing in our lives is constant, except God. At the most basic level, time is flowing and that keeps us from moving in a current of time. We are either getting better or worse. Things are growing or dying.
I’m not sharing this to get on some theoretical or geeky kick, I’m sharing it because until we realize we can’t begin to get where we want to go until we accept that we are constantly being moved by different forces. I want to be close to my wife; however, our relationship without attention results in us drifting apart. I want to be an amazing dad to my girls; yet, they are constantly changing and needing different types of interactions as they mature. I want to lead Project Patch in an effective way and there are ways to move us forward rapidly, but in the wrong direction.
In all these areas of life, change is happening, and a key thing I’m considering is how can I live my life to take advantage of currents that bring me to where I want to go, while avoiding ones that isolate and wreck me.
I’m a wife, a mom, a daughter-in-law. All under one roof (unusual these days). My kids are 23-17. My kids come in and out of the house all day long. I have a job that takes me out of my house often. My husband is out of the house when he can be.(He takes care of his mom who is 88). To stay connected try to make sure that I kiss their cheeks every day. I also ask questions about their lives….who,what when, where, why, how….so often that I’m called a noisy mom. I simply say, “Yes I am and always will be…because I care about YOU!
Wow, sounds like a really busy season for you and your family. Its funny how kids push back but at the same time find comfort in knowing we care. We find that doing projects together is a great way to connect with teens and grown children.