Have you ever really wanted something in your life? I'm not talking about a product, or a thing. I'm talking about a visceral gut wrenching desire. Something you want so bad it keeps you up at night?
I have.
There have been many things like that in my life.
I can remember when I got this new job, and got hired as an associate, and had to work to get promoted to representative. It was a sales job, so what you had to do get promoted was to get a lot of sales and work very hard.
Most of it involved a lot of phone calling and knocking on doors. It was so emotionally painful I can barely describe it. To try to get you understand what it takes to walk through the door of 50 different businesses and make 200 phone calls every week and get rejected is next to impossible. Let me just say, it wasn't easy.
As I went through my week, I mentally had to force myself to push past my emotional limits. To reframe the rejection in my mind. To decide in my gut to continue on. To grit my teeth and try harder. Man it was hard.
Eventually, I did it. I got promoted to representative. I was elated. Nice bump in the salary, extra goodies like a car package and sweet commission package. I was on top of the world.
Then reality struck.
The pressure after I got promoted exceeded what it was before. How was this possible? I thought when you reached a goal things got easier, not harder. But this is what I discovered- success costs. Progress costs. Doing well costs. I had set it in my mind that things would be easier after, when the reality was that it was doubly harder. I had worked as hard as I could do get where I wanted, but I realized something- I hadn't allowed the Lord to help me. It was all me. I did it on my own.
It is then that I learned to lean on the Lord more than ever.
Here's the crazy thing about achievement- we can only do so much in our achievements. We can work, we can clamor, we can scrape our way to a goal. But if we don't have the Lord in the midst of it, when we get there, its truly a fruitless endeavor. If we're the ones that are doing it. If we're the ones that are getting it done, then the pressure is all on us. If we allow the Lord to sustain us and help us, when we get to where we want to be, we're working with Him, and we're not on our own.
Are you working towards a goal? Are you striving for an achievement? Ask yourself if you're doing it on your own, or if you're doing it with the help of the Lord.
He wants to help you. Honestly, a lot of times he'll do it for you if you'll let Him.
If you want to go at it alone- He will let you do that also- its just a lot more painful. Choose today to allow the Lord to help you achieve.
Lean on Him, and achieve!
be blessed
pastor matt
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