Lead Foot Indiscretions

I look back and think of all the choices that I’ve made, most of which I thought were good ideas at the time, but over time have proven themselves to be mistakes. Probably the biggest of which was the choice to not save a portion of the Social Security money that I received for the last 3 years of high school after my father died. I could have still lived a very comfortable life and graduated with $18,000 in savings. Another one of these moments came when my mom retired and used her retirement money to pay off all of my debts; I had a clean slate, I owed nothing to anybody. What did I do with that new found freedom? I bought a used PS2 on my Discover card with a zero balance $190 balance. Did I pay this off the next month, or in the next two months? Of course not, I just kept adding on because I had a thousand dollar limit. The latest of these was 3 years out of my life when I made really good money as a truck driver. If I would have just spent any 6-7 months out of those 3 years and paid on my debts, I would be completely debt free.

My wife tells me all the time that it’s useless to dwell on the past, or spend so much time thinking about the mistakes that I’ve made in my life. At the same time though, she says that she doesn’t have a lot of faith in me to make good decisions for our family, or that I can provide for us. I now the old saying is, “those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.” So I think that’s why I spend so much time thinking about my mistakes; not because I think it’s going to change anything, but because I don’t want to make the same mistakes again. Of course, my dad’s already dead, my mom already retired, and I can’t get a truck driving job again for about a year and half because of my lead foot indiscretions in my personal vehicle. Maybe I do need to just let it go and focus on the future, since it’s not looking like I’ll have the chance to make any of these same mistakes again.

Oh Love That Will Not Let Me Go

"Sing rejoice my heart,
rejoice my soul,
My saviour God has come to thee.
And rejoice my heart,
you've been made whole,
by a love that will not let me go.
It's a love that will not let me go."

I was listening to this song I've been listening to this song for about an hour now, and I had an epiphany a little while ago...more on that later.

I think it's actually something that has been brewing for a while now. I've always felt like something more was meant for me, like I had something that I was supposed to be doing. No matter where I was, or what I was doing, I always felt like I should be somewhere else, doing something else. I have always had this fear that I was wasting my time/life. I always thought that I could just rely on my intellect to get me by, that I'd always be able to figure a way out of my predicaments. Turns out I was wrong about pretty much everything. The "more" that was meant for me was just my life that comes one day at a time anyway. I've wasted so much time(and money) trying to do or be something else.

Sunday my family went to Ecclesia for the first time in a while since I wasn't working Sunday morning and we couldn't find Ecclesia Woodlands. Gideon was speaking that morning. He was talking about Jonah,

"The word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying,"
Jonah 1:1

and he said something about how the people in the Bible usually were just "some guy" before the beginning of their story. Jonah wasn't anybody, and neither was his father. This was not like saying Issac, son of Abraham or Solomon, son of David. He was just a guy that was chosen by God to take his message to Ninevah.

During this message I could feel something stirring in me, which kind of sucked cause my wife was mad at me so I couldn't even share it with her. I began to feel a sort of tingling sensation, it's the same feeling I get when I have a momentary flash of understanding or enlightenment. Usually I lose these thoughts because I don't get them written down in time, or I don't spend the proper time required meditating on them. I still don't know exactly what this is stirring in me, but for the first time in a while, I don't feel bewildered by it. I actually am filled with Wonder and amazement that there might still be something going on within me.

While listening to this song earlier, I realized that lyric,

"And rejoice my heart,
you've been made whole,
by a love that will not let me go."

was speaking directly to me. My heart can rejoice because it has been made whole, and that God WANTS me. He will not let me go. Through all the running, and the time wasting, all the stupidity, He refuses to let my stupid self go.

The catalyst for this revelation wasn't just the song, but started with something that Robbie Seay wrote about the man who wrote the song.

"His honesty in despair and true hope in God"

After reading this my first thought was, "I'm pretty honest in my despair. I'm very upfront with my close friends (and pretty much anybody else much to my wife's chagrin) about how bad our financial situation is." Then as I focused on that thought I realized that that has nothing to do with the despair that I feel and I also realized that my hope in God is little more that lip service at this point.

Starting at this point, I want to be honest with who I am and what my situation is. This doesn't mean that I'm going to start crying to everybody I meet about how terrible things are for me and my family. What it does mean is that I'm going to really try to be more introspective and stop lying to myself. Most importantly, once I can admit who and where I am in life, I can start to truly trust God and really believe what I say when we pray as a family at night and I quote Jeremiah 29:11.

Thanks for reading,
David J.

P.S. Check out this song on the Robbie Seay Band's new album 'Miracle' out soon.

Why You Should NOT Read this blog.

This is why I never do well at trying to write in a journal or blog or whatever. I always feel like there's something inside me trying to get out, but if I don't get it out at just the time that I'm feeling it, I usually lose it. A lot of times this is because things tend to hit me while listening to a song, watching a movie, having a conversation with a friend or my wife. It's not a bad problem to have, but usually the reason I don't get it down is because I'm busy enjoying the moment, movie, song; and by the time I can write it down I've lost it. I can usually remember the gist, but the "briliance" of the thought that I thought I was experiencing is totally gone. I don't know if these are really flashes of genius, or just my own vain conceit. Either way I'd still like to get it down for some further examination.