In high school I learned that I made the basketball team! I had worked hard and had made it! As the first game of the season approached, I was thrilled to know that I would start! A couple of errant passes, a missed layup and a foul, and I found myself on the bench. Crushed!
While in college, I had aspirations of becoming an actor. I auditioned for a part in Shakespeare”s Twelfth Night and was cast in the role of Sebastian, one of the male leads. A few years later, in another city, I auditioned with the local Civic Theater for a role in Bus Stop, and was cast in in the role of Beauregard ‘Bo Decker, the male lead. My “aspirations” were encouraged.
Still later, while playing the role of Horace Vandergelder in Hello Dolly!, I discovered a major flaw in my plans. There is a point in the play where my character rushes out on to the stage to make an important pronouncement. I made my entrance but for the life of me I could not remember my lines! I stood center stage for what seemed like an eternity, until a fellow cast member started feeding me my lines, and the play went on. However, the damage was done. My confidence was shaken. My aspirations faded away.
I believe we all experience missed opportunities, disappointments, and times when we failed to meet our goal. How do we get through those times? Sometimes it is a mind set, or perhaps it is a conviction that this is all part of God’s plan for our lives. The resume’ of our strength and weaknesses, our talents, our limitations are all gifts from God. We are not living someone else’s resume’, we are living our own. We just need to embrace it
Here are some truths that God gifts comprise to makeup our resume’: We are not auditioning, we already have the part in God’s master play. We are not trying to make the team, we are on God’s team. We need not wait for God’s gifts, they are already ours. We need not try to earn God’s love, we already have His love.
So, what are you going to do? You are living out God’s plan, with the gifts He has given you, with the assurance that His love will never fail you. So what will you dare? Will you step outside your easy comfortable zone and risk? You may have forgotten your lines and the way to go, but listen very carefully, for God is prompting you, and showing you the way.
Have you thought about talking to God? Hmm. He’s listening, right now, always.
Just a few simple thoughts as we prepare for the new year. May God bless you.
Stan
For What It’s Worth.
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