Make the Shift

I’m trying to make it.  Make the shift.

We are through the holidays and well into the New Year.  Hello, 2016. Ready or not, here you came.  I was in a spinning class today and the instructor asked us if we had all had a good New Year.  Wasn’t that, like, 100 years ago already?

My 40th birthday is breathing down my neck, and I have happy-sad feelings about it.  Thank you, Jesus! Everyone in my family has survived my early parenting and wife-ing (not a word, but if you can parent, you can wife) years.  I have a driving teenager and we are coming up on 19 blessed years of marriage this summer.  So, there’s the happy part!  I don’t feel like a newbie anymore, and that feels good.  I am excited that my number of years is starting to match up a little more appropriately with my number of children. (40 years, 6 kids… that’s a good year-to-kid ratio, right?)

The sad part… the dawning realization that, darn-it, life isn’t getting any easier.  In fact, it feels more challenging.  (Or maybe that is just God’s grace helping me forget what having four small children and a relatively young marriage was like?) Anyway, my challenges are beginning to parallel my aging body.  Sad, right?

Then again, maybe not so sad… not if I can make the shift.

Each of us knows what it is like to have that “thing” that you are waiting for.  That experience, that goal achieved, that hope fulfilled, that will satisfy the deeper longing for peace and meaning- the rest- that we all seek.  It could be as simple and temporal as making it to the weekend and hanging with friends to watch the game.  Maybe it’s a dream vacation, a promotion, or a relationship. For me, it’s when it’s my turn to get paid back for the time and service given to my family.

And until we get there, we hang in the balance.  

Joy sucked out of our souls and suspended in front of us,

like a horse running for that carrot hanging  just out of reach.

There are those of us who have achieved that elusive “thing.”  For a while, we bask in the glow.  And then, as we get farther away from the fire of the experience, we begin to grow cold and seek out new warmth.  What’s the next goal? What’s the next experience?  And then off we go again, chasing another carrot, often dragging our loved ones along with us.

And for the person who experiences this cycle often enough, a chill settles in when it sinks in that, quite possibly, this is never-ending. Unless… he or she makes the shift.

So, here I am, personally trying to make the shift.

The shift, simply put, is a change in perspective.  A change in focus. Ta-Da! Exciting, right? (I can almost hear you groaning, but stick with me!)

Back to my personal horserace.  I am running, running hard and fast because life is hard and fast.  And, so stinking long.  It’s a long race, right?  So, of course, I look to the carrot to drive me on.  I have to have the carrot as a reward for the running.  But the problem is, the carrot, that experience I mentioned above, does not satisfy.  In fact, it only makes me more hungry.  I want another carrot… and this time I want it ground up and mixed with flour, sugar and butter! And topped with cream cheese frosting!

Have you reached the place in life where beautiful, rewarding experiences and relationships just stir up more longing?  I have.  I need to look past the carrot.  Past the payback.

I need to SHIFT.  Shift my gaze from the carrot to the finish line.  It’s coming, people.  And as long as the race can feel, we also feel the pressure of time passing at warp speed.

We were created to long for satisfaction.

And guess what!  What we are longing for is NOT a carrot.  Not even carrot cake.  This shift I’m making is forcing me to acknowledge that people and experiences cannot satisfy me.  Heaven, that soon approaching place for those of us who know Jesus, is satisfaction.  [*See note below] It’s the Finish Line.  The crazy thing is that rather than causing me to feel weary or depressed, this shift in perspective is actually bringing me freedom and joy.  I am becoming free from needing people, places, and experiences to fill me up.  Beginning to let go of those expectations is so refreshing.

Do you need a shift, too?

If a carrot comes your way, by all mean, enjoy it.  Just don’t expect it to fill you up.

Look to the Finish Line.

*Note:  I am aware that as I send this post out into cyberspace, there may be people who read this who don’t believe in Jesus and the existence of Heaven.  If that’s you, I guess I would just offer a question to consider… Have you ever had the experience of something that you thought would fill you up not satisfying you? What do you think that is all about? Why is it that if there is nothing beyond this world, it seems so hard to be satisfied- permanently satisfied, by things this world can offer?