When I think back at the obstacles in my life, without a doubt the ‘internal’ struggles have been the most potent, most destructive, and most lasting. Think with me for a minute as you start playing the tape in your head, or more importantly, the tape that plays in your heart… your ‘belief’ system. 
“You’re too fat, you don’t fit in, you aren’t good …at anything in particular that matters, no one thinks I look good,” You know the tape; it runs a lot and it’s crazy, but it’s the one tape that never seems to wear out. I think of all of the great adventures I’ve had thus far in life and yes, that tape is always there. Let’s ask what is the definition and power behind this tape.
Fear
Pull back a sec and look at your life from 100,000 feet. When you see the path you’ve walked over the years, from an ‘overhead view’ I bet you start to see how many miles you went ‘around’ or ‘diverted’ from your chosen course because something else was driving…
Fear
It’s not hard to see when you start looking for it, but in truth I think a lot of our decisions are based on a fear mindset. It’s funny, back in my 20’s when I started flying, I rarely thought of crashing. My 3rd hour of flight instruction ended with the engine dying just as we pulled back up to the ramp. As we were headed out, the instructor and I noticed at the same time that the engine was slowing down on it’s own. Nothing we did corrected the issue so back to the airport we went for an uneventful landing.
Full stop… we pulled up to park and just as we stopped, the engine stopped. I remember thinking… “That’s really not supposed to happen,” but not a lot else. These days I think ALOT about what ‘could’ have happened, and there’s the rub….
- What could
- What will
- What does
What Could
The potential for good and bad is always there. An old saying I love is, “Plan for the worst but expect the best.” I don’t know about you, but when I plan for the worst I am left wincing, waiting for it to happen. I become eagle-eyed focused on the potential bad.
But the potential for good is just as equal… correct?
Nelson Mandela said “The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
What Will
I honestly don’t know what will happen in any given situation but let’s lay it out…
Five hundred years ago, Michel de Montaigne said: “My life has been filled with terrible misfortune; most of which never happened.”
My Dad lives this out… I remember him telling me something like this as a child, but more importantly, I remember him LIVING this out daily for us. What will happen, only God really knows. (Which is good.)
Franklin D. Roosevelt said “Fear. Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance…”
What Does
In the end, what does happen is some of what we plan for, some of what we hope for, and some of what we didn’t expect. Sometimes it feels good, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes, no matter how much you plan, things just go in a different direction. After half a century, one thing I have learned… is to leave the final outcome in God’s capable hands. Though it doesn’t always make sense on this side of the veil, trust me, there is a master plan, and it’s worth trusting him, instead of listening to the ‘what could’ or guessing as to ‘what will’, which just drains the life out of the one life we have.
Let me leave you with this last quote from Teddy Roosevelt.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Remember, II Timothy 1:7 “ For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
Peace on your journey this week.
