Learning How to Walk

It’s one of those moments that all parents look forward to and dread at the same time: to witness their little child take their first steps.  Their once so small and very needy little treasure is  now growing up into an independent little toddler.  Parents are excited!!! And sad… their little one wants to explore while momma wants to hold tight her little one and soak in every moment of love.  She wants them to stay small but knows they must grow up.  They must learn to walk, then jog, then run…  But my question is…

When did life become dependent on how busy you are, how fast you are running, how productive you are?  What happened to the quality of life?  When did we substitute              over-involvement for silence and solitude? When did we start to believe that being alone actually means you are alone?  

Seriously, I have been wondering about this for a while now!! And I totally did this…I still do. I skipped walking and instead started to sprint through life.  Everything rushed past me and sure I enjoyed some of it… but how much of the real Carly was there… present both physically and mentally????  Probably not much. 

Our society has not only accepted this mentality and way of living life like a race, but it actually congratulates people on being busy!!  

Now I am wondering…. Were we really created to live like this?? Running and Rushing from place to place??!!?  Ummmmmm… NOOOOOOOO!!!  We were made to walk.  To experience life not just get through it.  

In High School, I was over-involved and under too much stress.  I was stretched thin and not living life the way God calls us to live…

I am learning to walk again. And if I am completely honest, it is like soooooo hard.  It's like having to retrain a human on how to be, well, human.  I have been living life with the wrong mentality, with the wrong goals.  It has always been about how much I can get done, rather than how well I am actually doing.  It has all been about how many people I can impact, rather than authentically, and lovingly impacting a few.  

God is changing me and it is uncomfortable.  It is.  I will warn you, it is not easy. But!! I would also like to inform you that life could not be any better!  Instead of rushing through a Bible passage, I linger in the word longer and sit in God’s presence for as long as I can rather than only a few minutes.  I have learned to Shut UP!! And to stop speaking over God.  Sometimes the prayer I am about to pray, or the question I am about to ask, is already being answered if I would just stop and listen.  Or even, sometimes the things I am praying about are not in God’s plan…maybe I have been praying wrong too!! Rushing into what is going on in my life, in my kingdom instead of focussing on God’s Kingdom and His will.  

Walking through life with Jesus is seriously the best thing I could ever recommend to anyone who is feeling restless, overdone, stressed, unmotivated, unhappy, confused, and just wondering if life was meant to be something so much more than what it has become.  

So, if you are just like me and thinking there is more to life than getting a job, marrying someone, having a family, learning to cook, doing well in school, having lots of friends, and so forth.  Then Please join me and start learning how to walk again! ( All of these things are great, and most of these things are very important to myself, but not if they are pushing God and a healthy life out the window) 

Encouraging Verses: Here we can see Jesus going off to pause and reflect.  He did not just stay for a few minutes, no He lingered there.  He did not worry about where He was going,no! He offered everything up to God the Father! Soooooooo... We should do this too! We need to stop racing everywhere and instead start slowing down and walk through life with the best companion out there (any doctor who fans?? hahaha) NO it is not the doctor!  It is Jesus!!!!!!

"But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed." -Luke 5:16

"Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed." -Mark 1:35