Until about 60 minutes ago I have been internally fighting, without understanding, the reality that time is without value for those who have no defined purpose, yet it is invaluable to those who think they know their purpose, or even more exceptionally, know their unquestioned, capital-P, Purpose.
Some of you know I recently made some choices that have greatly freed myself from the hindrance (or luxury, for those with an abundance of various forms of fear or a well established and smooth running vision of purpose) of little to no free time. I had then, and still do, a sketched understanding of what this year was supposed to look like for me, and have been living according to the sketch since New Year's Eve.
Exciting, right?!
Living according to the sketch has taken me from Arkansas, to Washington, to Colorado, to California, to Florida, to New Mexico, to Texas, back to Arkansas, then Montana, then to Arizona, and in the near future: Ohio, Utah, probably again to Washington and Colorado and then Wyoming, Montana and... Well, you get the idea. I'm living out the plan, yet the reality of my days are not exactly coloring within the lines of the sketch I thought I saw several months ago. As a reforming perfectionist, that's exceedingly difficult for me to accept some days, and currently has rocked my heart to question the capital-P Purpose I have understood for my life.
That brings me to an hour ago and the text exchange between my friend, who has no time, and I, time being my only real possession... I found myself wishing I could figure out a way to make my time "feel" purposeful, especially as a benefit to my friend who has no time.
As a matter of these recent conversations, where I had once thought that using my time in the accumulation of knowledge was considered a worthwhile expenditure, that has all but completely lost its appeal. Today as I stare at a stack of scripture, journals, and educational materials related to the purpose I have understood to be mine, I'm confused, bored and discouraged. 1 Corinthians 13:2 resounds in my mind:
"If I have the gift of prophesy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing."
It turns out every book, class, video and teacher containing "knowledge" about such topics have a counterpart book, class, video or teacher contradicting such an understanding. Because of this, sometimes I fear that "knowing" more will eventually shrink my heart and ultimately make me less effective as a loving human being... that will take awhile to develop as a thought, so I'll leave it right there to ponder later.
Time is being spent whether I like it or not, but is it being invested? The moments I set about intentionally investing, seem to have lost their value, while time that I had no forethought of investing has clearly been stored up and converted into treasure. I have yet to understand how that works, however I have spent considerable time thinking about how to use my time for equipping myself for the future purpose that will inevitably play out in my life.
These thoughts bring me to the already eluded to, twin word-of-the-month, "feelings".
I'll start by saying I have long held the belief that feelings make terrific followers and terrible leaders. It's also important to note that sometimes feelings lie. It's equally important to understand that they are very important to use in factoring the equation while fully assessing or understanding any given situation.
Most of us gauge nearly everything we do, don't do, see, don't see, choose, don't choose based on factoring in how we feel, myself included. Feelings are a wild part of the heart of human nature and they need to be tamed, kept in check, reigned in, but certainly not locked away. Clearly this is a complex topic all on it's own and I'd never claim to be an expert or assume I'm prepared to teach on the subject. I'm simply trying to survive the reality.
So, my questions today are these: If I don't "feel" like the investment of my time (or, insert your favorite resource here) has held any value, does that make it foolishly spent? Furthermore, even if I feel good about the results, if those I've invested it with don't feel the value of my resource, does it automatically nullify it, qualifying it as a waste? An equally important question: Just because someone "feels good" about what resource I've offered, does that make it a worthy, healthy, healing investment? Is it possible that "good feelings" have done more to damage a situation than to ultimately help it for the long term? Finally, how does one know when to quit making an investment? Surely, as in the case of financial investments, an early dip or loss in the account, does not always indicate or prove a bad overall investment...
Ultimately, I want to honor others, and myself, with all I have. The vision of what that is supposed to look like is sketched a bit too lightly for me to see today, so for now I'll do what I knew to do when I knew it last and I'll keep you posted.
These sweet creatures invested their time with me over a cup or two of coffee recently; for that, I am thankful.
