Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Locked Up

Stepping out into the public realm of the written word, has sometimes felt like walking the plank. Behind you are some folks jeering and some folks cheering. Ahead of you at the end of the plank is the unknown. You don’t know if you’re going to be torn to shreds by man-eating sharks or if a beautiful mermaid will whisk you away to a tropical paradise. You just don’t know.

It is this reality of the unknown that causes most people to freeze and stand still. Staying just out of the reach of the prodding sword or spear, but not going far enough out onto the plank to jump. Of course, everyone doesn’t write, but at some point I believe we all have a plank to walk. The thing is, most people cower behind the safe confines of a job, because it’s more familiar to them. It’s what they know. Instead of walking that plank and taking a plunge into the realm of the unknown. The water looks too deep to them, there might be barracudas or flesh eating fish in that water!

So instead they keep hitting that snooze button every morning and dragging themselves out of bed to head for their job, which barely covers their living expenses. If they’re one of the ‘lucky’ ones, they might even get a chance to take a vacation or two every year and retire by the time they reach 62.

Something about that whole scenario just never felt right to me. When you look at the numbers, the average life span for the American is about 72-75 years. So as I got closer to ‘halftime’, my body started rejecting this prescription for life. Who the hell wants to wait and have fun when they’re old?? That’s what retirement is supposed to mean right? Doing whatever you wanted to do with your day? I’d rather have fun now AND when I’m old!!

I was in the mind frame of most Americans, doing what I had to do to keep the lights on and keep my family fed. But I still had emptiness, a void in my professional life that I just couldn’t explain. I wanted more and I never realized what this yearning I had was all about until I went to hear Zig Ziglar give a speech at Hopheinz Pavilion here in Houston with some co-workers one morning.


Zig talked about the difference between quantity vs. quality. It seems most people are focused on quantity. They go for the highest paying job they can get, so that they can have the most luxuries in life. The biggest house they can afford, the finest car, the nicest clothes, and the best vacations. But the problem with this, is that it’s not a goal that will fulfill your soul.

Instead of focusing on what job will pay you the most so that you can retire the quickest, you should focus on that job that you want to do until you can’t do it anymore. That ‘thing’ that drives you and gets you crunk. That ‘thing’ that will make you jump out of bed every morning and be ready to ‘go get it!’ It’s not about the money, it’s about your passion in life. That passion will drive and motivate you to keep on keeping on.

Hmmm. So as I sat in that audience, I realized that I had to walk that plank myself and take that plunge. My pen skills are becoming better everyday. I am a lot better writer now that I was 3 years ago when I first started blogging. There is no way around it, you have to grind to shine.

Tiger Woods natural golf ability is undeniable, but the thousands of hours of his life that he’s dedicated to honing his skills and improving his game are what makes him a world champion. He has a passion for the game that has nothing to do with the money. Tiger just wants to win, period. And the lesson to be learned, is that if you dedicate yourself to your passion, if you keep grinding and putting in your work everyday, there is a reward that will come.

The problem is that most people are too lazy or afraid to put in the work. They don’t dare to chase their dream because they’re afraid of people laughing at them. They’re afraid of failure. They don’t want to be embarrassed.

On the other end of the coin, are the people who feel like they don’t know what their passion is. They don’t know what they want to do. I can feel that. I didn’t always know that there was a writer inside of me. But there is a Scripture that my grandmother used to nail into my hard head ALL the time that I clung to, and it is a proverb of direction that pulled me out of my quagmire and placed me on my path. So for all of you that are still looking for your purpose, for all of you that are still searching for your passion, then this is the passage you need to meditate on every day and every night.

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.” – Proverbs 3:5-6

Of course, the obvious problem with this, is that we have been trained by society to rely on our own intellectual ability for guidance. Putting your trust in the LORD is frowned upon in ‘intellectual’ circles. Once people get educated, they feel that they can make all of their own decisions based off experience and reason. And they will smirk in derision at those of us who step out on faith as ‘mystics’ who are praying to some unknown God in the sky to save us.

I have reached a point in my faith and God has put me in a position of my passion, where there is now a chasm between me and unbelievers. I am sanctified or ‘set apart’. Some of these unbelievers are family members, some are friends that I’ve known since childhood, and some are co-workers or ex-classmates. But a lot of them look at me and shake their head, because they thought I was one of the smart ones. They can’t believe that I ‘swallowed the Kool-Aid’ too.


In their minds, if it’s not worth a profit, then it’s not worth doing. They can’t fathom doing anything in their lives that doesn’t give them a direct (or indirect) benefit. They’re all about the Benjamin’s. Gotta get that cream. Their happiness and sense of security is determined by their bank accounts…or so they think.

But one thing I’ve learned in my 35 years on this earth, is that there are inevitable experiences in life that we all must go through. A lot of people don’t realize how delicate and valuable life is, until they’re sitting in their doctor’s office listening to a report that wakes them up. Money can’t save them then. Others don’t start leaning on the LORD until they get put in a position where they know they need the help of a higher power, the help of THE Highest Power. There’s a lot of people that start praying for the first time in their life in operating rooms or court rooms. Earnest heartfelt prayers for deliverance. They want to be saved from their condition.

It’s what a lot of people refer to as ‘jailhouse conversions’. Once you get locked up in a confining situation, then you decide to look up to the LORD. It doesn’t have to be behind criminal bars, the jailhouse is any position where you find yourself locked up and out of control. It could be in the hospital, it can be in a courtroom, it can be in your marriage or with your kids, it could be when the mortgage company is coming to foreclose on your house, we all will have our time to be locked up in some way or the other.

So the thing I’ve learned is that it’s easy to call on the LORD when you’re locked up, because it’s usually in those darkest hours where you have nowhere else to turn. The test of faith will come after that storm passes. After that operation is deemed a success, or after that judge says ‘Not Guilty on all counts!’ what are you going to do then? Are you going to still keep praising that Name or are you going to start intellectualizing your deliverance? It ain’t about how skilled that doctor is or how clever your lawyer was in the courtroom, it’s all about the will of God. And until you realize that and until you bow down, repent and submit, you’re going to continue to be locked up, in this life and the next.