faith

Growth

I’m currently re-reading You’re Made for a God-Sized Dream by Holley Gerth. It’s a wonderful book about how God gives everyone on earth a purpose and dream(s) for their life that glorify Him. It also discusses how working towards dreams that God has placed in your heart can bring more joy, purpose, and connection with the One who gave them to you.

One concept in the book that really struck me was about growth during the journey to achieving dream. The author, Holley Gerth, shared this quote by William Butler Yeats.

“Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth, We are happy when we are growing.”
— William Butler Yeats

Yeats Quote

When we have a goal in mind, it’s incredibly easy to focus on the end result, but often the growth that happens during the process of achieving something brings happiness in and of itself. This reminds me to celebrate and take in the joy of life along the way to my dreams. It also reminds me to reflect on how far I’ve come since I’ve started and how God has worked in me.

I really loved what Holley said at the end of the section on growth and celebrating it:

“…let prayer be like stones you place in the path along the way to remind you of where you’ve been, where you’re going, and who is walking with you.”

What do you think about growth? Do you believe it what brings happiness, and do you remember to celebrate how far you’ve come along the journey to achieving your dreams?

Things I’m learning

It has been a while since I last shared lessons and concepts I’ve been learning in my life. I think personal growth–and recognizing that growth–is important. When I learn something I try to write it down, practice it, and want to share it. The lessons I learn may not be new to you, but I figured I’d share anyways!

2

Things I’m learning

1. Act like the person you want to be.
We are all growing, learning, and changing every day. I’m not who I was a year ago, and I will continue to change. I know the person I want to be, and I’m continually working on being that person. I want to be someone who is faithful to God, mentally strong, loving, selfless, and balanced. Am I that person every day? Nope. Not at all. On the hard days, where I feel like I make every mistake in the book, I’m learning to act like the person I want to be. It’s like the “fake it till you make it” concept.

I have learned that trying things–whether it’s becoming a better person, learning a new hobby, etc.–is about consistency, not perfection. We’re never going to be perfect or do things perfectly, but we can consistently try, and that’s what counts. We all have rough days, but keeping the big picture in mind is what it’s all about. If we’re trying our best, one mistake or bad day isn’t the end of the world, it’s simply a learning experience.

2. Write your plans in pencil and give God the eraser.
I suppose this is something that I have learned before, but I continually learn it in different ways. I’m someone who like to have well-laid plans. For the day, week, month, year, etc. It feels comforting to have an idea of what’s happening in my life, what I’d like to do, and know that it’s all written down in my trusty little planner.

For example, just a week ago, I mentioned in this post that Jimmy and I knew in 2016 that we’d be working, getting a puppy, and staying involved with our church. Guess what? We’re not getting a puppy. Unfortunately, some circumstances happened that were out of our control and led us to have to make a decision about whether or not we should get the puppy we’ve been planning on taking into our home for a few months. After prayer and thinking the circumstances through, we decided that God has other plans.

We wrote something down in pencil and God erased it. I don’t know why, but I trust Him. Sometimes time will tell, sometimes things just don’t work out and we won’t know why on this side of heaven. We never know what God has in store for the future, but we can trust that it’s going to be much better than anything we could have planned ourselves!

What have you been learning lately?