Goals vs. the Journey

In the quiet drizzly-ness of this morning, I took a long overdue trip back to the Oswald site and discovered among many things, that he's the one who inspires me to blog. Actually, I already knew that but was hoping deep in my heart that I could blog without reading him! There's just something in processing what he writes that gets my juices flowing and this morning was no different.

I have been immersed in goals lately. They have been swarming around me from so many different facets of my life that they have been causing a lot of anxiety. I suppose having unreached goals doesn't produce anxiety for everyone but for some reason, the goals I've set for this summer are huge to me - and I'm not there. So this level of panic is rising in me as I see the summer coming to a close and I have not achieved what I have set out to accomplish. Some of the goals don't even have deadlines and yet I'm stressing over them. Many of them I have placed on myself but some just come with the job of being me. Rod asks me what's wrong and all I can tell him is that I feel so out of control. Like the disciples in a storm tossed boat with the goal to get to Bethsaida by morning (Mark 6:45-52), I'm out of control, at the mercy of the elements.

But here's the kicker: Jesus walks past the disciples and his presence isn't even comforting. They're so stressed out by now that they're scared "out of their wits" when they see him. Now realize, this happened AFTER the famous Jesus-sleeping-in-the-stern; Scared-disciples-wake-him-up; Accuse-him-of-not-caring-if-they-die; Jesus-calms-the-storm-story! (Mark 4:35-41) So the disciples have already had a very similar experience on this very same sea with a bad storm. They've already seen their beloved teacher calm the storm in three words. The only difference is that this time they set out without him so that he had to walk on the water to get to them. And once again, they are terrified.

Now grant it, Jesus sent them off "without him" but he was never really away from them. The bible says he could see them and that he knew what they were struggling against. So he came to them but they were terrified because they thought he was a ghost. There was no recall that this was the man who had just fed 5,000 people supper with five loaves of bread and two fish. There was no memory of him calming the sea, healing the sick, or raising the dead. All they knew was that this sea they were in was out of control with deadly waves, whipping wind, and now ghosts!

So here I am, storms, wind, waves, ghosts- all preventing me from reaching the shore. I'm fighting waves of anxiety and bursts of panic over goals that seem out of reach. Insert Oswaldian wisdom: The goal isn't to reach the shore. And the sooner I realize that, the sooner I will find relief. The goal is to see Jesus walking on the storm- to see his calming approach, totally aware of where I am and where I need to be. To see Jesus in control and recognize him, embrace him, trust him. The goal is to be transformed from an anxiety-laden, goal-focused self, to a trusting, peace-filled disciple who rides out the storms knowing that that's where the growing happens. That's where the Maker meets me and teaches me that life isn't about accomplished goals, it's about him glorified in the journey.