Today, at my church, we recognized some of the graduates of high school, tech school, and college that have worked so hard to better their skills and grow in their knowledge. The college and tech school students were given time to speak and they all had amazing things to say about the dangers of comparison and the way we should approach success with a vision in mind (a subject for another blog post). But one speech stuck out to me in a different way.
The girl who was sharing has become a good friend of mine and my soon-to-be wife’s. We have had a lot of growing experiences in just a short amount of time with her and her husband. We stayed up late and talked about dreams, passions, fears, and goals we have set for ourselves personally. But something she said this morning in front of the congregation struck me as absolutely necessary for many of us.
And we don’t even realize it.
She said that she hadn’t really set many goals and yet she had accomplished so much and seen God work so many miracles and great things around her. She was grateful for the experiences she could have, but admitted that none of them came from some great plan devised over years of introspection and soul-searching (even though she has done plenty of that over her life as we all have). She had not planned to do the things she did. She just took the next step wherever God called her.
And that phrase, “the next step,” struck me. In that moment, I realized something vital to our lives.
As Chris and I discuss success, it often sounds like we mean to say that you must have every instant in your life planned out or else you will never achieve success. That everything must go according to plan or else you have failed even in your own definition of success. And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that neither Chris or I want to convey that message through our blog or podcast.
Plans change. Cheese gets moved. Disasters, disease, marriage, children, job loss, and an infinite number of other things can shift the playing field on you, even if only slightly. But the slightest shift can cause some of the greatest changes in gameplan. Even a single defender being in a different position can cause a quarterback to call an audible.
And this is where that phrase struck me.
We forget that we are present creatures. And by that, I mean that we cannot travel across time willfully. We are pushed along by it without any means to stop it, slow it, or reverse it. Our goals will always pass us by if we are not intentionally chasing them. But do not misunderstand what I mean by “intentionally chasing” your goals. I do not mean that every goal in life must be held fast and executed without any hiccups in it. If that were true, I would be extremely hypocritical in my viewpoint since I had planned to be a paleontologist from the time I was a child.
Then, a guitarist. Then, a singer. Then, a psychologist. Then, an ethicist. And now, a teacher.
My point is, the next step is the only step we can take to make it to our endgame. The only way to reach the second floor is by taking the next step, following the stairs as they go and not attempting to skip too many at a time.
Sometimes, you will succeed in your endeavors by leaps and bounds and the steps will seem to fly by. But sometimes, each step makes your knees weak. The height becomes dizzying. And your breath gets shorter as your chest tightens. Sometimes, you’ll wonder why you even got on these stairs in the first place. But just keep holding onto the fact that it isn’t about how far away your end goal is. It’s all about how tenacious you will be in achieving that goal. How hard will you work to push past what holds you back? And how sure are you that you are on a staircase that leads where you want to go?
What is your next step? No one can answer that for you just as no one can take it for you. Whether circumstances have changed your staircase or whether you have been on the same staircase for years, you cannot worry about things you cannot control. You can only control the things you can control (it seems tautological, but it is true). And what else is more in your control than your next step?
So, after reading this mess, my question to you is two-fold: what is your next step, and where are you going with it?
Micah Davis
The Soapbox 