“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien
when we begin again, to practice again, to take up again, we are setting out on a dangerous business. when we start again – take up an old calling, again; grasp firmly an old tool, once more; rise to an old challenge, with fear and trembling… when we start again – something gives way within us. some longing stirs within, and we begin to step onto the road, to be swept away.
I have long struggled with perseverence. I’m an enneagram 9 (hi) and it’s said that my deadly sin is sloth – not necessarily that I’m lazy and a slob, though that’s not untrue either. but more, that I start and then stop, again and again and again, be it a hobby, an exercise program or a morning routine, doing the dishes every night, reading a devotional, or keeping a blog.
so here we are – beginning again, again. and I think in that small faltering step, there is somewhere a kernel of the gospel.
we are unable to do this to completion on our own. we are unable to take up the cross, fully; to bear the weight of the world, fully; to be holy, as our Father is holy, fully. we are ill equipped. unprepared. and dare I say, slothful. we will put in just enough effort to be able to rise to the occasion for a moment or two, and then settle back down into our comfortable positions where no one is bothering us, where no one expects us to actually follow through on our beginnings.
we have a pint of counter top paint sitting in our half bath. it’s been there about 4 months. it’s supposed to motivate me to redo our half bath; so far it’s just been moved about on the counter as I come in and out to check supplies and empty the trash can once a week. I like the idea of transforming that dated, bubble gum pink and harsh white bathroom into something wonderful and moody and dramatic – but in actuality, a Pinterest board and a pint of counter top paint is as far as it’s gotten.
we like the IDEA of something new – we like starting. everyone gets excited as the beginning. but if we allow ourselves to be swept away, we can get lost in the midst of it all. so I am now beginning, again, and seeking out the hardest part: putting my feet, my start, my faith, my life, not onto my own path, but on the path set before me by someone greater than I am.
we aren’t called to complete it all on our own. we are called to join. to enter into something bigger than ourselves, to lose our feet in the joy and the pain and the glory and the grit of it all. to be swept along by the Savior into something we could not have imagined, cocooned at home. to be challenged, to challenge, to begin, again, something that has been etched into our souls since the beginning of time: to be His.
and, for me, to write.
perhaps the greater 