Just some early morning thoughts from me to you…
“Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
It’s our son Nathan’s birthday tomorrow. I can remember almost every moment of his life from that very first time I met him—when he was born. And then watched him respond through the years to the call of God on his life.
What is it that God is calling you to do today? Perhaps a different direction and onto a different path.
How’s that make you feel? I don’t know about you, but that has always been a disconcerting moment for me. Never easy—something new, something different.
Because the common course of our lives is often one of familiarity and comfort and often has been guided by things as to which we have become all too accustomed or resigned. We follow the usual and common paths—the ones which sometimes have led us to successful results in the past, and where we anticipate finding the least number of pitfalls. And our lives take on a familiarity and predictability which, although not all bad, is not really the life that God intended when He created us.
And then we tend to instill that common course of comfort into the next generation and the next—molding them into our own image, living through them the lives we wish we had lived—with little recognition of the truth that they, too, are God’s own unique creations.
And so, their journey begins to look a lot like ours. They tend to smile, or not, as we do, or don’t. They tend to react to things, positively or negatively, the way we do. It doesn’t have to be that way.
It shouldn’t be that way.
Yet it’s a common occurrence in our society, too often resulting in reaching the end of our own journey leaving a legacy marked by never having reached our full God-given potential. And with our influence on the next generation—you guessed it—the end result of their journey is all too often the same.
That’s not the way God intended it to be.
God intended us to live an uncommon life.
It’s probably why our son, Nathan, stepped out into a writing career—he sensed the call of God on his life to follow his passion and to do what God was calling him to do. And he did, and because of that, his writing and his life has blessed so many lives through the years using the gifts God has given him.
No matter our age— whether 6, 16, 60 or 106—our lives, and the rest of our lives, were not intended to be common. They were not intended to look like someone else’s life. We were not created by the God of the universe to follow the path that the world lays before us. We were not created by the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords to go through each day powerless, passionless, falling asleep then waking up, and doing it all over again the next day until we take our last breath.
We were meant to live uncommon lives of significance. Lives like no one else, because we are designed by God like no one else. We were meant to follow Him where there is no path and blaze the trail which only our lives can blaze with God’s leading. We were meant to live lives of impact with and through Him—for ourselves and for others.
I can almost hear that gentle whisper of the voice of God screaming down from above—
“Scott! Scott! Not that way! Scott—this way—follow Me!”
It’s my choice to listen or not. It’s my choice and yours to lead the common lives that the world lays before us, or the uncommon lives which God intended for us to lead. And in that, to discern where God is calling us, rather than simply to stay where we find ourselves today, or where we have been before. And it’s our responsibility to the next generation of lives entrusted to us—to help God to make them uncommon.
The path seems to be clear: to live the uncommon life—the life of impact and significance that God intended when He created you and only you. It seems clear—to leave a trail that only you can leave, and live the legacy of impact and significance that God intended when He created you.
Press on Nathan and Happy Birthday, tomorrow!
In His Name—Scott
Copyright 2016. Scott L. Whitaker. All rights reserved.
