After my last post, a friend sent me a message asking for more clarity on what she says to be conflict between setting goals and being proactive in life versus trusting in the Divine to lay out a path for you.
I don't think they have to be in conflict. The key is to try and discern the proper time and place for each approach. Unfortunately, that's easier said than done.
I'll use my career path as an example. As you read through it, keep in mind I was praying for direction throughout all of these decisions and grumbling or worse when it appeared that my prayers weren't going to be answered.
I majored in International Relations at West Point. I was fortunate enough to have then-Major John Nagl design an Asymmetrical Warfare focus for me that highlighted insurgency and counterinsurgency strategies. John would later co-author the Counterinsurgency Field Manual, so I can honestly say that I had some of the world's best guidance in the strategic use of insurgency and counterinsurgency principles.
So I graduated from West Point steeped in these disciplines and then went into the Army. Unbeknowst to any of us, the US would enter into a major conflict just over two years after my class's commissioning date. A few years after that, we would be engaged in two different wars in which we'd use counterinsurgency strategies against insurgent forces.
From a human's flawed perspective, it would seem that I'd been directed by a higher power to learn about insurgencies and counterinsurgencies in order to participate in those conflicts. But that wasn't the case, I received an injury in Ranger School that led to a medical discharge.
What was the point of all that training just to fail?
So I bounced around for a little while before going to law school. Before and during law school, I had grand visions of myself as everything from an environmental defender to a human rights attorney; but the job market for young attorneys with good, but nonstellar law school grades was less glamorous than I'd anticipated.
I was fortunate to end up practicing corporate law for a private firm in my hometown. Over the course of the first six months that I worked for that firm, I realized that great traditional attorneys have a particular makeup that combines intelligence and obsessive attention to details. I also realized that I did not have that makeup. I stayed with the job for another year and a half, but it only became more clear that I would never be the kind of attorney that either me or my bosses had hoped.
What was the point of all that training just to fail?
Three months later, our family lost my stepbrother to a PTSD suicide. The details surrounding his death made it clear that the military had to change how it was caring for our returning heroes' post traumatic stress injuries. The family met in my stepmother's kitchen and decided to tell his story to try and make a difference. We decided that I would lead the advocacy effort.
I was qualified to take this on because:
While I think that hand of a higher power is evident in that process, I don't know whether those failures and boondoggles of mine were necessary parts of a higher plan or whether God designed a very creative outcome to utilize my diverse and somewhat stunted skill-set. It's a divine mystery that's beyond my comprehension.
The takeaway is that the process of setting and working towards goals was important, even when the goals were not completed as I had planned. At some point, the Divine took over and led me where I needed to go; but that doesn't mean that my earlier efforts weren't essential.
The Bible describes the process as, "A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." Proverbs 16:9.
I was rolling my friend's question around in my head this weekend when I went riverboarding on the Gallatin River. For those of you who haven't heard of riverboarding, it involves going headfirst down rapids on top of a foam or inflatable board. (Here's an old video of me on that stretch of water for anyone that needs a visual.) You wear a helmet, life jacket, wetsuit, fins, and some type of leg protection.
I couldn't help but think that riverboarding provided an analogy to my friend's question. Like life, you outfit yourself with the best tools that you can. In the river, I'd be lost without my Churchhill fins. Similarly, I couldn't imagine trying to navigate through life without an education, relationships, and spirtual guidance.
While moving through the rapids, a riverboarder is constantly planning and revising their "line," the path that they intend to take through the churning water. A riverboarder knows that they won't be able to follow their line all the way down the river. They will be knocked off course and swirled in different directions by the current.
A riverboarder is constantly trying to keep themself on their line and then readjusting their life when they are knocked off course or in response to a new set of obstacles. It's the exact same process that we use to navigate through our careers and other life challenges. The world has it's own set of rapids, eddies, and holes that push us off course of our goals and objectives. But like a riverboarder midway through a run, our only option is to recalibrate and keep going.
In some situations, we will be completely overwhelmed. The riveboarder's line might lead them facing a ten foot wall of water that plunges into a rock garden. Or in life, we might end up in even more precarious straits: job loss, relationship disasters, serious losses, etc. Either way, we don't have the option to quit. The trial has to be faced and somehow overcome.
In riverboarding, the answer is to creep up on your board to maximize your bouyancy and pray that the powerful force of the liquid beneath you will push you and your board through the obstacle without too much damage to board or body.
When confronted in a seemingly insurmountable obstacle in life, we can't know if the obstacle was set in our path as part of a higher plan or whether we stumbled into the issue and will have to trust in God to sort it out somehow. We're probably too worried to care.
At that point, prayer becomes our version of creeping up on the board. Hoping that our call to the Divine will be answered by a loving hand to push us beyond the peril. Prayerfully waiting the fulfillment the promise of Psalm 34:18, "When the just cry out, the Lord hears and rescues them from all distress."
I don't think they have to be in conflict. The key is to try and discern the proper time and place for each approach. Unfortunately, that's easier said than done.
I'll use my career path as an example. As you read through it, keep in mind I was praying for direction throughout all of these decisions and grumbling or worse when it appeared that my prayers weren't going to be answered.
I majored in International Relations at West Point. I was fortunate enough to have then-Major John Nagl design an Asymmetrical Warfare focus for me that highlighted insurgency and counterinsurgency strategies. John would later co-author the Counterinsurgency Field Manual, so I can honestly say that I had some of the world's best guidance in the strategic use of insurgency and counterinsurgency principles.
So I graduated from West Point steeped in these disciplines and then went into the Army. Unbeknowst to any of us, the US would enter into a major conflict just over two years after my class's commissioning date. A few years after that, we would be engaged in two different wars in which we'd use counterinsurgency strategies against insurgent forces.
From a human's flawed perspective, it would seem that I'd been directed by a higher power to learn about insurgencies and counterinsurgencies in order to participate in those conflicts. But that wasn't the case, I received an injury in Ranger School that led to a medical discharge.
What was the point of all that training just to fail?
So I bounced around for a little while before going to law school. Before and during law school, I had grand visions of myself as everything from an environmental defender to a human rights attorney; but the job market for young attorneys with good, but nonstellar law school grades was less glamorous than I'd anticipated.
I was fortunate to end up practicing corporate law for a private firm in my hometown. Over the course of the first six months that I worked for that firm, I realized that great traditional attorneys have a particular makeup that combines intelligence and obsessive attention to details. I also realized that I did not have that makeup. I stayed with the job for another year and a half, but it only became more clear that I would never be the kind of attorney that either me or my bosses had hoped.
What was the point of all that training just to fail?
Three months later, our family lost my stepbrother to a PTSD suicide. The details surrounding his death made it clear that the military had to change how it was caring for our returning heroes' post traumatic stress injuries. The family met in my stepmother's kitchen and decided to tell his story to try and make a difference. We decided that I would lead the advocacy effort.
I was qualified to take this on because:
- I'd been in the military, but failed. I understood the system, but wasn't beholden to it.
- I'd been trained in the law, but failed. I had the skills of an attorney, but wasn't afraid that picking a public fight would get me canned.
- I'd studied insurgency strategies and tactics, but failed to practice them in the military. The political campaign was classic David versus Goliath. It would not have been successful without the use of classic insurgency strategies.
While I think that hand of a higher power is evident in that process, I don't know whether those failures and boondoggles of mine were necessary parts of a higher plan or whether God designed a very creative outcome to utilize my diverse and somewhat stunted skill-set. It's a divine mystery that's beyond my comprehension.
The takeaway is that the process of setting and working towards goals was important, even when the goals were not completed as I had planned. At some point, the Divine took over and led me where I needed to go; but that doesn't mean that my earlier efforts weren't essential.
The Bible describes the process as, "A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." Proverbs 16:9.
I was rolling my friend's question around in my head this weekend when I went riverboarding on the Gallatin River. For those of you who haven't heard of riverboarding, it involves going headfirst down rapids on top of a foam or inflatable board. (Here's an old video of me on that stretch of water for anyone that needs a visual.) You wear a helmet, life jacket, wetsuit, fins, and some type of leg protection.
I couldn't help but think that riverboarding provided an analogy to my friend's question. Like life, you outfit yourself with the best tools that you can. In the river, I'd be lost without my Churchhill fins. Similarly, I couldn't imagine trying to navigate through life without an education, relationships, and spirtual guidance.
While moving through the rapids, a riverboarder is constantly planning and revising their "line," the path that they intend to take through the churning water. A riverboarder knows that they won't be able to follow their line all the way down the river. They will be knocked off course and swirled in different directions by the current.
A riverboarder is constantly trying to keep themself on their line and then readjusting their life when they are knocked off course or in response to a new set of obstacles. It's the exact same process that we use to navigate through our careers and other life challenges. The world has it's own set of rapids, eddies, and holes that push us off course of our goals and objectives. But like a riverboarder midway through a run, our only option is to recalibrate and keep going.
In some situations, we will be completely overwhelmed. The riveboarder's line might lead them facing a ten foot wall of water that plunges into a rock garden. Or in life, we might end up in even more precarious straits: job loss, relationship disasters, serious losses, etc. Either way, we don't have the option to quit. The trial has to be faced and somehow overcome.
In riverboarding, the answer is to creep up on your board to maximize your bouyancy and pray that the powerful force of the liquid beneath you will push you and your board through the obstacle without too much damage to board or body.
When confronted in a seemingly insurmountable obstacle in life, we can't know if the obstacle was set in our path as part of a higher plan or whether we stumbled into the issue and will have to trust in God to sort it out somehow. We're probably too worried to care.
At that point, prayer becomes our version of creeping up on the board. Hoping that our call to the Divine will be answered by a loving hand to push us beyond the peril. Prayerfully waiting the fulfillment the promise of Psalm 34:18, "When the just cry out, the Lord hears and rescues them from all distress."
