I have a lot of friends who are “high-capacity achievers”. I look at them and they are wise and talented, and smart, and “tada!” they have a lot of seemingly easy sucess…kind of like Michelle Obama or Justin Bieber. That would not be me.
The other day I wrote about what it takes to build an airplane (like my friend, Gayle). You know, like what it takes to achieve any humongous goal that seems crazy and beyond possibility without divine intervention.
Friday morning as I was walking home through our snowy neighborhood from the coffee shop where I write, I got to thinking back over this past year, 2012 and two “airplanes” that I set out to build. They didn’t crash and burn. They never even got off the ground! I felt tears sting my eyes (hoping they wouldn’t freeze on my cheeks) as I re-lived my deep, deep disappointment at these “failures”.
One was a fund raiser for starving kids in Africa. I had worked with a team and prayed for 200 contributors. We got about 15. The other was a writing submission that was important to me. It was rejected without feedback. I had a bunch of airplanes that soared in 2012, but, like most of us, it’s easy to obsess about those that didn’t.
I had prayed fervently about both. I thought both would honor God. I worked really hard, and did my part as best I could. I had a team of truth-tellers and consultants for both. I broke them down into smaller segments. I thought I followed all the right steps. But they both failed. Miserably.
So I, like you (if you’ve failed at anything), have been trying to figure out “What now?” Here are some of the questions I’m asking:
