Why Can't I Do/Be What I Really Want to Do/Be? (Part 1)

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DO BE DO BE DO. We think the problem is in the DO. We can’t get everything done. We don’t have enough time to start or finish. We put things off but say it's not our fault. We rate our success by the volume and scope of our accomplishments.

There’s a catch, though. We never DO enough well enough to give us that deep sense of contentment we’re seeking. That’s because all along, to DO wasn’t supposed to be the end game. The real goal was, and still is, to BE.

I make my bed every day. I developed the habit early in life; my mother never said why but insisted it must be done. No one goes in my bedroom except me and my dog Oscar, so I don’t do it to impress others. As one item on my auto-pilot checklist, it doesn’t add up to any great life achievement.

I realized some time ago that making my bed is one TO DO that actually helps shape what I want TO BE. The secular saying is, “Who you really are is who you are when no one’s looking.” The Bible puts is this way, “The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Sam 16:7 NLT).

Back to my bed. If I expend the effort daily to do something no one sees, I’m forming a part of my character that might encourage me to do harder tasks, ones that could benefit others without a need to be seen and recognized. That’s one piece of who I want to BE.

There’s another part of this “make the bed” story. I sleep with only one pillow, but I have two others with decorative covers that make the bed look nice. I set those two aside at night and put them back in the morning. I thought, “That’s crazy. I make my bed; that’s good enough. Don’t need extra pillows for décor that no one sees.” So I put those two pillows in the storeroom. Then it occurred to me, “GOOD ENOUGH? Is that the man you want to be? GOOD ENOUGH?” Now the extra pillows are back on the bed!

There’s not much benefit in using this blog to help you “get things done.” If you’re enabled to DO more because of something I write, I pray you’ll soon realize it was only a secondary goal. The primary one will be how your greater success in DOing has been a stairway to BEing. Stay with me as we accomplish this step by step. Maybe you’ll start saying, as I say, that you’re “under reconstruction.”

We're on a path to CREATING HABITS. Right now, that might sound dull or deserving of an eye roll. By the time we get there, though, you will see how habits can be a key to set many crooked things straight.

I want to begin that process today with the question that’s the title of this post:

“WHY CAN’T I DO/BE WHAT I REALLY WANT TO DO/BE?”

I’m writing about me, but not simply to tell my story. I’m not sure it would be worth your time or mine if that were the only goal. I know much of what I write will apply to you. So as you read, don’t click your tongue and shake your head at the manner in which I vulnerably bare myself. Rather, think “Oh, that’s me,” and then you’ll begin ascending the stairway TO BE.

Something had to happen to me, or in me, so that I could first admit current realities, then reconstruct my life to change them. This week and next I’m going to unveil those realities. That’s the starting place that will lead to solutions and hope. Here are the truths I had to embrace about myself:

1) NOTHING I FEEL I’M CREATED TO DO IS EASY.

It wasn’t always that way. In primary school I was at the top of every class. While other kids struggled to learn the difference between lie and lay or sit and set, I didn’t give it a moment’s thought. Everything was simple and obvious to me. Straight A’s in every subject. High School was a bit more difficult, but I still graduated #10 in a class of 650.

College hit me like a ton of bricks. Nothing was easy. Suddenly I had to study and I had never learned how to do that. I was an English major, and the first paper I wrote was left ungraded and filled with red lines drawn through every unnecessary word. I had to start over, and that humiliated me; it had never happened before.

The older I got, the harder everything became. Piano (then keyboard), singing, writing, preaching, teaching, worship, absorbing Bible truths, mastering a computer. Being a husband, father, caring for a house and yard. Nothing, nothing, nothing has been simple ever again!

Meanwhile, appearances are all to the contrary. When I’m before an audience or congregation, people say, “You make that look so natural and easy.” They don’t have a clue what a wreck I am beforehand, and the stage fright that makes me shake inside.

Writing this blog is painfully difficult! I understand it’s normal even for famously talented writers to be up through the night, drinking gallons of coffee while agonizing at the keyboard. Editing over and over, putting red lines through every unnecessary word, rephrasing, clarifying, deleting entire paragraphs. The whole time I’m saying, “Is this worth it? Does this make a difference to anyone?” Why is it so hard to create a 2,500 word post once a week?

I’ve been living in Mexico almost four years, but my Spanish is still terrible. So I started a daily online program. But it's a real struggle. People marvelled years ago when I learned Haitian Creole. They said I spoke it like a “rat lakay” (house rat, meaning like a native). That seemed easy, so what’s the problem with Spanish? Maybe until now I haven’t thought of it as an absolute necessity like I did with Creole.

Do you feel much of what you long TO BE is at a standstill because what you need TO DO seems beyond your ability, or energy, or time…or might it be something else? Think about it.

2. THERE ARE TRUTHS IN MY HEAD THAT SEEM IMPOSSIBLE TO TURN INTO ACTIONS.

I have to admit that I often feel lost on the path from conviction to action. At times it’s because a sense, perhaps a spirit, of confusion keeps me blind to possible plans of accomplishment. Yet, if I’m really honest, I think the problem has more to do with my not really believing I can face the challenge.

Maybe I could find a concert venue where I could present an evening of “Songs of Faith.” Maybe I could minister in a less haphazard way to people I meet at the Happy Hour bar. Maybe I could invite people to my house for regular times of sharing, study, and prayer. Maybe…maybe…maybe.

Somewhere in all those maybes is the voice of God’s Spirit within me, revealing a piece of the destiny He created me to follow. Meanwhile, the louder voice of the evil one ridicules me and plants in my mind that my ideas are ridiculous, impossible, beyond my abilities or expertise, or for a more capable person to accomplish. Do you ever have this problem when considering launching out to DO something that would allow you to BE what you know would express your unique reason for living?

3. I TEND TO OVER-ANALYZE AND IT KEEPS ME FROZEN WITH INDECISION.

My wife and I used to teach people how to discern and unveil their God-given aptitudes and personalities. We blessed many with keys to understand their mates, children and associates, to encourage and celebrate their differences, to rejoice in what used to annoy them. We helped people discover how to help each other be the unique person God made them to be, not what anyone else wanted them to be.

Yet, in years of showing people how to be content with who they are and who they’re not, I couldn’t ever accept those revelations about myself! OK, Lord, you made me primarily melancholy, so I’m deep, emotional, analytical, made to touch others far below the surface, but NOT to be an entrepreneur who can grow mega-numbers of people or money.

Our culture celebrates those who can create Fortune 500 companies (or mega-churches) from nothing, have rags to riches stories, and make their own dreams come true. For my entire life, I’ve bemoaned the fact I’m not like that.

I’m plagued with this thought: If a true Christian has worldly success, it means he’s comfortable here on earth and then gets heaven too. The rest of us struggle here to barely make it. We pray that before we die we might produce even a tiny handful of spiritual fruit to advance His Kingdom. We doubt we’ll ever hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Something is terribly wrong with me, because I don’t want Jesus to return yet until I’ve “fulfilled my destiny” to my own satisfaction and completed what he put me here to do. The evil one convinces me that God Himself rates me by what l DO not by what I have BEcome.

I know it’s not the truth. I know those who touch people deeply one by one are doing what they were created to do, and their eternal reward will be equal to those who preached to 10,000 every Sunday, or who created a giant companies and impacted the lives of thousands of employees.

Still, the truth doesn’t speak loud enough to drown out the voices of demons. So I keep analyzing myself, my direction, my destiny, my plans, hoping that before I die I’ll finally feel I’m ready. That’s a sick perspective for a man of God. But I want you to consider the realities of your life, too, so that you’ll be ready to enter a true reconstruction with me according to the guidance of the only One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

4. I CAN GET PARALYZED BY FEAR.

This is not something I dealt with most of my life. Maybe that’s your story, too. Something happened at a specific time in your life, and the evil one used it to create ongoing fear and anxiety. At least that’s what happened to me.

People always told me I must be fearless. To some extent it was true. I mean, I would be afraid in certain situations, but I was able to keep going in spite of it. I rented cars on vacation and drove them places others considered scary, but it was an adventure to me. Some of those adventures turned sour, when a road I thought would be normal became quite the opposite. I travelled to Haiti multiple times a year. Some frightening situations took place, usually involving broken-down vehicles at night. Once on a bus we were stopped by an angry, gun-toting crowd, but somehow I was OK through it all.

Then we moved to Haiti in 2014. A few situations occurred where I felt trapped, or seriously sick with no good medical care, or menaced by corrupt police for money. One night something in me snapped. I awakened and said to my wife, “Quick, get up; I have to go to a hospital; I think I’m having a heart attack and I can’t breathe.” She called an American doctor I had been seeing, and he calmed me down saying, “If you were having a heart attack, you wouldn’t be able to speak. This is a panic attack.”

What? A panic attack? “No,” I said, “Can’t be. I don’t have panic attacks.” He talked me through it, lying down with the phone to my ear, breathing a certain way while feeling the air go in and out my abdomen, and I finally felt fine. But this wasn’t the end; it was just the start. I had regular panic attacks for about five years after that, often in the middle of the night.

There’s too long a story to tell about how I overcame panic attacks. Now I can feel one coming on, and I’m able to dissipate it quickly before it can progress. But I know it’s all about fear. I was healthy all my life, but more recently normal aging has given me a few medical scares. As soon as I think something feels wrong in my body, the panic starts. Unexpected bills, a warning light on the car dash, a detour getting me lost, even a water leak or loss of electricity in a storm can set off panic like a alarm inside me.

Fear is an enemy. A man of God can live without fear if he has a true, daily intimacy with Jesus and the power of His Spirit in the depths of his being. Still, fear has been able to stop me from DOING so much that would have led to BEING what I long to BE. Does this speak to any reality in your life?

I’ve shared four reasons that I was not able to DO/BE what I really wanted to DO/BE in my life. In my next post, I will share SEVEN more reasons! Many people say, “Oh I deal with fear, laziness, low esteem, and other issues.” And they continue to admit these semi-truths their whole lives without ever conquering them. I call them semi-truths because most of us admit our issues only in part, not confessing the whole. We say, “I have this problem, but so do a lot of people…but I haven’t gone THIS far yet…but no one’s perfect…but you don’t know about my childhood…” Nothing will change or go forward until we admit the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!

I finally got to the point (though I struggled to believe it’s not too late) that whatever it takes, I’m going to DO what I must so I can BE what I know is possible. I know that will require the supernatural intervention of heaven, so I must be sure I’ve got that. As I began this reconstruction, I was greatly encouraged by a study showing that people feel their greatest life successes occurred between 65 and 80 years of age! So nothing is stopping me now.

Hang on with me through this process. Once we fully face what has stood in the way of our DOING and BEING, then I’ll share the journey of BECOMING that I call Reconstruction of Life.

Be blessed today with confessing truth that will lead to freedom and peace.