We are one day away from there being 90 days left in this year! NINETY DAYS?!?! Can anybody tell me where the time went? I thought we were just welcoming summer into our midst, and now the autumn is making her presence known among us.
Ninety days. Three months. Thirteen weeks. Two thousand, one hundred and sixty hours. No matter how you look at it, it’s not that much time. However, it is enough time to for us to put (and keep) our hand to the plow and make some things happen.
What things, you ask? Those goals we set out to accomplish six months ago but haven’t moved on yet. The book we have yet to pen. The relationship that needs mended. The apology that needs to be made. The doctor’s appointment we need to schedule and keep and go to. The changes in our physical, mental and spiritual diet that we crucially need to make.
I beg of us a few questions to consider: Why haven’t we moved? What is keeping us from completing the tasks at hand? I bet as you read this, some of you may begin to go down the list of reasons why — work, family, finances, so on and so forth. I push back with what may be a challenging thought with which to reflect. The reason we haven’t moved, that “thing” that keeps us from completing tasks at hand, in none other than OURSELVES! No one else is to blame. No one else can appropriately bear the brunt of such responsibility.
It is I. It is YOU. It is WE.
We have let 275 go by with us thinking about making moves. Two hundred seventy-five days of us talking about it, writing about it, praying about it. Lord, have we prayed. We have prayed, asking God to do this and do that, with specific details of when and how and maybe even where. We have fasted and cried and read our Bibles, highlighting particular texts that speak to our situation. In such moments, we are certain that once we finish praying, crying, fasting and reading, we are going to get up and get going. Yet we find our paths halted by brick walls of doubt, fear, anxiety, frustration and all those other small foxes that spoil the vine (Song of Solomon 2:15).
Ah, the vine! While we love the fruit it bears, I’m sure it’s not the favorite part of the plant to tend. Even the best gardeners can get a bit tired. But there is a gardener, the Master Gardener, who does not mind doing the necessary pruning for the sake of a bountiful harvest. Who signs up for pruning? I’m sure the lines aren’t long. However, I am also sure that once we sign up for the pruning process, and allow ourselves to be groomed by God, the Vinedresser, those brick walls will no longer hinder us. We will be able to go forward in these next 90 (well, 91) days fully motivated and empowered to get things done. We will be able to say we finished this race. No matter what place we finish in, WE WILL FINISH.
I read a statement that has stuck with me, and I hope it sticks with you in these last hundred meters of the year — It’s about the action, not the outcome. With that said, let us finish and finish strong.
Rae Karim is pastor at Northwood Christian Church. She can be reached at rae@Indyncc.org.
