It’s Complicated

My family loves to quote Yogi Berra, the famous New York Yankees player. A few of my favorites are:

·         When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

·         You can observe a lot just by watching.

·         Baseball is 90% mental. The other half is physical.

·         Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.

·         The future ain’t what it used to be.

·         It’s like déjà vu all over again.

Each of these, and many others, make me laugh every time.  Mostly because I can relate.  As a verbal processer of my thoughts, things sometimes come tumbling out of my mouth that aren’t quite right. And, we now have a few legendary stories within the family of me making a few Yogi-isms of my own.

Recently, it was my husband’s turn.  He was trying to encourage me but got tangled up in his words and accidentally spoke an unexpected truth.

“Every step begins with a journey,” he declared.

I burst out laughing. 

The actual saying goes, “every journey begins with a step.” Recently, it seems quite the contrary.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been living with a teenager in the house for the past 12 years.  Or maybe it’s simply human nature. Whatever the case, we seem to do things the hard way around here. Every step begins with a journey feels pretty accurate.

Maybe you can relate. We don’t like change, so we don’t until the pain of our current existence is greater than the challenge of change. Before we’ll step into new patterns or habits, we basically must make ourselves miserable with our old ones. The journey of discomfort eventually motivates us to take a step toward something better.

This isn’t new.  We see it in the Bible with some regularity. The prodigal son runs amuck until he can’t stand the stench anymore. Abraham and Sarah make a huge mess of things instead of trusting God’s timing. The Israelites wander for 40 years after just being rescued and witnessing the parting of the Red Sea.

Why are we so bent on doing things the hard way? I’ll spare you the list.  You know why. Instead, I challenge you to surrender today. Your pride. Your will. Your desires.  Whatever needs surrendering to God. Let’s not make it so complicated. Let’s just do it and take that step.