What's Your Highway?
Do you ever question your own beliefs? Like you sort of have an idea of a certain conviction that you have but when you try to actually dig deeper down to the core of it, you realize that in fact you actually struggle with which side of the fence you’re on. This has been me for the past couple of weeks, trying to come up with how I wanted to approach this topic that I’ve wanted to write about. As I’ve said in one of my previous blogs, I usually try to write about stuff that’s personal to me, or thoughts that I’ve had in my own life, just hoping that maybe one other person needed to hear it, or may be encouraged by it. I knew I’ve wanted to write this blog called ‘What’s Your Highway’ for about a month now, but the more I thought about what to write, the more I struggled with the idea of the actual meaning of it.
One of the foundations behind 1 Life is the idea of chasing your dreams and being the person that YOU want to be, not what anyone else wants you to be. But the more I dug into trying to write about creating your own highway in life that makes you genuinely happy, the more I realized that it brought into discussion something that I as a Christian, am stuck in a grey area about; free will. A basic definition of free will is the ability to choose between different possible courses of action. Yet, as a Christian another thing that I also believe is that God is in control, and has a bigger plan for us than we can imagine for ourselves. Here I’ll give you an example. How many times have you been told or told someone, “everything is going to work out like it is supposed to” and then turn around and hear or say that “you can be anything you want” or “you control your own life”? So which one is it? Is one wrong and another right? My answer? Both of them are just as true as the other. However, a few things must happen on your end in order for both of these ideas to be true in and of each other. Actually, it’s four things to be exact. Four simple things. You must have faith, you must dream, you must know, and finally you must act.
Do you really know what faith is? Faith is complete trust or confidence in someone or something. Complete. Trust. How often do we fall short of the literal definition of faith? You see, faith is easy to have when things are going in the right direction. But the ironic thing is that the hardest time to have faith is when you actually need it the most. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” But how hard is that sometimes? I know I struggle with this. Sometimes you can’t see the big picture, and things don’t seem to make sense. Maybe you can’t feel God’s presence, or begin to question why he would let bad things happen to you. When life is messy, when it gets unpredictable, or when complete chaos occurs, that is when you have to have faith in God more than any other time in your life. Trust His timing in your life; it’s always perfect. God has given, and will give you endless opportunities to be exactly what you want to be. Approach these opportunities with a thankful heart. Give Him the glory when you succeed AND when you fail. There would be no lessons without failure. He is a faithful God, but that requires us to have that same unwavering faith in Him in return.
The second step is probably the easiest part of this equation, yet it is usually one of the things we give up on the easiest. The society that we live in now has made it all too common for us to live a life of monotony and simplicity. But the problem is life was never meant to be simple and safe. Life should be extraordinary. Don’t ever get stuck listening to other people about what you should do with YOUR own life. No dream is too big. No idea is unattainable. Nothing that you could possibly want to do in this life is impossible. Dream BIG. Dream so big that you scare yourself. You should be uncomfortable with your dreams because of the vulnerability that it involves. If your dreams don’t get you out of your comfort zone, dream even bigger. Make people not be able to believe your dreams when you tell them and remember that’s perfectly okay because it’s your dream not theirs.
The key to being able to stand firm in your dreams in the face of uncertainty is an unwavering conviction that this is what you want. Do you know why this is your dream? I don’t mean is this what you want because it’ll give you materialistic things such as money and cars. I want you to dig deeper than that. Do you know deep down in your core that this is what you want with your life and the direction you want your life to go? Does it make you truly happy? Are you able to give back and help others? Does it allow you to travel and see the world? Whatever reason it may be, you must know without a shadow of a doubt that this is what you want, and nobody in the entire world can tell you otherwise.
The last piece of the puzzle is the one that is the scariest. You can start small, though. All you have to do is act. Take that first step. Step out on that limb. Get out of the rut that you’re stuck in and take back your life. The problem people have is that huge ‘what if’ hanging in the air when they take that leap of faith. I’m telling you, no matter how scary it may seem, you will never regret taking a chance and chasing exactly what you want. People are scared to be vulnerable and that’s completely natural. Heck, I’m scared to be vulnerable. Because it allows us to get hurt, rejected, and ridiculed. But it’s a necessity in order to make life go from ordinary to exceptional. Don’t be scared to let what you want in this life be known. Life is way too short for that. But all you have to do is begin. Your life will have twists and turns, forks in the roads, intersections, you get the point. The question you have to ask yourself is are you headed in a direction that actually means something to you, or are you on a meaningless journey? If you have a clear idea of your destination, then don’t be discouraged by the twists and turns and bumps in the road. It’s only natural. And above all don’t lose faith. If you truly are on your own highway, chasing what you want, you’ll end up where you’re supposed to be. The destination will be more gratifying than you can imagine.
-BH
“Why not take a chance on faith as well? Take a chance on faith, not hope, but faith. I don’t believe in hope. Hope is a beggar. Hope walks through the fire, and faith leaps over it. You are ready and able to do beautiful things in this world.” –Jim Carrey
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