Twenty-Five and the Quarter Life Crisis
Twenty-five...
I have been alive for literally a quarter of a century! It just sounds so much more surreal when you put it that way, doesn't it? I don't know about you, but I still don't feel old enough to be an adult. And yet, life can sometimes feel like one big deadline that I'm always striving to accomplish. In the midst of all the craziness in day to day agendas, it's easy to get lost in what I have yet to accomplish and how much more of me it will take to get there. Sometimes, life feels like a treadmill that gets faster without your consent, almost like you're treading water, just trying to keep your head above the waves.
Goals get dimmer, vision gets filtered through duties and obligations, but in the midst of the chaos we rarely realize what's happening. It's when we begin to let ourselves dream of what we truly want that we realize life is about more than just achieving the next deadline. Rather it's a continuous journey, stretching and molding us into the magnificent creatures we were designed to be.
"Promise me you will not spend so much time treading water and trying to keep your head above the waves that you forget, truly forget, how much you have always loved to swim." -Tyler Knott Gregson
With every passing year, the capacity for our lives doesn't diminish, but expands. As we grow older, we are able to reach new heights, depths, and understandings that we never were able to grasp before. True, it can often feel like, "God has given me too much to handle... again!" But this is just what the enemy wants you to think. You were given this life because you are strong enough to live it, not because of your strength, but because of the strength of the one who lies within you. He is the one who carefully and strategically placed those dreams, desires and drives in your heart, creating a sort of a holy dissatisfaction with anything less. These dreams were not meant to wear you out, drag you down and cause you to feel like you don't have what it takes. But rather, they were meant to drive you to someone much bigger than you, who is able to accomplish much greater things in your life.
In the years ahead, I want to view my days not as simply a means to an end, but a journey to lean in to, to learn from and to enjoy. I dare you to not meditate on what lies behind but rather on what lies ahead, squinting into the brightness of your future with a peaceful assurance that you will greet it with a smile.
Yet, my brothers, I do not consider myself to have “arrived”, spiritually, nor do I consider myself already perfect. But I keep going on, grasping ever more firmly that purpose for which Christ grasped me. My brothers, I do not consider myself to have fully grasped it even now. But I do concentrate on this: I leave the past behind and with hands outstretched to whatever lies ahead I go straight for the goal—my reward the honor of being called by God in Christ. –Philippians 3:12-14 (PHILLIPS)