It is only April, and I am finding myself fighting thoughts of being bored with this year. Last year was a doozie for me, and I jumped into 2018 thinking it would be another year for strides of great growth.
Over the last year and a half, I made a significant move in:
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- A Relationship (ending)
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- New Living arrangements
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- Career Change
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- New Church Commitment and Leadership
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- and Travel
At the start of this year I made plans to continue in these grand adventures, but I am finding there is less to do. You don’t make staggeringly large new commitments every year. If you did, it wouldn’t be called a commitment – It would be called a fling! I realized this week, after commitment comes maintaining. Growth in a different direction. A going deep instead of going wide.
Growing wide feels good. You see progress in a short period of time and you enjoy the reach, touch, and feel of experiencing things as brand new. The new job, the new house, leading at church for the first time, traveling someplace you have never been, the list could go on. Going deep is another beast. It appears to move slower and feels at times gut wrenching. You are no longer trying something for the first time, rather you are sanding down the rough edges of yourself and burrowing into long forgotten corridors of your soul.
You can’t grow wide forever. It will make you weak; and when the storm comes you won’t be able to sustain. As much as going deep is less glamorous, it is essential. Finding ways to keep your heart alive in the mist of repetition, determining to love harder, hold your temper more, breath deeper and sing louder, is the fuel to live.
Where are you at currently? Growing deep or growing wide?
What is the value in one or the other, or both?