Steps

Taking lots of steps requires patience, insight, and stamina.  If I evaluate my approach to many steps I find most of the time I run out of patience, lack the required insight, and fight for my breath.  I am not being particularly harsh on my self, rather it is a candid observation that I, like many others, is eager to get things done, often fly by the seat of my pants, and lack the determination to stick things through. 
 
The solution is to compensate.  I work to combine patience and stamina, often pushing myself to be extraordinarily methodical, detailed driven, and thoughtful.  It doesn’t always work but clearly it helps.  Projects are completed, tasks checked off the various lists, and priorities set.  When I look around and compare I get pretty comfortable.  Clearly the process is working.  Or is it?
 
I would like to think my relationship with God is the most important thing in my life.  It clearly is near the top.  My approach to God is to utilize the approach I know works in getting things done.  This approach includes discipline (thoughtful), deliberate (methodical), and relentless (detailed driven with an obsession of completing the process).  If I can work harder, better, and longer then I will accomplish the goal of relationship! 
 
As I look out on the dawning sky in Chicago I am struck by the process reflected in the skyline and in the buildings within.  This is a city build on the same premise and approach.  Solid, steady, and able to stay the course are phases that clearly echo on the walls.  Yet to Chicago and to my self Jesus’ words are a stark warning; “This is why I told you earlier that no one is capable of coming to me on his own.  You get to me only as a gift from the Father.”  (John 6.65)
 
I wonder if I am willing to accept something instead of trying to work for it.  It may sound easy but for me it isn’t.  This is our first step; everything else will fall into place.