Eyes On The Prize

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 3:13-14

There was a time in my life when I was an avid gym bunny. I would wake up at an ungodly hour - which is about 3 hours before the godly ones - and I would get dressed, jump on my bike, and go to the gym. I worked out regularly and, eventually, ended up reaching my goal. In later years this achievement became a foggy and distant memory, and I’d often wonder why I needed the help of a personal trainer, or the threat of imminent heart disease to achieve the same consistency. And, without fail, I’d fall off track before finally reaching the goals I had set for myself.

One day it dawned on me that the one time I had been successful, I had been working towards an immovable goal, and that goal had been my wedding day. It’s easy to give yourself an out when motivation is lagging, but when you’ve set a date, and already sent out the invitations, there’s nothing for it but to get out and work towards it. On the particularly hard mornings, there was something about the thought of walking down a long aisle with everyone looking at me that made it slightly easier to hop out of bed and get to work.

I think the same could be said for my life in the past two years. Glyn and I have had some pretty big goals, and the timeline was adjustable but the goal was not. Once we agreed that we were to move to Budapest, and started that conversation with people, it became something that gained its own momentum. Once you start telling people that you’re moving to the other side of the world, it can leave you feeling a bit sheepish if you don’t follow through. And once you start selling things off and leaving your home, it goes up another level.

In this way, we had a goal, and we had small steps along the way that motivated us to keep working towards the goal, even when those steps became progressively harder. At one point, Glyn had to give up his two German Shepherds, which would never have happened at the start of the journey. But when the time came, the momentum was too great and the cost of inaction too high.

The thrill that I felt when I was finally walking off of the plane into Budapest was crazy high. The work that we had done for 3 years had led us to this moment, and it gave me the ultimate sense of achievement.

The real skill though, the real challenge, seems to be to find the next goal.

Once you hit the missions field, even in countries that might speak the same language as you, the daily routines that used to come naturally now require a high degree of concentration. The result of that is similar to when learning to ride a bike: you look down at the pedals. The circular motion that activates the chain and moves the wheels is not always natural, and we instinctively look down to make sure our feet are where they’re meant to be, and that the pedals are going around, forcing the bike forward.

The problem with this is that true balance is not achieved when you’re looking down at the pedals. You have to look up at where you’re going in order to make the ride successful. But you can’t do that until you have the pedal/foot thing down pat.

In my first few months here, I've been looking down at the pedals. We’ve been setting up a home, trying to learn enough of the language to get by, and trying to figure out who we are in this new context. I've fallen off the bike and grazed my knees a few times, but like a persistent child (who also might have an encouraging and persistent parent) I've gotten back on the bike, set my feet right, and launched off again. And again. And again.

Once, when learning to ride my bike I rode right into a tree, and it feels a little like that now. Sometimes concentrating on the small things means the peripherals aren’t in focus and we might hurt ourselves, or slip up. But the good news is, we can readjust, put the feet back in the right place and launch off again in the right direction.

Finally, I’ve started to have enough momentum to glance up at where I'm going. While I have yet to set up a regular gym habit, what I can say is that it feels like I'm facing the right direction and my feet, although wobbly, are fixed on those pedals. My eyes are firmly fixed on the future and it’s looking exciting! Not too many trees in my line of sight!