Manufactured Momentum

Living in Atlanta, I know that my idea of cold is slightly, if not majorly, askew. That being said, when I woke up this morning to temperatures in the low 30's, I knew I was not in for a peaceful and enjoyable jog. Instead I found that after being outside for 2 minutes I had to turn around, go back inside and grab an extra pair of socks, another long sleeve shirt, and a scarf (if you have asthma, when it's cold breathing through a scarf that is loosely around your neck helps out with your breathing a lot.) Then I turned up "Till I Collapse" a little bit louder and was off. During that 2.5 miles there were a couple brief times when I forgot that my feet were hurting from being cold and just enjoyed the jog for what it was. But for the most part I was very aware of every time the road went even slightly uphill. Even the flat ground felt as if it was tar, pulling my feet downward and making it harder to get any real momentum going. And it was at one of these "dear God, please say this will be over soon" moments that I thought about how hard it is to create momentum where there is none. At my last of job, seeing where we had momentum and where we were manufacturing it was something we assessed on a regular basis. There were certain things that worked, but then other things we thought they should or we hoped they would work, but in the end we were just trying to drum up momentum for something we should have laid to rest long before. Life's like that too. There are friendships we think should work or things we wish would work. For some reason in our mind we have set a standard or goal, or created a picture of what where we should be or what our life should look like... but in the end it just doesn't work out and we find ourselves working so hard to create momentum for something we should have given up long ago. And it doesn't even have to be anything big, but even the small things can suck us dry of all our energy. I've been working on a book and also trying to keep up with writing this blog and the other day I had some free time and sat down and, well... nothing. But I had some free time and so I had this idea in my mind that I must get some writing done. So I forced it and well... everything I came up with can only be categorized as crap. So I closed my MacBook and went on to something else because in that small thing I was trying to create momentum for something that just wasn't going to happen. Let me clarify, when I say "trying to create momentum" I'm not talking about sticking out something that's hard. That's totally different and it's true most things worth having are worth fighting for. What I'm talking about is when it goes from working hard at something to white-knuckling our way through, all the while being miserable. Refusing to face the fact that it's just not working and it never will work. And I think this happens a lot when we have unrealistic expectations. Whether it's a relationship, a job, how we should look, how much money should be in the bank, what our prayer life should look like or how much time we should spend with God.... we often have to face the fact that our expectations, our "should haves" and "would haves" are our of whack. And the sooner we notice when this is happening, the better off we'll be. When we stop trying to manufacture momentum then we can enjoy where the road takes us and put our energy towards the battles that are worth fighting...