Non-Resistance

Life works a lit­tle bet­ter when you go with the flow. The most mis­er­able peo­ple I know fill their sen­tences with “shoulds” and “oughts.” They are for­ever frus­trated. Some­times I won­der if the lit­tle mech­a­nism in their minds, that deter­mines their tastes and expec­ta­tions, does not change the stan­dards every five min­utes. That has to be a ter­ri­ble trip through life. For them, no mat­ter what is going on, it is the wrong thing.

Going with the flow does not mean just being one of the masses that Jesus described as the mind­less ones that miss eter­nal life, because they are one of those that fol­low the “broad path that leads to destruc­tion.” Non-resistance is not pas­siv­ity. It is using a ham­mer, but let­ting the ham­mer do most of the work. If you let the ham­mer be the ham­mer, it is an amaz­ing tool. Swing it with some con­fi­dence. The same applies for the rest of the tools in the tool chest. Let them be what they are. Let them do what they do best.

I use the tool anal­ogy when work­ing with peo­ple. Some peo­ple are ham­mers — some are paint­brushes. Do not con­fuse the two. Choose the tool for the task, then get out of the way. Hov­er­ing and micro-managing is a faith­less approach. Let peo­ple pick their tasks. They are gifted by God more than com­mis­sioned by you.

Let your mind be your mind. Respect how your body works. Pit your­self against either and you will be very ill. Step back a few paces from your­self and learn that unique indi­vid­ual that bears your name. The stages of life can­not be resisted suc­cess­fully. No one can stay an ado­les­cent for­ever (not even Rock Stars). One day, whether you want to or not, you turn twenty-one (then the decades zoom by). Go with it. Resis­tance is futile. Save your resis­tance ener­gies for real temp­ta­tions. You will need them there.