sarahjbaker.com

We have become masters at avoiding all we can – at all costs. I’d like to think we can all agree on that. Call it procrastination; call it lazy, or whatever you want, but id say it’s practically become an art to most.

For instance, right now I have 7 unheard voicemails on my phone… Why? Because I figure, if I don’t listen to them, then I don’t have to carry the weight of obligation that is attached to these said messages. I hate that weighty “ugh ive gotta return their call” feeling. You all know the feeling and you know it well. I’m sure I’m not that only sick one here.  *god I hope not*
while you’re busy judging me, read on.

So maybe there are the %4 of you that tackle everything head on and scare off the 96% of us that would rather recluse to our passive ways, but I’d say we could all agree that avoidance comes quite natural to us all and it doesn’t even take much effort.

we avoid homework, work, dishes, laundry, friendships, conversations, accountability, reality, etc… I mean, think about it, 99.9% of the world is texting 24/7? WHY? Because we want to avoid an actual conversation with a human being, so we don’t get stuck on the phone hearing about things we probably don’t even care about, or get asked a question that we wish we had more time to think about and respond to, like we WOULD if we were texting! And of course we love that we have all the power, we have all the time in the world to respond, so we can avoid it if we want to. (don’t get me wrong, im in that 99.9 of the world that likes to text, too. we’re in this sinking boat together)

*selah*

But here’s the problem with it all… Here’s the problem with all of my un-listened to voicemails. It’s not until things start to fall apart, that we even realize something is wrong. im not saying your life will come crashing down if you don’t listen to your voicemails, but what I AM saying is that the habit of avoidance has got to start somewhere. It creeps in the most unexpected ways and places until something happens to grab our attention and we realize, hey maybe I’ve avoided [fill in the blank] for far too long now. yet, we should have discovered this way back there, and of course we avoided those indicators too…

There’s great danger in avoidance. It’s like a disease that will spread as long as you let it, or until it’s too late. It’s a terrible habit to get your life and heart into, because it’ll so quickly leak into areas of your life you never intended on avoiding, but the habit started with such little things that now… well now it’s moved on to big things and you start to feel your friendships, your family, or job suffer because of it.

I can only avoid trying to not avoid, for so long…
it’s time to start doing life head on.

return those phone calls
study
do the dishes
fold the laundry
play with your kids
stay accountable
have that conversation you’ve been dreading
face that problem

Cause these things aren’t going anywhere… and in fact they’re there to better us, they’re there to refine us – through each load of laundry, each conversation that you didn’t wanna have, or that part of reality you fear of facing; its all in front of us and around us as another opportunity to steward disciple, to walk in love, to exercise humility, or to see and experience the very present grace of God strengthen us for all that today will bring.

“Avoid problems and you’ll never be the one who overcame them.”
-Richard Bach

I hope you didn’t avoid reading this. cause well…. we all know where that gets us.

-S