A compass sits in my desk drawer and I don’t know why.
It has a sharp point for anchoring itself to paper. On the opposite side sits a metal clip gripping a blunt pencil.
It’s a tool for drawing circles. Once every five years I need that.
The other 1,824 days the compass is just there to poke me in the finger as I rummage for pens, stamps or white-out.
Perfect circles are pretty on paper. But when it comes to life, getting into a circular pattern seems stagnant and dull.
- I develop a bad eating habit (snitching whilst cooking!) that needs to be broken.
- I realize after 30 days that I have forgotten to get outside and take a walk, even if it’s cold outside.
- My children alert me when we are in an oatmeal-for-breakfast rut.
Overall, we are supposed to look back over this un-repeatable journey and see progress, maturity and growth. Life is more like a path than a circle.
When things rouse me out of my circles, sometimes I fight it!
But scripture reminds me to move along, with phrases like:
- Rise up! Why is it that you have fallen on your face? (Joshua 7:10)
- Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, And come along! (Song of Solomon 2:10)
- Arise and go, for this is no place of rest… (Micah 2:10)
- I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home. (Mark 2:11)
- Up! (Judges 4:14)
- Let us throw off everything that hinders…and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us! (Hebrews 12:1)
Here’s to getting up, pressing on, and making progress!
“It is always hard to see the purpose in wilderness wanderings until after they are over.” — John Bunyan
“To go back is nothing but death; to go forward is fear of death, and life everlasting beyond it. I will yet go forward.” — John Bunyan
“This hill, though high, I covet to ascend; the difficulty will not me offend. For I perceive the way to life lies here. Come, pluck up, heart; let’s neither faint nor fear.” — John Bunyan
(c) Lisa M. Luciano
Photo credits:unsplash-logochuttersnap
