After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? Galatians 3:3
They would huddle in the parking lot, crouched down behind car bumpers, giddy with anticipation, pocket protectors stocked, slide rules hitched on their belt loops. Little boys playing with fire in the guise of genius scientists on the verge of discovery.
My dad and his colleagues.
Rocket scientists.
Right at the cusp of the age of space exploration.
They’d converge outside the research building in the parking lot and some brave or crazy soul would light the wick of the latest try at a propulsion compound or cone design of a prototype and the team would huddle behind their vehicles and wait to see what would happen. Would the propulsion compound burn clean or would it explode? Would the cone design survive a fiery push into the air or would it crumble?
There was the occasional success. There was the frequent failure. All the effort and ingenuity and resource poured into a try. Sometimes what they had created would work as expected. And sometimes it wouldn’t.
Regardless of outcome, this truth remained.
You didn’t quit.
You learned. You analyzed. You troubleshot. You brainstormed.
But you didn’t quit.
It meant that my dad and his colleagues were often in the process of a relaunch, reconfiguring and redesigning toward a goal of taking humans into space safely and effectively. Through the years, through the research process, through the test rocket successes and failures, they were always refining.
And always with an eye toward that visionary goal.
I don’t know about you, but I started the year hunched in the proverbial parking lot of life. I set a few specific goals. Attainable. Challenging. Stretching.
And while progress has been made in some, there have been some attempts that were duds. And there were a couple of flash fires with others.
It makes me question if I should have even tried.
But to soar, we first have to strive.
And striving means steps forward. And back.
So it’s time to reboot.
Restart.
The goals of 2017 remain vital. Important. To launch toward those things that were prayerfully laid on my heart at the beginning of the year, even if I haven’t yet made the progress or checked the boxes that I wanted to, are still of great value.
The vision remains.
So.
I’m hunkering down behind the bumper again. Putting the flame of intention and the propellent of action to the kindling. And watching what happens.
Because it’s important to stay in an attitude of trying. Editing. Listening. Relaunching.
Because one of these days, all that momentum will fly.
