Our Work and Focus

I posted this on my Facebook page Reclaim a Life of Joy over the weekend. I thought it deserved a space here too.  ⇒⇒

I’m reading Live Big, Be Well by Winn Collier again. This is the second time I’ve read it. Each time I have found nuggets of wisdom, some new, some just coming into clarity. Today I was especially drawn to these words: “if there is no call to joy, then I question whether it is my call, my work.” Jonas, the main character, goes on in this paragraph to speak words from two others. They both spoke of feeling a call to dance as a sign they are to come alongside a cause or work.

I find these thoughts to be my experience too. When I am called to a work I feel a tingling in my whole body. Often it is a small hair standing on the back of my neck type of experience. Other times it starts in my toes and gradually builds into a shiver of sorts. Either way it is a feeling of great joy and excitement. Our call should bring joy, an almost electric tingling to our toes. It should draw us into a dance of sorts. If I don’t sense, in my bones, something outside of myself drawing me into the frey, I tend to sit back, breath, let it go.

This has not always been the case for me. I have been known to jump in with both feet, only to get burned in the chaos. I’ve learned this year that waiting and watching are better.

If I take time, and breath, Gods call and direction becomes clear. The tingle will come for the right things, at the right time. As Jonas notes, I have to trust God has others to fight the battles I sit back from. After all God is God and I am just one simple human trying to find pieces of joy daily. To assume I am the only one who can fight these battles takes away from the power God has over all creation.

How about you, do you fight because of the “fire in your belly” or because it seems like a good thing to jump into? Do those things you do, those causes you involve yourself in, do they create joy, a living dance in your soul you can’t deny? Do they give life to your dry bones or are they just the latest in a string of good things?

How different our lives would be if we all found that which makes us sing and dance. Beauty and ashes can be found in work and causes. I encourage you to take time to evaluate those things you give your life too. If they do not cause you to sing or bring “fire to your belly” lay them down. There are surely many others who will step in to pick up where you leave off. Find the work and causes you are uniquely called to and you will be closer to reclaiming joy.