Bebo got it right

  A long time ago (high school maybe?), I would listen to a Bebo Norman song and ponder the lyric "I'm no farther forward, just farther along." And I didn't understand it at all. Seriously, I thought it was the dumbest, most nonsensical lyric written short of "bananas in pajamas." I just didn't get it.

Now I do. Wholeheartedly.

  I always thought that as one grew older, wisdom would collect and build. People should get smarter and better. What I was too naive to realize is that life and people are more complicated than that. You don't simply gain a skill in life, never forget it and then move on the the next (i.e. calculus, dunking a basketball, etc). Life is bigger than that. People are too finite for that ability.

  Instead of a gradual growth, we are cyclical people. Sure, we learn and grow and the Lord sanctifies us, but there are themes to our lives. There are specific struggles. I'm no farther forward of where I was when I was 22. I'm still anxious, fearful, silly, and shy. I'm still me. Now I'm just old enough to acknowledge that I really have no idea what I'm doing and need the Lord to intervene in my life minute by minute. Maybe that's progress.

  So "I'm no farther forward, just farther along" in life. I have more years of the same struggle. More years of the same neediness. More years of the same hope. Same joys and fears. And those years have been good and rich. Full of days where I grit my teeth and pray that I am a blessing to others rather than a hindrance. Days where my soul sings hallelujah the way I deeply long for it to. Days of fun and relationships and understanding. And days of confusion, frustration and chaos.

  I've been fortunate enough to share these thoughts with some of my mentors in life. They laugh because they have long since known this to be reality. Bebo knew it, too.