Perfect Portrait

I imagine, sometimes to great extent, what my "perfect life" will be like. Condo on the beach, perfect wife, me and my guitar writing songs to the sound of ocean waves, maybe some kids, pastoring at Northstar. Sounds simple right? I'm a musician. My "job", as it were, is to paint pictures using sounds and words. So, obviously, I paint pictures for myself as an artist. My pictures though, are simplistic yet perfect. Yet, as of right now, not everything in my life is perfect. Sometimes I forget that nothing ever is. Only God is. Let me be transparent: I have my doubts sometimes. But the Lord always somehow, always proves that He is in control.

Nothing ever goes according to plan, because in reality, what are our plans compared to God's? Our frivolous list of "To-Do's" and agendas are meaningless in essence. God wants us to use our abilities, talents and gifts to serve Him, and others. My life will never be perfect, even if the portrait in my head is painted out to be everything I imagined it to be. We all go through struggles, trials and tribulations. What keeps us sane? Faith. Whether it be in God or circumstance, faith at the end of the day keeps us all ticking. You have faith that tomorrow will be a better day even when it's not promised. When it does happen, you forget there was yesterday. I like to plan ahead, for literally everything I do. I'm a calculative and critically thinking person. I run scenarios in my head to make sure they do or do not happen. It helps me to avoid failure. Failure is always ever evident in our lives, it's unavoidable. Yet, we as humans don't grasp this concept and when failure does strike it let's us down.

So when things in my life don't go the way I imagine or how I pictured it, I get upset. What do you call that? Pride? Self-centeredness? You call it all of that. I may or may not get my perfect life that I dream about at night, but you know what? It was never promised to me in the first place. I may get something else that is totally better or totally worse than I ever imagined. I'm trying to find a decent girl that I connect with on many levels that wants to be committed in a serious relationship. Am I promised that? No. Do I want it? Of course I  do. The problem with us is our agendas don't want to fit other's agendas because that would be considered "inconvenient". There we go going back to the selfish nature again. What I may plan out might not fit another's plans. What I want might not be what another person wants. God made us to be this different and interchangeable.

I hope my life is almost like what I planned out for it to be. I have hopes, dreams and ambitions like everyone else does, but if you don't get busy doing, you'll just get busy dying. Invest your life in something that's worthwhile. I'll still be here dreaming about my made-belief thoughts, painting portraits of a life composed of goals and sentiments.