I remember back in the day (the mid sixties) when everything seemed to be beyond our grasp.

We were young adults who couldn’t wait to be grown up: we wanted to drink and drive and vote and do all the rest of the stuff that older people did.

We actually thought they had it together. That they understood the purpose of life.

Oh, how little did we know.

Remember when kissing was a big deal. When everybody went “steady” and getting to college was the real deal.

I actually admired those people who knew what they wanted to do when they grew up. I had no idea what I wanted to be and if the truth be known, still don’t. It has been a great ride, don’t get me wrong, but it is only by God’s provision that I have ended up where I am at.

What can be wrong with that, you ask. Nothing and everything.

I have a good job that provides for my family—we eat regularly and never go without food on the table.

But only if I had really been directed to aim for something I might not feel as if I’d missed it.

What can you miss if you haven’t aimed? Everything and nothing.

One of my many dreams was to live in a dome and have a fireplace that was in the center of the structure and be surrounded by a garden and woodlot and a trout pond and solar energy. But I never “really” wanted it bad enough or I would have begun to make plans for it to become a reality.

Not that where I have ended up (the place I am at right now) is bad or less than to be desired. Many people would walk around the world to get what I have and I wouldn’t give it away, but you know what I mean.

To set goals, have plans, live out your dreams and all that.

I remember when my dad was diagnosed with cancer. I went out to California to be with him while he could still get around. He always thought I could have been (read should have been) the president of General Motors. He thought that I had wasted my life by not “becoming” somebody.

I looked him square in the eye one morning as we were eating breakfast on his patio in San Diego and told him that I was a success. That I had a great job, a wonderful wife, fantastic kids, a good church and church family and that in my mind, constituted a success.

Could I have been the president of General Motors—perhaps. But then I wouldn’t have been who I really was, shortcomings and all the rest of the package.

I remember a time when I was driving along and thinking about all this stuff. I was in several situations with people who really didn’t appreciate who I am and was struggling with the feelings that this dynamic brought forward.

As I drove along I was suddenly overwhelmed with the thought that God created me the way I was and that He didn’t mess up—that He appreciated me in all my semi-realized state of being.

Will I ever get it together and be everything that I was created to be and become.

Only God knows. In the meantime I will keep “keeping on” and trying my best. With His help I will make it and so will you.