True Defining Moments

I had a dream last night.

People from many points in my past were coming together and gathering around a table for a meal. Some were there because they believed in what I am doing with my life right now. Some were there because they disagree with what I am doing with my life right now. And I had accepted the invitation to meet with them and answer their questions.

It felt like an interview for a job. I was the only one who realized that it didn’t matter how the interview turned out because I already had the position. What position? The job of being me. The “me” I am meant to be today. Right now. Where I am going. What I am doing. Who I am.

I wasn’t anxious about what they might ask. I didn’t feel like I was being put on the defensive, although about half of the people there wanted to put me on the defensive.

It was a very strange dream.

Some people sat back with folded arms. Their body language said they disapproved. They knew they wouldn’t like what I had to say even before I opened my mouth.

Others sat forward on their chairs, like they already believed whatever I said would be good, right, true.

One person asked me if I felt I was in a good place right now with the choices I have made. This person happened to be someone who did believe I was in a good place in life.

“Yes. I’m where I’m supposed to be.” I knew it. Not because I had done a lot of self-reflection and come up feeling self-satisfied, but because I had contemplated the subject of “Defining Moments” and decided that my life was in tune with those Defining Moments.

When we think of our defining moments, we tend to think of the choices we made. The jobs we took, or gave up. The people we dated. The one we married. Our children’s births. The degree we settled on in college. The career path we took. How did those choices work out for us? Would we make those same decisions again?

We are headed down the final stretch of the year. I find New Year’s Resolutions wearisome. As Americans, we are enamored by our defining moments – not the Defining Moments.

I have a couple of Defining Moments, and they had very little to do with my own self-reflection and pro-active decisions these past fifty years.

They had to do with what I knew God wanted for me and of me.

It’s like the moment you know your vocation … and you say yes or you don’t.

Or your avocation … and you follow it or you don’t.

You know the destination, even if you don’t quite know how you are going to get there.

These are Defining Moments. God defines them.

I have had a few of these moments, and my feet seem to be pointed in that general direction. There’s a joy in that.

I think the joy comes from knowing that the Lord is master of the journey.

You get to be little. A child. And you peek over the front seat now and then. Yes. We are headed in the right direction.

And that is enough.