If “we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with” then all we have to do is find some good people and be around them, right? As much as I like this quote and what it is saying, it is not the whole story.
I had the privilege of wrestling at a division in college among some of the best in the collegiate sport at the time. In my summers, I spent my time working out with and wrestling some of the best in the world from US National champions to world and Olympic medalists. The best of the best. But for some reason, I never made it to any of these world stages. When I look back on my time wrestling, I can point to real failures on my part that limited my growth.
I did have some of the greatest wrestlers in the world to work out with, but I did not always or even mostly put into action what I learned. I spent time trying to be better rather than putting into action everything that I learned. Here is the difference. Sometimes we know what to do but we don’t do it. We know how to act but we just aren’t ready to commit ourselves. Even when we have seen it work for others. In life, we need the right people but we need also to act.
1 John 3:18
Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
Quite often, we are unwilling to take action because we are scared of how we may be perceived, how we may be hurt or we may just have way too much protection on to let others in. In order to grow and become better, we must let others in. We have been created to live in community. If we are not willing to let down our guard and let others in, what sort of community do we really have?
It is time to let go and see what God can do through those He has put in our path. There will come a time when you have aged out. I hit it. As much as I want to go back and put in to action all that I had learned; to let them see me mess up so that they could help me out…however, that time is gone. Wrestling is over for me.
Don’t let your life be the same way. Who do you need to open up to? What it is that you are hiding from?
