In the busy world that we all live in, we all have those people in our lives that appear to be constantly making the statement, "I'm working on finding myself". You will hear people say "Well I am taking a year's sabatical to find myself", or "I'm going on vacation and the only thing I am going to do is sit and try to find myself."
This past week I have heard more than 5 people say that( now that's alot considering there are only 7 days in a week). Finally after the last person made that statement, I made a mental note of, "If all these people are trying to find themselves where are they actually going?" "What exactly is causing people to feel like they have to scrutinize their inner person so intently?" and "What is it that they have lost". Now I could understand this whole scenario if all these people were "unchurched" people, but they are not. As each day passes by, I find myself coming across friends who are "trying to find themselves".
As I sit here at work with nothing to do since all 4 kids are in bed, the house is quiet, and I find myself still pondering this thought - "What are people trying to find and how did they get lost?" The first thing that comes to my mind and stands out like a sore thumb is - priorities. Priorities are so easily misplaced. There are many things that can get in the way - work, school, kids, hobbies, etc. It's life - and misplaced priorities happen to the best of us.
So the more I mull these thoughts over in my head I come to a conclusion. People who are trying to find themselves usually go off by themselves to be alone. They feverishly try to re-prioritize the most important things in life and start fresh when they return back to their normal lives. Now as I sit here at work alone, I begin to reflect on my own priorities, going over my private check list of: where is my prayer life, how is my Bible reading doing, am I being productive for the kingdom, do I find myself in positive relationships . . . all these things begin to flood my head, leaving me with so much to organize and reprioritize.
Once I began to go over my list, I kinda felt depressed because I knew that everything was not as it should be. I began to feel overwhelmed and started to stress out thinking oh my I have alot to accomplish tomorrow and thank goodness it's a new day. Thankfully it was at this moment I was reminded of the time when Jesus went to the garden of Gethsemane to pray - ALONE. Yes, the disciples were with Him, but for crying out loud they fell asleep (misplaced priorities). As Jesus was praying, I would like to think that He was going over His checklist one more time, checking to make sure that everything was just as it should be. He was acknowledging that as much as it is going to hurt to have His priorites in the right place, He knew that in the end it was going to be for MY benefit.