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Say Goodbye to the Geysers

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

—Isaiah 30:21 NIV

The other morning I got the kids settled at school and ran back home to get changed for a speaking engagement, only to find a sprinkler had erupted and a geyser was gushing behind our garage.

Wouldn’t you know it, on that one day a week when I shower.

It was the worst possible timing for something like this to happen, which is just so like life . . . the unfortunate event disrupts us and delays us and derails us when we are in our favorite shoes and we finally got our hair done.

I arrived at the event feeling a little teetery and tottery, and the Soul Bullies were having their usual heyday. When my day takes a turn for the worse is often when the bullies are at their harrowing best.

This is what you might call a perfect storm, the kind of disruption that turns into far more than a shooting stream of water in the yard. Somehow, this sprinkler leak becomes the evidence that you are on an entirely wrong and completely misguided path in your life. What was, at first, a maintenance issue is now a metaphor. Your life is out of control. Your life is one giant mudslide of a mess.

And, without totally realizing what we’ve done, we give in to the geysers. We say, “You’re right. What was I thinking? Walking out into the world, showing up today, is a bad idea. Dabbling is insane. Creating is nuts. Using my voice is a liability. I’m going to just go back in the house and rehearse how the universe is conspiring against me.”

Do you know what the geysers are? They are distractions. They are the way the dark forces of this world try to keep the gorgeous thing from being born. Not annihilation; just simply distraction. If these distracting forces can shift our focus from soul-tending to mini-crisis, they know we’re off the scent.

What geyser in your life is going off—histrionically waving its obnoxious hands—trying to get you to tend to it instead of what you really need to be working on? “Over here!” it yells. “Over here! Look at me!” The geyser’s only aim is to divert you just long enough to claim your energy, your focus, and your intention.

Man, this makes me angry. Here we are—a minor miracle that we’re even clothed and in our right minds—and the geysers are coming for us.

I don’t know what geyser is or was gushing at your house today, what you need to overcome in order to stroll through the garden of your soul for a time, but I’m holding out hope that distractions aren’t going to win the day. Disruptions won’t prevail. That you can walk outside and saunter right past the yet-to-be-dealt-with because you know it’s inevitable that mayhem is going to come knocking on your door right about the time you get some things in your soul figured out. And you can chuckle because you’ve got that geyser’s number.

You are not going to allow the mess to make you feel overly responsible for a sprinkler head and under-responsible for your own soul. When it begins whining for your attention, you do what my friend Linsey says to do. You say, “Sorry. This time, I’m choosing me.”

Reflection & Expression

What is one distraction in your life right now?

For Your Brazen Board

Add an image that represents you choosing you.