What Freedom

I’ve sometimes thought, in a rather self-condemning way, that I’m not a strong person. I’ve worked a forty-hour week about half-a-dozen times in my life, and the net result has invariably been some sort of mental or emotional melt-down. What on earth would I do, I’ve wondered, if I didn’t work from home, with the sort of job that I have?

Part of the problem with that mentality, of course, is the whole idea of "what is work?" How do you define work? I grew up believing that if you were sitting or lying down doing nothing, you were being lazy. I am older and wiser now, though, and I can tell you that I get some of my best work done while I’m sitting or lying down doing nothing. What’s more, if I don’t spend a fair bit of time sitting or lying down doing nothing, I wind up getting no work done.

Clearly, what we think of as "normal" must suit some people, or it would never have become the established norm. But if you are one of the vast majority who finds yourself functioning at something that you really hope is a long way from being your best, perhaps you should have a go at thinking outside of the box.

Just because "everyone" goes to a classroom and sits through classes doesn’t mean that everyone is learning well that way. In fact, it is well documented that huge quantities of children aren’t learning well. Just because "everyone" goes to college, gets a degree, and then gets a 40-hour-a-week job doesn’t mean that everyone is prospering or maximizing their potential that way. Rather, dissatisfied people seem to be in the majority.

What I would love to be able to drill into every brain is the fact that it was God, who is a loving God and a good God and a just God, who created you just the way you are. That means that He intends that you become the recipient of all His fabulous promises by means of working with the unique way that He made you. Forget about the religious attitudes of self-hate, because they’ve never worked. We need to know God, and we need to know ourselves, and by working with that combination, we’ll have good things.

How unjust would it be for God to load you with artistry, and then tell you that you’ll just have to be satisfied without having any of the finer things in life, because only the mathematically-minded people can make money? That would be wildly unjust, and justice is part of God’s nature. We do not have to conform to some outwardly acceptable standard in order to make a good living or to have nice things or to succeed—however we define that word. I haven’t conformed, and I have a pretty wonderful life. The more I settle into my uniqueness, the better my life becomes.

That promise isn’t there only for me.

It is there for you, too.

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