Where does your faith come in?

I’ve been struggling with something lately, and I’m hoping that you can help me. You. The eternal optimist who never seems to let the suck of this world stick to you. You’re a baller and always have been.

You create opportunities. You happen to circumstances. So, where does your faith come in? I mean I see it. I know that you believe. I know that you live that out in front of the whole world. Kindness, compassion, generosity. I see those things. I’ve benefited from those things. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to question your faith as much as I’m trying to understand it. To learn from it.

How do you practice depending on the Decision Maker? Do you live life hoping that your decisions periodically yet seredipitiously intersect with the Master plan? Like being a boss at orienteering without a map or a compass. Maybe it’s like getting a good split while running intervals?

I don’t know. I want to know though.

For the longest time I’ve been praying until He either made a decision for me or until I had to make a decision — until I had no more time to think or pray or cast lots. That way stuff just sort of happens.

It happens providentially, but it happens. I don’t make it happen.

That’s a purely reactive faith. You show me a proactive one. I wait for permission to ask a question that hasn’t been totally defined. I look at you and you’re young. Identical twin girls on the way. You and the missus are laying the foundation for your future. New house, successful careers, goals attained every single day. You’re plowing and turning over major ground. You’re grinding. You’re poetry in professionalism.

Snapping necks and cashing checks. You’re stuffing the run while two-gapping and your linebackers are cleaning up, looking like All-Americans. I’m on the sideline cheering you on, going, “Looks like fun. Wish I could do it.”

From here it looks great. Straight up though — is it? Or am I getting the Instagram version instead? Are you putting down what I keep picking up?

Cause I’m over here barely making scratch. My kids keep making disappointing mistakes. I’ve got health problems. The team’s not growing like I want it to. Where I’m at a snail’s pace would be a world record.

I’ve got challenges I want to tackle, but with everything else I’m being served up, I can’t just drop it and let go. Conventional wisdom, that wily skank, says my dream chasing days are over. She keeps taunting me, spitting that I’m not big enough to tackle that Beast Mode, Marshawn Lynch of a back. I hear her saying that no one will give me a shot. That I’m a needle in a stack of needles. That junk goes on for a while before I agree with her, tuck my tail and go plead with the Decision Maker for permission. “Can I try this? Do you want me to do this?” Sometimes that can get disheartening.

So what’s it like living in your world? What’s it like pioneering but knowing you’ll never muff it?

Really. What’s it like?