Oh SH....the couch is about to fall out the back

School is back in full swing but I am not. Can anyone out there relate to me? I think that every semester I say "heck yeah," this is my time to do school right, to go to bed on time and to be super intentional with the group of guys the Lord has placed me in. I go out and buy a planner and make lists of people who I want to dig in with. In my head/on paper my plans and tactics are flawless, but then something called life happens. My roommates are up late hanging out and I can't help but do the same, I see an opportunity to take on a job and I do it, people around me need help and so I drop my own agenda and help them and in the process of all these great interruptions, my grand plans are diminished.

This summer when I went on my epic craigslist adventure to pick up the vending machine and the massive sectional couch we almost had a catastrophe. We made it to the hottest, most miserable place on earth, college station and loaded up what I call the pink monster: a 5 piece sectional couch complete with a folding bed, recliner and one dysfunctional recliner that will end up never getting repaired (maybe after float season). After manhandling the couch onto the trailer, we headed to Houston to pick up the whale of a vending machine. Along the way, Kip, Will and I were talking, laughing about the adventure when out of the corner of my eye I saw the pink monster begin moving. Straddling my vision between the road ahead of me and the crisis behind me, I observed the wind pick up one of the sections of the couch flip up and begin waltzing toward the end of the trailer. I had a sudden flash of the calamity behind me which was potentially about to ensue; an oversized, bulky couch section punching through the radiator of the sedan behind me or even worse, the windshield destroying the drivers. None of this was happening at breakneck speed, but it was definitely something that needed to be dealt with. I made the call to pull over and rearrange and re-strap everything on the trailer. From there, it was smooth sailing.

Right now, in slow motion, the pieces of my life are shifting around and some of the sections even want to flip off my trailer. For the most part I have kept driving, keeping an eye on the status of everything, but pretty soon, if I don't pull over, I'm going to pay for it. Does this mean that I have the wrong pieces loaded? No, it just means that I have loaded my pieces incorrectly. (I realize that this analogy only really makes sense to me and the handful of people who have loaded a trailer down with ratchet straps.) The idea is not necessarily that I am involved in the wrong things, it's just that I am missing the essential element for balance in my life, my own personal time with the Lord. My faith is what holds my life together and as I get busier and busier, the ratchet straps that hold my life together begin to loosen.

For me, I know that this is happening, because my life is full of great things and great people, I am not facing any major crisis right now and I have every reason to be totally satisfied with life, but I'm not. I accomplish a lot every day, but it is not enough. I need to get away and spend time with Jesus on a daily basis. That is the only way that the air will taste sweet again and the only way that I will be able to love those around me the way that Jesus has called me to, Live the dream, life is too short not to.