I’ve felt unprepared a lot over the years of my life. I’ve graduated from elementary school tests to marriage, parenting, jobs, finances, and many other grown-up things. Unfortunately, my elementary school strategy seems to have graduated with me into these later stages of life.
I started to believe that others had found what had eluded me and were enjoying their lives, while the answers seemed to still be unavailable to me. But if I could copy their papers, adopt their life plans as my own and learn from their successes or mistakes, then I could find the Life I was looking for. I know I am not the only one who searches for Life this way. Sales of self-help books provide the evidence—and my shelves are full of self-help books: parenting books, marriage books, addiction recovery books, and manuals of how to do life. There is nothing wrong with these books as a general rule; there are many helpful perspectives and ideas contained in their pages. The problem seems to be with our ability to translate these perspectives and ideas into our own lives.
A change began to take place in my search when I recalled what John Eldredge said, "Life is not a bunch of problems to be solved but a great story to be entered into." My life’s orientation was exposed, and clearly it had been way off base.
I was busy solving problems and was oblivious to the Great Story that I was in the middle of.
An excerpt from Search and Rescue.
