The Long Game
"I'm in this for the long game."
This phrase came into my head a few minutes ago while sitting and staring out the window after putting my son down for a nap. Nap times are my only quiet times to be productive, as any mom can relate to, and so when nap times roll around I usually go into frantic productive mode - trying to get as much done in as little time as possible so I can engage with my son when he wakes up.
And in this season of life, the big project I'm currently working on is recording my first music album and learning the skills to market it online myself, without a label or marketing team. It's a huge leap of faith for me and I have a giant learning curve to overcome and so that leaves me feeling frantic and scattered and all kinds of confused...
"Where do I start? What needs to happen next? When is the deadline? How to we get there?"
Everything seems to need to happen all at the same time in order for me to succeed and I get so scattered trying to juggle all the balls in the air at the same time that I end up dropping all of them.
And I don't want to live like that... I don't want to live wild and confused and unfocused... frantic to do, do, do while life passes me by.
I want to live for the long game. Not the quick fix or the quick buck. Not the urgent or the alarming.
I want to be steady as a tree... Growing slowly up, and up, and up... reaching millimeters higher each day until one day I am fully grown and beautiful. I want to be at peace as I work, knowing that it will all get done or it won't. But either way, I am already a success to my Father in Heaven. And He is the one giving me the grace to go on.
I want to be like my Daddy in Heaven, who's in this for the long game.
He's never in a hurry to make something happen. He's been writing and spinning His tale of glory and rescue for thousands of years already. And He'll be writing and spinning it on into all eternity...
With this perspective, I can see that there are very few things that are actually truly important... There are only so many things that will last and that will grow something in the long game.
The short game is the way of the world - always trying to rush around keeping up with the next man for no other reason than to be applauded in the here and now. And then, in a few years, all that work evaporates into nothing. We are all down here chasing the wind - building our own kingdoms only to watch them crumble to the ground.
I think it's mostly because we are too near sighted.
We need vision for the long game. We need to have our eyes opened to the fact that we are living for so much more than just today. We need to see that each today adds up into tomorrows and each tomorrow adds up into a lifetime and then an eternity. And it's not about how many insignificant things we managed to do in a day. It's about how deep we pressed into the single most significant thing over the course of our lifetime.
It's about what we gave up now so that we could reap in the long game.
It's about how we shifted our focus from the frantic activity of today onto the Eternal Heart of tomorrow.
Because only one thing is necessary and I want to chose the better part (Luke 10:42).
Only one thing is needed and I want to pour all my attention into that.
Because, if you think about it, if you knew that one financial investment would give you a thousand times return on your investment, and any other financial investment you could make would only give you a penny more than you put in... which would you choose to invest all your money in?
Although all the other financial advisers around you would strongly recommend you don't invest all your money into one investment and that you instead should spread out your investments so that you aren't just putting all you eggs in one basket, you would know better. Because you had eyes to see what they didn't see. You'd been given insight into the outcome of the investments that they didn't get. And you knew that this investment was worth every penny you had to spare.
This is how it is with our lives. We spend so much time trying to pour our precious time and money and energy into so many different places - other people's expectations, our own egos, our own ambitions and petty goals... All the while the one investment that matters the most is left completely unattended to and empty...
We live for the quick buck and so we miss out on the reward of living for the long game.
And the long game is eternity.
The long game is the Kingdom of Heaven.
The long game is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:7).
The long game is knowing the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and loving them/Him with all that we are.
And that's what the Holy Spirit meant when He whispered to me this morning... "I'm in this for the long game".
He meant, I'm in this for what is eternal... He meant that He wanted me to remember that I was made to live like my Father - focused on intimacy and love above all else. Focused on redemption and healing of His children. Focused on reconciliation and freedom and peace.
I am not making a music album to build my own name. I am not making a music album to join the rat race in making my voice heard and building up my own kingdom.
No. By the grace of God, I am in this for the long game.
I am in this to heal and restore. To bind up and to build up. To rescue and reconnect. To give and to bless.
Because if I'm not in this for the long game - for the things that are eternal - than I am in this for nothing at all.
This phrase came into my head a few minutes ago while sitting and staring out the window after putting my son down for a nap. Nap times are my only quiet times to be productive, as any mom can relate to, and so when nap times roll around I usually go into frantic productive mode - trying to get as much done in as little time as possible so I can engage with my son when he wakes up.
And in this season of life, the big project I'm currently working on is recording my first music album and learning the skills to market it online myself, without a label or marketing team. It's a huge leap of faith for me and I have a giant learning curve to overcome and so that leaves me feeling frantic and scattered and all kinds of confused...
"Where do I start? What needs to happen next? When is the deadline? How to we get there?"
Everything seems to need to happen all at the same time in order for me to succeed and I get so scattered trying to juggle all the balls in the air at the same time that I end up dropping all of them.
And I don't want to live like that... I don't want to live wild and confused and unfocused... frantic to do, do, do while life passes me by.
I want to live for the long game. Not the quick fix or the quick buck. Not the urgent or the alarming.
I want to be steady as a tree... Growing slowly up, and up, and up... reaching millimeters higher each day until one day I am fully grown and beautiful. I want to be at peace as I work, knowing that it will all get done or it won't. But either way, I am already a success to my Father in Heaven. And He is the one giving me the grace to go on.
I want to be like my Daddy in Heaven, who's in this for the long game.
He's never in a hurry to make something happen. He's been writing and spinning His tale of glory and rescue for thousands of years already. And He'll be writing and spinning it on into all eternity...
With this perspective, I can see that there are very few things that are actually truly important... There are only so many things that will last and that will grow something in the long game.
The short game is the way of the world - always trying to rush around keeping up with the next man for no other reason than to be applauded in the here and now. And then, in a few years, all that work evaporates into nothing. We are all down here chasing the wind - building our own kingdoms only to watch them crumble to the ground.
I think it's mostly because we are too near sighted.
We need vision for the long game. We need to have our eyes opened to the fact that we are living for so much more than just today. We need to see that each today adds up into tomorrows and each tomorrow adds up into a lifetime and then an eternity. And it's not about how many insignificant things we managed to do in a day. It's about how deep we pressed into the single most significant thing over the course of our lifetime.
It's about what we gave up now so that we could reap in the long game.
It's about how we shifted our focus from the frantic activity of today onto the Eternal Heart of tomorrow.
Because only one thing is necessary and I want to chose the better part (Luke 10:42).
Only one thing is needed and I want to pour all my attention into that.
Because, if you think about it, if you knew that one financial investment would give you a thousand times return on your investment, and any other financial investment you could make would only give you a penny more than you put in... which would you choose to invest all your money in?
Although all the other financial advisers around you would strongly recommend you don't invest all your money into one investment and that you instead should spread out your investments so that you aren't just putting all you eggs in one basket, you would know better. Because you had eyes to see what they didn't see. You'd been given insight into the outcome of the investments that they didn't get. And you knew that this investment was worth every penny you had to spare.
This is how it is with our lives. We spend so much time trying to pour our precious time and money and energy into so many different places - other people's expectations, our own egos, our own ambitions and petty goals... All the while the one investment that matters the most is left completely unattended to and empty...
We live for the quick buck and so we miss out on the reward of living for the long game.
And the long game is eternity.
The long game is the Kingdom of Heaven.
The long game is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:7).
The long game is knowing the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and loving them/Him with all that we are.
And that's what the Holy Spirit meant when He whispered to me this morning... "I'm in this for the long game".
He meant, I'm in this for what is eternal... He meant that He wanted me to remember that I was made to live like my Father - focused on intimacy and love above all else. Focused on redemption and healing of His children. Focused on reconciliation and freedom and peace.
I am not making a music album to build my own name. I am not making a music album to join the rat race in making my voice heard and building up my own kingdom.
No. By the grace of God, I am in this for the long game.
I am in this to heal and restore. To bind up and to build up. To rescue and reconnect. To give and to bless.
Because if I'm not in this for the long game - for the things that are eternal - than I am in this for nothing at all.
Truth.
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