Slaying Our Dragons

I have this fear, that lurks around all my corners. I face it every day. It is a fear of not reaching my true potential. Looking back at the end and regretting the life I lived. Along with this fear, that has the wonderful potential for life changing action, there is a dragon that slinks into my thoughts. And it paralyzes me more often than I would like to admit.

This dragon says things like, “You will never amount to anything, why even try.” “Look at your past attempts, you failed then and you will again, so it is better to just stay in the safe place of immobility, fear, indecision, doubt and depression.” “You can’t change those around you or your past, so why change yourself now. Who says it will secure a better or happier future?” “In fact, you will probably put all this work in and things might never change.” “You will be disappointed again.”

I constantly fight this dragon. Upon waking every morning, until I lay down each night. It plays with my mind, breathing fire down upon my efforts.

Every day I wonder how I could be writing a better story with my life. I feel this pull, like there is a caged animal inside me that wants to get out. And because I constantly have this fear that I am not writing the story I could be, instead of actually starting to write it, I listen to the dragon who tricks me into thinking I will never write a good story with my life, or at least not a very good one, and then I do nothing!

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that each of us was created with a specific effect that we have on this world. It is usually something that we do that we can’t help but doing. For instance, I have this friend that has talked about helping the orphans in Africa since she was a little girl. She just has this huge driving desire in her constantly to be a voice for those that have no voice. I can see she has a special gift in this area, and I know she will use it to make huge impact on the world.

I am still working out what exactly my effect is and how I can use it to reach my true potential. I often feel like Seabiscuit in the movie. He was made to run against other horses constantly and loose. He lost his effect. I’ve run against my own horses in recent years and lost so many races for so long, I hardly know what it feels like to win anymore. I am having a hard time regaining my ground. I’ve fought one too many battles and the little light I have been able to muster up gets all to quickly snuffed out by the dragon of discouragement.

In the movie, Seabiscuit just needed someone to see that special effect in him and help flame it to life. Ever wish someone would do that to you? I do.

There is something that stirs in me when I watch that clip. I feel like Seabiscuit, and I’m getting there, getting my legs back under me and getting ready to RUN. Then, I stumble and fall, but recently it’s different, I get up again. I am slowly but surely slaying my dragon of discouragement, fear and immobility. I am slaying it by taking action. Instead of sitting idly worrying about not living up to my potential, I am exploring what that given God potential is. I take action. I read, I study how the warriors of the past fought, I listen, I pray, I talk and I am making changes. And with each action I take, I sink a dagger deep into the heart of the dragon I fear.

Slowly the dragon is dying, and I am starting to live again.

Do have any dragons that you face daily?