Break free from inertia, respond to God's call

Years ago, my wife and I made a spontaneous decision to take our family on a picnic. Our young daughter reluctantly got ready, but our younger son actively resisted.

“I’m not going. There won’t be anything I want to do there. I want to stay home and play on the computer,” he said.

After about an hour, it was time to go home. Our son said, “Let me go down the slide one more time.”

After that, it was, “Let me swing across these monkey bars again.”

Then there was a bridge to cross, another slide, more monkey bars.

“How come,” I asked him, “you didn’t want to come here at first; yet now you don’t want to leave?”

With a twinkle in his eye, he answered, “That’s just life, Dad. Wherever you are, you want to stay there.”

That’s not Webster’s definition of “inertia,” but for a 6-year-old, I thought that was a profound understanding.

“Wherever you are, you want to stay there.”

The struggle against inertia can be a significant part of life. Now, inertia isn’t always a bad thing; it’s a comfort to know where we are. Yet inertia often gets in the way of feeling God’s pull to move in new directions, to reach out to new people, or to find joy in unexpected places.

May the summer provide you with plenty of opportunities to break free from inertia, to respond to God’s call to pursue new adventures in life and faith.

This story was originally published May 28, 2018 at 12:53 PM with the headline "Break free from inertia, respond to God's call."