Life is complicated, exhausting, and wonderful

I set out this morning, as planned, looking for some fear to conquer before the day was through. As I write this, 18 hours later, I am still looking for it. I'm trying to recapture the events of today to see where I might have overlooked some small fear that I noticed and overcame. Despite my best efforts, today was just a perfectly lovely day. A long day, a tiring one, but one full of love and fun and joy.

I'm reminded once again why all those "get-(fill in the blank)-quick" schemes never seem to work. They focus on just one area of life, and claim that if you just do that one thing right, you will be fulfilled and on your way to riches, health, the perfect pant size... whatever. But life is so intertwined, so complicated and involved, so rich and beautiful that focusing on just one part of it, no matter how well-intentioned, necessarily leads to neglect of the other parts.

So I'm glad that God prompted my mind to wander off my new ideas for self-improvement and instead to simply soak up the beauty that He created throughout the world. Although I'm exhausted now, and way past due for a long sleep in a comfy hotel bed, today was so relaxing. Driving through half of Texas and most of New Mexico opened my eyes to a natural beauty that I've just never seen on the east coast.

Here is what I've learned today:

1) As much as I praise and admire the talent and creativity of my amazing wife (and if you've seen her stuff, you know that she's incredibly good at what she does), God's just got her beat when it comes to beauty of creation. When she posts her travel blog for today you'll get a glimpse of some of it.

2) It's easy to latch onto a simple solution as the only solution to a problem. While simple is easy and nice, it's usually just that: too simple. So, facing fears is great, and something that I'll keep digging at in my life, but there's more to discover about who God has made me to be. Today I discovered that I've spent way too much of my life indoors and that God made the entire outdoors just for us to appreciate. And today I really, really appreciated it.