Pushing Through

For the past two days I've been having quite a few "pushing through" moments - times where all within me (apart from some small whisper of encouragement) is saying "you can't do this" and feeling the anxiety and doubt levels rising close to the point of considering quitting.

It wasn't just learning to ride a motorcycle, which in and of itself had its own huge challenges (FYI today I transitioned from the parking lot to riding 80Km on the road and riding through Brisbane's suburban streets :), looking back over this weekend the moment which had the most personal achievement for me was in my hotel room last night.

My hotel room was reasonably dodgy (i.e. cheap and fairly nasty by Australian standards), and I'd been fleetingly considering sleeping in my car rather than staying there (silly I know!). I'd just hung up from talking to a friend on the phone when I realised that my phone battery was very, very low. So here I was, about to go to sleep, remembering the fact that I didn't tell anyone where I was staying or what suburb or what company I was doing my course through and freaking myself out that if something did happen in the night that I wasn't kosher with I couldn't phone anyone - and, if something happened during my ride the next day, how would I let people know?? and, and, and!!

Instead of giving into my emotion I stopped. I prayed. and I felt convicted as to who/what my trust was in. My trust shouldn't have been in my phone. My trust shouldn't have been in the people I could contact through it. My trust shouldn't have been in the security of my surroundings. My trust should have been, and should always be in, regardless of and especially in scary situations, God. It was amazing how once this conviction came and I repented how quickly I got to sleep and slept through the night (until the building alarm sounded at 6:20am). While I often work through things with God, this, for reasons that are hard to explain was entirely different - it was like moving up to an entirely new and bigger level.

Positive Self talk is a powerful tool - I heard my fellow Learners discussing it all day, it can enable us to Push Through when otherwise we might not.
Negative Self Talk can be disastrous, I know this very well from experience. It can very effectively stop us from Pushing Through.
However, this weekend's lesson of stopping to listen to God's voice, instead of any talk going through my own head - priceless, and worth all the scary experiences.