A Start

The book I am reading dedicates more time to speeches by JFK than anyone else so far.  To me rightly so.  I love the way he crafts his speeches.  There is not a wasted word.  There seems to be quotable quotes galore.
Something I am finding all the speeches have in common, is the striving for an ideal world.  No more sickness, no more poverty.  As JFK put it, “All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days.  Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration; nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet.  But let us begin.
It is not universally popular to talk about these days, but they reckon those really long coal trains have a couple of engines at the front for mainly one purpose.   To get them started.  I have found getting started can be the hardest part.  The goal may be hard, but a start has to be made.
There is one thing he says that, because of my particular bent, I think long and hard about.  “…here on earth, God’s work must truly be our own.”  I think I agree with that.  I believe He will get done what He needs to get done, but He wants to use people to do it.  If I am unwilling, He will find someone else.  I do not believe that the goal cannot be reached because of my inaction.  One thing is for sure though, if I am going to do it, I need to begin.
It seems to me a heap of goals are valid.  It may be spiritual, or it may be to do the best job at work possible, or to make 100 in cricket, or to tidy a room.  It may be just to survive the day without punching someone out, or just to survive the day.  Whatever the goal, a start must be made.
Where I go to church was making a start.  For ages I did not go anywhere.  Where I ended up was not based on the label over the door, but was a matter of the heart.  It was incredible to me that Merril and I were visiting different places to find the one that was right for us.  Two places felt right.  One day we went to one of them and it was not there anymore.  Turned out they had amalgamated with the other one that felt right to us.  That is where we go.  We made a start.
I have always found making a start hard.  Often I can think of so many reasons not to do something.  When I need to do something, they are just excuses.  It is easy to say I’ll do something.  I have found it harder to actually do it.
I have also found that with goals, it is not just the start that can be hard.  Sometimes coal trains need to go up hill.  That’s hard.  Thankfully they often need to go down a hill to.  That is easier.  Figuratively, many of my goals have hills and valleys.  One thing I know though, to get anywhere, I need to make a start.