Truth About Inconvenience By Alex McElroy

The truth about encountering inconvenience.

Inconvenience is something that parents know well. For example, when my oldest became ill at night I was awakened. I awoke to the horrors of a stomach virus. Vomit. Everywhere. In her bed, in her hair, and in her clothes. (I still have nightmares about the putrid smell). In an attempt to be a good husband, I did not wake up my wife to assist me. So, I alone washed her, her hair and her sheets in the middle of the night. Yes, it was inconvenient, but it is part of being a good father.

If my purpose is to be a good father, then at the end of the day the inconvenience I experience in route to that goal means very little. Have your complaints about the inconveniences you experience in pursuit of your purpose overshadowed the passion necessary to complete that very same purpose?

Every task in life won’t be fun or convenient but all tasks necessary for you to fulfill your purpose must be completed. Inconvenience is only relevant if the end goal is optional. Raising, loving, and taking care of my children are not optional goals in my mind and therefore I will do whatever is necessary to make sure that those goals are achieved. My children are more important than my convenience. Is your purpose worthy of enduring moments of inconvenience?

INCONVENIENT PURSUIT

To pursue means to seek somebody or something persistently or to chase or strive for something. It would be great if everything we pursued met us half way. It would be even easier if we didn’t have to engage in the pursuit at all. However, that is rarely the way things play out. To pursue a job as a professional athlete, there will be inconvenient diets, inconvenient workouts, and inconvenient travel schedules. But the act of the pursuit entrenches the passion for the goal to be attained deep within our souls.

Most things in life worth having are not obtained without some struggle or sacrifice. Every mother who has undergone childbirth knows that the beautiful child they now hold, teach, and love did not arrive without pain. To all the mothers, I do not mean to trivialize the pain of childbirth as an inconvenience because I realize it is much more than that. I mean only to say that the goals we pursue are worthy of the inconveniences that are attached to them.

INCONVENIENT PAUSE

As we pursue the fulfillment of our purpose in life, there may be circumstances or situations that force us to pause or take a break. We may get sick or have to take care of a sick family member. We could lose a job or experience a financial setback. We could have a temporary assignment that usurps more of our time than anticipated. Whatever the case, we should attempt to learn the lesson in the pause.

If you’re like me your natural instinct will be to fight the pause and keep pushing, while you get less and less sleep with each passing night. But what if God wants us to have a break in order to learn something about Him, ourselves, or an aspect of our assignment that we were moving too fast to see? The pauses in life are inevitable. Just make sure you hit the ‘pause’ button and not the ‘stop’ button.

INCONVENIENT PURPOSE

Your purpose is the original intent that was in the mind of God when He created you. However, we were all born without knowledge of that purpose. We weren’t privy to the mind of God when we were birthed. Therefore, in life there may be things that happen to us or that we experience that seem intolerable, immoral or inconvenient. Many times our experiences may actually be all of these things. But perspective governs much of how we interpret what we see.

Some may see a young man driving an expensive car and admire his wealth. The billionaire woman in the next lane who owns five large companies and drives a Camry may not see this young man as anything to be admired. It’s all about perspective. How our small purpose fits into the ultimate purpose of a big God is only properly judged when we get a glimpse of His eternal perspective.

Only then can we rightly judge whether our inconvenience is worthy of so much of our attention.

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Alex McElroy is an international speaker who has taught thousands of people how to lead and live out their purpose in life. He is a passionate speaker, teacher, leader, business owner, author, as well as a faithful husband and a devoted father.

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