I'm Lazy - Sarah Wyland

I have a confession to make.

I’m lazy.

I know what you’re thinking.

Ain’t no way.

I know what it looks like from the outside. I get DMs and social media comments all the time about how “you are always doing something.” On one hand, true. I am always doing something. I have a full-time job. I teach Pure Barre. I run She’s Down South. I publish posts here. I’m on the go a lot, doing things, exploring. I don’t look lazy.

I’m here to tell you I am, in fact, lazy.

I’m lazy when it comes to my calling.

My calling is to tell stories. Or to put it another way, my calling is to share. I’m certain of this. I’ve had it confirmed time and time again through just about every means possible. My calling is to tell stories. My stories. Your stories. Fictional stories. God gave me the gift of words and I’m supposed to be using it to share.

I don’t.

Not really.

Sure, I post the occasional story here or over on Instagram. I’ve had a lot of ideas, started a lot of them, went hard for a week or a month or even a few months and as soon as I started to gain traction, I dropped the ball in some way shape or form. I stopped posting, let go of an idea in favor of another, had some other grand idea that felt new and shiny and like I must pursue it – anything but follow my calling.

We talked a bit about this concept in one of our last co-groups (what my church calls small groups) of the spring semester. A question was presented to the group:

Where would you be today if you obeyed your calling?

We shared stories from our own lives, how if we did this instead of that, would we be further along? How would our life look different? Our group leader told a story of a young woman he knows who is a talented interior designer. She has the ability to bring her vision to life, but perhaps even more, she has the gift of turning a space into a home or a place for others to gather. Rather than pursue that gift, she short-changes herself by taking design work for minimal pay, jumping from one minimum wage job to the next, scrapping and scuffling her way through life when if she just leaned into her calling, the path would become clear and maybe even easier.

That story resonated with me.

It’s funny, how you can pray and pray and pray for something and be convinced God doesn’t hear you, isn’t listening, isn’t answering, only to realize months later that He’s been working on your heart the whole time.

You see, I like to default to “well, God, I know what my calling is. What I don’t know is how you want me to use it.” Sometimes I’ll even list off all the ways I could use this call to tell stories:

I could write novels.

I could write a memoir.

I could blog about it.

I could start a podcast.

I could interview people.

I could…

So many ways to tell a story. Rather than tell those stories, rather than share, I – do nothing. I use the excuse of “I’m waiting for God to tell me how to tell stories.”

Over the last few months, God has done that slow, long game work on my heart to help me see the truth. I’ve been asking him to reveal my sin. And He has.

I’m lazy.

I know what my calling is. I just choose to find any and every reason to avoid it out of fear. What I’m afraid of is a whole other post, but it suffices to say my favorite line of the live-action remake of Cinderella has come to mind many times during this period of revelation. In case you haven’t seen the movie, the scene I’m referring to is when Cinderella walks down the stairs to meet Prince Charming and reveal that she, the lowly orphaned servant, is the woman he is looking for. As she descends the stairs to reveal herself, a voiceover says:

“This is perhaps the greatest risk that any of us will take, to be seen as we truly are.”

It’s safe to be lazy. It’s safe to claim that God hasn’t told me how to use my calling, to say that I am merely waiting for him to reveal that last little bit for me and then I’ll get around to obeying. That’s the thing about fear. It is always there to provide you with an excuse not to do something. The enemy is always happy to keep you in that safe comfort zone, playing small, not taking ground for the kingdom.

And so, friends, this is my confession.

I’m lazy.

I’m lazy in my calling.

I’ll be honest. I don’t know what happens now that I’ve realized where I’m lazy. I continue praying for God to show me how to use my calling. I continue praying that He will show how to share and what stories to tell. Still, I’m always encouraging others to take action, to push the plow, sow their seeds. I shared last week that I’m learning that sometimes, God needs me to just make a decision.

Maybe sometimes God just needs me to tell stories, too…