Floundering

There's an area in my life with which I've been struggling.  I call it floundering.

Do you know why they call it floundering?  It's because flounders, which are a type of fish, swim sideways.  And they look funny while they're doing it.

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Flounders are so weird looking.  Their eyes actually migrate until they're on the same side of the fish.

OK, maybe that's not why floundering in used in that way, but it makes sense to me.  I picture myself swimming sideways.  Neither toward my goal or away from it.  Floundering.

The Free Dictionary has this to say about it:

floun·der ¹

  (floun′dər)

intr.v. floun·dered, floun·der·ing, floun·ders

1. To move clumsily or with little progress, as through water or mud. See Synonyms at blunder.

2. To act or function in a confused or directionless manner; struggle

I like that.  It describes exactly what's been going on with me.  Little progress.  Clumsy.  Confused.  Directionless.  It's been so frustrating, because this thing.  It's something I know I can do.  I've done it before.  I just don't.  I don't do it.

I have all kinds of reasons why, excuses, really.  I just can't, or won't, break out of this flounder-ish pattern in which I find myself.

Yesterday, I sat berating myself once again.  You know you can do this, I hissed to myself.  Why don't you just.  Do. It.

And that's when God spoke.  Whispered in my ear.  Tugged me gently around to face another way.  Maybe my problem is that I know I can do it.  Maybe the difficulty lies in realizing that really, I cannot.  If the last 3 months have shown me anything, it's that I cannot, and yet I cling stubbornly to the believe that I can.  I have been staring down that reality for 3 months, not realizing that it was actually a lie.

I cannot do this.  God can.

Are you floundering, like me?  Surrender to God.  Completely.  Whole-heartedly.  Amazing things will happen.