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A Plan and a Fight
How to stop drifting and live with intention
Matt Virgin
December 23, 2024
drifting
I flipped my car 11 days after getting my license.
One friend in the passenger seat and two in the back, we were driving backroads with the radio blaring. I’m embarrassed to say the song “Paparazzi” by Lady Gaga was playing, but that’s beside the point…
I got cocky and decided to drift. Just like the movies, I pulled the e-brake and slid around a corner.
It worked, so well in fact that I drifted right off the road and ended up sideways in a ditch.
I hung sideways in shock, not believing that actually just happened. My friend Jordan empathetically broke our silence by singing “papa-paparazzi.”
We climbed out and tried to flip the car back onto its wheels. Unable, we called another friend who came to help. We got it back upright, but the engine didn’t turnover.
Thankfully, a nice man, a hero of sorts, stopped and offered to pull it out of the ditch. He even climbed underneath in the mud and hooked it up.
Slowly, he pulled it out. I got in and it started right up.
Of course, the next right move was to not call my dad but to take it to the car wash. I had to make my mistake more presentable.
With the side smashed in I drove to a self-serve car wash and spent two hours prying mud out of all the crevices. The employees looked at me, rightfully so, like I was a moron.
Then I went home and broke the news. To save the details, my parents weren’t too happy with me…
two takeaways
Never listen to Lady Gaga
Drifting is dangerous
Our default in life is to drift.
It’s easy to do.
We do what we feel like doing and what we feel is right.
If we don’t live intentionally then we live drifting.
Drifting between ideas
Drifting between morals
Drifting between methods
And ultimately,
Drifting away from the man we are called to be.
We all have key times where we can be intentional.
A commute to work
After the kids go to bed
When tempers are hot
When the alarm goes off
Our days will always throw curve balls,
But there will always be opportunities to be intentional.
The antidote to drift - A plan and a fight
Don’t be a drifter.
Live with intention.
“I am wired by nature to love the same toys that the world loves. I start to fit in. I start to love what others love. I start to call earth "home." Before you know it, I am calling luxuries "needs" and using my money just the way unbelievers do. I begin to forget the war. I don't think much about people perishing. Missions and unreached people drop out of my mind. I stop dreaming about the triumphs of grace. I sink into a secular mind-set that looks first to what man can do, not what God can do. It is a terrible sickness. And I thank God for those who have forced me again and again toward a wartime mind-set.”
“If I'm wrong about God, then I wasted my life. If you're wrong about God, then you wasted your eternity.”
There is a time when we must firmly choose the course which we will follow or the endless drift of events will make the decision for us.
Adding onto the Lecrae quote above…
As a Christian, if I am wrong about God, then one could say I’ve wasted my life. On the other hand, I will have lived a life striving to do good, surrounding myself with other people striving to do good, trying to get others to believe in something that leads to doing good, and doing it all with a peace through the valleys and peaks. That doesn’t seem like a waste to me.
If a non-Christian is wrong about God, then they can pursue temporary pleasures at the expense of their eternity.
I wrestle with doubt from time-to-time, but I always come back to the fact that I’m not willing to risk my eternity.
If you find value in this newsletter, your friends might too. It would mean the world to me if you told one person about it.
It may go something like this…
There’s this guy with an unfortunate last name who writes a newsletter about becoming a better man. Not sure if you read any newsletters, but you should check it out.
mattvirgin.net
Merry Christmas!!
God Bless,
Matt Virgin
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