How does one recap the 60 days that I’ve spent in intense and intentional Godspotting? John Burke (author of Soul Revolution, where I got the 60-60 experiment from) stated at the beginning that I would fail more than succeed in the 60 days. I thought, “How hard can it be? I’ve got my alarm set to go off every hour, it shouldn’t be too hard to say a prayer whenever it does.”  Right. When work got too urgent, or the days filled up with a lot of fun and activities, it was a lot easier to just turn off the alarm and keep on doing what I was doing, thinking, “oh, I’ll pray as soon as I get this sentence/game/talk/lecture/interview/run done.” So yes, I think I did fail more than I succeeded.

But you know what? God didn’t fail. Not one bit. Not even as I intentionally faltered and put things off, He even stepped it up some more and challenged my heart and my desire to get closer to Him.

So what have I learned in the past 60 days? Gosh, so much. I think I’m going to be updating this list in the days to come. I’ve already made notes in my journal, but even now, as I’m writing this, more lessons are coming to mind. But I’ll try to sum them up here (in no particular order).

Giving up perfection– or at least the appearance of it. Authenticity. I’ve found that the more I let go of appearances, the better my walk and work become. Instead on working on looking “Ok,” God has made me more than “Ok”– so much so that people take one look at me and they are convinced. Once I had given up on looking the part, I became it. Which is connected to the next lesson:

Giving up being right. This is one of the hardest things, really. Because, being the big sister, I always have this compulsion to tell people what to do (yes, I’m a bossypants), and tell them what they’re doing wrong and this is what they should do. All for the sake of being right, and being in control, or changing somebody. It sounds so annoying that it should be easy to give up doing, right? Er, not really… Not if you can see your friend or loved one heading down self-destruction, or about to make a mistake that you’ve already done before so you know that it won’t be good.

I’m not saying that I’m going to stop speaking the truth or stop intervening when I see something wrong– but I’m learning to do it from a place of love, and not from the place of just being right. I need to stop being judgmental and start loving people in all their beautiful messy glory. God’s teaching me a lot about grace, and having faith in His love for people, in His ways and His process, even if I don’t understand. It’s hard to make a call on the results in the middle of a game, how much more in life? Which leads to the next lesson:

He has made me brave. I posted on Day 31 (so long status quo) about being brave, but God has begun His work long before that. See, before, I was deathly afraid to get hurt. Sure, all my childhood mishaps and accidents (2nd degree burn, sprains and a broken wrist) and rollerblading back in high school have already raised my pain threshold for falls and cuts and bruises, but I would still be afraid to get hurt (…here). Every relationship, friendship, job always scared me because of the risk of being wrong, rejected, of failing and damaging things beyond repair. Yes, I got good at faking my way through all of them, but it was only lately that I found enough security to actually be brave.

It’s God’s love. I’ve finally recognized this pure, powerful, unfailing, amazing, extravagant, magnificent LOVE that God has wrapped me in all throughout my life. But I was just so focused on myself and the things that I couldn’t do, all the things I lacked, that I totally missed it. Oh, it’s so warm and strong! I feel it holding me up whenever I want to succumb to weakness, intentionally make mistakes. It keeps me from wallowing and giving up. His love drives me forward, even if the answers I get aren’t the ones I’m looking for. It gives me the courage to admit when I’m wrong or if I can’t do something. It fills me with hope in every step I take. His love reassures me that even if and when I fall down or make mistakes or fail to measure up, I am still loved.

It was a cliche until I recognized it as true.

and this leads to the next lesson:

Keep moving forward! Yes, I find God in Meet the Robinsons too. hehe. Failures and triumphs should be both celebrated because everything is a process. It’s deciding what to do from there that counts the most. Every day, I marvel at how I feel like I’m being driven forward by this force that I know that’s beyond me. It’s like riding a wave, I just have to hang on. Because, it’s only been a few months since the breakup, but my heart is whole and intact, and it’s just me who keeps on looking back and insisting (sometimes) that maybe I’m still not all that ok. But over it or not, my feet are taking me to places where my heart doesn’t feel like going because it just wants to crawl into a hole to savor all the phantom pains for a while.

Thank God that my heart doesn’t control my feet, or else, I’d never get anywhere.

I’m finding that if I’m tuned in to God all the time, I’ll find His voice and His presence anywhere. And that was my prayer from the beginning:

“One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.” (Psalm 24:7)

This is just the beginning really, 60-60 does not end here. It’s more like a warm up for a lifestyle of a more intentional pursuit of God and His will in my life. We’re all being called to a life of intimacy with our Creator– this is why Jesus came to this earth to pay for our sins. This is the reason for grace– so we could go to Him just as we are, His love is so big and generous and encompassing that it covers all our sins, no matter how big and messed up we have become.

I’ve been a Christian all my life (seriously… from the womb! hahahaha!), and I’m still learning about the scope of God’s love and grace. It’s been a really great adventure so far.

Thus starts Stef’s 60-infinity.