I was once asked by a wise man to pretend that I am driving down my favorite road. I picked Interstate 40, between Nashville and Knoxville, TN. It's a beautiful drive. I was asked to pretend that while driving down the road, I come to a stop at a road block. I was asked to imagine what the road block looked like. I described it as a standard highway construction road block. It was made of 3 metal poles with 3 long sheets of thin metal bolted to the poles. In the middle of the barrier was an orange reflective sign that said "Road Closed." I was asked to go into great detail in describing this road block. You may be asking yourself at this point...why? Why would someone ask me to imagine something like this. The wise man (whose name is Carl Thompson) told me after the exercise that the reason for this was to try and find what kind of barrier I had placed in front of me. See, I have had trouble finishing things...college, music I wrote, learning guitar, becoming a professional musician. I would come so close to finishing. I was just a few classes short of graduating from college. I am a few bars away from finishing some songs that I have yet to finish. It seems that I don't have a problem starting something, but finishing is a different story. Why is that? What is it about me that won't finish? Why do I have a barrier in front of me?
One time, while talking to Carl, He asked me to take apart the barrier...to remove it. He literally made me act out removing all the bolts, all the pieces, everything. As I neared the end of the imaginative segment of removing this barrier, it became increasingly difficult, I was beginning to sweat, and even breathe heavy. And as I began to take apart the final bolts holding the barrier together, I began to cry. It was almost as if I was doing more than just pretending to move a road block...It was as if I was removing something more than that.
I remember Carl telling me that my barrier was something that was not permanent...It wasn't an impossible task to remove. It wasn't a 20 foot high barrier stretching to infinity on both sides with barb wire...It was simple. It was something that with enough work and thought and prayer, I could remove it. Sometimes, I have to go back and pretend again, because it seems to keep reappearing. But somewhere in my head, I have the answer. I have the answer to the ultimate question of my life..Why do I do what I don't want to do? Paul puts this best in Romans 7:15 when he says "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate to do." I love The Message paraphrase of this as well..."What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then act another, doing things I absolutely despise." Somehow, in this journey I have to figure out why I do what I don't want to do. I have to figure out why it is that I don't finish, and the best way to figure that out is to keep fighting and finish. I CAN do this. There's not a lot of doubt...I lasted this long, and I can last longer. It's all up to me though. I need to decide what I want, and to do whatever it takes to get there.

I fell off the wagon for a few weeks. I began to doubt. I began to sink. But now comes the most important decision in my life. To continue with my journey of getting healthy or to let Satan win and send me down the path to personal destruction. I already know what I have decided. Now it's time to pick myself up from the ashes, dust myself off, and press on toward the goal. I will finish this race. I will not allow Satan to keep me as a slave to food. I just have to focus. Focus on what I desire more than anything...a healthy life.