It depends on what we’re trying to do.

Is it worthwhile?

Does it feed our souls?

Do we believe it’s what we were made to do, even if we feel like we don’t do it well?

If the answer to any of those is yes, then we never stop trying because trying is the way we get better.

Writing is like that for me. So is pastoring. And parenting, and husbanding, and so many other things that are worth the time and effort to try, fail, learn, and then try again.

It’s the reason I love words like experiment and test. They imply that we don’t know all that there is to know, or all that we may even need to know, but we do know enough to start.

And by start, I mean try.

Too many great ideas stay ideas because the people who had the ideas are still thinking about how to perfect them before they perform them.

Can I let you in on a secret that probably isn’t really a secret after all?

Ideas don’t get perfected before they get performed. Performing the idea is how you perfect the idea.

Does this mean that we give no thought to how things can be — or should be — done? Of course not. This isn’t permission to roll out ideas, products, or services half-cocked, but it is permission to tweak, change, draft, edit, and improve all of those things after they start.

How does that old Winston Churchill saying go? “Perfection is the enemy of progress.”

Today, decide to make progress, even if that progress is failing. At least you’ll be failing forward.

“Desperation is the raw material of drastic change.” — William S. Burroughs

I played one season of Little League, and I was terrible. My batting average was .000. In case you aren’t familiar with how batting averages work, that would be the equivalent of high school me asking every single girl in our city on a date and still sitting at home eating Oodles of Noodles.

What made it even worse was the fact that my sister was on my team, and her batting average was .600. I guess that means she went on more dates than I did.

It was a long season, and at some point all I wanted to do was get on base. I just knew that if I could make it to first base, I had a shot at getting to the Major Leagues. First things first, though, I had to get a hit.

Unless — cue the devious movie background music — there was another way.

That’s when I decided that the next time I went up to bat, I would get on base. I would get a hit, mostly because I knew that my dreams of playing professional baseball started with me actually getting on base.

So, I grabbed the bat, hit my cleats with it (seems like I’d seen cooler players do that, and I needed to try anything), and leaned in for the pitch.

More specifically, I leaned into the pitch. I literally made sure the ball hit me, and couldn’t stop smiling when the ump told me to take my base.

This was it! My baseball dreams were coming true. Now, all I needed to do was steal a base or three, and agents would be waiting for me in the dugout. It was a foolproof plan, and I’m sure it would have worked if the next batter hadn’t struck out, ending the inning.

It was the only time I ever made it on base, and it only happened because I got creatively desperate.

Desperate people do that, or at least the ones who don’t mind looking foolish.

Four guys who needed to get creative so they could get their friend to Jesus (that’s Mark 2:4).

A woman who decided to try touching the outer cloak of a passing Rabbi (that story is in Luke 8:43-48).

A powerful man dipping multiple times in a nasty river (it happened in 2 King 5:10-15).

The point? Don’t just get desperate; get creatively desperate. Willing to trust, willing to try, willing to lean in to what God can do.

After all, leaning in got me on base, even if it didn’t get me in the majors. And for somebody who was batting .000, that was more than worth it.

You’ll find it worth the risk, too.

I saw something once that really got my attention. I’m not sure if it was a daydream, a vision, or something else, but it was vivid. In total transparency, I’m still not sure what to do with it, but there’s a reason I saw it.

A bit of a backstory first, and then I’ll lay it out for you. In one of the oddest seasons of my life, I was a middle school cross-country coach. I wasn’t the coach because I had ever run cross country, but rather because I was a runner, and I was available. Sometimes, that’s all it takes to qualify for the job, and so I got it. I had to learn a lot in a short amount of time, and I was thankful that others who also ran, and definitely knew more than I did about running, were willing to help.

Yes, Gwen, that last sentence was about you.

Anyway, one of the things I learned was that runners have a natural tendency to relax when they see the finish line, and so we had to train our team to always sprint to and through the tape (ok, there wasn’t really any tape, but they knew what we meant).

All of us do this. It’s why most people fall asleep at the wheel within a mile or two of their destination. The brain thinks, “I made it,” even though the drive isn’t quite over.

Which brings me back to the dream, or whatever it was. I heard the breathing of someone running in the woods trying to stay ahead of whoever, or whatever, was coming up fast behind him. Branches smacked his face as he looked behind him and then ahead. He was desperate to escape, and I saw his face as he stepped into a small clearing that allowed him to look up.

That’s when he saw the tower, or, more specifically, what the Bible refers to as a strong tower. At once, he relaxed, and when he did, he was overtaken by what was chasing him.

I woke up, or came to, or whatever you do after experiencing a thing that you don’t know what to name, and wished I could have normal movies in my mind.

But here’s what I’ve come to think about that vision. Are you okay if I call it that, because I really think it would be easier to call it something, and that seems more accurate than a dream? Dreams sometimes aren’t true and sometimes don’t come true, but this felt a lot more tangible than just a dream.

Sorry, back to how I’ve come to interpret the vision of the man who died near the strong tower. Too often, we let our guard down when we see the end, forgetting that we aren’t actually at the end.

We fall asleep at the wheel a mile from home.

We relax and get passed within yards of the finish line.

Seeing safety and being safe are two critically different realities, and we would be wise to know the difference.

The name of the Lord is a strong tower; The righteous run to it and are safe. (Proverbs 18:10, emphasis mine)

Did you catch it? The Lord is a strong tower; He always has been, and He always will be. But it’s the ones who run to Him that are safe. And the one thought that kept bouncing around in my mind after the vision was this: have we been content to build towers of safety without also blazing trails to help people get to them? Are we celebrating in safety while people perish within sight of the party? And if so, who’s responsible for the trail?

I wish I had answers. What I do have are the experiences of the tower and the trail. I’ve built youth groups, organizations, and churches that stood as very obvious houses of safety, and even told myself that we were open to anyone who might enter the doors. And here’s the thing: we were, and are, open. But being open isn’t the same as being available, or accessible, and at this stage of my ministry, I’m more burdened than ever to get out of the tower and blaze the trails that lead people to it.

Why such a passion? Because I’ve also been the person on the trail, looking at the tower, and wondering how to get to it, and how to get inside it. Trust me, seeing a safe place is awesome until you realize that you don’t have a way — or the energy — to access it.

Let’s build the towers of refuge, but let’s also blaze the trails that lead people to them. Lives could literally depend on it, and that, friend, isn’t a vision or a dream. It’s reality.