Take a peek in the mirror, like it's a large television. Yes, you recognize that person in there. You can see some of the surface-level details right away - the look on your face. How tired your eyes look. Some balding spots... Keep looking in the mirror, like it's a television. You know this show, you know this set. You know this character's backstory backwards and forwards.

Keep looking. You start wondering why the character in this TV show doesn't have any lines. That's not how you would write it, especially with the staring at the camera like this. You know how you would write this character, if you were playing that role. What you would do, what you would accomplish. Conversations you would have. How you would relate with your family. What career you would be working.

I can have this ideal in mind of what my life should look like. I can imagine myself doing things, or having done them already. I could be that well-known writer. I could be that popular speaker. I could be that sought-after presence on social media. I should be in management. I should be good at investing. I should be an amazing parent. I could be... I should be...

And when I'm looking in the mirror, thinking of those roles I would write for the character looking back at me, those accomplishments seem perfectly plausible. Usually this comes out from an idea that I have a set of skills that I know well - and usually, I find myself wondering why I haven't attained this plateau of accomplishment already.

And we do that. We think of our lives as some points on a line, from A to B and so forth. We look in the mirror and write for our character that they're at T. Then we look back to the real world, and we're sitting at E or F and wondering just why we haven't gotten there.

This is quite common in the fog - we have stepped through day after day, trying to make progress toward some sort of goal. But the way to the goal is often blurred by the mists, and we can't always see the best way to get there. We end up taking some mistaken paths, and then we try to plot a course from there when we figure out the path won't take us where we want it to.

But for some of us, when we start out with that ideal scenario of the "dream" state of life, when we're looking in that mirror and writing the story that our lives ought to have been, we generally don't give ourselves the benefit of the doubt anywhere. We're not thinking about any valid, legitimate reasons we haven't attained that standard of growth and accomplishment.

Those reasons exist, don't they? If we give ourselves permission to have some grace, we can admit that we haven't had an ideal life. Things have happened to us, and mistakes were made, bad choices followed - our progress has been slowed by real-world hinderances.

The mirror seems to amplify our inner critic, though. We start getting in a defensive stance, internally, and so anything we throw at that ideal state seems insufficient. It sounds like making excuses. Which is perfectly plausible, to us, because we're really good at making excuses.

Should our reach exceed our grasp this way? Well... yes and no. The road to accomplishment often requires conquering some of those hindrances that have slowed our steps. And yet, at the end of the day, we ought to be able to submit our day to the Lord, for he guides those steps.

Those hindrances are what keep us up at night - those things that swirl in our minds long after everyone else has gone to sleep. Those shadows in the dark that raise our heart rates when we want to settle down. Those swords of Damocles hanging over our heads, just waiting to fall when we least expect.

Even in the fog, though, we need to daily submit our present position to God. Each day, we come to a point where we can say, "It is enough, what I've done today. I have thought enough and considered enough. I belong to Jesus, and he may guide my steps tomorrow."

Attempting to follow through with that daily submission takes practice. It stirs up all the "what abouts" that would continue to keep us up. But the mantra continues, "It is enough."

When we do this, we begin to practice our rest in Christ.

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• Photo by Clark Tibbs on Unsplash