Perhaps one of the most painful places to live is the place of being misunderstood. No two people live their lives alike. Accept people for who they are, not who you want them to be. Love people where they are not where you want them to be. Each person’s life is their choice and responsibility. When we make it ours, the outcome is resentment and ruination.
Tag: choice
Wait Expectantly
In life everything begins and ends, succeeds or succumbs, in the perspective of our thoughts. We can view the minute and the magnificent through the lens of miraculous or mundane. We control very little in this world, but we do have the power to control what and how we think. I have been trying to get a very important picture blown up for over a week now. I only had a small thumbnail because it was taken on Instagram by someone I did not know. After tracking down the photographer, I learned she no longer had the original. I don’t understand all the photography jargon like resolution, pixels, etc….However, every place in town told me I would be lucky to get a clear 5×7 and possibly a blurry 8×10. They all told me my request was impossible! Feeling frustrated and out of options today, I had a little talk with God this morning. I told Him that I was going to remember today that He is bigger than any and every NO from man. After that, I prayed, and then went online and ordered a 20×30 of my tiny picture. Ambitious-right? I have waited all day expectantly to pick the enlargement up. One word-perfect! I am choosing to believe this was a miracle because the picture itself represents the power of prayer and the presence of miracles. Psalm 5:3~Listen to my voice in the morning, LORD. Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait expectantly.
Your Need List
A couple weeks ago, I woke up at 4 Am, as often happens. When I could not go back to sleep I was thumbing through my phone in the dark, and I hit something on Facebook. I don’t know what I pushed, but it took me to the post at the bottom. It was my last post of 2013. I had chills as I read it, and I have since gone back and read it several times in amazement. Thank you, Lord I did not know what was ahead of me, and thank you, Jesus that you did!
As December opens its doors today, I encourage you to begin thinking about all the things, the hard things that you would have never chosen in 2014, but you are now thankful they chose you. You might be surprised what you realize. I have several events, big ones, I would have never elected to endure.
In hindsight, they did hold a lot of grief, and some still do, but as I have learned, grief and gratitude are prone to intermingle. Where the two reside, it is your perspective which one will reign. Think about those unwanted intruders in the context of Romans 8:28~And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.
Here was my post on that last night of 2013:
It is after midnight, and I am up on the last day of 2013. I am reflecting on 2013, and this was on my mind: Often the trials we face are things we would have never chosen, but they are the journeys that we need to refine us. They are the means that build character, perseverance, wisdom and so much more. So as you look back over your past year, I hope you can view it through this lens and feel blessed! I heard this quote in church recently, and it impacted me. As I was looking over my journal tonight, (today), I read it again, and I love the truth contained in these words.
As you look back over this past year, there may be some things that were not on your want list, but they were on your need list.~Danny Wood, SMBC 12/22/13 Shades Mountain
A Little, BIG Choice
Every morning is a new start, and we wake up to the reality of a simple choice. A choice to choose one of two things that will chart the course of our day-fear or faith. Because we live in a fallen world this is an ongoing choice that has to be renewed daily, sometimes hourly, and even minute by minute. It really is the most daunting, small choice we make each morning.
Frankly, fear is the easier choice. It requires no fight, no hope and when we are tired, weak and weary it accepts us with open arms asking nothing of us. No effort, no commitment, no nothing! It can seemingly be a non-threatning friend whose presence can actually become more secure and comfortable if we abide there too long.
Faith is the harder choice because it requires us to fight: fight to believe when we are tired; fight to trust we we are skeptical; fight to understand when life is unfair, difficult and cruel.
Fear is unpredictable and has many faces. It can grip us to the point of disability. It can make our bodies shake, our hearts race and risk the stability of our physical, emotional and spiritual well being. It can be the quiet whisper or the loud scream of cynicism that burdens us with our unbelief.
Faith, is the more stable choice because it requires of us only one thing-belief. The belief in what is promised will never fail. Fear will fool us, sicken us and make us crazy, and even sometimes comfort us, but it will always fail us. Faith only requires one thing, but it gives much: protection, hope, security, and an assurance of a beautiful, pain free, inheritance that is promised us if we just believe (just to mention a few)! Fight friends!