I hope & trust this post finds you all having a great day on this absolutely beautiful Saturday afternoon! Football season is here!!! Absolutely love this time of year! After preparing this Happy Friday I am piling in the car with my Tender Warriors and we are going to go watch G's high school team play tonight.
One random thought before I dive into what is on my heart this week; Happy Friday, and all the hope & optimism it evokes, is a condition of the heart, not a day of the week! :)
So what has really been on my heart since last Sunday is this; you are in charge. It is your life and it is your choice how you are going to live it. Now, before digging in a little deeper, please allow me to put some qualifiers around specifically what I am saying. I am not talking about religion, God, our need for God, etc. What I am talking specifically about is captured best in this quote; "Nowhere in the Bible does it say that we should wait for someone else to do the right thing before we do the right thing." - Unknown
Every day you & I wake up we have several choices to make. We get to choose our attitude, the effort we will bring to everything, with whom & where we will spend our most valuable resource...our time, how we will act & react in all situations, etc. These are all choices we make. We own them. We are responsible & accountable for them. Most of us don't like this...
It strikes me when looking at marriages how often we will point at the other person and say, "If only he [she] would _________, I would __________." And in the moment we forfeit, run from really, the responsibility & the accountability that we own...whether we recognize it or not. Bottom line Friends, you & I can only control ourselves. I can't make my Beautiful Bride happy, I can't make her choose to do anything. It always strikes me that God is all about free will - He let's people choose - and then we, the lost & broken people, think we are going to come in and demand that someone be or do something. Kinda scary if you think about it. Anyways, regardless of what Kathy chooses to do or not to do, I still have a choice - for which I am responsible & accountable for...not her - in how I will act & react. Simple to understand - very, very hard to live out.
If you are in a relationship of any kind and you don't like how things are going, instead of pointing the finger at the other person and waiting for them to change or do something, why don't you man or woman-up and be the change? Go ahead, extend the olive branch first. Be the first to forgive. Be the first to change the way you behave. Be the first to encourage. Be the first to make the relationship right. Be the first to swallow your pride. Be the first to serve. Be the first to give up your "rights." Be the first to give up anger. Be the first to give up disappointment. We all want to be the first all the time, why not be the first at these things?!?! You & I have so much more power than we access because we forfeit it under this guise that we are "humbly submitting to keep the peace" when in reality we are defiantly holding on to pride. It's time Friends to step up, to be different, to do things different and to take charge of our lives. Nobody can make you happy...that is a deal between you & God. It's an inside job, it's in your heart. Period.
I want to wrap up today with a couple of more quotes, some things for you to think about & ponder.
"The next time you want to withhold your help, or your love, or your support for another for whatever the reason, ask yourself a simple question; do the reasons you want to withhold it reflect more on them or on you? And which reasons do you want defining you forevermore?" - Dan Pearce
"Sometimes we need to stop preaching to everybody and just start being kind to the people in our lives - take a genuine interest in them and bless them, pray for them and ask God to make us aware of how we might serve them. In other words, we should "show" people the love of Jesus." - Joyce Meyer
"Be the one who nurtures and builds. Be the one who has an understanding and a forgiving heart. Be the one who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them." - Unknown
Please don't hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you or your families. I will always be willing to help you any way I can.
Have a great day, a wonderful weekend and please cherish those precious families & friends!
Kev
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