Our Choices Matter
In the last several years I have done a deep dive in learning about people's personalities. There are many different personality tests; DISC, Big Five Myers and Briggs and The Enneagram, just to name a few. These tests are tools that give a person a better understanding of themselves. It allows people to become more aware of themselves and others. Each of our personalities have internal road mapping and often we navigate in our default setting. With that being said, naturally some of us lean towards optimism while others tend to be more pessimistic. Our personalities are a lens in which we see the world, which greatly impacts how we interact with ourselves and others. What may seem natural to you can be different from someone else. This is important to note as we start to discuss our thoughts and choices.
As we look to Naomi, Ruth and Boaz, we see the significance of choice in each of their lives. Ruth choosing to step up and head to the fields to glean, Naomi choosing to encourage Ruth to go to Boaz and Boaz choosing to protect and care for Ruth. All of these choices impacted a greater story. Each one interweaved with the other, creating a greater story. At the time, none of them realized that their choices would impact the lives of humanity. Their choices allowed God to use it in ways to impact the world. Jesus was born through the union between Ruth and Boaz.
God is the One who holds all the threads of each of our stories. As we focus on our own stories, often we just see the messiness of our own threads. They are knotted, tangled and out of sorts. They often don’t seem to go together; the pattern looks incongruent, not matching the other patterns around it. As the threading seems inconsistent and incomplete, we can find ourselves frustrated and hopeless. From our lens, we can become overwhelmed forgetting we have a way out. BUT God is in the mess. He sits above it all, working and weaving our stories with others. It is only when the tapestry of our lives is turned over, we will see a greater story. What we may see now is tangled threads but God sees a beautiful redemptive story.
What do we do with the knots in our stories; the times when things are so tangled up it seems impossible to sift through the threads that are wound so tightly?
We have a choice:
We can choose to see it through a lens of God’s goodness rather than our circumstances
To believe what God says and focus on His promise rather than the noise that fills our heads
We can go to God for help rather crawl in bed and hope tomorrow is a better day
We can reach out to trusted friends for prayer rather than stay in isolation and keep it all inside
Whether you tend to see the glass empty or glass full… what will you choose do and what will you choose to think about?
Even as I sit in my own circumstance, I am faced with a choice to make. Now that all my chicks have flown out of my nest... will I see it as an end OR choose to see it as a new beginning? We all have choices to make…
Our choices matter and how we choose to SEE will greatly impact our day to day. As we partner with Jesus and trust to believe God is good, we can allow ourselves to relax knowing God is weaving it all together for our good and His glory.
What if we look at our choices as umbrellas we hold. An umbrella which would cover us, as if whatever is above us, is what would reign down before us. These umbrellas hold the thoughts that we choose to entertain in our day. God’s word is very descriptive in telling us how to live:
“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. FIX your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me- everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.”
Philippians 4:8-9
Take a moment to think about what you think about. What umbrella do you normally hold? What umbrella will you CHOOSE to hold? When we follow what God says and hold onto that umbrella tightly, a shift will happen.
Thoughts that are:
OR
So when the storms of life come and you grab hold of that umbrella, remember… your choices matter and have an impact on you and others.
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