Personal Meditations no. 188

“There is a lot to be thankful for if you know how to look. There is a lot to be angry about if you fail to look correctly.”

Embrace the Within.

I am thankful that today is the last of the four days devoted to MCAP testing this week. Wow, what a schedule and a blow to my daily routine. I drink too much water for three uninterrupted hours of child supervision. I am running for the nearest bathroom at 11:10. BUT, that being aside, the week started out rather rocky, however, God is good all the time. And despite that rocky start here I am on Thursday with a smile on my face.

I am also thankful for this verse this morning that gives me some perspective to talk about today. This is the thirteenth verse from the sixteenth chapter of the book of John and talks about truth, “But when He, the Spirit of Truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth [full and complete truth]. For He will not speak on His own initiative, but He will speak whatever He hears [from the Father—the message regarding the Son], and He will disclose to you what is to come [in the future].” And that is all I have been searching for over the past decade or so since I started my journey fully into liberty and freedom. I only wanted the truth.

I wasn’t getting the truth on the television. I wasn’t getting the truth in the newspaper. I was getting the truth on the radio. I wasn’t getting the truth on the interwebs. I wasn’t getting the truth from people I knew. I was in a search for truth and I unlearned a lot over this past decade to arrive back here where my journey began over four decades ago, in the stories and words of the Bible. Things have come full circle for me in that respect BUT my understanding and appreciation over that long journey are something that I am truly thankful for having experienced and lived long enough to see.

When things are easy for me, then they don’t seem valuable. And I was around the Bible for the bulk of the first two decades of my life BUT never truly appreciated that gift. I was never truly thankful for having the opportunity to go to church and read the Bible and be in fellowship. I was always concerned with doing something else. It became routine and mundane. I had heard it all before and I wasn’t buying into something that seemed that simple.

After four decades of struggle, it appears things were not as easy as I thought or I wouldn’t be back where I started after this long of a journey. BUT I am thankful for having the time and the experience of the journey to get back to the chance to start again. And that has meant not just reading a verse here and a verse there BUT reading all of the Bible. I am through Genesis and Exodus which I am referring to thematically as “Here Am I” and “I am the Lord”. It’s still too early to tell what I Leviticus is going to be called BUT I am working through when I have the time this week.

Testing doesn’t give me time to read right now so I am working on just reading my daily scripture emails in the mornings to set my tone for the day. So I am at least thankful that I live in a time where I can get some emails, some social media posts, some podcast inspiration appearing in front of my face to keep me focused on the journey.

I am thankful that the temperature is above freezing outside because the seeds I put in the ground a few weeks ago are already sprouting and getting big. Chicks are looking fine and the whole sustainability model is moving forward with chicken and rabbit breeding over the next few months. There is so much to look forward to getting done this weekend and building on for the future of the garden.

There are so many things that I can judge as problems and hindrances to my path. I can also see those challenges as opportunities. I get to choose how I look at those things and move accordingly. With truth on my side, I get to choose a future that is guided toward abundance and joy.

Have the day you want. I hope you find whatever you’re looking for.

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoGodsNoMasters #MyBodyMyChoice #MakeYourselfGreatAgain #EmbracetheWithin

Be the Change no. 46

“You can’t change the people around you BUT you can change the people around you.”

Be the Change.

I am a reflection of the people with whom I invest my time and energy. These people show a lot about who I am and what I value. I cannot change those people BUT I can change who those people are. And that is probably one of the most difficult problems I face in life because a lot of those interactions are important for my everyday routine. So changing that routine is an important way for me to change who those people are and what they reveal about what I truly love.

I have changed a lot over the past fourteen days. Prior to this I was holding on to my past a lot. I was remembering the times before transferring schools and comparing my time there to my time now. There was a lot of nostalgia about that time just like I compare my place now with the other places and prior times in my life. The difference in the past fourteen days is that I no longer think about those times as better or more valuable than my time and place now. I look back on them with fondness and with love for what they have allowed me to grow and mature into today. BUT I no longer want to go back to then. I no longer have an unrealistic memory of how good it was or how wonderful I thought it was. Those memories are tinted and biased with the highlights and not the reality of what they truly were.

I get a little lost in perspective when thinking about the past. I tend to just gloss over the bad parts and focus on what I enjoyed about those times. BUT, I can see looking around me now that those situations helped me build into where I am today. I needed those experiences to build the better conversations, the better thoughts, the better habits, the better relationships that I have today. Without them I wouldn’t know and value the people that I have in my life today that are great influences in my direction and journey. Folks that are supportive, folks that are working, folks that are changing, folks that are helpful, folks that are positive, folks that are inspirational. If you aren’t finding yourself around those folks, then you need to, as I did, change the folks around you.

And a lot of that happens by just changing you. A powerful tool in attracting the folks you want and repelling the folks you don’t is just in changing you. I am amazed at how my social media and personal life interactions have changed since adopting a spirit of joy and abundance. Adding in a spirit of interest in the Bible and God and the playing field gets even smaller and more intimate. BUT it attracts the people and the voices I want to hear. That change attracts the voices I need in my life and removes most of the naysayers and critics. There is no better repellent for the evil in this world, for the mundane, for the trivial, than the power of God in my life. It is quite illuminating. There is a lot of truth in John 3 when he states, “Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.” The light illuminates all that we want to be around us and chases away the darkness. So, I am finding myself even more reflective these days of the light that I choose to surround me. And embracing that light, that truth, that change makes all the difference in the company I keep.

Have the day you want. I hope you find whatever you’re looking for.

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #MyBodyMyChoice #MakeYourselfGreatAgain #BeTheChange