you only live once – Page 4

Stick With It.

When something seems hard to achieve, stick with it because it always brings something good.

We are really good nowadays at giving up too quickly. We sit and think about everything that could go wrong, that has gone wrong and we decide what we want will never happen. We turn our backs, abandoning what might have been for what will never be. Today I felt so tired I thought I would have a panic attack. In the past the thought of having one, would lead to one. However, today I stayed calm and smiled through the anxious moments to survive the day. So, I ended the day feeling happy, energized and contented, even though I had eaten very little and done a lot. I was even surprised how quickly the day seem to have gone by. If I had given in to that feeling and let it win, I would have never known the sense of accomplishment I felt at finishing out the day.

Let us walk with God so that our walk will be filled with only good days. This morning I left out for work in the dark, but I never felt afraid walking through Spanish Town before 6 a.m. in the morning. It never entered my mind to feel fear. To question what was just around the corner. At every turn I did not question what I would find because I had already invited God to walk with me. So, when I was just about to cross the road to continue my walk, I was blown by a car! It was Mr Martin, he picked me up and I reached work the earliest I had ever reached! But I know that with every experience, what we consider good or bad, if we don’t want to, and invite God to walk with us, we will never walk alone.

We are stronger than we think we are. I don’t think we give ourselves enough credit concerning what we can endure. It could be that there are things we think we could never do. It has nothing to do with the fact that we can’t do it, but more so because we don’t want to try, out of fear or indifference.

When we crash, it may seem easier to give up than try to find our way back to the land of the living. However, since we don’t know what we are capable of until we find we have no other choice, let us stick with it till whenever.

Good Days Only.

Now this is a mindset I will work with. No matter what happens, there are no bad days.

I recently came across the expression, “no bad days”, and thought well wouldn’t that be great! However, the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if it’s as simple as deciding to have a positive outlook even when things don’t seem so positive.

Often time we talk about having good days and bad days, however, how we perceive things can determine whether or not our day is good or bad. How we react to the things that happen to us is what really matters, not that things go wrong. In life it is impossible for something not to go wrong, but being upset or even getting nasty about it only makes it worse; it is at this stage that we really have a bad day. We can’t see beyond that one bad moment and think logically through it. Instead we marinate on it and allow ourselves to really have a bad day.

To have a good day, we need to turn our back on the things that can cause us to view life negatively. Instead of dwelling on it and giving it life, we can diminish the power it has to undermine our positive outlook, by not remaining in it. When things do not turn out the way we want them to, maybe it wasn’t suppose to be. So, we need to let go of what we can’t control and do the best we can.

To really see the glass half full, we need to be humble and stay calm in moments where our good days are under attack.

Only Time…

Often times we speak and think of time in negative terms. We often bemoan the fact that time is running out or the fact that it feels as if there is not enough time in the day, to do what we want to get done.

Time reveals all truth – This is a reality that many people fear, based on what they have done in the past. However, if we find ourselves operating under an alternate reality, then it will only be to our benefit when we finally have to face the truth of either who we are and what we have done; or, the truth of who people in our circle truly are. However, this does not have to be something to fear. Having the truth revealed in time may seem horrific in hindsight, but in actuality can liberate someone from the fear of exposure that they carried around like a heavy load.

It has been said that it is better to fail in truth than to succeed by immersing ourselves in lies. Only time can help us to truly understand this truth.

Time heals all wounds – The sense of disappointment we experience can only be treated with time. Sometimes when we are disappointed we do not see the blessing of being in that position until later when we realize that we have been spared from a dire fate.While this adage does not work for every situation, the very least that can happening is that there is a dulling of any disappoint or pain as time advances

Only time will tell what the future holds, only time will give the peace that we seek.

Who Can We Trust?

It is increasingly difficult to answer this question. However, trusting anyone is a risk you will have to take. If you want to form strong and lasting relationships, you have to trust everyone.

No two persons are the same and everyone carries around ideas of what is best for them. Therefore, we cannot think that at all times we can rely on everyone.

I was briefly apart of a discussion about two recent incidents recently, one a murder suicide and the other a murder of a woman. In both instances the men were the perpetrators. In the discussion the question of whether or not you can really know someone came up. Can you really vouch for everyone you trust and do you really know everything about them?

At the end of the day we each have to decide who to trust: just make sure that you are trusting the right person with the right thing and for the right reasons.

I think the greater question too is, what can you trust people with. There are many different things that we value, can we trust everyone with them?

While we cannot trust everyone with everything, we can choose who we trust with what. You need to know enough about someone to determine what you can trust them with. If someone threatens you or abuses you, can you trust with your life? If someone is careless with their possessions, can you trust them with your own? If someone never or hardly ever make time for you until they want something, can you trust them with your friendship? If you try to speak everything into being but never act, can you trust yourself with your dreams?

Not A Pity Party.

I learned from my own experiences that we can so easily be manipulative by appearing pitiful.

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It’s easy to become this way, but it’s a difficult habit to break, especially if your behavior is being encouraged. Being pitiful means that when you make a mistake, you can use those “pitiful eyes” and say “sorry”, and everything is forgiven. However, every action has a reaction and therefore we need to be accountable for all that we do.

Feeling sorry for yourself serves the purpose of allowing you to continue to make excuses for why you seem to be stuck in the same place. Also, why you find it so difficult to make the necessary changes that you need to make. It may seem to be a good thing to be cuddled and pampered all the time, but there comes a time when being cuddled becomes a stifling of all the potential that you have.

It reminds me of how a friend told me he learned to swim. One day his brother grabbed him and threw him in the water and he literally had to sink or swim; and since he is still here I guess he eventually learned how to swim. The point is, if we rely on people to feel sorry for our plight we will forever be victims of circumstances, forever pitied as the little engine that could not.

For some more than others, it’s easy to fall into the “woe -me”- trap and to milk it for all it’s worth. But ultimately we do ourselves a disservice when we accept this narrative, in any form.

Let us all stop making excuses and allowing others to make them for us. Let us be bold enough to be honest with ourselves if no one else will. Bravery is not showing that we are vulnerable, we all are in some way or another. Bravery, is pressing forward and doing what needs to be done, in spite of all our vulnerabilities.

The Reason I Know.

I cared for you in the wilderness, In the land of burning heat.
Hosea 13:5

Well if we are counting, it’s now 13 days into the new year and it has been interesting.

If you thought that you could leave 2019 behind just with the snap of a finger, or the click of two glasses, you and many others (me too) were wrong!

So when you work hard to get things in order, the devil works hard to confuse you. So, I have been experiencing a weird time these pass 13 days.

However, I know that things will get better.

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Change is not easy, and with change there is a period when you feel the pressure of everything and everyone that wants you to stay the same.

So, you have to be strong to wait out the storm when it’s just passing over. And if you think about it, you may realize that you have passed this way before and were too quick to give up and head back to the familiar. This time though you know you have learned the lesson a little better and you now know what you did not know.

You now know that it is worth it to wait a little under a shelter until the storm passes, instead of running into the middle of it to be swept along with everything else. You also now know the dangers of starting out too late, when darkness suddenly engulfs you and you lose your way. You now know that if you get lost, you may end up wondering in the wilderness for another 40 years. You see, you now know, how hard it is in the valley and how scared you can get; when it seems like the wolves are at the mouth of your cave ready to devour you.

The reason I know, is because I have been through so much more than I knew I could go through, and still be alive. You know what I know and so, we know that this moment of uncertainty is the beginning of all the greatness that God has in store for us.

Between Two Shores.

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
John 15:5

It’s a wonder that many people can get anything done nowadays. Imagine constantly having to review and alter all you believe. Imagine having to decide that you believe everything and nothing. Imagine caught between two or more ideas about who you are and not knowing which one should be the real you.

The world has become a very strange place to be. In this world where many seek and find good opportunities , until they are not. At the point where the wool has been lifted from their eyes they start complaining about all that had to change now that they got what they wanted all along. So, they hate the job they had and so get a new one, only to start thinking of moving on a week later. Or has it always been that way? Is this what they meant about the grass not always being greener on the other side?

It is interesting to observe people, because you can learn a lot from observing them. Many people want change and grab the opportunity to realize it, but never fully comprehend what it means, for the life they led before that change. Somehow they do not realize that the change means they can never have things the way they were. Then they realize that the things they took for granted did matter, but it does not matter any more, because they have left them behind, willingly.

When we chase what we desire, and get it, it doesn’t mean the story ends. Sometimes even in the midst of worldly success, we have to find the answer to who we are with each rung we climb on that slippery ladder:

We have to become accustomed to a new way of being when we enter a new season. It is never easy to be between two shores…

In spite of it all, I believe that this too is good. Our moments of discontent with what we gain lead us to remember the source of everything right and good… I AM, who is The Creator.

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