Category: Things that make you go hmmm

The journey begins

journey stepEveryone needs to be on a journey of self-discovery.  It is a journey that many never start, and they miss out completely on some incredible things.  There is only one you in this world.  There has never been someone like you, and there will never be again.  This is the worlds only opportunity to experience you.  And it will miss out completely if you don’t experience you.

Who are you?  Who are you when no one else is looking?  Once you take away all the trappings of life and scratch away everything that life has taught you to be, who would you be?  Would you be the same as you are?  Without your job, or your family, or your friends who are you?  It is a very good question to ask ourselves.  One day all of those things will disappear.  We will retire, our families will grow up and move away, our friends will come and go, and if our identity is based on those things we will be very miserable indeed.  There are a great many people who pass away a few years after retirement,or their spouse passed away, because their identity is gone.  Who are you?

The best place to start is to begin some honest self-evaluation.  This needs to be honest evaluation. We often lie to ourselves about ourselves.  We justify behaviors and responses, and we explain our choices in life which cause us to be the way we are.

For example:

.  If we want to lose weight, we might claim that we’re eating healthy, but in reality our eating habits haven’t changed very much.

.  If we want to be more creative, we might say that we’re trying to write more, but in reality we aren’t holding    ourselves to a rigid publishing schedule.

.  If we want to learn a new language, we might say that we have been consistent with our practice even though we skipped last night to watch television.

We use lukewarm phrases like, “I’m doing well with the time I have available.” Or, “I’ve been trying really hard recently.” These statements are usually just soft excuses that make us feel better about ourselves or about having a goal that we haven’t made much real progress toward. (I know because I’ve been guilty of saying many of these things myself.)

Why do these little lies matter?

Because they are preventing us from being self-aware. Emotions and feelings are important and they have a place, but when we use feel-good statements to track our progress in life, we end up lying to ourselves about what we’re actually doing.

Being honest with yourself is a very important step.  It is where you begin to see what is good in your life.  Start making a list of what is right with you.  But don’t stop there.  Make a list of what you think is wrong as well.  Then you can begin to sort out what you actually want to, or need to change because a lot of what we do is a result of the life we have been pushed  into by the expectations of those around us.  Only when we begin to see ourselves as we truly are, and then make some steps to move towards who we actually want to be can we begin to truly know ourselves.

But it starts with that first step of beginning to be honest with ourselves.  The journey is definitely worth it.every-journey-begins-with-a-single-step-you-will-never-finish-if-you-dont-start

 

Securely Anchored

anchorAnchors have been around as long as we have had boats on water.  They are a means of securing a boat to keep it from drifting away.  On larger vessels capable of ocean voyages they also secure the ship against the storms that come.  Oil drilling rigs are often stationed in some of the worst areas in our oceans for storms and they are anchored securely and even the worst of the storms the crew can remain secure in the fact that the anchors have been designed to keep them secure and in place.  They won’t drift or blow away.

In our lives anchors are important as well.  We live in a world that is going crazier every day.  With new bombings happening in Belgium, and Turkey, and terrorist attacks on the rise all around the world our lives are become more and more unstable.  People are beginning to question much of what they had counted on for securing.  With global instability rising, and markets crashing even the finances we had set aside and based some security in for our future is disappearing.  Overnight people are waking up to realities where the moneys they had worked so hard to set aside and plan for had disappeared.  Many lost thousands as the market values crashed and world currencies devalued.  Security has become an illusion for many people.  With home invasions on the rise, and gun violence all around us many have become disillusioned with what we had at one time considered security.

In all of this there is an opportunity to have real hope.  An all-encompassing sense of security inside, even when the world is going crazy outside.  There is an ability to have a confident peace that is secure and quietly allows you to weather all that life may send your way.  It isn’t an absence of things going wrong, but a confidence and hope that fills us regardless of things going wrong.

1 Peter 1:3 talks about this hope that is available to us.  “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” NIV Jesus is alive.  He was dead, and was raised to life again, and because of this we can have a deep-seated hope and confidence that is not dependent on our circumstances.  A hope which anchors us securely through all that life sends our way.  “This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls.” Hebrews 6:19 NLT

As we enter the season where we as Christians reflect on what Jesus did for us, and offers to us because of His death and resurrection we need to refocus our lives at times.  We can get distracted and allow ourselves to let go of our anchor and tie ourselves to many other things which will never be able to hold us true and steady.  In this season we need to ask ourselves what are we anchored to, and will it hold no matter what comes?

Who do you follow?

Follow-Me-To-photography-by-Murad-Osmann-Barcelona-550x410It was a question that was asked of me many years ago.  And there are as many answers as there are people.  It is something we all need to look at for ourselves, because we all follow someone in our lives.  We have someone we see as important, and we look to them for inspiration, even if they don’t know we exist.  Just based on the ratings there are many people in North America at least, who spend a great deal of time “Keeping up with the Kardashians.”  Who you choose to follow will make a large impact on your life, and on the lives of those who may choose to follow you.

The reasons we choose to follow someone often are because we see something in them we want to have.  Or we admire a character quality or an ability they exhibit.  Or they have a way of understanding the world around them that we admire.  They can be someone who can teach and input into our lives, or they can be someone we admire from afar who can be a role model for us.

We live in a world which is largely lacking in good role models.  There was a time where people of great character were looked up to.  When integrity and honesty were admiral qualities to have.  A time where we saw people who stood up against the wrongs in our society and spoke of greater values.  People like Gandhi, and Mother Teresa.  Others like Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King.  Great men and women who made great contributions to our world.

As Christians we have the opportunity to follow one of the greatest people in history.  A man who stood up for some of the greatest values we still see as important.  A man who impacted the world, and who is still affecting lives and conversations 2000 years later.  And on top of the opportunity to follow Him, we have His personal promise that He will be directly and intimately involved in our lives.

Who do you follow?  The choice is not if you follow someone, but who you follow.  A better question may be to ask is are they worth following?