Inspiration:
My child, I urge you not to spend your time dwelling on other people’s words and actions.
When you center your attention on someone else’s conduct, it will only draw you away from
Me and what I want to do in your life. – “In the Presence of Jesus” by Paul Bane and Matt Litton
Scripture:
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful; I know
that full well. – Psalm 139:14
We seldom grasp one amazing reality that we share with eight billion people on the planet—we are unique, and no one anywhere in the world thinks or acts precisely as we do. Yet somehow, we all believe that our way of doing life is the best! We get caught up in thoughts such as: “If everyone just acted or believed just like me, we would get along much better with each other.”
And our minds are wired to have a plan to make ourselves happy. We work at a dream to achieve a specific outcome for our life. We adopt these personal beliefs about how much money we should make or exactly what kind of person we should marry. We spend our lives planning, even plotting to get what we believe will make us happy. We have unreal expectations of life, which can devastate us when reality looks like nothing we planned. (When you Feel Unwanted and Unloved)
Much of the suffering in our hearts is a result of not accepting that life seldom turns out the way we believe it should. Sometimes we are so set on what we want that we fail to see what God wants for us. And other times we are just so obsessed with the ideal life that we cannot handle the suffering that the world naturally brings our way. (Accepting Life As it is (not how we would like it to be)
This week, try to let go of how you think life ought to be. Open your eyes to the people around you that think, believe, or act differently. Embrace the real possibility that you can be a person of faith in Christ and not judge others who are not like you! Just loosen the reigns of your expectations a little. Ease up on the steering wheel and focus on just enjoying the great mystery of life for the gift it truly is!
Co-writer Matt Litton
