I’m gunna get pretty real in this blog and that’s not necessarily the easiest thing to do. So bear with me!
I started reading a book by Joyce Meyers called the Mind Connection and the Lord really hit me with something that was said in the chapter I’m currently in. The chapter is called ‘Choose your Attitude’…yeah, that is already hard for most of us I would assume. I’m learning that choosing my attitude is so important. Before I tell you what I read, I want to go into some background of the past couple weeks.
Here it is…
I have struggled with thoughts of going home from the race early.
I have felt disconnected, unloved, unwanted and unimportant.
From those lies I have believed, I began to have thoughts of leaving. I never thought I would struggle with wanting to go home from the race especially as much as I have the past couple weeks.
[But then, I think about all my supporters, all of you who got me here, and I realize how selfish it would be for me to leave early.]
The Lord has called me here, He has so miraculously raised all the support I’ve needed, and He has me here for so many reasons, I see them, but the enemy is really good at feeding lies.
So, amidst all the lies and thoughts of leaving, I started reading this book we got at a woman’s event on Saturday. It’s a lot about ‘how the thoughts you choose affect your mood, behavior and decisions’.
This whole race, the Lord has called me into leading with joy…choosing joy in every moment, the easy and the hard. But these past few weeks, because of a lot of anxiety and lies I’ve been walking through, it has been so hard to choose joy and I have let my thoughts wander and change my attitude toward our everyday service. I have let the lies overcome me at times and although I’ve begun to step out of it, this line in the book really hit me and I knew I had to write.
It says, ‘Don’t be so focused on the destination that you fail to enjoy the journey’.
I’ve been focused on the destination.
I’ve been focused on finishing this race and not running the race.
I’ve been focused on going home and how long until I’m home.
I’ve been focused on all the wrong things and it has caused me to miss some of the journey.
I don’t want to miss the journey because I’m so focused on the end and I’m not going to.
I want to encourage you. It may seem like I’m living this amazing life serving and doing missions while going all over the globe to reach the lost and that everything is perfect…I want you to know, it’s not all perfect.
I struggle with lies, I struggle with exhaustion, I struggle with feeling like I’m not making an impact some days.
But God has me here because He knows He can use me to make an impact. And you know what? He has you where you are because He knows you can make an impact too!
But we have to choose our attitude through the tough stuff, the mundane, the annoyances and we have to combat the lies of the devil!
We have to choose to believe what God says about us and not what the enemy says.
We have to choose joy daily.
We have to wake up and acknowledge the things the Lord has blessed us with. If we don’t, we get too focused on the destination and we lose the joy within the journey.
Not everyday will be easy, but everyday is a gift.
Choose your attitude. Choose joy. Choose Jesus.
