We've been on the race for 5 months and I have been trying to write a blog that has organized thoughts about what I've been learning, but I can’t see to do that, so here is a blog with just some semi unorganized thoughts on things I have been learning:
Atmospheres.
The atmosphere of the earth surrounds us and protects us, but we don’t think about it very often. Atmosphere is also defined as the air in any particular place, so atmospheres are all around us all the time. Some of them are healthy and some of them are not. Many times, when you walk into a room, you can feel the atmosphere and immediately know whether you want to stay in that room or whether you want to leave that room and find a different option. We individually carry atmospheres with us everywhere we go, as well. We can carry an atmosphere that can change the room we enter and that can be for the good or for the bad. If we choose to carry an atmosphere of joy all the time, we can change atmospheres around us to have radiate that same joy. Thinking back on my life, there are so many times where I walked into a room and felt an atmosphere of negativity. Instead of choosing to change that atmosphere, I usually just left… But what if when we sensed that atmosphere of negativity around us, we chose to infiltrate it with the atmosphere of joy and love that we carry as children of God?
Challenge accepted.
Hardened hearts.
There are lots of things in our lives that lead to hardened hearts. There is sadness, loss of trust, betrayal, negativity… all things that are not of God can lead to hearts that get harder and harder. There are a lot of things in my life that have hardened my heart, but I have been learning so much over the last five months about how persistent love can slowly but surely soften a hardened heart. I think a lot of this lesson was realized when I saw the movie Frozen (and if you haven’t seen it, you absolutely should) because that entire movie was about how darkness comes into a heart that is hardened and how love can melt the hardness and change everything for good. What a great lesson! But really, so many people in this world, including ourselves, harbor hardness in our hearts toward something because of something that someone did to hurt us in the past. This hardness of the heart can lead down a really long dark road if we don’t recognize it and call it out for what it is. And if we recognize it in others, but choose to feed it rather than melt it, it will only lead to a darker and darker place. Love is what melts people’s hearts. That love comes from God and from the people around us. Pouring God’s love into people relentlessly is what He has called me to do with a lot of people in my life- whether I was aware or not. Softening hearts is not easy and not quick. It takes patience and persistence…but it is possible. So why are our hearts hardened? What things do we need to let go of and what love do we need to learn to accept to soften them?
Challenge accepted (to figure out what those things are in my heart still).
Isolation.
Learning about isolation has been a really hard lesson for me. It’s something that I knew that I always struggled with and something that I never wanted to face head on. I would rather just pretend like things aren’t a big deal than tell people about them so that they hold me accountable and call me to a better place or call me to make better decisions. I have spent a lot of my life living with things that aren’t really “big deals” and letting them become BIG DEALS in my head because I sat in them alone- even when people asked, I still chose to sit in them alone. God does not want that. God knows that in those moments where you choose to isolate yourself, you are the most vulnerable to have you head filled with lies and that’s not what He wants for His children. He wants His children to walk in freedom and I am so thankful for that. Recognizing isolation in my life is humbling because it really puts into perspective how many lessons I could have learned in half the time if I had just let the people around me in and let them keep me accountable. If I had let God into those situations instead of thinking I could hide things from Him, those lessons would have also been learned much sooner. So I guess the lesson here is, if you feel like there is something that you are holding back from telling people because they won’t care or it’s not that big of a deal (or maybe it is…), stop holding back. Tell them. God wants to help you through every trial and isolating yourself in your trials will only drag you down further. God wants you to be free of the things holding you down and the first step to that freedom is shining light on those things.
And I will accept the challenge to not isolate myself in situations anymore as well.
Attitudes.
“Your attitude is contagious- is your attitude worth catching?” said to us by a pastor in the Philippines. Wow. Well is it? When you think about your attitude every single day, some days it’s definitely different than other days. I know that I have days where I think, “Geez… I definitely need an attitude adjustment…” I think it’s important to recognize those times when your attitude is affecting the atmosphere around you and make the conscious effort to see the positive in the situation. I think choosing to change your attitude is a huge step to changing your outlook on life for the better.
So, challenge accepted.
Patience.
Patience is hard. Living in constant community gets rid of any once of confidence that you had in the patience that you carry for people around you. You are constantly being tested in patience and not always succeeding in choosing patience, but with each trial, you learn a little bit more about patience. Jesus was so patient. Jesus was always surrounded by people that were continually amazed by each miracle He performed, but day in and day out He had patience with them. So patience is hard sometimes, but choosing it is the right choice. A culture of patience leads to a culture of love and that's why God calls us to have patience with each other.
Challenge accepted.
Joy.
We’re back to joy. Choose joy. Joy is a choice that we have every second of every day. Love comes from joy. There is freedom in joy. Joy radiates to people around you. Joy is an attitude choice and an attitude of joy is an attitude worth catching. Think about Jesus’s joy. People always wanted to be around Him. He carried a presence of joy that people had never seen before. What if we opt into that too? What if every morning, we wake up and say, “Thank you God, for this day and thank you for giving me the opportunity to choose joy. Thank you for the option of joy and thank you for the lives that I will effect today just by choosing to be joyful in even the hardest circumstances.” I think the world would be different if we did that.
Challenge accepted.
So in conclusion: We carry an atmosphere with us at all times and we can opt into it being positive or negative. Sometimes our hearts are hardened to things and sometimes we don’t choose joy. Sometimes we choose to isolate ourselves in our problems and that is a dangerous path. Sometimes it’s hard to be patient. And sometimes all of those things lead to a bad attitude, BUT if your attitude is contagious and you want people around you to be affected positively by your attitude, you need to make the effort to choose joy. You can’t isolate yourself in your problems. You must choose to let your heart be softened by love. And through all of these things, you can walk in freedom of whatever is weighing you down. You have to opt in though. God gives us the tools to live life with Him well and He also gives us the choice to live life with Him well. I'm opting in.
So that’s a lot… but it’s what I’ve been learning and I am choosing to ACCEPT the challenges that God is giving me to walk more closely to Him.
The End.
