Day 15
God has a sense of humor…He tends to teach me as I write. I encountered a situation yesterday where my old mindset, my old memories, totally wanted to come flooding in. I was coloring a new situation with old fabric from the past and it was ugly friends. I realized that I was guarding. I was protecting. I was, as my wise friend put it, trying to “control”. Yikes…You see it’s our defense mechanism. It’s not easily undone. Remember our talk about foundation? It takes time to tweak our thought process. It actually takes practice and discipline. It takes bringing “all thoughts captive to Christ” as scripture tells us to do. I’ll tell you what’s challenging about this and why memories are so powerful. Because, if we have nothing “healthy” to compare our wounded memories to then how do we know how to change the channel? Imagine life for a moment just like that…you’re life is like channel surfing. You don’t like what you’re watching, it’s nothing but old reruns (repurposing marathon ha!) so we go to change the channel but how do we know what else we’d like to watch if this is all we’ve known for so long? We know line by line, the reactions of the other people, our reactions….isn’t that what it’s like when we project? We are scripting the story before we even allow it to unfold! We are transferring emotions, being fortune tellers of the future, if we allow it we’ve got the whole thing mapped out before we even get the chance to decide if we like it or not. So how do we know?
The truth is we won’t. I know that’s hard for a lot of us but it’s the truth. We won’t know until we dip our toes and then our whole body into the pool of life. We cannot continue to allow our minds, our memories to foretell the future of a situation based on the past. It’s not fair. I wonder how many sweet opportunities I’ve missed out on because I couldn’t let go of old memories. I wonder how many more years I would have squandered had I not decided to accept that maybe just maybe I was wrong about the way I was framing things. I wonder how many great memories I’ve lost sight of because it’s easier to recall the hurtful things instead? What really helped me was surrounding myself with people that had a different journey from mine. People that had a healthier outlook on the situation. People that sought hard to line up the situation with truth and scripture. You see friends, there are only so many ancient paths that lead to freedom from the thoughts that enslave us. Often times we create our own paths into the forest and thicket because it’s easier to hide out than it is to face things. The unknown can be scary. But, what would it be like to just allow ourselves to be present right now in the moment instead of forecasting the next 1000 moments? That’s a ton of work. What would it look like if we could fire our memory and his sidekick fear from being our tour guide in life and maybe hire someone more qualified like our loving Father.
You see friends, when we’re sick of watching the reruns of repurposing ourselves and we want to change the channel. It’s ok to surf for a little while. It’s ok if we don’t know exactly the next thing we want to watch or subscribe to. It’s part of the journey of finding out who we really are, our original design. And, when your memory sees something and begins shouting “we’ve already seen this one!” hit the mute button and allow your heart to hold the remote control for a while. Sit back and take it all in. Enjoy the freedom that comes from the adventure of unchartered territory. Ask others with experience if they can speak into your journey. Remember the highlights of your top ten good memories, not the low lights of your top 5.
In your quiet time today, consider what memory and fear like to show you as “landmarks” for your life. Can you choose different tent poles that maybe give you more hope for the future? Consider a situation in life where you feel stuck and not sure how to change the channel. Pray for freedom to choose to relinquish control of it, to simply let it play out. Avoid self sabotage by projecting and fortune telling. Don’t hide your heart from experience, press into it courageously…don’t miss another new episode of what could be!
Romans 15:13
English Standard Version (ESV)
13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
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