Day 16
Have you ever said to yourself, “Life can’t get any better than this.” Everything is going so well, you just couldn’t imagine a better day, a better place in your life at that very moment. Everything is lined up just the way you think it should be. And yet, somehow when we’re on the path of really learning to let go and self discovery life actually does get better. Life no longer is bound by the limits of a person, by the limits of a circumstance, by the limits of an emotion. Life gets better because you’ve learned to choose joy. You’ve learned to celebrate despite whatever is going on around you. There’s something magical in that. You give up your surrender to being repurposed by life and you begin to tell life who you are, what you choose. What’s interesting is it seems almost by default things suddenly begin to click. Suddenly life seems to be engaged to you instead of vice versa.
I watched a great interview recently with Howard Schultz the CEO of Starbucks. He mentioned the word “passion” several times in his interview. So the interviewer asked are you passionate about coffee? He said I’m passionate about the people that make the coffee. True to his story, he really was. You see his dad was a blue collar worker and was laid off when he has hurt and had no health insurance or disability. At that point, this kid growing up in the projects decided he would never do that as an adult. And he honored that….Starbucks was the very first company to offer part time employees health insurance. You see often times I think we get it wrong. I think we believe our passion is what our occupation should be when in actuality we need to use our passion to fuel our occupations. I would almost bet that Mr. Schultz is passionate about how he operates even outside of Starbucks. I believe the success of Starbucks is a byproduct of his passion for treating his employees well. In other words, success wasn’t his goal. Treating his employees fairly was his passion, that passion is what led to his success. You almost have to take the end goal out of it and just let things be.
Consider the things that weigh you down, what are they? Your finances, your kids choices, your personal life? What would it look like if you could let go of those things? If it’s your finances, what if you could accept that maybe you have to downsize? Maybe instead of striving for more or to keep up you simply live in what is realistic for that point in time. Your kid’s choices, well what if you could just trust that you’ve given them a firm enough foundation that even if they wander a bit, they’ll be back. You can’t be the junior Holy Spirit and guide them every step. How would they ever learn to trust themselves? Your personal life…well what if you could just let it happen organically? What if you could just let go and allow yourself to truly love the sense of anticipation, the butterflies, the wonder of it all. Whatever it is for you, could we believe for one minute, despite how “perfect” things may seem right now, that they could actually get better even if things aren’t on the surface exactly as you want them.
In your quiet time today, consider what you think are the best things in your life right now and why. Could you be just as happy, just as joyful if they weren’t necessarily operating in your favor? I’m wondering if you could choose to just let go and live without regard to a win or lose mentality? You see friends when we take that out of the formula, there is no equation that equals joy, it’s joyful because we are. Hang in there, tomorrow we’ll be talking about gratitude….
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
New International Version (NIV)
16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
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