What story do you tell about your life?
Our heart becomes full of whatever we choose to hold in our hearts. “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things; an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart, brings forth evil things; for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” So if you want to know what you’re full of, ask the people around you. Don’t depend on your own judgment.
Our life story comes from the choices we’ve made about how we respond to the challenges of life. Some choices will make us bitter persons; other choices will make us better persons. There’s enough that happens in life to make us bitter, but God always has a way of helping us. We can’t control the facts of our life, but we can control the story we tell about those facts. None of us lives with the facts of our life; we live with the story we tell ourselves about those facts. The enemy wants to give us the most destructive version of the story; and Jesus wants to give us the most creative version of the story. There’s that battle that goes on between our ears about how we’ll finally explain to ourselves about how we’re going to view the unfair issues that all of us go through, Jesus makes it clear that no life is always sunny. “Rains and floods come to the house built on sand as well as to the house built on rock.”
You cannot always control what happens to you in life, but you can always control how you choose to feel and think about what happens to you. The facts of your history are there; you can’t change them. Many people waste time trying to undo and redo life. The more you try to redo it, the more you stay anchored in your past. You have to come to terms with the facts of your past and ask God to help you put them together in the most creative way possible and not let the enemy make you bitter in the way you respond to things that God can use to make you better.
(References used – Psa. 23:7; Matt. 7:24-27)
Copied from sermon by Dr. Richard Dobbins, “He lived; he loved; he left,” ICLV, Father’s Day, 06/17/2012.
Musings by Yvonne. Selah! 