Keep Your Eye on the Ball ...

March Madness means something different in my life than for the majority of the rest of the world ... at least those individuals in the rest of the world who are sports-minded. I work in an accounting office, and we are slap dab in the middle of tax season. It gets rough. We are all tired and frazzled.

Last week was particularly tough for me. I only took my eye off the ball for a minute, but that was all it took, and I was out in left field. (Oops, I think I am mixing my metaphors, but you get the general idea here.......)

What happened to all that freedom I embraced this past December? I had to go and re-read my own post. Where did all my spiritual health (and mental health, for that matter) get off to? 

I lost sight of God's love, God's provision, God's purpose for me, and I focused squarely on my circumstances.

All too quickly, I found my mind wrapped in all the old self-defeating thoughts and attitudes of the past. Victimhood. It's always there ... ready, waiting, willing to cuddle and comfort the unsuspecting heart and mind. 

I was overworked. Stressed beyond my ability to cope well. My flesh had been super-sized. And my spirit was cowering in the corner, undernourished and weak. 

My super-sized flesh grabbed a megaphone and began to holler in my head: Did you see that? How can I get all this done alone? Did you see how this person looked at you? You messed that up. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah .......

Soon vain imagination jumped into the mix. It was a regular party up in my head. It made for a bad day that stretched into a bad week. 

Add to the mix some other unexpected personal circumstances, and by the end of the week I felt like all the life had been squashed right out of me. And for all practical purposes, it truly had been. I had allowed a mountain of circumstances to snuff out the light of hope in my heart. I forgot that I was part of a team, that I didn't have to handle life all alone. 

I spoke with a dear friend this past weekend, and after I'd shared all my woes and asked her to pray for me, I quipped lightly, "Well, if all this is coming against me, I'm either doing something very wrong or very right."

She chuckled softly and said she was sure the Holy Spirit would let me know. 

She was certainly right. 

The very next day, another friend shared this devotional with me: 

 From Sapphires, the teachings of Jonathan Cahn

How is your day going? You probably think that if things are going bad you are having a bad day and if things are going good, it’s a good day. But the Bible says something completely different. And it can change the way you live your life. Proverbs 15:15 says, "All the days of the downcast are bad, but a cheerful heart has an everlasting banquet."    Or, 'All the days of the downcast are bad, but a good heart has a never-ending banquet.'

In other words, it is not bad days that make the downcast heart. It is the downcast heart that makes all of the bad days. And it is not the continual banquet that makes the good heart. It is the good heart that makes the continual banquet. Get it?

If your heart is complaining, your days will be rotten. And if your heart is full of praise and thanksgiving, your days will be full and beautiful.  So... do you want a good day, a good week, a good year … a good life?  Stop seeking after a good day, and seek instead to have a good heart. Give thanks in all things, and praise to God, and your life will become an everlasting banquet.

TODAYS MISSION - No matter what is around you today, give God thanks and praise Him as often as you can, and you will have a never-ending banquet.

Psalm 42:11

The problem wasn't with the people around me. The problem wasn't having too much work to do. The problem was my very own heart. My heart was complaining. And the problem was with my very own eyes. My eyes were focused on circumstances, instead of on the Lord of my life, who walks right beside me through every possible circumstance I encounter. He is my Way Maker. He is my Victory.  He is my Peace ... my Redeemer ... my Rock ... my Shield ... my Strength ... my Safe Place. He is my all in all. 

At the risk of sounding irreverent, He is the Ball in my court. If I will keep my eyes on Him, we will make the winning basket every time!

You Find what You Look for ...

If you've been married for any length of time, I'm sure you know by now that your spouse can do things that you find annoying. I mean, it can't be just me, can it? 

Let me give you an example. I've always been a night owl, while hubby could happily go to bed at 9 PM. I can be nodding off on the couch in the evening, but around 10:00, I always get that burst of I'm-not-sure-what, but I could stay up for another couple hours after it hits, no sweat ... until the alarm goes off at 5 AM. I guess God just designed our biorhythms differently. After all, variety is the spice of life, right?  

That being the case, it's not unusual for me to sit up reading at night, while Wayne slumbers peacefully beside me, quiet as a mouse. Quiet as a mouse, that is, UNTIL I turn off the light and snuggle down to drift off to dreamland myself. It usually doesn't take more than thirty seconds, a minute at most, before I hear that first raspy little snore. Really? 

I literally feel my entire body tense at the softest hint of a snore. My blood pressure elevates, and I find my thoughts spinning around at the injustice of it all.

I've been reading for over an hour, and you haven't made a single peep. But now ... now that I'm trying to sleep ... now you are going to snore. That's just great. Priceless!

I used to get so frustrated that I'd go and sleep upstairs. All I could think of was that I had to get up in "x" amount of hours, and I knew I'd never fall asleep with Mr. Freight Train next to me. 

We even purchased an expensive mouthpiece a year or so ago, one that is supposed to keep the snoring to the bare minimum, and my beloved is talented enough to have figured out how to snore around it! Yes, I admit that it happens only once in a while, and the snoring is softer than it used to be ... but it's still snoring! 

So rather than focus on the part about him snoring softer and not as often as he used to, I find that I focus on the fact that he is snoring at all. 

Okay, okay, okay ... I'm off on a bunny trail. This post wasn't supposed to be about snoring. It's about focus. 

God has been talking to me a lot about focus these days. And the awful truth is that if I am looking for something negative, I don't have to look far. There's always a ready supply of negativity available, most of it beginning right inside my own little head!

But I'm learning that if I will take my magnifying glass and look for the little nuggets that my Father puts in my path, I am so blessed; and those thoughts wrap themselves around my heart and carry me safely through my day.

I had such an experience the other day. My husband and I were eating lunch, and the restaurant was equipped with televisions. It was the weekend before Veteran's Day, and the stations were showing all sorts of ads where sports teams had made it possible for soldiers to come home and surprise their loved ones at the various games. Apparently Wayne had seen several of these reunions throughout the weekend, and he was describing them to me. I could tell that he was very touched by them ... to the point of reaching to wipe the little telltale glisten from his eyes, as he struggled to speak around the lump I could hear forming in his throat. 

I just sat and listened, touched by the stories he shared, but even more touched by the man I've shared my life with for the past thirty years. He is a family man, and his heart is wholly God's. His desire is to leave a spiritual legacy for his family. Nothing means more to him than me, our kids, and our growing number of grandkids. What an incredible blessing! 

And to think I'd have missed it entirely ... 

if I hadn't moved that magnifying glass two inches ... 

from his nose 

to his eyes. 

We do find what we look for. Why not look for the good? What have we got to lose?

The Expectation Response

"To anticipate" or "to expect"; both involve looking forward to something, according to dictionary.com. 

In my post last week, Pins and Needles ... and the Waiting Thing, I touched on the subject of expectations. Expectations, in and of themselves, are not inherently bad; it's the attitude with which we hold them that can get us into trouble.

When I saw the picture of the little tot above, clearly anticipating the arrival of a Christmas visitor, it made me smile. Certainly, that little child's anticipation is pure and joyful; there is expectation of blessing to be sure, but probably not such a specific expectation that it will yield sinful heart attitudes if not met exactly. Maybe little Bobby is hoping for a bicycle; but if he gets a puppy instead, he will be just as thrilled. 

I find that as we grow older, our expectations begin to define our responses. Teen-aged Bobby might expect a car for Christmas, and then pout when he gets only a computer. A computer is clearly a blessing, but it isn't the blessing Bob wanted; his expectations were unmet, and now instead of being thankful, he has a bitter heart. 

For me, personally, it isn't so much expectation of material things that can threaten to undo me. No, it is expectations of people and relationships. Sometimes I assume others think just as I do, and then when they act in a way that is unexpected, it wounds me. Once wounded, I might withhold forgiveness for an individual, expecting that they realize I am holding out for an apology. And since they think just like I do, I should have no need to explain why I'm hurt; they should already know what they have done to hurt me. And I certainly needn't verbalize my desire to receive an apology from them; they already know what they need to do. Right? 

Or suppose I have been the one to trample on a relationship. Maybe I did something that could be, in hindsight, construed insensitive; but it wouldn't have caused me that much anguish, had it been done to me, so there's really no problem. Right? Or perhaps I can't think of one single thing I have done, which I myself would find hurtful or offensive. I could come away from that situation with this attitude: "Well, that person is obviously too sensitive; that wouldn't bother me. It shouldn't bother them." 

Assumptions that others think like I do, or that they understand me ... or assumptions about others' thoughts or feelings ... these things can only end in one way. And it can be summed up in the spelling of the very word itself:

ASS - U - ME

I wish I could tell you that I learned these truths in an academic setting, but you already know that I did not, and that I cannot. Unfortunately, most of us learn these painful lessons the hard way, by being hurt, and by hurting those we love. 

Sadly, I have in the past ignored the nudge of the Holy Spirit to forgive an offense, choosing instead to wallow in the assumption that the offending party knew exactly what they had done. I withheld my forgiveness, waiting for my much-deserved apology (in my humble opinion). All I ended up with was a bitter heart and a broken relationship. Thankfully, God was able, after I knew Him, to get through to my stubborn heart, and He was able to restore the relationship, when I finally gave up my rights and just loved that person right where they were, accepting that what they were giving me was all they were capable of giving to any relationship. It was then that I was finally able to pray for that soul, pray that God would be able to heal and mend that heart, free it from the pain and suffering which crippled it (as God had to free my own). And who knows, maybe one day, the relationship will be all I hope it to be. At least, for now, I'm not the barrier to God's touch for either of us. 

Yes, there are times when we really have a justified reason to be offended, but God still calls us to forgive and let Him deal with the offense. Then we have to face ourselves and ask this question: Do we trust Him to take care of things? Are we afraid He will extend mercy, when we want Him to exact revenge? Are we going to insist on exacting revenge ourselves, to be sure things are handled the way we expect them to be handled? I've had those arguments with God too, and that's a subject for a future blog post. 

And there will be times when God calls us to end a relationship that is not healthy or beneficial. But in my experience, if it's truly Him calling the end, you will still have love in your heart. That's a great deal different than bitterness. 

I have found that the longer I allow bitterness to fester, the greater the battles will be to love, when it's all over. It's almost like bitterness is a virus, and it leaves antibodies in your heart. Later, when you truly want to love, sometimes that old virus will flare up, and you find yourself fighting that old battle once again, trying to regain your footing, having to re-conquer territory that you already won from the enemy. How much easier it would have been to forgive in the first place, the first time the Holy Spirit nudged me in that direction! 

My desire for the future is that I keep my expectations centered on God and His word. I know I do not always think as He thinks, for we are told in Isaiah 55:8: "'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,' declares the Lord." 

I also know that He knows how and why I think as I do. 

Lord, You have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I stand up.
You understand my thoughts from far away.
You observe my travels and my rest;
You are aware of all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue,
You know all about it, Lord.
You have encircled me;
You have placed Your hand on me.
This extraordinary knowledge is beyond me.
It is lofty; I am unable to reach it.

Psalm 139:1-6

If His word becomes the filter for all my future expectations and assumptions, then my responses will be more Christlike. People will be able to see Him, rather than me. 

John 3:30 says, "He must increase, but I must decrease."

John 12:32 says, "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself."