choices

Finding Hope in Knowing God Wastes Nothing

~ Hope Surrendered ~ 1 Comment

DSCF9869 - Copy

I wish you could experience the richness, perfection of timing and incredible way in which the Lord pours out His love very personally to each of us. If you aren’t experiencing this in your life, please … get to know Him, as He desires to know you and walk with you in this way.

This past week marked the start of a “new” study for me. It’s a new study with a group of 23 women, but I did this study over a decade ago, shortly after I entered into a personal walk with Christ. I don’t remember much from it, except that it left me with a few incredible impressions about how God’s Word was completely woven together, and that His love and His message to us is poured out very intentionally in Scripture.

This morning, as I was working on Day 3 of the study, this sentence was on the page about Saul (who was later known as Paul):  “NOTHING in Saul’s life would be a waste unless he refused to let God use it.” … and, yes, that word is in all caps in the workbook.

Those in my closest circles have heard me say, “God wastes nothing.” They’ve also heard me say something along the lines of “… anything He allows, He intends to use for our good and for His glory, IF we will only let Him.”

I SAY this a lot, but I needed to HEAR it this morning.

Once again, the Lord showed up to give me a loving encouragement. He did it by using Beth Moore’s words on a page, right after I read Paul’s words from His Word in Galatians.

What she said in this sentence … this concept … these words … somehow, has infiltrated my life (maybe it started when I did this study years ago … I don’t know …), and it is now a part of who I am. But it doesn’t stop there … Because of His amazing presence in my life, I’ve incorporated those words and woven them into His words and His promises for all of those who love Him (Romans 8:28).

The Lord truly does waste nothing. Every single thing we experience in life is something He has the capability to use for our good and for His glory, if we will only submit to Him and allow Him to do so.

There’s an action step here. I see it. Do you?

Monday’s Musings — Metal Spheres & Choices

~ Hope Surrendered ~ 5 Comments

Newton'sCradle.Choices.HSHave you ever stopped to stare at one of these scientific pendulum contraptions?

… to look at the way the spheres move? … how they collide with one another? … how they are impacted by one another?

Pick up the device (it’s known as “Newton’s Cradle”) to rock it back and forth, and all the spheres will stay stuck to one another and move in perfect harmony.

Pick up one ball, and, via the outside force of fingers releasing a ball, it will connect with the second ball to create a dynamic that impacts the remaining three.

Pick up two balls, and, when released, they will stay together and work together impacting and absorbing the motion of the remaining three balls.

Even if shaken, the balls will quickly find their way back into order.

The response varies depending on the force and how it is used, but there is still a response. There is always a response. … even when the motion slows and the balls come to a complete rest, there is still a motion happening in the group.

In one of these little scientific devices, we can observe harmony and how the spheres seem to work WITH one another!

____________________

But something else happens, too. If you play with the device long enough, you will see that the balls aren’t always working in harmony with one another, but that they are reacting to the force exerted on them by the other balls.

Life.

Life does this to us.

Another’s choices, words, actions or deeds hit us hard, and we are caught in the fallout.

Our own thoughts lead to choices, words, actions, or deeds that change life forever — for us and for those around us.
… never to be the same again …
Time and forgiveness — offered or received — will help, but life will still always be different.

____________________

So, is it harmony or fallout?

When life impacts us,
when another’s choices impact us,
when life changes forever,
how do we respond?

We do have a choice.

We’re not just a metal ball hanging on a string from a wire frame bracing for the impact. We’re not just a sphere stuck in the middle waiting to see what those around us do.

We do have a choice. We have a choice in how to respond to what has been done to us. And, if we’ve done it to another, we have a choice in how to proceed forward with the impact we have made.

____________________

Life is about choices.

As much as we want to blame another person, fill our thoughts with “what-ifs,” dream of a rewind, wish it away or ignore it all, that’s not what we’ve been given in this present moment.

Life is about choices, and today is about choices. … making choices that lead to living the kind of life where joy, peace and hope can take root and take hold.

The choices we make today can create a harmony around us, or, the choices we make today can create yet another level of fallout.

I need to choose wisely … we all do.

________________________________________

The Difference a Year Can Make

~ Hope Surrendered ~ Leave a comment

Calendar

A few years ago, my life was turned upside down due to choices a loved one had made. The choices were made over a long period of time, but there came a day when the consequences of those choices began to clearly unfold. It was devastating.

The choices made and the consequences which unfolded took yet another turn a year ago. What a difference a year can make. It’s a day in which I can look back and recognize as one of the worst of my life, yet also one of the best, too. It’s a day that became an end and a day that became a beginning. Dreams and hopes were shattered, yet dreams and hopes were also born that day.

Choices have consequences and consequences lead to more choices. The choices my loved one made had far-reaching consequences, but MY OWN choices that ensued had the power to lead to even further-reaching consequences.

We can not control the choices of another person. In marriage, in parenting, in business relationships, in friendships, and in life, we all face choices. We are quick to judge and quick to offer opinions about the choices others make, yet we have a hard time realizing that the follow-up choices WE make in response to another’s choices we didn’t make may have a longer-lasting effect.

When I look at where I am today and I compare it to where I was a year ago, so many feelings surface. Life today is not the way I’d desire it to be, nor was it a year ago. Many of the shattered dreams and hopes still lie in pieces — shards that pierce, shards that cut to the core. Despite having to step carefully through what has been lost, I’ve developed a sense of determination and hope that has transformed much of the hurt into blessings. The path forward has been about the choices I’ve made and the hope I’ve found by weighing my own choices — those I have needed to make and those which have been made in response to choices others have made.

I can’t wave a magic wand and have the kind of life I’ve dreamed about…even that life would bring challenges and choices of its own! What I can do, though, is realize that despite the impact others might have on me, I am the one who can impact my future more than anyone else.

We were created by our God to do life together, and He created each of us with our own free will. Others can influence our free will for the positive or for the negative, but where we allow our will to lead is completely up to us. I don’t usually advocate thinking about Self first, but when it comes to the choices we make, Self is the one who can choose to follow the God-honoring path.

Although there are still hurts and struggles, there are also hopes and dreams. He’s given me free will. I’m working on using my free will to make choices that focus on the positive as much as I can.

What a difference a year can make.

Finding Hope in Serving Others

~ Hope Surrendered ~ Leave a comment

“What can I do?”

“What do I have to do?”

We’re called upon quite often to help others. Our innate asks and answers the call to help before our spoken words have the chance to leave our tongue.

Which question does your innate summon?

Which question do you speak?

Service, simply, is helping others. Service is not what we do for others, but what we give to others.

In the latter part of Romans, Paul outlines what service can look like for a Christian seeking to walk as the Lord would have them walk. Starting with Chapter 12, we see a shift in Paul’s tone from instructing us on how we should live to a tone of giving us his counsel and encouragement in applying what he has taught us. I interpret part of his exhortation to recognize that even though we are individuals, we are a part of something bigger. The choices we make are to be a contribution toward effectively living out our purpose as a member of the larger body. Life should no longer just be about us.

If service were about what we were doing for others, we would hold the upper hand or the power in the task (and maybe even some self-oriented pride in the outcome). When our mindset, our questions, our answers and our service are all about what we give to others, the upper hand and the power released is about something much greater than the one doing the service or even the one being served. It’s about the Spirit — about His ability to move within us, within others and within the world.

When we demand to be recognized or feel the need to point out what we’ve done just in case the other person missed it, is our service Godly service? When another is in need or we’re asked to provide a helping hand, is our nature to find a way to contribute or to check our schedule to find a way out of it?

When called upon to help, are our choices, words, actions, deeds AND thoughts, oriented toward God? or Self? Our innate answers before we do, and His grace gives us the power and reason summon a new answer.

Finding Hope in Honor

~ Hope Surrendered ~ 4 Comments

DSCF8171

He’s given us free will. Volition. Life’s choices are up to us.

Why do we struggle with them so much? Why do the choices seem so hard?

The world often comes at us with a set of choices different from where He might lead us in His Word. In reading His Word, we can be assured that it has always been this way. Despite our desire to imagine that life was easier in the “good old days,” those days — even back to Biblical civilizations — were full of struggles with life’s choices.

A few decades ago, the “What Would Jesus Do?” movement began. Bracelets and messages imprinted with “WWJD?” were everywhere and gave some of us pause before proceeding in our free will.

So how do we, as Believers, walk through our days today making the “right” choices? Everyone has a method. I’m not an expert on this subject, as I still struggle with it myself (what Believer doesn’t?), but I have my own WWJD method.

The last few years of my life have been rough ones. I’ve faced adversity, circumstances and choices I never could have imagined I’d have to face. My challenges are probably different from yours, but they are no more or less difficult in my life’s context as your challenges are in your life’s context. My journey of surrendering my hopes to the Lord has brought some of you into my life — some of you struggling with divorce, abuse, infertility, cancer, the death of a child or spouse, infidelity, depression, traumatic brain injury, miscarriage, rape, loss of purpose, bankruptcy, military injury and so much more.

Your struggle is valid. My struggle is valid. It is in our struggles that we can be defined, or we can be refined.

Psalm 66:10 says, “For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver.”

I am one who believes that the possibility of refinement exists in the trials and tests we are allowed to experience. The positive or negative outcome from these tests is often determined by our perspective.

I don’t ask “WWJD?,” but I do challenge myself and hold myself to a standard that I try to meet in my free-will choices.

As I walk through my days, my struggles, my hopes, my sadness and my joys, I strive to be God-honoring in my choices, words, actions, and deeds. These four words…

      • choices
      • words
      • actions
      • deeds

…have been an instrumental part of the hope which has gotten me through the thousands of decisions I’ve had to wade through over my struggles of the last few years.

A few months ago, a mentor of mine challenged me to take it one more step. He suggested that I add “thoughts.”

Profound.

Very profound.

I added it.

So today, my list, my method, my goal, my lifestyle attempt is:

To prayerfully be God-honoring in my choices, words, actions, deeds and thoughts.

Oh, what a blessing has been produced by being refined on His terms and in His timing!