Impossible-s

  I don't tend to think in 'impossible-s'. But I've had to rethink this and wonder about how or if I handle my (unacknowledged?) impossible-s when they do arise. Do I consciously act on what I say we should do in difficult situations - turn to the Lord? Do I follow through on my analysis mindset? Is an 'impossible-s' something I avoid or meet face on? What lessons have I learned from avoiding and meeting the impossible-s that I face? More specifically, what has the Lord taught me?

   If one looks at this state, what is impossible? Obviously, a lost moment you could have done/said something to someone. Attempting to repay the Lord for all He did and continues to do. Taking back words and actions misspoken and undone. Impossible-s can range the gamut from the simple to the very complex. I checked Webster for some descriptive words about impossible and found: hopeless, unattainable, unrealized, unsolvable. That definitely puts (fill in the blank) impossible-s beyond what we can affect. When you look at just those few you can quickly see that they are significant. Impossible-s is not an unimportant word.  But are impossible-s beyond our ability to affect? Or are they simply 'difficulties'? Have we mis-classifed the situation?

  I must admit that I don't always follow my own advice or standard. I don't think it's intentional as much as it is unthinking reaction. Not always the best approach. However, I do tend to do at least a quick analysis to see if proceeding is recommended or change or deciding to abandon (fill in the blank). This always leads me back to the beginning to discover if what I initial believed still is relevant and then the questions emerge: did I have a good beginning but somehow made a misstep? Was the beginning flawed? Is where I am now a position of weakness or strength? And urgency determines how much time and effort I give to the questions.

  The Lord has taught me that, while not every 'failure' is in fact wrong, I need to know what His plan is and how I should proceed. And no, turning to Him first isn't always my first... but I need to be more intentional about this. I have discovered that if what I am pursuing is part of His plan for me, He will provide everything I need at the moment I need it as long as I take the time to find His will. Impossible-s are not in His vocabulary.

Sobering

  My neighbor died early this morning, totally unexpected. As for age, she was in her mid 40's. Relationship: it really wasn't that we were close but we had a friendly, fellow apartment-resident rapport. Not the point. Death is the salient point, not age, though relationship does intensify our reaction, even that isn't the point. Death seems to always arrest us and force us to consider our own mortality. Death is sobering. The person who quickened our initial thinking fades but does the reality of our own mortality?

  The question we face is what we believe about Heaven, Hell, Afterlife. Scripture teaches: "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" (Jesus speaking to Martha in John 11:25-26) If you believe that everything ends when you die then even though that's the end of it (in your thinking) you will end up residing in an afterlife. For Christians, since you believe and have accepted Jesus, you will be in Heaven. But hell is also a real place - which is reserved for those who refuse to believe. It's that simple. Contrary to what many say, scripture makes our destiny very clear and it is always our choice. 

  I believe that death should arrest our thinking. Those of us who are Christians and know where we are headed, this life is only a beginning; we should have a different perspective, but do we?  While death may sober us, does it do anything else? I would suggest that Christians should never consider death lightly but it should spur us toward sharing the Lord with others who don't know Him. Their eternal habitation should be important to us especially if we want to be part of the Lord's final commission - Mathew 28:18-20. Being 'good' does not give us entrance nor will all, automatically, find themselves in heaven. There is only one way - through Jesus.

  The point is that we are a spirit being, though currently residing in a physical state. And our spirit continues, Christian and non-Christian alike. The critical decision is where we spend all eternity. It is a very sober and serious decision and on it hangs our entire existence. This life is transitory - we read that in secular and sacred works. Our decision is a forever decision about where we will reside. Death is not to be feared. Actually... death is the doorway to another new adventure. However, your location does make all the difference.

Discouragement

                    “For consider Him who endured such hostility from

                     sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and

                     discouraged in your souls.” (Hebrews 12:3)

  We all get discouraged. It seems to be a ‘fact of life’. We all feel like giving up and stopping, in a variety of areas in our lives. So…do we? Do we give in and give up? Or do we push through and push on? What makes us do one over the other? Most important… what keeps us keeping on? So the question becomes – what will motivate you to continue or will it be the opposite that leads you to succumb to discouragement?

  If pride is your motivator to keep on going, then it will fail you eventually. Everyone needs a stronger support to keep them focused. Other people may not be the answer either, since they have their own lives and plans and even if they would be willing, they may not always have the time, energy, or opportunity to be an active support. That’s true for family as well as friends. It’s not a sense of not being able to count on them, it may simply be not in your best interests. Involve them – yes, but place undue expectations on them – no.

  So what is our motivation to stop or to continue? Warning about frustration - it is a motivator but it is basically a seducer to give up. Many times it attempts to provide us with the ‘logic’ and/or ‘justification’ to abandon (fill in the blank). The answer is that when we experience discouragement we can use this state to provide us with understanding of where we are and what we should do next. It doesn’t always mean that we should quit. However, it may mean a change.

  Spiritually, when we ‘consider Him’ then our perspective will change. This gives us a model to ‘consider’. Discouragement is always an inward focus, consider Him is an outward focus. And when we look at His life, His mission, His behavior, and the way He approached it… can we still consider discouragement? Perhaps we are in a position to take a stand against or for (fill in the blank). The lesson is the model. If we look to Jesus as our model when discouragement, disappointment, et al occurs, we can gain a different potential perspective and mindset. We can use discouragement to give us reason to quit or we can use it to look at what is occurring and develop our ‘next’.  

Disappointment

  How to handle, what to do about disappointments is such a difficult lesson to learn. Some of the reasons for the difficulty rest in the fact that disappointment is imbued with feelings. You can never eliminate your feelings when dealing with disappointment. And perhaps that was the most significant learning for me. I'm not much of a wallow-er but it is important to accept the feelings you are feeling. Without acknowledging them they will continue to rule and you will find you are at their mercy, regardless of how rational you believe you are. 

  In accepting that you are experiencing some emotions allows you to develop your way of responding to and dealing with them. I've heard, as many Christians have, that the reason for our disappointment is that the Lord has something better for us. That may be true but in the midst of the fact of the disappointment, who, what, why doesn't always play a primary role. And it really is our emotions that need to be considered and dealt with before we can move into responding proactively to the disappointment. 

  Disappointments can lead us to giving up or lead us into new thinkings. It is incredibly important to assess the disappointment in terms of what it's telling us before we move into responding. I do believe, however, that some of my more 'profound' understandings of (fill in the blank) occurred as I faced, not always gracefully, what the disappointment was telling me. But once I moved beyond my initial reaction and started considering what happened, and why, then invariably I can develop a more positive response.

  Sometimes we become disappointed when a project we are working on doesn't seems to be turning out as we had thought. People are another source of disappointment, especially in how they react to (fill in the blank), but perhaps the ultimate disappointment occurs when we feel this toward ourselves and our behavior. Lessons can be learned from disappointment. And how we choose to behave in these situations, because they seem to be inevitable, is very telling about our character and how we develop it. Disappointment is an 'is'. Our lessons depend on our attitude. 

Epiphany!

  Epiphany (Webster): "a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience; any moment of great or sudden revelation..." Yes! Love Epiphanies. Most of the time they are of the sudden or great variety, at least for me. They often start small and quiet but when the 'eureka' hits - they are significant and powerful, enough to cause us to stop and change or rethink. And it may result in an entirely new paradigm.

  I do not experience epiphanies daily or even weekly which is why they are so special when they occur. I suspect I give them more credence because of their unexpectedness and lack of regularity - so when they do appear, it is always significant. I'm not sure one can 'inspire' an epiphany or go in search of them. For me, an epiphany functions as a kind of 'break through' into a new way of seeing or interacting with what has just occurred. Sometimes, though, it can be totally unrelated to what I was doing at the moment. However, it is always a new learning, though it may simply be a deepening of a previous learning.

  Personally I welcome epiphanies because my experience is that they are a positive. Epiphanies may come as an alert or warning but in and of themselves, they are not 'negative'. However, the ones I appreciate the most are those that lead me in a new way of considering (fill in the blank) or refining what it is I believe, think, and do. These are the times that are perhaps not life changing but they can be life altering. Regardless of the depth of significance - they always arrest and stop me.

  The primary consideration though is the source of the epiphany. In scripture we are giving an aid in 1 John 4:1, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits..." I apply this to epiphanies as well. Quoting an intentional misquote - Assumptions doth make fools of us all. Which, to me, means that there has to be a rationality to and trust in the epiphany, though others may disagree. Epiphanies, in my world of definitions, are meant to lead us onward. If so, then we need to be able to trust the source of the epiphany and discard any pseudo or false ones. An epiphany can be exhilarating. I tend to consider them as God's inspiration made manifest in us.

 

Pointing fingers...

  Do you? Is your cry - 'it's not my fault!'. Do you try and fob off with a '...but she said...' or a '...but he was doing...' or '... but what I meant was...' to justify why you did/said what you did? While you attempt to deflect responsibility elsewhere, is there a small voice in the back of your head that reminds you that whether or not that was the case, you chose to do (fill in the blank). Or do you try and quiet that voice? It really never works and there is little relief until you acknowledge your part in whatever occurred.

  As any child will tell you, pointing fingers really never works. You will end up 'paying the piper' eventually so pointing fingers only has a momentary success rate and the eventual price is far dearer. I remember the old saying that if you point your finger at someone, you have 4 fingers pointing back to you. And that is most uncomfortable. Sadly, we still do it. At the moment of confrontation we still hope that maybe, just maybe we can extricate ourselves by (mis)directing others' attention. If it does work, it will still come back to get us.

  Why do we continue in a behavior (pointing fingers) that we know with certainty that it will never work, or not for long? It appears that 'pain' (now) is best served later. Not always. If (fill in the blank) is our fault, then the immediate 'punishment' is far less then the baggage we carry thinking that later is easier. We receive a 'double portion' in that we carry the waiting-to-get-caught as well as the eventual punishment. And none of that is new information but still we continue in self-defeating behaviors.

  Admittedly all that's been said has been slightly tongue-in-cheek but it is a behavior we all engage in that is totally baffling. It serves no purpose. Which leads me to... what do you see as the alternative to pointing fingers? If it is a behavior to deflection that you are attempting to find - not gonna happen. However, why is it so difficult for us to admit when we are wrong, face the consequences of our actions (or lack thereof), make whatever amends we can... and move on? We waste far less time, energy, and 'resources' when we simply raise our hand and say... 'my bad, now what can I do to help resolve the problem? Will we ever learn this lesson?

Counsel

  Most of us have great difficulty asking for counsel ... especially from the Lord. Why we continue to do this, when we have our experience from the times we didn't turn to Him, remains mystifying. Unfortunately, we still seem to pursue this self-defeating behavior - to our own pain and hurt. Why? Primarily because we trust in our own understanding - this can and often does prove disastrous. Quick example: In Joshua 9: 14-15 we see that though God had warned Joshua and the people about making alliances. With little thought, Joshua made peace and a covenant with a wily and crafty people that turned out to be their problem for generations. It had seemed proper and right - in their own thinking. Not!

 Part of the problem in not seeking counsel is the ripple effect it has on those around us who are also effected by our 'choices'. Rarely does anything happen in a vacuum. Rarely will our decisions not also effect others. But for some reason we act as if it's all about us and we're the only one involved. So what's so wrong with seeking counsel? Nowhere does it state that we shouldn't use common sense in choosing those we seek the counsel. And we don't have to accept the counsel given. Proverbs probably gives us the best advice when it tells us that in the multitude of counselors there is safety(Proverbs 11:15, 15:22). Besides, if we rely only on our own understanding then we are limiting our options.

  Counsel, whether giving or seeking, is only one part in our option planning. Sometimes others' opinions lead you into knowing what you would never do - and that's valuable too. Sometimes it seems like it unlocks a door to a different way of conceptualizing (fill in the blank). Counsel does not need to be viewed negatively, as a statement that we don't know what to do. Counsel, in my opinion, should be viewed as another tool in your decision making process.

  I've learned that when I involve the Lord in the beginning of my process of/to (fill in the blank) then I don't need to run to Him as panicked in the 'help' stage. When it's in the clean-up stage, there's not as much of an opportunity for creativity. Bottom line for me is that His counsel is always true... and good... and available. Prayer is the activity, for me, that is my method of seeking counsel. Scripture also provides answers to how I go about doing what I do.