our blog
Apr
What Do You See?
A fifth-grade teacher took her class to an art museum. Throughout the day, they looked at numerous pieces of art from all different time periods. The curator of the museum accompanied them to one specific painting that hung on a wall. He stopped the class and asked a simple question: “What do you see?”
For a short time the class was silent. Then, slowly, students began speaking. One little girl said the painting looked like a rainbow caught in a windstorm and all the colors got mixed around. One of the boys in the back was reminded of summertime. Another girl said she liked the pretty flowers.
This went on until finally one boy exclaimed, “If you ask me, it just looks like something my little brother brought home from preschool that my mom put on the fridge.”
Funny how one painting can mean so many different things to different people.
Life is like the painting, and as we look at our lives, our perception is shaped by our personal experiences and circumstances. We each have different lenses through which we see the world. These lenses influence the way we perceive God and faith, and define our views of success and failure.
What you see determines where you are headed. Direction is driven by perspective. If the lens you use to view yourself is focused on failures from your past, it is impossible to see the future God has for you. Vision is simply what you see.
As you engage in this My One Word experiment, clarity and direction are needed for growth to occur. Focusing on your circumstances and the regrets from your past will place your pursuit in neutral and can even shift things into reverse. When you live this way you not only see your past; you also live life running from it. Without realizing it, you are walking into the future backwards.
Why does this picture of your old self remain at the forefront of your attention? Why do you let this become the lens that defines your future? The reasons vary:
- Every time you pay for the mistakes of the past it serves as a reminder of the person you once were.
- Those labels of being worthless and a bad seed are challenging to remove from your heart and head.
- When you’ve been told your entire life you are unlovable you begin to believe the lie and let that define you.
- Old habits die hard and fight to remain in control.
Why do you stay in neutral by focusing on the failures of the past? Where is your lens set? Your Word will be determined by your vision. Instead of spending your time trying not to be the kind of person you once were, place your gaze on the person you want to become.
Apr
The Importance Of Perspective
Trying to type this blog post is getting increasingly difficult. This is not due to writer’s block, but for the simple fact that my eyes are playing tricks on me. The screen to my laptop is one big fuzzy, blurry mess. Each letter glows like a star and I honestly can’t make out anything I type. I’m just hoping that my fingers are steady and that this entry doesn’t come out as complete mish-mash of misspellings.
For the past hour my glasses have been missing in action – the latest victim of my youngest daughter’s grabby hands. What she snatches is never to be seen again. No household item stands a chance. Sometimes it is the television remote. Other times it is mommy’s cell phone. All of her normal hiding places have been checked and so far no luck. I’m sure she had a good chuckle watching me maneuver around the house like a zombie, knocking over anything in my way.
As I scratch my eyes and try to deal with a migraine setting in, I am beginning to realize just how important vision and perspective are to movement.
Without a lens through which to view the world, everything is blurry and we don’t know which way to move. This inevitably leads us to falter and stumble. It is only a matter of time before frustration sets in.
With this in mind, spend the month of April exploring the idea of creating a lens through which to view your One Word. We hope you can see your life and each moment that passes by in a different light through the perspective of your word. It is critical to learn how to recognize opportunities that come your way, to see if your word puts you in a position where God will use you.
To develop such a lens, first search out the needs that exist around you on a daily basis. If your word is “compassion” and you walk into your house, office or neighborhood, your lens forces you to ask yourself, “Where is compassion needed?” Someone whose word is “patience” looks for a way to respond with steadiness in the midst of chaos. For someone with a word like “consistent,” the alarm clock isn’t a nuisance – it’s a reminder of their commitment.
Viewing your circumstances through a clarifying lens helps the quality you want to obtain begin to embed itself in your character. In addition, a shift in perspective not only impacts you – it can also touch those around you. Something amazing happens when your eyes focus on living out your One Word. God begins directing more and more people into your path who are desperate to experience the living love of Christ. Through this lens, we should always view change.
- Read Psalm 119:17-18 and Proverbs 4:25-26. How has your One Word begun to influence your perspective? Where have you noticed a change in the way you would normally view a situation?
- How would you describe the current lens you are using? What does your current lens say about what takes priority and importance in your life?
Are you looking for a way to keep your word in front of you all year long? Register for a My One Word account! One of the key features of a MOW account is an online Word Journal that allows you to capture your thoughts to reflective questions like you see above. You can go back at any time to read your completed journals to see how God has been moving in your life through your word in 2011. If you already have an account, the questions from this blog have been posted to your Word Journal — log in to your account to start your Word Journal today!
Apr
The War Inside
War. Take any history class and you’ll spend the majority of your time discussing it. Now with the United States at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, military conflicts, unfortunately, remain a huge reality. Images flood the evening news, showing the brutality and danger of war zones.
Another war – one we’ll likely never see on television – is taking place, too, one that touches even closer to home. And just like any war, life hangs in the balance. Many of us don’t realize it, but we’re in this war. Its battleground lies right between our ears.
Satan knows that if he captures your mind, he can completely cripple you. Creating a stronghold over your mind is his best tactic for weakening the potential power your One Word can have on your heart. Gaining such presence in your thoughts allows him to alter the lens through which you view the world and your part in it.
Instead of recognizing this as war, we instead engage in what seem like harmless head games. But if we view this as war, doesn’t it then sound insane to sit back, remain idle, or even retreat? It is crucial we fight back, first by identifying the start of our thoughts, then willfully surrendering them by declaring our trust in God as the only one who gives us the desires of our heart.
By thinking our thoughts – by taking control of our minds – we go on the offensive against the enemy. This clarifies our perspective. Remember the old sports saying – the best defense is a good offense.
Our struggles don’t come about randomly or by coincidence. There is a purpose behind it and a natural path with a definite direction. It boils down to a need we are not allowing God to fulfill and is ultimately a lack of trust in Him when He says that He will provide for our needs. We are impatient, selfish and obsessed with instant gratification. We don’t like waiting on God’s timing, so we begin to justify and rationalize our actions so we can convince ourselves that what we did wrong was actually right.
More often than not, our realizations of truth come from experiencing it through regret rather than faith.
The thoughts that trip us into temptation don’t just randomly show up. They have points of origin. These initial stages of our thoughts usually go unnoticed until it is too late. When we allow our thoughts to stay long enough to take root, they can then lead to great physical and emotional pain. Identifying our thoughts’ origins is critical if we are to capture them before it is too late.
However, we cannot stop at just identifying the start of our thoughts. Understanding when and why they take place is drastically different from doing something about them. It will remain easy to justify and rationalize our actions, while at the same time, keeping the desire to meet our needs as the determining factor in our decision process. This leads to indifferent actions, in which we ignore the bigger audience (God) we need to answer to.
Until we take the next step in willfully surrendering and declaring our trust in God, we will remain helpless, unable to conquer our thoughts. Willful surrender involves (1) acknowledging that acting on these thoughts may lead to the satisfaction of our felt desire at that particular moment and (2) surrendering that potential satisfaction, denying ourselves that so-craved instant gratification.
Surrendering this thought is a declaration that you are seeking God as your source for life, fullness and joy. We do this through reflex thinking – when a thought creeps into our head, we capture it and surrender it over to God, regardless if it takes one time or a thousand to deal with it.
Stack each thought up against your standard. It is not enough to eliminate your old system of thought—it must be replaced with a new system. This is why it is so crucial to understand what it means to bring every thought into obedience to Christ.
- Identify the start of your thoughts by reading 2 Corinthians 10:3-5. Reflect on the following questions: (1) Can you trace the thought path that typically leads you to a response that you know is not useful or helpful (temper, lust, gossip, etc.)? Where do those responses come from? (2) What situations do you normally find yourself in when these thoughts begin to appear? (3) What emotions do you experience in this initial stage?
- By responding to the thought, you were hoping to have a certain need met. If ultimately every longing we have is a longing for God, what need were you looking to have met by yourself rather than God? Justification and rationalization stand as two of the greatest threats to the mind. How have these two elements of temptation wreaked havoc on your thoughts and altered the lens you use to view your circumstances?
Are you looking for a way to keep your word in front of you all year long? Register for a My One Word account! One of the key features of a MOW account is an online Word Journal that allows you to capture your thoughts to reflective questions like you see above. You can go back at any time to read your completed journals to see how God has been moving in your life through your word in 2010. If you already have an account, the questions from this blog have been posted to your Word Journal — log in to your account to start your Word Journal today!