We Are Not God

Recently, I learned a very hard lesson. I so often try to understand why someone does something. In particular, I try to understand why people do bad things. I try to get to what is going on at the time, which leads me to make excuses for them. Not only do I make excuses for them, but I also try to think that I know what will best help them. Okay, so help may be an understatement. I sometimes think that I know how to fix their problems. First problem with this is that I do not know where that person is at. Just because I see that there are things in their lives that need to change doesn't mean that they can see it. They may not be at point in their lives where they think that whatever is going on is an issue. The second problem with this is that I am not God. I do not know what is best for another person. Let's be honest. I don't even know what is best for me. If I am going to intentionally try and fix someone or "make them get help", then I am trying to play the role of God. Only God knows what the person truly needs and knows the true desires of their hearts. I have no room to interfere, and is definitely something that I need to work on. Instead of having to fix everyone, I can choose to allow God to work.

Remaining Neutral

One thing that I have learned is that I am very much a people pleaser. I am someone who wants to be friends with everyone and cannot stand when there is conflict. As an adult, I have learned that being friends with everyone is something that was mainly applicable in elementary school. I am not saying that we cannot be friends with everyone, but our friendships are going to look differently. For instance, say I am friends with one person because we both love sports. Then, I could be friends with another person who hates sports, but we both love to read. Obviously, I am not going to invite my sport-loving friend to come and hang out with my book-loving friend and I. Growing up, being friends with everyone meant that I not only had to be friends with everyone, but they also had to be friends with one another. This is something that is not going to happen. In some cases, we may even find ourselves in friendships with people who do not like one another. That is where remaining neutral comes in. Rather than trying to fix everything and being "two-faced", we can remain neutral and still be friends with both of them. Rather than trying to please everyone, I can remain neutral and be an honest friend.

Is It Too Much?

Many times I have been reminded of the passage in Corinthians that talks about God not giving us more than we can handle. Let's be honest, after a while of hearing this, we can become annoyed by it. I know for me, this is something that I would rather not hear, particularly when I feel as if life is too overwhelming. The other day, I heard a different viewpoint on this. Do we sometimes think that what we are going through is too much, when really it isn't? Or, is it too much because we continue to try and do things our own way rather than allow God to do things His way? This second question was the one that got me. Yes, when I continuously try to do things my own way and try to fix things on my own, of course I am going to feel overwhelmed and as if I can't handle things. But, what would happen if I allowed God to take the lead and take control of the situations? Would I then be able to handle things? I think that God doesn't give us more than we can handle, and I think that it isn't too much for us to handle when we allow Him to take control of it. Rather than trying to have control like I always do, maybe it would be more beneficial to allow God to work things out. Instead of stressing and feeling as if I can't handle the things going on in my life, I can choose to allow God to work through me and give me the strength to handle things.

Change

For many people who know me, they know that one of my biggest problems is dealing with change. I don't like when things in my life change so dramatically that I am unsure of what I am doing. The past couple of weeks have been full of nothing but change. Not only did the semester end, but graduation occurred, and we also moved into a new apartment. I really struggled at first with finding ways to keep myself positive about the change. I started to realize that every time I had a negative thought, there was something positive that could have been said about the situation. During the school year, one of my biggest annoyances was that I felt as if I wasn't spending a lot of time with the kids that I work with. Now that I am not taking classes for a couple of months, I have time to spend with them. Rather than viewing the extra time as a negative, I can change the thoughts into something positive. I believe that we can choose to focus on the negatives, or we can choose to fight and look at the positives. I know that I have said this before, but I think that it is really important for us to remember that we can choose how we want to look at a situation. I am not recommending that we completely ignore the negatives and basically go into denial. I'm saying that rather than remaining stuck on the negatives, we can choose to dwell on the positives. Rather than allowing myself to get stuck, I can choose to remain positive.

Unmanageable and Out of Control

Unmanageable and out of control are not two things that I would use to describe my life. A few years ago, possibly, but definitely not currently. I was having a conversation with someone last evening and these were two of the things that she brought up to describe a current situation. I for sure do not feel as if these two statements even describe the situation, but as I continued to listen, I began to understand what she was getting at. This situation is one that is unmanageable and out of control because there are other people involved. I cannot control other people, and I cannot manage how they are going to respond or how they are going to deal with the situation. Therefore, the situation is definitely one that I would consider to be unmanageable and out of MY control. It is within the control of God, and the other's involved of course, but there is really nothing that I can do to change the mind of those who are involved. I need to learn to allow others to have the dignity to make their own decisions and be who they are, not who I want them to be. This is definitely a growing and learning experience for me since I am someone who loves to have control and wants to know what the outcome of a situation is going to be beforehand. Rather than worrying and stressing about things that I cannot manage or control, I can choose to have faith in a God who does have control and who can manage these situation.

It's A Choice

This morning, I woke up feeling terrible. Not physically, but emotionally. I felt as if I wanted nothing to do with this day and would have rather went straight back to bed. Why? Good question, because I don't think I even know what was going on. All I know was that I felt as if I needed to go back to bed and wake up just to start the day over. But would that really help? It might have, but what if it wouldn't have? Would I just have to keep going back to bed and waking up until I felt so much better about things? Why waste all of that time when I could choose to look at things differently? Rather than thinking that this day is a waste and that there is no reason for me to even do anything, I can choose to look at all of the things that I need to do and not focus on the negatives going on around me. I have control over how I perceive the things going on around me. I can choose to be negative or I can choose to be positive. Obviously, choosing to think negatively and isolate myself will not do any good. As I sit here typing this, so many negative thoughts continue to flood my mind, but I have a choice to respond to them or truly look at them for what they are. They are nothing more than things that are going to bring me down and have no purpose. If they had a purpose, of course I would choose to explore them, but they don't. Today is going to be a good day, and I have the choice to decide that.

Re-Training

As I was falling asleep last night, I noticed that most of the thoughts that were going through my head were negative. I was telling myself all of the negative things about me and how I need to change them. Don't get me wrong, I think that when we see a shortcoming in our lives that it is good that we notice them and work to make the change, but that is not what I am talking about. The thoughts that were going through my mind were completely negative and useful for nothing more than putting myself down. As I was laying there, I became more and more frustrated with myself, which then caused me to begin to criticize myself on how I always think negatively. A cycle that is humorous, but somehow possible. This morning, I have been focusing on the idea that I need to re-train my thoughts. Telling myself to simply stop thinking those things is not going to work. In order to re-train my thoughts, I need to replace the negative thoughts with positive ones. Just to make sure that I am working my hardest on this, why not think of 2 positive thoughts for every negative? I kind of relate this to dieting. If we want to stop eating junk food, we can't simply tell ourselves to just stop eating. We need to replace those unhealthy foods with more healthy ones. The same principle can be applied to our thoughts. In order to drown out the negative thoughts and train our minds to focus on the positives, we need to replace the negative thoughts with positive ones.