The Choice

Earlier in my twenties I struggled with depression. This is not to say that I considered myself "depressed' but I test high as a melancholy and had a tendency to complain...a lot. I never saw the class half full. My friend and I used to go walking every morning and I would complain about my job the entire time. I struggled physically on those walks, especially when it came to walking up one of the many hills in our neighborhood.

Fast forward. She challenged me quite a few times and as a result I started changing my tune. I specifically remember one morning making a decision to not complain. I decided that I would only speak positively over my job even if I didn't believe everything I said. Do you know what happened? I charged up those hills! I had been walking in defeat for so long and suddenly I had a new energy about me! What about my situation had changed? Me.

Philippians is quite possibly one of my favorite books of the bible. So much in those 4 chapters speaks deeply to me. Particularly the 4th Chapter. Here are a few of my favorites...4:4 "Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again, rejoice!"....4:6 "Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7 then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus." and finally 8 "...Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise."

No where in that passage does it say, sit back and let God fill you with peace. Every part of it starts with us being responsible for our own emotions, our own decisions of how we decide to react to our daily lives. Don't worry...well, for some of us that takes an act of God! But it can be done if we fix our thoughts on the positive. The bottom line is we have to make the choice to not worry, to pray about everything, to be thankful, to fix our thoughts....THEN God will fill us with peace.

Ps Jill Sweetman has an incredible revelation/message on going to Vision vs. Complaint. Hearing her revelation on it has given me a revelation that has changed my thinking and transformed me. Let's say you're in a church that doesn't have a good kids dept, if it bothers you enough than I would suggest that you may be passionate about it. Now you can do two things, you can go to complaint, talking to others about how much of a failure the whole thing is. OR, you can go talk to the person running it and see if you can help. Maybe the person running it has tried everything to make things better but can't seem to nail down some specific areas and you're just the person to fill in the blanks.

Or what about in a marriage. We can easily go to complaint if our husbands don't help us around the house or with the kids but have we been nagging him to death about it instead of making it enjoyable for him to get involved in? We choose what kind of life we want. We choose what kind of relationships we want. We choose what kind of church we serve. But it doesn't come with out action on our behalf.

Choose vision and then, take action.