Hope, Not Hurts Should Shape Your Future

Hopes, not hurts should shape your future.  We all can find some area in our lives where we wish we had done things differently.  What if?  What if I had stayed in that relationship”  What if I had taken my usual route to work rather than go the scenic route?  Maybe I would have avoided the accident.  What if I had finished college rather than getting married?  WHAT IF?  Let’s not play this game of what if!  Every choice you made, every person that you met, and every challenge that you lived through has made you the person that you are today.  I like who I am!  I love my beautiful daughters; one conceived at age seventeen and another at age thirty-two.  Do I wish I was still married to the husband I had at age seventeen?  No I do not, but she would not be here if I had not met and married her father.

Some of us spend so much time looking back we cannot get a glimpse of our future.  It’s okay to hope for something better in life, but do we have to hold onto our hurt in order to have hope?  The future is full of whatever we choose to bring into our lives.  What you focus on tends to appear in your life.  We see what we seek.  A lot of times our indecisiveness creates the very situation that we are trying to avoid.  To make no decision is a decision in and of itself.  We think just because we ignore something it will go away.  No matter how much you hate the fact that you cannot make ends meet, hating it will not change it.  Your energy should be focused on what you can realistically do at this moment to decrease the negative impact that your lack of income will have on your life.  Even though life throws you a foul ball, that does not give you the right to step out of the game, especially if others are depending on you.  We all would like to have a “Bail Out.”  You need to be your own “Bail Out!”

 

Preparation is the Key

Preparation is the key!  Knock and the door shall be opened. We hear that all the time, however what we fail to realize is no door is going to open for the person who is not prepared to walk through it.  When you really think about it, why would you want to walk inside a door that you are not ready to enter?  Many of us are being prepared for stuff that we haven’t asked for or even know is coming our way.  That’s just how God works.  One day you find yourself in the midst of a crowd that you never thought would envelop your gifts and talents, and the next thing you know someone slides your name to the right person who holds your next level key.  There are quite a few sayings that line up with being in the right place at the right time.  For example, “Be kind to strangers because you might be entertaining an angel,” or “Luck is when opportunity meets preparation.”  I am sure there are many more but those two came to mind for me.

In our daily walk it is important to acknowledge everyone as a human being and a child of God. I understand there may be times when it’s hard to do that.  We have a tendency to compare sins and pass judgment based on what a person looks like, the type of job they have, or how they create joy in their lives.  If they dance, or drink, or have children out of wedlock.  We place a number of expectations on others before we will consider them acceptable citizens not only in our spear of influence, but also in the world.  Who gave us the final say?  Where did our list of judgment items come from?  Unfortunately, with our limited vision of how big this world is we can easily mistake our way as being the only way.  In order to get prepared and be ready for your “level-up” it is imperative that you close your judgment eyes and open your vision to this amazing rainbow of people, who may be the catalyst for taking your gifts and talents to a world beyond where you stand.  Your next preparation assignment just might blow your mind, because preparation is the key that opens the door!