Our life tells the world what we love…
Our bodies, our minds, our relationships, our homes, our investments….. are evidence of what we have been fed.
Our two Ggirls, Kylee & Miller love to snack. They eat all the time. When we’re going for a bike ride they pack snacks. I’m meeting them at the pool when I get a voice text, “LaLa, please bring snacks”. They depend on me to have snacks in my purse & quarters to get gum out of the machine. To know them is to know how much they love to snack. You can’t spend much time with them and not know they are thinking about snacks. Candy wrappers on the floor, empty juice boxes tossed around, purses sticky from the melted snacks and let us not forget markers to put names on the snacks so no one else will eat it.
Check out that beautiful home with the landscape that looks like it belongs on the cover of Homes and Gardens. Someone has spent or paid for someone to spend time designing, planting, feeding, transplanting, pruning, watering day in and day out.
You can recognize that marathon runner because day after day after day in the rain or shine of in the heat or cold they there are running. Always running. If they are well or feeling sick they run. Do you know any runners? Their dedication is obvious when you ask them about running.
If you’ve ever watched a professional athlete you can see how they’ve focused, invested and dedicated themselves with a purpose.
With his binder tucked under his arm, even if his britches are on backward, he cannot be separated from his Pokemon card collection. He loves them. He sleeps with them. He has hundreds of them and has them memorized. Then he’ll rearrange them in the binder. He wants to talk about them allllll the time! He wonders why his older cousin isn’t interested? He shakes his head in disbelief…. asking how could anyone not like Pokemon?
YOUR LIFE TELLS YOUR STORY…
All of these are pretty easy to spot. You know what they love and value. You can see that some of these things will come to an end. Some of these things will bring pleasure for a season and then they won’t. Some of the things in your life you will outgrow, no longer be able to do, lose interest & move on to other things.
There are also things that you did NOT CHOOSE that you find yourself dealing with. When the truth is told some of us have had things forced upon us, and now we deal with the effects from the dysfunction, toxicity, injustice, abuse, rejection, neglect and a host of things that were not of our choosing. Even with that being said…
WHAT YOU FEED… GROWS!
THE OUTCOME OF YOUR CHOICES are the DAYS OF YOUR LIFE
The experiences that you’ve survived provide an opportunity to see God at work and grow something good and meaningful out of your struggle and suffering. If you’re like me, you want the things in your life that are a hindrance or issue to be GONE! NO MORE! UPROOTED TO NEVER RETURN!
What would it be like to dream again and love the life you live?
The question is HOW?? How do you lose the hindrance and grow good things in its place? I can tell you from personal experience that growing in my love relationship with Jesus pushes the things that are not good out of my way so that He can grow a life that flourishes.
HOW do you feed your relationship with Jesus? Why don’t you give this a try?
Get your journal & ask yourself….
- What do you think about that you can’t get off your mind?
- What do you do in your free time?
- Where do you always want to go?
- What are you listening to & watching most of the time?
- What do you spend your money on?
Next, invite someone, who knows you well, to answer these questions about you. Listen as they answer. Resist correcting them. Your life has played out in front of them, and it’s worth your time to seriously consider the message of your life has given.
Once you’ve done some soulsearching for yourself, and then asked another who knows you well it’s time to filter your answers through God.
HOW? Invite God to speak to you regarding:
#1 Your thoughts
#2 Your time
#3 Your desires
#4 Your influences
#5 Your investments
Inviting God to come close and speak so that you can know His heart and His love for you. Real love is not always candy and flowers! To know real love is to know God. He loves you just like you are, and brings a love that transforms life to the fullness! Just know that His desire is to live life with you and everything He does and says will always produce good things. He will never keep you from anything that He doesn’t have something better in mind. Trusting Him will come as your relationship with Him grows.
If you’re struggling to hear God then it’s time to focus on your relationship with Him. It’s hard to hear someone you are not close to. It’s hard to trust someone that you don’t have a relationship with. Hearing from God comes more and more in a growing relationship. The closer you are to Him the better you hear Him.
FEEDING your relationship with God requires you listening and getting to know Him more and more each day. So if you want to experience for yourself:
1. Invite God to take charge of your thoughts! He will speak! When your mind wanders to thoughts that don’t honor Him. He will make it known, and you will take that thought captive so that it can not stay but has to leave your mind.
2. Give God your time, schedule, commitments AKA minutes & seasons. He will make you aware of His presence and opportunities that He’s provided so that you can come to know Him more and more
3. Process God in your thoughts. See how your thoughts produce your desires so feed your thought life through how does God feel about this or what does God’s Word say about that or would this & that make God smile and bring Him pleasure!
4. Surround yourself with Godly people, Godly voices, Godly activities anyplace and anything that lifts up Jesus & honors Him stay in that lane!
5. Make deposits in God’s Kingdom! Sharing, finances, donating, serving, giving to bring the Good News of Jesus, the Gospel, & His Kingdom are where you need to be spent! Being spent on anything or anyone or anywhere else will deplete, burnout & deform you.
Look for Him! Expect Him to make Himself known to you! He will not disappoint! In 40 years when you look back over your life, there is only one way to live without regret……. You cannot change the beginning, but feeding your relationship with God and living for God’s pleasure TODAY will take your future to the sweetest place that you can’t even imagine. No doubt it will not look like you expect, but since God will work each detail out for your good and His glory! Take it to the bank! It’s the only way to live!
