February 15: A New Camera Angle On Your Life

Affirmation: It’s okay not to be okay. I allow myself to feel what I feel.

My affirmations repeat on the same date each month, and this one is true but sometimes difficult. Our oldest grandchildren just lost their paternal grandmother and our son-in-law lost his mother. Death is difficult even when we know that our loved one followed God. 
So I have been consciously allowing myself to feel the grief and trying to journal and acknowledge that I am feeling the loss, grief, sadness, uncertainty, heartbreak.

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Ponder, Personalize, Practice: You have spent 6 days pondering Isaiah 41:10. Express your gratitude to God, who you can trust each day to uphold you, strengthen you and help you…through fear, worry, anxiety, heartbreak…

”So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.“

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭41‬:‭10‬ ‭NIV‬‬

https://bible.com/bible/111/isa.41.10.NIV

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Catching Whimsy: 365 Days of Possibility by Bob Goff

                     Feb 15

A New Camera Angle On Your Life

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Matthew 6:28

We often adopt behaviors in our lives without knowing why. Usually, our odd behaviors point to deeply held, underlying beliefs, unmet needs, and deep biases. Here’s an example.

Two high values in our family are independence and not imposing on anyone to meet our needs. That’s why Goffs drive our own cars. We also take our own Uber rides and travel alone in a state of absolute contentment and delight. We do this because we want to be independent of other people‘s timetables and schedules and ever changing circumstances. It’s not only that we are impatient, but we also want to do things in the order we want. We don’t want to get to the airport too late or too early; we just want to get there without having to think about it.

When I am speaking at events. I only fit about one thing: when my return flight is leaving. I always say it is wheels up an hour before it really is. That way whoever ends up driving me to the airport isn’t racing along the interstate, with me, barely making it. I think if I don’t give someone else control of my schedule, I can avoid a lot of unnecessary stress parentheses and I’m right parentheses.

Here is why all this maneuvering is a problem for me and it might be a problem for you. God wants us to be dependent on him. It’s easy to confuse being self reliant in the right ways with being independent when it comes to the exercise of our faith. Here’s a trick for distinguishing between the two. Take a look at how you spend your days, the nature of your conversations, the ways you engage with or avoid people. Are you impatient or bored or indecisive? I promise you these are attached to something else in your life. The path toward faith is best lived when we understand why we are doing what we are doing.

Find out why you were spending your days engaging with or avoiding people in certain ways, and you will find a new camera angle on your life worth exploring.