Tag: out of control

Going Well

Jennifred Jones

Things may not be going well in the world, but they’re going well with me.

How can you say that???!!!  There’s so much to worry about! So many things messed up! People doing wrong, government and politics are out of control!!! How can things go well with me?

Sounds crazy, but I don’t live all over the world. I don’t even live all over my country. I live in one small community. That’s all I can deal with and manage by myself. If I am doing all I can within my capabilities and responsibilities, that’s it! That’s all I need to do and ‘worry about’. Yes, I am deeply concerned about events happening around me and the impact on me and mine, but I can only do and control what I can do and control. The rest I leave to God and pray about it all.

The alternative is to live inside the newsbox, worrying, fretting, afraid, suspicious, critical and unable to concentrate and produce what I need to make and do to make my portion of the world a better place! Can you hear me?! (I have had to talk to myself this way often!)

We have got to keep ourselves moving forward so things go well in our area of responsibility. We cannot lose steam and energy stopping to listen and ponder the next bad thing that happened. It’s not being cruel or thoughtless. It’s maintaining our own well-being. Our minds and bodies are not designed to shoulder the events of the entire world. We don’t live there. We are here and here is where we need to focus our energy to improve, protect and grow.

I can maintain peace in the storms of life through tending to my affairs and helping my neighbors. If we each help and watch out for one another, then our portion of the world will be better and hopefully spread to and encourage our neighboring ‘portions of the world’. But yes, it begins with us.

It is personal responsibility. I am a person. I am going to be responsible. It may be hard and seem out of my comfort zone, but so what! It is my life, my family, my community.

Let’s take care of ourselves and not leave it to another who might not do as good a job!

What Are We Going to Do?

Jennifred Jones

Today at work a very dear lady, concerned about the status of world events began to tell me all that she had heard from her sources. Others have told me their thoughts from their sources. They conflict.

I began to stew over things and was feeling down.  I like to think of myself as a positive type person, ready to see the good in things, but this left me seeing the worst.

I had to get centered again on what I know to be true.

Years ago when I first came to faith in Jesus, I was in a similar stew…in my early 20s, life was just getting started, and there were so many tough world events going on that seemed impossible to solve. My mind was in a twirl.

I desperation I said, “God show me what to think!”

Shortly after that I saw the verse Philippians 4:8. It says to ‘fix your thoughts on what is true, and good, right, pure, lovely. Think about what is excellent and worthy of praise’.

I guess I didn’t have to worry about everything going on and keep informed on every negative event in the world…out of my control anyway.

I’m gonna pray, but not let things eat me up with worry, I’m gonna enjoy and live the life I have, that I am responsible to God and my family for.

We can allow, I said allow because it is our choice, ourselves to concentrate, focus, listen to, talk about everything negative until it’s all consuming… trying to solve and fix problems too big for us, that we don’t see our kids playing happily outside. We don’t enjoy the pretty spring day feeling the sunshine, we aren’t thinking of making something beautiful for another person. We have reverted to survival mode.

God is aware of all these happenings, yet He isn’t up there worrying. He is still sending rain, warm weather, baby animals.  The sun is still rising, the grass is greening again, trees will bud and leaf out. We will harvest crops again. In other words, He is still giving life and providing for life.

In the midst of trouble, God is not a God of scarcity, He sends abundance.

What we are going to do is change our focus from majoring on what’s bad and begin to see and major on what’s beautiful, happy, good.

What is one good thing I can focus on today?