July…what?!?! We are halfway through 2019, and it’s a great time to look back and say, “What would it look like to finish strong?” In January, the air is full of resolutions, good wishes, and the opportunity to start anew…and in July, the air is full of sunscreen and fireworks.
We started the year talking about our opportunity to begin choosing. Our cluttered, busy days can demand a lot, leaving us to feel that we have little time and few options. Yet in each moment, we choose how we will steer our thought patterns. “Choosing” how we will live bleeds into every other aspect of our lives and impacts who we will be in the circumstances of our day. We are much less defined by our circumstances and much more by what flows into and from our hearts, and that, my friends, is a choice.
When our hearts flow from principles that we have predetermined it sets our trajectory, affects the air when we walk into a room, and who we are while we are there. It will impact our children, husbands, and friends. While life may sometimes seem to give us few options each day, in each moment we get to choose what flows from our hearts. Our principles will set our gaze, impact how we react to what comes our way, and splash on the people we love.
I kept a mental list of guiding principles and noticed that as I made the same choices over and over, my patterns changed. As they did, I became more of the person I wanted to be, rather than the person that was washed up on the beach after she was hit by the waves of the day.
So at this midpoint in the year, let’s reset and ask again, “What predetermined principles do we want to operate out of, and how could things change if we did?”
My list isn’t long, but it has developed a pattern that has freed my heart to more fully love and live.
- I will make generous assumptions of others.
- I will not do petty.
- I will not get offended.
- I will not be controlled by my circumstances.
- I will fight for the big rocks.
- I will trust that God knows better than I do.
It gets me excited to even type it because there is a landmine of opportunity for our hearts as we begin to choose!
Each week for the next six weeks, I will explain more fully one of my guiding principles. These are statements I will fight to live by because I believe when I remain centered here, I live my life closer to the one I was created to live, more full and less hindered by the clutter and negativity that fights for my gaze. This is how I will choose to live, holding loosely and living freely…running in a compelled pursuit of my great God.
