Yesterday, an emergency of sorts started unfolding. It was, and still is, an internet issue. Some of the adjustments made at the street may have started the ball rolling down the hill, and though hours later it’s still not perfect, at least we’re headed back into positive territory!
What do you do when someone declares an emergency?
The Sky is Falling!
911!
Call to Prayer!
What can I do to help?
Well, if the truth be known, we all had an emergency of sorts yesterday, and every day we live. Struggling to catch your breath, tripping on the rug, fearing the results of your bank account, or even wondering if the eggs boiled long enough.
The key thought, however, is how do we react moment by moment to the challenges we all face? What are your parameters to reaction? From this moment, until the next, how to you traverse the challenges faced by everyone?
How you react to emergencies define yourself to the world around you! Can you handle it, or not? Or, do you simply fall to pieces. Click To TweetBoundaries
I quit listening to the talking head news programs, and stopped reading most of the news reports, because they all seem to be screaming and yelling that they are right and everyone else is wrong!
Someone invited me to a prayer group on Facebook. I checked it out, but the photos showing the suffering of others was too much. Declined!
When I assemble a puzzle, I like to do the edges first, as in, create my boundaries first. That way, I know the zone I’m working in. It’s like going to the grocery store with a list in hand versus wandering the aisles trying to remember what is needed.
I’m pretty structured that way.
I chatted with a preacher friend many years back and he did not like to prepare his thoughts on paper. He wanted it to come from the Spirit, and from how he was feeling at the moment. Some of the strangest sermons came as a result, and I affirmed I would never be ill-prepared to speak or share.
This morning, I wondered, “How does this life make sense?”
Think about the retailers that will never recover from this glitch we call COVID-19. My bride just retired, and thankfully that world is secure, but imagine all of those who will need to restart their career because their business no longer exists!
We hear the dire economical news coming out of Washington and Wall Street, but it has not yet sunk in what the next few years will be like.
What boundaries do you have in place to provide you with the perspective you need to face the emergent times?
Perception And Perspective
Some people jump in with both feet to every conversation without outlining their perspective, quietly and to themselves. It’s like they think out loud and you never know where they stand on a subject?
THIMK Quietly, says I, before speaking we should do.
It’s easy to not understand another persons perspective when all we want to do is give our own.
Most thinkers realize that many of us are not truly listening to what is being said, rather, we are formulating our words without fully listening or understanding the point someone else is making!
You may both be coming at the point from different perspectives, but if you will pause and think it through, you will realize that fact!
Perspective is everything – it’s the one thing you can control about what’s happening in the world.
April 15th
Today is infamous. It’s tax day, right?!!? April 15th. The deadline to have your taxes filed. You are comfortable with your status, until you realize that it’s TODAY! Ok. It’s not today. They extended it due to the virus and isolation orders that keep us from our tax preparers.
However, did you know it’s also the day President Lincoln died, Jackie Robinson became the first African-American to play Major League Baseball, the Titanic sank, and, last year, Notre Dame burned…
For Bruce Feiler, today is the birthday of his twin girls who happen to turn 15 today! Happy Birthday!
You don’t have to only think of the day as stressful (if your taxes are not filed), but you can remember that around the world there are many different reasons why this day is an emergency, or celebration!
Here’s My Thought
Our calamitous thinking often brings more trouble that we can deal with. A negative doctors report, or even that flashing red light telling us to pull over. It matters little. Our heart seizes, blood pressures rise, and for some, it’s all over but the burying.
We sing what Kris Kristofferson wrote, “Why me Lord?” Instead of recognizing his words as a building block of thanking God, we immediately join him in that proverbial pit… Why me Lord?
It’s all about understanding where we are…and where we are going! The Journey is the Destination!
From leaders of countries, to that little child wondering why the toy will not work, we can either think the worst, or prepare to move past it to the future.
The Apostle Paul keeps focusing our attention past the moment! It’s not what we are dealing with right now that is most important, it’s where we are headed.
“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment,
worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;”
2 Corinthians 4:17 (KJV)
He tells us to look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith! (Hebrews 12:2) Go ahead. Read the footprints poem that tells us to realize that we are carried when we are facing our worst!
Remember, all the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11 have passed on, and it could just be that you will be the hero that someone will look to as an example of persevering during tough times.