dailydatewithgod

We do this funny thing when life does not meet our expectations.  We look for someone or something to blame.  We think maybe it is ourselves, the weather, the actions or attitudes of the other people involved or some universal lesson we are being asked to learn.  Do we ever consider that conditions are what they are because it is what they are?  Maybe there isn’t someone or something to blame.  What if the conditions we are experiencing are the conditions we are experiencing.  Nothing more, nothing less.  I read a saying on the wall of the dentist office when I was a kind which has stuck with me for years: Life is 10% what happens and 90% how you react to it.  We think life is the conditions we are faced with.  Really life is what we do with those conditions.  How we react, what we make them mean, and who we become as a result of facing the conditions, is how we shape a life.  My perspective for many years while I never would have admitted it, was of a victim.  I just could not seem to cut a break.  Life was unfair.  I followed all the rules. I was a good person. I worked hard not to disappoint people and color outside of the lines.  I believed in God. How come bad things still happened? Before I got into recovery and was able to take an honest look at how I had been living my life, I used to want a God who would rescue me.  Isn’t that what it means to be a savior?  Not that it was a phrase I used often, but I was familiar with it.  Only when I started on my daily dates with God did I begin to shift my perspective.  Life is not about the conditions.  Life is about who I am becoming.  I do not need God to rescue me from the conditions of my life.  It is my life.  It is why I am here.  I need a God who breathes life into me when I am walking through the conditions.  I need a God who stands with me as I develop the courage to face the fear conditions or the joy conditions. I need a God who does not define me by my conditions but by the depth and breadth of my heart.  I need a God who reminds me of who I am at my core.