There are times when life gets going so fast that we rarely make the time to turn our heads for a moment and see where we came from and where we are going. Just one common example is the cell phone. There actually are nearly as many cell phones in the world (6.8 billion) as there are people in the world (7 billion)! That is more than the total number of landlines ever used.
According to one tracker, it’s easy to understand, “You don’t need a home to have one, and you don’t need a network that touches every building. It’s easier to plop a cell phone tower in a neighborhood than plug in every single building.” This makes sense, but cell phones have made us spin faster and faster until we almost get dizzy and fall over.
Every now and then, though, it’s a good idea to slow down, look back, and do a friendly examination of ourselves. Especially with the mind-blowing situation we just survived. It took every bit of toughness, strength, and resilience we had in our bodies to get right here and right now. If we don’t want to repeat all that, it’s to our own advantage to review every now and then how much we have achieved. We do it in our jobs once a year, so why not in our personal lives too?
There are two ways to contrast how we are doing--what didn’t work before and what is working after:
Wide-Eyed Wishing
Many of us were perhaps too young when we married the first time. We didn’t take our time to get to know the one we said “I do!” to, nor even to make life-plans that involved both of us. We, most likely, lacked the experience we needed to deal with and avoid repeated scenes that caused us damage and destruction. Honestly, we really had no idea what we were doing. Eventually, because of our innocence, we lost ourselves in a pool of nothingness. We lived a “half-life” never developing our own talents and abilities. Thankfully, we eventually gained insight and found the strength we needed to make better decisions.
Wiser Women
Learning from past circumstances, we have been able to choose new goals and habits that uplift our “fully-developed lives.” Our hearts spill over with joy just creating a whole new way to live. Enthusiasm goes a long way. Sure, not every single day goes smoothly, no one said it would. This is real life. It gets hard sometimes for all of us. We are not alone in this truth. The key is how we respond to all the messiness. We each have to decide what that looks like for our own lives. Not for our friend’s life, not for our sister’s, brother’s, or mother’s life, but what positive thing we do when life gets us down. It’s all about making the wise choice. The thing is with all the confidence we now have (and it will increase every day), we know we can survive at least the next 24 hours!
Joy for Your Journey
Wiser words have never been spoken than in the first nine chapters of the Book of Proverbs. We use those as a guide to weigh how our lives are going. If we haven’t quite reached the point where we want our lives to be, studying and meditating on these words of God will make it very clear what we need to do.
If we are beginning to find satisfaction with our journey, sustaining true wisdom for the “long haul” can be discovered through these chapters in Proverbs. They will direct us in knowing God better and what He sees for our future. It is His heart for our heart!
“As a face is reflected in water, so the heart reflects the real person” Proverbs 27:19 NLT.
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