My father worked for the railroad. He used to have a large brass key used for the switches in the train yard. The heavy, weighted arm on the switch helped you actually move the tracks. A lot of strength was needed to lift the weight, but then it actually helped your move the tracks as the weight went down on the other side. 
Changing things in life are like that. Weighty, requiring strength to get things started. And still strength is needed to complete the switch, but it's nice to have some weight to complete the task.
Then you just have the train to move.
Too often I live out of a sense of scarcity. I am not enough; I do not have enough; I cannot be enough. This mindset seems to exclude any sense of grace, or love, or Love. This thinking leads me over the edge, into the abyss. It follows from old training. I must do it all, be all, figure it all out on my own. Not one is there to help. No one is there.
God calls us to live out of a sense of abundance. God loves, enables, engraces, gifts, and provides. I am good. I can. What I need is available to me.
Old Thinking:
I think I never have enough. I'm not good enough. I do not have what it takes. I don't even know what it takes! I am deficient, inadequate, inept, and so on. It just gets worse.
New Thinking:
I have enough. I do not have all things or gifts or talents, but I have enough.
God has provided what I need to do what I'm called to do. I am loved. There
is nothing I can do (for good or ill) that will make God love me any more, or
less, than God already loves me.
Making this switch in thinking and being is not easy, but possible. It is not instant, but gradual. It is part of the journey.
I know how to love. I am learning how to be loved. This is a tough task. The transformation I need is not about becoming someone else, but healing the wounds to become who I am.
12 comments:
A fine adjustment to one's thinking - I'd say, at the risk of bodily harm - that you're on the right track with it. Of course it's easy to say, but hard to throw that switch.
I wish you enough.
(And Joebear, I just need to say that your profile photo makes me long for spring - I miss my shorts and Tevas something awful...!)
This is a wonderful approach you are embracing and spreading to others. It is going to carry you a long ways and bring more light at every turn.
The only way to grow as a person is to realize where you are at now. I think you are on the right track. Just keep chugging along.
I am brainwashed into that very "not enough" thinking. I need to switch to the other track, too. Thanks!
I no longer pray any 'stuff' prayers.
The sort of prayer that goes
Lord protect my stuff
lord i need more stuff
Lord help me keep my stuff.
no more stuff prayers
You're speaking for many. It'll take time for me to think it over but I'm not waiting to say: thank you.
You are forgiven. Accept forgiveness and you can begin to understand how God can love you. You are His beloved, just as you are, complete with your imperfect past and imperfect future.
The more "stuff" we have the more dusting we have to do......
The world pushes us to think we are not enough. Commercial economy thrives on it! If we are content, we don't buy a lot of stuff!
Thanks for the reminder.
Many of us are in that same boat but don't have the courage to face it. Thank you for recognizing it. May God grant you the strength to "heal the wounds" and allow that "key" to make the switch.
What a remarkable posting, my friend! You always did take too much onto yourself. My prayers are there beside you.
What a beautiful post!!
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