How You Live Your Life NOW Makes A Difference In Your Future

Not long ago, a friend of mine mentioned how difficult it is for her and her husband to reach out to their kids and let them know how they are living right now is not what God wants for them. I understand, it hurts when parents see their kids going down another road that isn’t healthy for their body, soul, and mind.

Recently I came across an article by a young pastor who is also active in counseling young people on life choices. Interestingly, he has expanded that into those in their 50’s who are still struggling! I think the one sentence in his article hit me: “your 50’s are largely pre-determined by how well you lived your 30’s and 40’s…and, your senior years will be impacted by those early years as well. That old saying “what goes around comes around” came to my mind and it’s kind of scary. Yet, as we look at the world stage today and see the anger, the outbursts, the complete dis-respect for laws and for one another, it is indeed true that when we live poorly all the problems and issues in our lives are exacerbated and they stay with us until, well, sometimes until we go home to heaven.

That bothers me because there is so much that God has given us to enjoy this life and live it well. Why would we turn away from that? What takes over our minds that we toss God aside and align ourselves with the world and its conspiracies and lies?

This young pastor has a few words to share about how we combat our issues before they ruin our lives no matter what our age and I thought they were spot-on as we wade through these turbulent times. I hope there is something for all of us in here, and parents, perhaps some of his words can help your “prodigals” as well.

Deal with your issues. Remember, everyone has issues and as tempting as it is to believe others are causing all your issues, you have forgotten that YOU are the common denominator in everything that is happening to you so DEAL WITH YOU-first! Do what it takes to deal with your own junk.

Get OFF the Fence! Many people are plagued with indecision which, if it takes root, easily renders you stuck because you can’t make up your mind. Yet, there is more information today for help than ever before. Like it says above, deal with this, don’t let it root in your brain or you will be stuck constantly and will question every decision you’ve made.

Practice Faithfulness. It’s no surprise today that faithfulness is rare. Not just in marriages, but also in just about every part of our lives. It’s time to embrace consistency, loyalty and remaining steadfast–even when you feel like doing the opposite.

Live Like God Loves You and Everything You Read in the Bible is TRUE! One of the toughest things going on today is the lack of feeling loved and wanted. We live in a throw-away society that tosses people aside for any puny reason. Unconditional love is definitely God’s specialty, and when you embrace that you are part of that love and for those needing that love, you play a part of this TRUTH in sharing it with them. The only way you can live like it and share it is if you truly believe God’s Word is indeed TRUTH.

Relentlessly Pursue Self-Awareness. Usually when you use this term folks think you’ve turned to New Age activity and are sitting around humming something unintelligible, but self-awareness is NOT that. The loss of self-awareness today is a staggering percentage and it impacts lives every day. Self-awareness doesn’t come naturally either, leaving us blind to the impact we have on ourselves and those around us. Learning to become deeply self-aware awakens the gifts and talents God has given us so we can live our lives loving our own selves and others.

Make Peace With Your Own Weaknesses. One of the toughest things for us to grasp is that we can never be great at everything and yet we try and the failure rate is pretty high. The sooner we get used to the fact that we are not great at everything we let go of feeling bad about ourselves and can dig into the talents we do have—the gift God gives us that is special and powerful for our lives.

Pour Increasing Amounts of Energy Into Your Strengths…this is a combination of above. Using our strength frees us to become all that God wants us to be.

Wrestle Down Your Pride. Pride is UGLY and gets us in trouble all the time. We need to remember that the only person to whom our pride is appealing is us. Pray it out-now!

Fight Cynicism — Work Hard On Your Character. Cynics have never changed anything good for the world and character is damaged by cynicism. If you want to have a life of hope and joy, cynicism will kill it and the loss of character will bury it. Remember that your competency will take you only as far as your character can sustain you.

And finally … TRUST AGAIN. Our hearts heart will get mangled and we’ll be tempted to stop trusting people altogether as well as our trust in God. We see this daily in our world as thousands in our own country have died from COVID simply because they don’t trust the government and the vaccine. If we can turn our hearts to trusting deeply in God again, we will hope again, we will believe again and we will impact our lives and others around us in any generation! To sum it up, Proverbs 3: 5-9 (Message Bible) says it best:

  Trust God from the bottom of your heart;
  don’t try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for God’s voice in everything you do
and everywhere you go;
he’s the one who will keep you on track.
Don’t assume that you know it all.
Run to God! Run from evil!
Your body will glow with health,
your very bones will vibrate with life!
Honor God with everything you own;
give him the first and the best