Before I could tell that I'd been rooked, baited and drawn in to a traffic generator, a pop-up covered the screen with a survey question. There was no close button or X anywhere. The two options were to back out or hit one of the two buttons: Agree or Disagree. The question?
It's never too late to start over. If you don't like your yesterday, do something different today. Don't be stuck. Be better. Agree or disagree?
I'll give you a second to think about it. Maybe this seems like trivial, inspiration cheese. Who cares? Maybe you instinctively answered quickly and don't need to think about it. Perhaps even the idea of thinking about it seems foolish. I thought so. Like I said, this appeared, blocking my view of the page, before I could tell that it would be less a waste of time to simply hit the back button. I wanted to proceed and moved the cursor to respond. My instinct, my reaction to reading the statement without thinking, was to hit the agree button. But something stopped me.
You may be thinking and feeling like I was at that moment, which had nothing to do with the statement or the question of my response to the statement. This is stupid. Why are you pausing to answer, and why are even thinking about this? It's a stupid quiz question. What does it matter? Just click on a button, any button, and move on already. You, Dear Reader, may even be adding to that, why are you subjecting me to some idea of internal dilemma over a pointless thing like this? You must have been hard up for a topic today.
But that's just it. I don't think it's pointless. Even as the impatient voice in my head said to click and move and not to waste time actually thinking about the statement, something within said no, give this some thought. It's more important than you think. Of course that's when Mr. Impatient spoke up again. Fine, then click agree. You know you should answer multiple choice questions with whatever is the first instinctual response and not change your answer. So, click agree, and then, if you must, think about why you agree. But by then I was already thinking about it, and I didn't think that I did agree, although I wasn't sure why I didn't agree.
I do agree that it's never too late. It's not to late to change, to b changed, to be set free. If we're still breathing, there's the opportunity to have new life, new freedom and new happiness. The Spirit is calling us to come, and each new day, each new moment of reflection, is an opportunity to respond yes to that call and discover that surrender is the way to victory, death to self is the way to a life worth living, and the freedom and joy that doesn't last anywhere else is real and free in the loving arms of our Heavenly Daddy. If your life is a mess, out of control, miserable, full of fear, anger and bondage, and if everything that you try to do to fix it, to find hope, to find escape and comfort, only seems to make it worse, do something different. You don't have to be stuck in the bondage and misery. There is a solution. There is something better. There is freedom, joy, peace and a life worth living in relationship with Jesus.
So it sounds like I agree. It might even sound like I pretended to ponder the issue so I could preach at you. I hope not, because it's not the case. I agree because of experience. I agree because I was nearly 40 when I was set free from the obsession to drink and drug after a quarter of a century of trying to find better living through the fruit of the vine and modern chemistry. This past weekend I heard a man speak who didn't get sober until he was 50, and today, at 76, he has more time sober than I had using. It's awesome. No, I don't believe it's ever too late to find relationship with God and to be set free. So why the hesitation to click Agree?
It's not so much that I didn't agree or that I disagreed, but I think I wanted a Depends option. Part of what got me started on that 25 year journey through the hell of the Valley of the Shadow filled with drink, drug, and other lures of the pleasures of hedonistic survival was the idea that the fix must be quick. Instant gratification. I want what I want, to feel better or at least different, and I want it now. This isn't fun, or it's hard, or it's boring, let me do something else. Sometimes the reason that I didn't like my yesterday has nothing to do with being stuck and needing to do something different. It may simply mean that I need to keep going, keep trying, practice and learn so that I can do it better. The saying is that when we fall off the horse, we should get right back on and try again. But our instinct is often more along the lines of if I fall off the horse I should try riding a bike, and if I fall doing that I should go find cat videos to watch and forget doing anything difficult.
If we get knocked down, we need to get up...but there's more to it than just getting back up. We need some direction. What happens next depends. Am I dissatisfied with my yesterday, or even my today, because I'm stuck in the past, because I'm in a rut of trying to find satisfaction and contentment and purpose in things that can't provide it? Am I living, or trying to live, for myself, according to my own will and by my own power? If so, then yes, do something better today. But sometimes life is hard, and it doesn't mean that you're on the wrong road or going the wrong way. If you're on the right path, living surrendered to and in relationship with God, and trouble comes because we don't have the technique of living by the spiritual principles of new life down yet and need more practice, need to rely more on God to help us do what we can not do for ourselves, or if life is just tough and dissatisfying because it is, because we're going through a difficult season or working toward the reward and work is hard, or even because others are trying to hinder our journey, we don't need to change direction, to cut and run or to change anything. In that case, we need to keep doing what we've been doing until we get through it, or learn to do it better. This idea that if what we're doing or going through isn't making us happy now, is hard and discouraging now, that we need to change it and do something different now also is not always the case. Edison tested more than 3000 designs for the light bulb before he came up with the right one. Had he simply said I'm stuck and need to do something different, we might still be sitting in the dark trying to read by candlelight instead of rocking to Pandora while interacting instantly with people all over the world on social media. The light made the lit screen possible after all.
So I think that is why I hesitated. It's not always an easy answer, and it could mean the difference between life and death, whether to stay or go, change or keep going/try again. I believe the answer needs to come from outside us. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change (keep going or try again), the courage to change the things I can (do something else, different, better) and the wisdom to know the difference (You tell me which is which). Amen.
The other thing I got from going to this page besides inspiration and something to think about, a reminder about needing direction and not always just going with my gut without thinking, is a smile when I saw that the link was to 42 things that are free. As I wrote last Thursday in Life, The Universe and Everything, I'm really fond of the number 42. So, going to that page wasn't a waste of time. It made me smile and gave me something to think about, even though it didn't make me go to the next page they wanted to generate traffic for. And I hope, Dear Reader, that I gave you something to think about as well and you don't feel clicking the link that brought you here was a waste of your time. Have a great and blessed day, filled with serenity.
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