Are you getting ready for a new week? Why not start the week by deciding to be intentional with your life?
1. This week, I will smile at people before they smile at me even though I don’t know them well.
2. This week, I will take the initiative to get together with a friend. I will not sit back, be passive, and wait for someone else to make the first move.
3. This week, I will thank someone who helps me (yes, even though that person may just be doing what she gets paid to do). Grace teaches us that all good things that we experience in life are gifts to be enjoyed, not rights to be demanded.
4. This week, I will pay attention to someone who seems to be alone or forgotten.
5. This week, I will look for the good in someone who normally receives my criticism. (In my thoughts, I am sometimes overly critical as I carefully take note of this person’s faults, blunders, etc.)
6. This week, I will look for the good in my church family and thank God! I will do this instead of constantly critiquing and criticizing what I don’t like.
7. This week, I will emphasize the good in my wife or husband and in my children. We can be so hard on those to whom we are closest.
8. This week, I will stop trying to be perfect (and then hating myself for my stupidity and sin). Instead, I will focus on living in the presence of the God who cherishes me.
9. This week, I will focus more on my present and future with God, than on the frustrations in my life. Only then will I know real joy.
10. This week, I will live as if it were my last. After all, it might be.
Perhaps you could add a few to this list. My thinking can become "muddled" very quickly if I do not start the week with the right mindset.
I can get negative.
I can get cynical.
I can get critical.
So–a list like this one helps me get my thinking straight before I get going in the wrong direction. I suspect that some of you might share that same struggle. Why not read through the above list again and ask God to help you become aware of the ones especially important for you?
I love the yield sign. Without yeilding, I’ll never see past my cynicism.
You hit me where it hurts. Thanks for helping me to face my own shortcomings.
Shalom,
Bobby Valentine
…This week, comment of Jim’s blog and let him know you believe it really is a place for the God-hungry.
Thanks, brother, for a fabulouse post. I linked to it in my recent post entitled Individual Initiative. (http://spiritualoasis.wordpress.com/2006/07/11/individual-initiative/)
God bless,
-bill
This is just what I needed to be reminded of. All of these points are simple, yet profound and powerful. Thank you.
I came over here from Bill Williams’ post on Individual Iniatitive linked to yours and heartily agree with all of your items on your list. These are all things I’m very conscious of ALL the time and try to do, myself, each and every day.
All of these things are also the reason I atarted the Christian group blog last fall called Grace Notes (at http://ourgracennotes.blogspot.com and it’s linked from my blog and from Bill Williams’ blog as well) where those who we run across in our daily lives show us goodness in some small way are commended.
If you would like to submit some Grace Note stories, please let me know. We’re always looking for more submissions and seeking to be grace notes ourselves to all people we come in contact with.
Cheers! Dee Andrews
great blog, keep it comming.