This is the first day this week that I really had mental capacity to blog. On Christmas, I decided it would be a good idea to go for a run, so I went and ran a mile Christmas morning... in 33 degree weather with freezing wind chill. So, it shouldn't come as a shock that I would get a cold with sinus pressure for a few days. During that time, I had to get a new car battery, because my car battery needed a jump, again. Because of the sinus infection, I decided to not do as much food delivery, which I made up for in my budget by accepting a high interest rate credit card offer for a few hundred dollars that had come in my mail. It sure will be nice once I'm in my new job and earning the sick days. However, I mention these to highlight a point that is made in Scripture...
"he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." Mark 5:45
I touched on this slightly in my past post, when I noted all the challenges that happened around the time of my job interview, and yet I got the job. So, I said that not everything was a "sign" and that sometimes the best way is through something. However, I want to add another layer to this... consider your environment.
If you look above, I mentioned that I had got a cold, so you could say that I was facing yet another "trial"... or so would say some that see spiritual warfare in everything. Yet... we just had freezing temps for the first time in Florida in a LONG time. When I left my place over the last few days, I heard people coughing and sneezing and etc in almost every place I went. I am sure it didn't help that I went running in freezing temps, either. Sometimes, the reason we face trial is our stupidity. Also, my car battery needed replacement, so you could say that's a trial. Except, cold reveals if your battery is going bad, and my battery was very old. When I was in line at Walmart to get a new battery, there was a line of others there for exactly the same reason.
There is a South African revivalist that I'm not a fan of from personal experience of being a church security guard at his revivals and seeing the "fruit" of the revival being flesh, pride, greed, and ultimately the literal destruction of the church in which he held his meetings. However, there is one thing that he DID say with which I agree and is applicable, here. He would mock those that say the devil is coming after their finances, and he said, "The devil doesn't have your pocketbook." His point being that often our biggest "devil" is ourself and the choices that we make.
I can bring this back to my recent career choices, as well. For YEARS I talked about the negative things in my past and present struggles. Yet, I had an accounting MBA and was not USING it. Whether or not someone else had impacted my income in the past, I was the reason for THOSE struggles, myself. Also, I am an introvert at heart. I like logic and making plans and doing tasks over social settings, so of COURSE teaching would not work for me. Again... regardless of what others did that affected the ending, it was MY mistake to think that COULD work for someone like me. My new job is a state accounting job, which means I pretty much get all the benefits that I would have got as a teacher without having to become someone that I am not.
My point with all of this is that while we are looking for who to blame for this or for that, we are often wasting time that we could be CREATING the future that we want. I think some people... and I have fallen for it at times too.. would rather have something fail than succeed, because it something fails we have an excuse to not risk and try. But, the reality is that most of our excuses are no better than those caused by the cold weather and apply to many more than just our unique situation. The rain falls on the just and the unjust, but so does the sun shine. We can either live our lives subject to the whim of coincidence, or we can stay the course and receive the rewards for our hard work and wise choices.
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