Stuck in a box
A neighbour who is a single mother ordered four new kitchen chairs that required minimal assembling. She missed the delivery of them and consequently had to pick them up from the Post Office. The box needed a trolley to get it to the car and was far too big for her to lift.Fortunately, two men saw her dilemma and assisted her. Once home this mother came to see if my husband could help her inside with her purchase. Colin wasn’t home so after some consideration, I approached the problem from another perspective and came up with a brilliant solution.
I suggested she cut the box open while it remained in her car and take the pieces out one by one. Of course the idea worked so you could say, I thought outside the box! Dr Edward de Bono would be very proud of my lateral thinking.
This incident prompts me to ask you the question: How will you approach this year?
- Some of you may have already planned some changes and set some goals.
Some of you may not have thought about it at all.
For some of you the year hasn’t started all that well and so you feel out of control and see goal setting as useless.
For others the year has started very well with lots of love and happiness and you see no need to ponder how you’ll approach this year.
Whichever category describes you, will you allow me to help you think outside the box?
Your life every year (and indeed every day) is like a blank book. The words in this book are written as you speak. Imagine being given this book at the end of the year and reading it.
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What would you see?
Would you like what you read?
What would the key words be?
Would this be someone you want to be friends with or not? Does she think outside herself?
Does she talk to God regularly or just when things go wrong?
Will her words be kind and encouraging?
GIGO
Are you familiar with the old computer adage – GIGO – garbage in, garbage out? If you want to read your book of life at the end of the year full of good, wholesome, godly, life giving words you need to do what Paul wrote in Philippians 4:8
‘Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things. (NIV)
We cannot choose our relatives and we cannot always control what happens to us, but we can choose our words.