We all want better ways of dealing with circumstances life has in store for us. A sort of spirited optimism that leads to better ways. Those better ways can seem far away for most of us. Because those better ways seem so far away, some only get to see the mess of a life inherited from generations down the line. But what if there was a way to adjust those lenses?
God, the creator of the world didn’t leave us orphans or without hope. Most who hear God, the name, tend to think church and being condemned of sins because the gospel message may have danced on their pain when they heard it preached. Church people can be quite the hypocrite, when we tell people about God. We often tell people about their sin instead of telling them what God saved us from.
But the truth is that spirited optimism we need to break chains that have bound us our whole lives. Truth isn’t sneering at you because your life is messed up, or because you made bad decisions. The fact is most people who now believe in God – now being the right word – know that God picked us out of some messes we put ourselves in.
So, knowing the truth can allow us to adjust our outlook on life, if we give truth a chance. It may be difficult to do because of all we have been through. The road we’re facing can even make anything positive seem impossible until we’ve started the process. We can change how we see life even if our current circumstances suck. I know because the Lord showed up and helped me get out of my own head.
I can admit I struggled with lustful thoughts and actions that flowed into my art, my writing and my overall life. I made plenty of horrible decisions. I was a loner, struggled with anxiety and depression, among other things. I would talk a positive game, because I wanted things to turn out ok. But my life was full of a lot of things that were not ok. We all have a past that’s not so great.
Due to being a loner, I had the ability to reflect on life, into adulthood. I used it over my life to develop the perfect mask; a nice guy – a sarcastic, polite doormat who didn’t know how to say no properly. I could even hide my anxieties and do what I needed to when life called, but would sabotage everything I had going.
Truth is sometimes a hard pill to swallow; but once we take our medicine and learn to use it wisely or minds can change – that is assuming we act on what we learn from the truth. Most people today are stuck the way they are because they refuse to learn to use the truth.
One very important part of the truth is, we can know the truth and refuse to act on the truth. I love to reflect on life, and seeing life, speaking positive – my actions would be passive with a refusal budge sometimes. I lived a lie for a long time.
Then one day the truth expressed in a different way; a way that I understood that despite the decisions I had made, the creative stuff I brought to life, I could approach the truth to learn. That is the first time I can remember beginning to learn something I had spent my life trying to find – The Truth.
When we know and begin to live in the truth, we change from within our thoughts, which can change our direction in life. Not overnight but eventually. One of the first pieces of truth I had to accept was that I was not the “good man” I thought I was. Most people hide an ugly side we wish would die. I did.
It is rough when we meet our ugly while conversing with the truth. Personally, I asked God to help me with my demons. Accepting my limitations helped me to begin to change in that moment and adjust myself to the truth. Over the next four years I went from someone who spoke positive and saw problems, to someone who began to solve problems.
Why can’t we miraculously change overnight? Why ask why? There is excitement in the winds of change. The benefits of a life that does not surrender to anxiety or fear is a great one built on truth. I learned that anxiety can’t live with the truth.
But we can reap some rewards for sitting under a cloud of negativity, if we are willing to accept and use what we learn from the truth wisely.
To be clear, life sucks sometimes. There are times we can’t do a thing about the things we have to deal with. There is a lesson in the truth; it isn’t always the circumstances that need to change; a majority of the time we’re the ones that need to change. Then we can handle life with courage and wisdom.
Truth gives us access to tools we cannot get without knowing the truth. In truth we can get a handle on things that years in therapy and medication can’t give. If we become acquainted with the truth, we become bolder in our actions because we don’t rely on our knowledge, we rely on the truth.
The human mind is created to withstand a lot of pressure. The human mind can heal and refocus, assuming we are willing to lay down our traumas and pick up the truth. In picking up the truth we can develop a spirited optimism focused on purpose. Purpose will breed a mind of character.
Spirited optimism – we’ll call it spirited optimism for now – gives our minds different set of skills to manage our current circumstances.
