The idea of taking responsibility for your own life is not a new concept. It’s a message we’ve probably heard over and over again throughout our lives. But do we really understand what it means. Most of us think being responsible is about getting a good education, getting a good job or earning enough money to support ourselves, becoming self dependent. But personal responsibility is so much more.

Sometimes, we must accept life on its terms, not our own. Life has a way of unfolding, not as we will, but as it will. And sometimes, there is precious little we can do to change things.

When events transpire that are beyond our control, we have a choice: we can either learn the art of acceptance, or we can make ourselves miserable as we struggle to change the unchangeable.

Many of us think we are taking responsibility for our own lives when we try to change the people we believe have control over us. But this leads to a victim mentality. One that says, “ I am caught in my circumstances with no way out unless someone else changes.” In this role it is not possible for you to assume responsibility for the direction of your future. When we see ourselves as a victim, we are powerless for two reasons. First, we tend to look to outside sources for our happiness, and second, we blame other people for our lack of success and our choices. I lived in both for the greater part of my life. I believed that the good life was out there somewhere and that other people had the power to make it happen or the ability to prevent me from reaching it. Being a victim inadvertently blocks the very changes that we desperately want and need to make.

The only way to regain power is to accept total responsibility for what is presently happening in our lives and to be 100 percent accountable for the future choices we make or don’t make, our actions and our behaviors.

Because I’ve been there, I realize it is very difficult to accept that you are staying in your current condition because of your choices. It is much more comfortable for us to lay the blame elsewhere for our pain and lack of happiness. It’s hard to see we have been our own worst enemy. If you believe you can create your own misery by your choices, then why is it so hard to believe we can make our own happiness by our choices. Just because some of our past choices got us into bad circumstances and situations, don’t let them become excuses for staying in them. We can make a decision to stop grieving over the past and begin to overcome or former self with a series of good choices. No matter how many bad choices we have made, it only takes one choice to begin changing your life.

We will never move out of the present and into the future with all that God has planned for us if we hold to and dwell on the past.

Everything in life ask for a choice from you from the time you wake up in the morning. Do you say “Good morning, Lord” or “Good Lord, its morning”. How you get up is an act of the will and a choice you make then the day gets better or worse from there, depending on your choices. If you see nothing as a miracle or everything as a miracle it is up to.

Whether you work through your current troubles or crumble under the pressure, you get to choose. You decide whether you endure the circumstances and develop maturity and character, or be crushed by your circumstances.

The reason we have handled our situations, the way we have in the past is because it is less scary than making a change – even though we may have felt we had no other options available to us.

If you are feeling trapped by your circumstances, start to see there are choices being offered to you each step of the way. You are not locked in. There are alternatives. Maybe not within the circumstance itself but with how you will react to them.

I chose to stay in a devastating situation until the scary unknown became less scary than what I was enduring. Are you there yet” The choice is yours and you are responsible for what you choose.

We can always choose to entrust the things we cannot change to God. Once we have done so, we can prayerfully and faithfully tackle the important decisions: doing something about the things we can change . . . and doing it sooner rather than later.

Often times you cannot control what happens To you, but you can control what happens WITHIN you.

This week we are blessed to have Sandy Hancock as our guest. She is an author of “Letting Go”. She is also writes blogs that encourage and challenge us all to see things a little different..

At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved
by all kinds of passions and pleasures
(Titus 3:3a NIV)

  Recently I had the opportunity to take a walk with God at the Blue Sky Canyon Reserve near Rancho Bernardo in San Diego County.  It was a very relaxing, peaceful walk even though it is close to city life—walking into the canyon you leave the city life behind.  As I walked through the oak woodland, mixed chaparral and coastal sage scrub a sense of calmness fell upon me.  I really enjoyed my walk.

  I was fascinated by how many different environments I found in the same small area and how quickly they changed from one to the other.  It reminded me of how our emotions are always changing and at times rather quickly.  One minute we are feeling peaceful and calm and the next angry or scared depending on what is happening around us.

 All of the pleasant emotions I felt as I was hiking were a result of the environment I was in.  They were dependent upon my circumstances.  In a different environment or set of circumstances it is quite feasible my emotions would not be the same.  Most would agree as our circumstances change our emotions change as well.

 None of us like negative emotions, so we seek to have pleasant ones.  We usually do this through our circumstances or environment.  When we find something that makes us happy we gravitate towards it. We then feel better, at least for awhile, then our environment or circumstances change and our emotions follow.  We then strive to get back the circumstances that brought us pleasure.  The more we find pleasure in a particular activity or environment the more we will crave it and the more powerful it becomes.  

We look for the right situations to bring us the emotional highs that we want. And eventually we become addicted to whatever the environment or activity is. We fall into a blind pursuit of pleasure. God warns us not to be lovers of pleasure (2 Timothy 3:1-4) because He knows it will take full control of us.  And we will not be thirsty for what He offers. 

The good news is that we can have freedom from the control of an appetite for pleasure. Jesus died to bring us that freedom.  It begins by recognizing the pleasure the world brings is never satisfying and all our pursing and striving cannot bring the joy and peace God is waiting to give us. 

“He gave His life to purchase freedom for everyone” (1Timothy 2:6a NLT)

Remember all the ‘good times’ in the world will eventually leave you feeling empty.  As Solomon was said they are meaningless.

“I have seen all the things that are done under the sun;
 all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind”
(Ecclesiastes 1:14 NIV)

Blue Sky Canyon is a natural habitat that holds a bounty of natural sights and sounds.  In short succession, a hiker can find riparian, oak woodland, mixed chaparral, and coastal sage scrub environments.  Each ecosystem holds its own special variety of wildlife and the closeness of these habitats allows a great diversity of species to exist together in harmony.

She invites you to check out her blog at http://godswalkathon.wordpress.com/

You can also check her minsitry page out at http://www.pathwaytoanamazinglife.com/

Take Matters into Your Own Hands; Pray

Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall.

Psalm 55:22

Ever feel so desperate you thought there was no place to go for help? Ever felt like giving up?

I have.

That is when I know I need to get a grip, take matters into my own hands—so to speak—and pray to God for help.

Many people in the Bible went through trials just like you and I do. They were desperate and didn’t think they had anyplace to turn either. They were ready to give up.

David is probably the most famous example of someone who let things get so far out of hand that he had weeds all through his garden of life. He became so desperate that he ended up living in a cave for fear of his life.

He had lost all of the friends he had except for Jonathan. He banded together a new bunch of “friends,” who, like him, were misfits. He finally cried out to God from the cave, asking God to show him the way. And God not only helped him get out of the cave, He also helped him become the king of the land he had been banished from. All because he prayed.

Abraham thought that all was lost as far as having a child. He was getting very old, and his wife Sarah was also very old. They were about to give up. They thought there was no hope of having a child. Abraham asked God what to do and God promised him a child. Abraham and Sarah had a son when Abraham was 99. All because they prayed.

Paul could have easily given up. He was shipwrecked, beaten many times, put in prison several times and endured fear for his life at all times. He could have walked away from his mission, but he stayed strong, and led many people to Jesus. All because he prayed.

There are many other examples where a “last minute” prayer saved a life. There is Daniel in the lions’ den. The Israelites had nowhere go, so Moses talked to God about it and He parted the Red Sea to provide an escape. Elijah was on the run and God provided ravens that brought him food.

Talk about last-minute desperation. How about having someone die and you think all is lost? You’re getting ready to bury your loved one? Hold on! Not so fast!

In each of the following miracles, prayer preceded them:

Elijah raised a boy from the dead.

Elisha also raised a boy from the dead.

Even after Elisha was dead, his bones raised a man from the dead.

Jesus raised a boy from the dead.

Jesus raised a girl from the dead.

Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.

Peter raised a woman from the dead.

Paul raised a man from the dead.

God is here today, tomorrow, and forever. He is the same God who stopped Abraham from killing his son; the same God who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah; the same God who destroyed the Pharaoh’s army.

Our God, who can show strong force, is the same God who is there for us to soothe our desperate hearts. He is the same God who can be our place refuge, the same God who is there when we feel like giving up. The only step we need to take is to pray. He wants to hear from us and promises to help us in our darkest moments.

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.

2 Thessalonians 2:16–17

Further adventures

It’s time for a Bible study. (I just can’t take my teacher’s hat off forever, you know!) Look in the Bible for where prayer was answered. Your concordance should have that information for you. You don’t have to look up every situation. (I am an easy teacher.) But try to look up four or five.

See what God does after a prayer. Sometimes the prayer isn’t answered the way the person wanted. God knows each of us. He knows what we need, and it isn’t necessarily what we want.

See if God’s answer was the best for the person after all. I already know. I read the book.

Something to ponder

Isn’t it funny that we pray for everything under the sun, but when it gets dark, we hide?

* Excerpt from : Signs of Hope: Ways to Survive in an Unfriendly World

It is not an easy thing to allow ourselves to hope when our hopes have been disappointed over and over again in the past. Learning to hope, however, means opening ourselves to the possibility that the future may be different from what we have known in the past. To hope is to allow ourselves to anticipate the possibility of good things. Hope is the expectation of good

How many blessings have we continually missed without notice, by fixing our eyes instead, on what we feel to be our trials and our losses? And, do we not think and talk about our trials until our whole horizon is filled with them, and we almost begin to think we have no blessings at all?