What you focus on sets up how you feel.
How can you help but focus on the most recent events in your life?
Scenario
Somebody just hurt you – so you aim your attention and energy on the offense.
With the result that
- your moment
- maybe your day
- maybe your whole week
is ruined.
Because -
That event hijacks your attention.
When the injury or insult becomes the center of ‘What is important to me’
- other parts of life get pushed out of sight.
Prevent the Hijack
Personal Core Values can interrupt the emotions of insult and put you back in the safety of what you know to be The True Values of Your Life.
My Example
Worship is at the top of my list of Personal Core Values.
It is the Number 1ne of my chosen values because I believe (know) that God is.
God is Alive.
God is In Control.
God is Love.
God will not allow anything to happen to me that I cannot handle.
Sometimes because of the proximity of bad things happening, we lose sight of these God Facts.
So I intentionally place Worship as the Most Important Value in my life.
When something bad happens, I remind myself of my choice.
And I change my focus to the abundance of evidences that God has placed around me that He’s Got My Back.
Nature still speaks loudly of the God Who cares for the flowers, the wildlife, the sciences of life that make it possible for me to live.
Those evidence are everywhere – when we train ourselves to see them.
Get out into Nature and look.
“Be still and Know that I Am God.”
Breezes. Birds. Trees. Colors. Life.
All dependent on the care of their Creator.
Each living in confidence that He sees and cares.
Then why shouldn’t we?
I have photos of flowers and Nature that are strategically placed to catch my notice.
To remind me.
I grow a garden so the miracle of life is ‘in my face’ to remind me of His care. To remind me of the Laws that He has established for life – including mine. (And Yours)
A momentary slight or insult or disrespect fades into insignificance in the face of Worship.
God is in His Heaven, and I am connected to Him – owned by Him.
What can man do against me?
I know God’s character because He has revealed it in His Word and in His World.
Which brings me to an important action part of Worship.
Praise.
Sometimes the praise must be silent, sometimes it breaks out in song, whistling, humming, guitar, harmonica…
Sometimes I must open my Bible to Psalms and join in David’s jubilation over The God Who is Worthy.
Included in my Worship value are the relationships that stem from the Garden of Eden.
Wife. Family. Sabbath. Accountability for Obedience to God’s Laws.
Summary
Because of the proximity in time and space, insults, injury, disrespect - can overwhelm me.
For a short time.
When life-hurts try to defeat me, I check my Personal Core Values to see where it fits in.
Within the framework of Worship, I evaluate whether this event is something that God is using to teach me.
Perhaps the value in the affront is simply to Trust God.
As I recognize God in my life, despite the present situation, I can praise Him.
- - - -
What will be at the #1 Position of your Personal Core Values?
Search the term, ‘Personal Core Values’
Get a Composition Notebook and make a beginning list.
Put the most important one at the top.
Re-arrange and re-evaluate.
Keep the list where you will see it often.
Comments are welcome.
Let me know what you would like to read about – from a Spiritual viewpoint.
