When was the last time you slowed down long enough to pay attention to what’s going on in and around you? Are you seeing changes that excite or alarm you? Are you noticing what’s catching and keeping your attention? Are you becoming more fully alive, or are you shutting down? Are you becoming more loving or more closed off? Are you collecting more things or more friends? Is your relationship with God becoming more intimate or more distant?
What you feed grows, and what you starve dies. Whatever you are feeding is what you tend to notice. Whatever I say “yes” to is what my life becomes. What I say “no” to doesn’t show up on my radar. Now if you’re not too sure what your life is becoming, just listen to your interior dialog, your stories, and watch your behavior. We’re all becoming more and less of something. What are you becoming?
Let’s have a little bit of fun discovering what we’re becoming. Pick only one from each line.
in shape out of shape
flexible rigid
content frustrated
peacemaker stir up tension
build people up make fun of people criticize people
loving don’t care
with people away from people
task-oriented people-oriented
healthy unhealthy
God-aware can’t seem to find God
focused on what’s right focused on what’s wrong
take the lead respond to what others are doing
staying calm getting angry
talking listening
aware of others living in my own little world
active in my community isolating myself
impacting lives waiting for someone to notice and invest in me
becoming better becoming bitter
Thanks for making the time to do some noticing with me. Many people stay busy and don’t inspect their lives. Others spend so much time inspecting that they don’t do anything with their lives. How about if we find some middle ground and common ground. Invite someone you know and care about to take the noticing exam above. Get together for coffee, and help one another move in the direction of who you desire to become. We get stuck when we try to do life on our own. We tend to get better when we speak the truth in love and invest in one another’s growth and development.
We’re all in process. We’re becoming more or less like Christ. But as God is working together in all things to help us become more like Christ, why not join Him instead of resisting the work of God’s Spirit. I’ve spent way too many seasons of my life learning the hard way. Surrendering to His love and taking the higher road leads to so much more peace. May the peace of Christ and the Word of God dwell richly in our hearts through faith as we seek to become all that God made us for!
What have you been noticing lately?
Do you like what you’ve been noticing?
What are you going to do about it?