Bottle

When we allow circumstances inside of us, they affect us.

 

I had a conversation with one of my best friends today and in the conversation she was telling me about a very horrible and traumatizing thing from her past that she’d found out about.  

While she was talking about it she was sharing about how hurt and mentally defeated she felt.

I told her something and I knew I had to share it,

Here was my response,

“Honestly, does it change who you are? 

Does it affect where you’re going in your future? 

Does it affect your relationship with the Lord? 

Does it mean you’ve been given an excuse to put off changing the world with the Gospel?

NO. 

It doesn’t. 

You forgive and move forward. 

As Todd White says, ‘you can’t afford to have a bad day.’ 

There is a generation of people depending upon you. 

You FIGHT. 

Even when you don’t feel like it.

Even when you don’t want to.

Even when you’ve been through Hell.

You know that circumstances don’t change that He is good and never changing.

You’re not subject to your mind and emotions. 

They are subject to you. ”

It’s a beautiful thing, how sometimes the Lord says something through us that we didn’t even know was in us. How a lot of the times, for me anyways, I’ll be mid-sentence while getting the revelation of what just came out of my mouth.

But we need to know this.

It may be a horribly shaking experience or circumstance, but only when we allow them inside of us does it get ugly.

It’s like the messages in the bottle that get thrown into the sea for someone to find and read. They pass through the entire ocean; salt, mold, seaweed, fish, garbage, algae, and all the things that the ocean contains, but if it’s sealed, the message never gets affected at all.

The same is true of us; we can be thrown somewhere overwhelming in the middle of horrid circumstances and they don’t have to affect us.

Only when we drink in the things around us do they affect us.

We don’t have to drink in the algae or the seaweed.

We don’t have to be moved.

We have been given the choice.

David said, 

"He only is my rock and my salvation, My stronghold; I shall not be greatly shaken." Psalm 62:2

Solomon said, 

"When the whirlwind passes, the wicked is no more, But the righteous has an everlasting foundation."

Proverbs 10:25

And Isaiah said, 

"The steadfast of mind You will keep in perfect peace, Because he trusts in You."

Isaiah 26:3

Choose steadfastness, choose joy, choose not to be affected by the storms that surround.

Jesus is consistent. 

Jesus is good. 

He's good,

every single time.