1. Resist the tendency to live an isolated life.
Resist the tendency to live an isolated life. Select a few individuals…not a lot. Nobody has a lot of intimate friends. Throughout our lifetime 4, maybe 5, if that many. Stay close to those people. Even though your lives may be geographically removed, stay close. Thanks to the electronic world in which we live, you’re a few clicks away. Be in touch. Talk to them. Have them enter your life and you enter their life. If you wait until later to have friends, it’s too late. Pull them closer now.
2. Get over those who disappoint you.
Get over those who disappoint you. People are people. Every one of us are sinners. Some are disloyal, others simply let us down. Others have a way of breaking their promises. Go on, even though they broke their promises. Don’t waste your time on those who have disappointed you. Refuse to let those people steal your joy or drain your energy. Believe me, there will be those who will disappoint you. Hopefully you will come toward the end of your life and hardly be able to name one of them, because you’ve lived on and not allowed them to become the focus of your thoughts. There will be those who will simply walk out of your life. Let them walk.
3. Lift up and encourage those who are recovering from failure.
Lift up and encourage those who are recovering from failure. I’ll tell you what, folks, the passing of years will do a whole lot to your rigid mindset, your narrow convictions, especially your judgemental attitude toward failures. The reason it will help is because during those years, you will have failed even more often. That mellows you. You will be able to see beyond the great failure of another person. Do your best to treat people with grace. I’ve never regretted helping a failure recover. Never once. I’ve been warned by friends that I will be sorry I did that…I’ve been told by some that it will hurt my ministry…neither happened. Some are engaged in God’s work today with full energy because some of us cared enough to help them back on their feet. Lift up and encourage those who are recovering from a failure.
4. Let the Lord handle your critics.
Let the Lord handle your critics. Stop going to the internet to see what it says about you. There’s always a bunch of fools out there that have come to conclusions, most of which are false, but they’ve decided they’re true, so they think what they need to do is spread the “gospel.” Their kind of gospel. There’s nothing a critic wants more than for you to fight back, because he loves to fight. He never runs out of ammunition, and it seems like he has a lot of time to do it… or she does. Let the Lord handle your critics. The greatest thing you can do with a critic is ignore them. Just absolutely give them over to the Lord…He can handle them.
5. Stay fully focused on the Lord Jesus Christ
Stay fully focused on the Lord Jesus Christ. I have no idea what the Lord has in mind for you…I hope it is absolutely beyond all you could even imagine or think. Be ready for surprises…He’s full of them. I’ve never regretted one time when I decided ‘I will at this moment focus on my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.’ Now that is the way to live.
Thoughts from Lauren
“I’m listening to that, thinking, I wish I had grasped these things at 10 years old, at 15 years old…but you know what? We’re learning things as we’re learning them. That’s Charles Swindoll, 5 Life Lessons to Live By.
- Don’t live an isolated life.
- Get over those who disappoint you
- Lift up and encourage those recovering from failure
- Let the Lord handle your critics
- Stay fully focused on the Lord Jesus Christ
Especially in this day and age, with so much connection with social media. It is so easy for us to be overwhelmed by what everyone thinks. This is a great reminder to constantly say ‘Father, what You think is all that matters.’ He knows our hearts, He knows everything about us…the rest of the world doesn’t. I’ve had people say things about me that are so utterly crazy and I would go to my Mom, and I’d be like ‘what in the world!?’ And she’d be like, ‘honey, just laugh about it.’ You know, I didn’t want to laugh about it because that is not fair to say things that aren’t kind, that aren’t true. We’ve all been there. The Lord will handle our critics. He will go before us and handle our reputation. Think about this…if you have children, grandchildren, children in your life, godchildren, and somebody’s talking about them, you’re not going to like it. You’re going to want to go and confront that person and say, ‘Let me tell you, that is my child. You do not talk about my child.” This is what you have to do: you say, ‘The Lord loves me that much. The Lord will go before me, and when somebody says something about me that’s untrue, unkind things against me, He will handle it.’ And He’s the Creator of the universe! He will represent you. He’s proud of you. This is all I can say: woe to anyone who speaks out against His children. He will go before you; He will show you victory and power. Just trust Him.”
~Lauren Kitchens, Living Life with Lauren
