By Keith Chandler, Journey Christian Church
Think about how different we are from each other. It’s not surprising we have conflict because we’re all different. We’ve got night people and day people, baseball people and tennis people, coffee people and tea people, cat people and dog people.
The same God that put 18 million different snow crystals in every one cubic foot of snow has made every one of us unique and different from one another.
The Old Testament has this piece of wisdom about our kids: “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old, they will not turn from it.” Proverbs 22:6 (NLT)
The way they should go is different for every child. Every child is unique, with different talents, gifts, temperaments, and passions. It’s the job of the parent to figure out how God has made them unique.
The Bible also says in 1 Corinthians 2, “Examine yourself.”
One of the most practical things you can do in opening up the door to understanding complicated relationships in your life is to ask yourself these very important but simple questions:
• Am I an initiator or a responder? Am I an extrovert or an introvert?
• Am I a thinker or a feeler? Am I structured or unstructured?
Let me ask you a question. What usually happens between an initiator and a responder, an extrovert or an introvert, a thinker or a feeler, a structured or an unstructured person? They fall in love, they get married, they have families, and eventually they look each other in the eye, and ask our question of the day:
“Why can’t you be normal like me?”
Relationships are complicated.
The Apostle Paul said, in Romans 12:2 (NLT), “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.”
Not “God change them, fix them, they’re the problem.” This says let God transform you into a new person. You’re the one that’s got to change. You can’t change another person. You can only change yourself.
So you begin this process on your knees, saying “God, change me.”
Change your thinking and you will change your relationships. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. You may say that sounds so unattainable right now. Great relationships are a possibility if you’re willing to go about this God’s way, to be transformed from the inside by and with God.
Until next month,
Keith
7708 Van Dyke Rd. Odessa 10am
www.tampajourney.com