Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Blessings of Choice

The power of choice is an incredible blessing! Each day we will come across things that have the potential to make the day great or terrible. By choosing to focus on the good things we can make each day a blessing not only to ourselves but to others.
A few semesters ago, Mom came across a Reader’s Digest article that had done an experiment with three different groups. They told the first group to focus only on the bad things that happened to them during the day. The next group they told to focus on the events and details, for example, the lady wearing a pink dress, the time of day and so on and so forth. The last group they told to focus only on the good things.
Oddly enough the results turned out about how common sense would dictate. Those who focused on the bad were generally in a bad mood and not very pleasant to be around. Those who focused on the events were generally about as happy as the direction of the events—if things were to their liking they were happy, if they weren’t they were not. Those who focused on the good things were generally happy and pleasant to be around.
Their focus determined their mood and their choices determined their focus. What a blessing to know that we are not a victim of circumstances we can choose to be joyful and see the good in everything we come across. Now this is not always the easy choice, nor is it always the obvious choice, but it is a blessing to us and those around us when we do make the choice.

“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” ~1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

No comments:

Post a Comment