Start With What You Know

I have found that if I want to transition out of something and move into something new, many times I feel stuck and immobilized as to where to start. Have you been there? I want to move, but am just not sure how to begin.

So what I have discovered is that a great place to start is to take an inventory of what I already know to be true. During times when I evidence a little intelligence, I write down that list of things I “know” to be true related to the issue at hand.

I did that this morning. I woke at 5:30 with something on my mind pertaining to our printing and publishing business. I started a list of single sentence thoughts surrounding the area in which I wanted to bring some transition. Each line on the paper represented something I have found to be true surrounding the core issue.

As each line was listed and built, clarity of understanding began to unfold. Beginning points and even general solutions started to become evident. Proverbs 17:24 notes: “A discerning man keeps wisdom in view, but a fool’s eyes wander to the ends of the earth.” I need to regularly “keep in my view” or the forefront of my thoughts, those things I know to be true. Also, I must not always be looking for the “newest” thing to focus on all around me, without being somehow still tethered to the wisdom and truth I already have obtained on the subject.

Deuteronomy 30:11-14 says it in a different way: “Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, ‘Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?’ Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, ‘Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?’ No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.” In short, God is saying that He has already made certain things readily available for us to grasp.

So when considering a transition in your life, start with making a full list of what you know surrounding the subject at hand. God has already revealed many things to you that you “know” to be true. From that vantage point, new thoughts can spring to life as a great starting point from which to launch.

Transitioning to Focus on the Important

As I was walking and talking with God this morning, while on vacation in New Port Richie Florida, I felt like God dropped into my mind the phrase – “transitioning to focus on the important.”

The implications are clear. Although what I have been doing to date has been good and maybe necessary, the important things of life have been handled sporadically but not regularly. We all seem to let life lead us instead of us leading life.

Daily necessities occupy most of our time and mental focus. If you have a job, you become consumed in the incidences of our daily grind. If your “job” is taking care of energy-filled children, you are consumed with the seemingly never-ending needs they have. Even if you may be retired, your life may be filled with recreation, your favorite television shows, or chores that take longer and demand more.

In short, the ordinary stuff of life becomes all-consuming. The inverse of that – the extraordinary things of life – are left basically without your focus, time or attention.

The result – an ordinary life.

In most cases, an extraordinary life does not happen on accident, or without focused effort, time and regular attention. However, the ordinary life does happen naturally. Live “naturally” and you can confidently expect an ordinary life.

But, by choice, determination, prayer and unrelenting effort, a person can begin to set a course to become an extraordinary person whose life “naturally” brings forth extraordinary evidence of God’s glory on display.

Maybe for some, this change happens with flip of a mental switch in their brain. But I think for most, it happens through a purposeful season of transition.This transition starts when God illuminates our life and shows us that there is more, and we are settling for less. As “dawn” breaks in our understanding of this reality, we come to the point of decision – go forward, requiring a change in focus and lifestyle, or continue on our natural normal path of the ordinary.