Deciding Our Next Thought

Every day, when we wake up, & open our eyes, & face another day, head on, we are given the amazing, opportunity to choose our attitude. To decide our next thought. To determine where we wanna go from here. To set the course of our day, from this spot. We can choose whatever we want, in this moment, before we even attempt to roll outta bed, & the best thing is, no one can take that away from us. No one can trespass on our mind & force us to feel how they want us to feel. No one can MAKE me think wrongly. No one can force me to be unhappy, or unfriendly, or unapproachable, or unhinged. No, we, you & me, have control over that. Period. We can choose to be sad, & burdened, & discouraged, & angry, if we want to. We can choose to see the cup half empty & see our world as falling apart, if we want to. We can choose to hold grudges, & unforgiveness, & resentment, & allow bitterness to take over our mind, if... WE... want... to. We can believe life is always unfair & I always get the short end of the stick. Yep! Sure can! We CAN choose to think on the bad, the worst, the hurtful, the betrayal. We can absolutely, let disappointment, & doubt, & fear, & regrets invade our mind, from this moment we wake up, & let those things define us, & take up our whole day. Amazing isn't it? The right to choose? We can make a personal decision, right now, to be mean, cruel, bitter, offended, & revengeful, & we can justify it, blame others for it, expect sympathy from it, & sadly, define our whole life, by it, or at least, this day. What a gift, we have, to control our stinkin thinking. We, alone, can choose to be completely miserable today, if we want to, & Our Sweet Jesus, will just go ahead & let us. Yeah, there's a lot we can choose, & at the end of today, we need to remember... We chose it. When we realize what a mess our mind was today, we chose it. When we lay our head down tonight, & IF, we are still so very angry at the world & everyone in it, well, we chose it. Our freedom to choose how we will respond, & behave, & believe, is a gift, & hopefully, today, we choose so, WISELY. Once today is gone, it's gone. It forever disappears into history, & it's never coming back. No do overs for todays. Our day, right now, is waiting on OUR choice. We can be bitter, or we can be better. We can be revengeful or we can be forgiving. We can be offended or we can appreciate another chance to grow. We can choose to be miserable all day, today & lock our faith & expectancy, & hope, & joy, away somewhere, if we want to... But I pray... We won't.

Philippians 4:8-9 The Message (MSG)

Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.