Have you ever played the board game called Life? I personally think it was the most boring game ever! The object is to follow certain set routes depending on your choices in life. The game then stimulates your travel strategies from college to retirement, with jobs, marriages and children (or not) along the way.
This past Sunday we kicked off a new series at our church called "Change your GAME" it focuses on two very true realities that every one will experience in this life. The first being that we're not always who we want to be in life and the second being we're not always where we want to be in life.
Life is full of twist and turns. I have personally experienced crushed, perplexed, struck down and destroyed situations on my path in life. I did not wake up one day and desire to have these obstacles in my life. However, the choices I was making in the game of life was allowing for many of my problems. I was loving the wrong things, living for the wrong things, trusting the wrong things and experiencing the wrong things.
In todays reading Proverbs 3:14 states “Who can bear a broken spirit?"
Who wants to live a life that is broken and dried up? Life can bring us crushing news, perplexing situations and struck down disappointments. I personally was broken, dried up and defeated; the game of life destroyed me. I messed up in high school and even more so in college. I carried the weight of sin and bondage into the rest of my travels in life. I was stuck in a messed up world and it kept on spinning in circles.
I did not want this life for me, dreams shattered and hope deferred. I am very thankful for the few divine friends that kept reminding me that I was made for so much more. However, it was not up to them to convince me or persuade me it was up to me to understand that I had the potential for change!
CHANGE is the foundation of HOPE!
I was not able to see hope because I was blinded by despair. I was angry at the choices I made in life. I felt like a looser and believed that God had abandoned me. Have you ever felt that struck down friends?
May I please share a truth with you that I heard yesterday that I know changed my life? The truth is: we can CHANGE our lives by CHANGING our game. We can easily be conformed to this world, but the morals and ways of this life will blind our minds from seeing the light of the gospel. I was blinded from the real life I was created to live because I chose to play by the wrong set of rules.
Let me share two game changing choices I had to start with......
A decision to stop writing my own story; of imperfection and shattered dreams and allow Jesus Christ to renew my faith, heart, trust and focus. Then I decided to commit and offer everything I had to God.
Friends I am living proof of a NEW CREATION, the old is gone and the new has come. I will admit that I still am messy and sold as a slave to sin and still don't understand why I do the things I do for what I need to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
But I do know this.... I am CHANGING and being transformed daily because I am committed to Change. Daily God renews my mind and sets me apart more and more.
Friends I urge you to give your heart, focus, faith and life over to Christ. I promise you will see something NEW in the midst of your situation. Ask yourself today what you are living for? What are you living for this week? I challenge you to make a choice to CHANGE your game.
Stop living the mad life and allow God to transform your life. We have to follow His rules for college, jobs, marriage, children and our dreams. If you choose to Change your game you will live the LIFE God has planned for you. This game of life will not be boring but action packed and full of adventure.
Proverbs 16:9 "A mans heart plans his ways But the Lord directs His steps"
Who's rules are you living by?
Thank God for the friends He may divinely be putting in your life today!
Life in Him,
