Encouraging You to Reframe Burdens into Blessings

Give us five minutes, we’ll give you encouragement!

Transcript

0:00:04 - Heather

Welcome to your Encouraging 5-Minute Podcast. You give us five minutes, we'll give you some encouragement. 

0:00:10 - Eric

Knowing that well, it can be hard some days to find encouragement. Yeah, Easy encouragement, yeah. So we'll bring you some good news, some encouragement for your day. You got five minutes Comparison and you've heard this phrase before probably. Comparison is the thief of joy. You want joy in your life. You want the joy of the Lord. Comparison will do you in quick. 

0:00:31 - Heather

Oh, my word, absolutely. And the problem is, I think, at least in my experience, it's been social media that feeds all of that, because I see people my age doing better financially or doing the things I want to do, taking vacations, and I'm like well, and I feel like a toddler. Well, that's not fair. But we're comparing the best shots of their lives to my average Tuesday, which is running errands and grabbing medications and fixing dinner and not that. That's not glorious, but it doesn't look like a vacation on some island I can't even pronounce. 

0:01:08 - Eric

Yeah, your feed is far less interesting by comparison, but again, that's. 

0:01:13 - Heather

The worst thing you can do is compare yourself to Right, and we start to wonder where did we go wrong? Right? I mean, I don't know if this works for you, but I always go like, okay, where did my life fall off the rails If I had made this choice instead of that choice? Would I be in their position right now? If I had done that instead of this, would I be better off by now? But here's the thing, and a friend of mine told me to understand God's will for our lives, we have to first understand God's will, and His will is for us to look to Him for validation for everything. But also, at the end of the day, when we start comparing ourselves with other people, regardless of what we're doing, it comes down to why does it matter? Why does it matter that that person has a boat and I don't? Why does it matter that that person's taking the vacation I wish I could always take? Why does it matter? In the end, it? 

0:02:12 - Eric

doesn't. 

0:02:12 - Heather

No, because God's plan for their life is different than God's plan for my life, and since I'm not on the final day of my life, that means there are still chapters to be written. Who's to say that some of these fun adventures aren't coming up for me? No, they have not happened. But if I start to look back to where I was, let's say, two years ago, I look back and go oh, thank you God, because I'm not in the place I was two years ago. My situation has improved. I'm living the dreams or the prayers I had two years ago. My situation has improved. I'm living the dreams or the prayers I had two years ago. That's what matters. It's me and me. Am I paying attention to God's will as opposed to paying attention to what my friends are doing on the social feeds? 

0:02:57 - Eric

Yeah, I like how you spell it out. It's the comparison to, not someone else or to another situation. It's the comparison of me to me, where I once was and where God has brought me. And what he's brought me to now.

0:03:10 - Heather

That's the real prize to me is looking at how God has blessed me, even though it may not have been the journey I wanted, but it's the journey I needed to fulfill his will for my life and what he put me here to do.

0:03:25 - Eric

And you're right. It's about his will for our life, and it reminds me of the verse I think it's in Ephesians yeah, so we're God's handiwork. 

0:03:37 - Heather

We were created in Christ to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. That's Ephesians 2.10. 

0:03:40 - Eric

So if you're trying to take control of your life. Is that even possible? I would say give, take control of your life is that even possible? I would say give God control of your life, yes, but you still have to do the things. 

You've got to do the things. Somebody sent me something that said you know, try to abide by the 8-8-8 rule of life, which is get eight hours of sleep. Okay, you got eight hours of work. You're probably going to have to do what's the other eight? The other eight, eight hours of leisure? What? Is it anything close to that? Because there's so much responsibility outside of work and you're probably not getting a full eight hours of good sleep. 

0:04:10 - Heather

So you're cutting into that? 

0:04:12 - Eric

and there's all these other things to do. 

0:04:15 - Heather

The rules of life right? That's what I find so funny is because most people I know have a job and then when you leave that job, it's job number two if you're a caregiver of any kind. 

0:04:26 - Eric

In a lot of instances, yeah, you're taking care of your family, you're doing something with friends. 

0:04:31 - Heather

Now you can flip the script on this right as soon as I leave work. I got to go pick up my daughter. I got to go to the grocery store. I have to swing by and get the prescriptions. Oh, I got to get gas right, and there's so much we're like, oh, got to go, got to do, have to got to do, but flip it. You know what? I get to go pick up my daughter today. I get, by God's grace, to buy groceries today. I get to go get medications, because God made somebody smart enough to make these medicines to help my heart condition. I get to go get gasoline today. I have enough money in my account that I can buy gas for my family to transport us places. I think it's all in how we look at it. Take it from burden to blessing. 

0:05:16 - Eric

Well, however, you spend your 24 hours. We're so thankful that you've taken five minutes. We hope you've been encouraged and we thank you for listening.