90% of Life is Reacting to It

"10% of life is what happens to you; 90% of life is how we react to it. "

I heard this in a recent sermon my Chucky Chuck Swindoll, and it sounds so simple but it is true. Think about it - every decision we make in life is almost always the reaction of something that has happened around us. We are a reacting species - we react to what is around us. When we are small children, we don't have reflexes, because our neurosystems have not yet developed. As we get older, we learn to react to the environment around us - we cry when we're hungry, because we know we get food when we cry. We cry when we hurt ourselves, because we know our mommy will come make it all better. We put our hands in front of our face if somebody throws a ball at us.

We spend most of our lives reacting to things. Spirituality can be the same way. I keep writing about this idea of "training" our hearts and minds to do things for God - much like a neurosystem develops. How amazing would it be if we were trained to the point where Following the lord were as easy as our reflexes. Satan throws a wrench at us(temptation) - right now most of us sit there at study it, watch it get closer and closer, and sometimes let it hit us square on the nose, or block it with our hands at the last second. With the Holy Spirit as our guide, what if we just got out of the way? Doesn't that seem much easier? It would be so great to make such a move a natural way of avoiding temptation, wouldn't it? I was just thinking about those things.

Anyways...

The other night Laneyyy (My roommate) and I were talking about society today and how the breakdown in spirituality seems to be in the family. He talked about why, and I soon began to agree with him. What do we do now? As a society we take away quality time with our kids for technology and other things. Where do we eat dinner most of the time? in front of the TV. Instead of a mother teaching her daughter to do the dishes, and to be a good wife, and spend quality time with our kids, we show our kids how to put dishes in the dishwasher. We don't take our boys out back to show them how to chop wood to start a fire, we turn up the thermostat.

Him and I disagreed, though, that things were lost - we agreed that we weren't going to take our kids back to the primitive life, and shave using butcher knives and dig a well instead of having running water. I envision taking my kids to Baseball games(i'll have season tix of course, eventually the cubs in chicago hopefully, but I'll take the Pirates) - and spending time with them that way - just kicking back in the seats, feet up, (hot dogs and nachos galore in our hands of course), or taking them camping, and things such as this. Television does tend to break us away from these...not necessarily from the time we spend watching it, but by what is protrayed on TV. I have personally seen the Sarcasm play tenfold in my life, and I have to learn to control it. And yes...its weird coming from me...the man who loves television, and loves movies - in fact I may have seen as many or more movies than anybody my age.

I have also realized this - time with God matters. I prayed about something today...and I needed an immediate remedy to something that was on my heart...right before I was about to do something else...and without expecting it, it happened. Something VERY small, but I smiled and simply said "Thank you." - so even if you have 2 minutes and only 2 minutes to pray, use it. And give him the time he really wants later on.


The last picture is of PNC park, Pittsburgh. I've been to 10 Major league parks, and PNC is still the best - I went to 18 games there last season, and i was gone for 2 months on vacations!