Roller coaster

Today, Neil reminds me that becoming a healthy, mature Christian isn’t all about me; it’s about helping someone else along.  The saying goes that you can’t take someone where you haven’t been yourself, and it holds true here – any encouragement I may want to offer a brother or a sister had better be evident in my own life first.

I’ll keep this page bookmarked so I can refer to it when I need it.  I appreciate the systematic way Neil lays it all out – stuff we all kind of know we should be doing, but is way less organized in my head.

The item that was personally challenging to me was this one:  Helping them [newer believers] get off the emotional roller coaster by focusing their thoughts on God instead of their circumstances. 

It’s easy to see this dynamic in someone else’s life, and harder to get my own under control.  Just today, I was hearing the click-click-click of the roller coaster nearing the top of the big hill (that would be November – kids’ birthdays, Thanksgiving, and then – all that surrounds Christmas), feeling a little ill at the sound.  What’s the cure?  Keeping my focus on God, and asking Him to show me just the next thing I need to do.  That’s my focus for the day.