Surviving or Thriving?

I want to take a couple of days to talk about something that caught my attention on yesterday.  It came from a book that I read.  It came from a conversation with someone I had.   It came from old memories stored in my heart.  Let's begin with the book I was reading.  The name of the book was I DECLARE by Joel Osteen.  There was a chapter in in the book (Day Twenty-Five) where he addressed the topic of "the surviving and thriving" mindset!  He encouraged the reader to say:  I DECLARE I will not just survive; I will thrive!  I will prosper despite every difficulty that may come my way.” (There was more but I encourage you to read the book.)  


My point is that I never realized how many people, including myself, have lived life in survival mode.  Yet, we don't have to.  Why?  Once again, it's our snapshot and we have two choices:  We can either survive or thrive!

As for me, you would have thought I was one of the participants on the reality show, SURVIVOR!  I wasn't a huge fan of the show but the concept is one most have adapted in life.  It's all about survival!  My life at some points has mainly been about surviving.  And if I heard a song about surviving, I sang it, LOUD AND PROUD!  I did not recognize that my survival years made no room for growth.  Okay, so you grow to an extent but you never maximize your full potential.  You become stationary and content with where you are in life because you survived a (or some) traumatic ordeal in your life.  Meaning:  you become stuck, you don’t move from that complacent mode of self-protective.  

When you are in survival mode there is a constant battle within which comes from those difficult times in our lives, whether it is from abuse, sickness, mistreatment, loss, or anything that causes you a great deal of pain.  And, we can become accustomed to thinking we are justified by our mentality. But God doesn't want us to live there.  According to Psalm 55:18, we have to realize that God has delivered our soul in peace from the battle within...

Let's continue this topic later...