Good morning, world. Things are looking pretty good from the front porch of my farm in Virginia today. Today is the 2nd day of Spring, but the calendar doesn’t mean much of anything to the Living God. It’s 29 degrees this morning and it could just as easily snow as it can to shine. When He tells the sun to shine through the clouds it does. When He commands the snow to fall in the Spring, it comes forth. The unpredictability of the weather is a sweet reminder to me this morning of the unpredictability of Life…there is rarely rhyme or reason in the Journey at all. I look for the Good the same the same way I look for the sunrise each morning, but I have found my Contentment in the unpredictable Seasons of Life, and I no longer fight against it. Isn’t that the way you look at your life too?

The source of disappointment always comes down to things not going the way WE expect them to go, or when people don’t behave the way WE expect them to behave. But there’s rarely rhyme or reason and most of the time these things are completely out of our control. There are times when we go into overdrive as we attempt to make someone else be what we want them to be, or to feel what we want them to feel, or to behave the way we expect them to behave, and most of the time we do irreparable damage to the relationship when we do. People don’t change any part of them unless they want to change, and we have no control over the heart of someone else. How many precious hours of Life are wasted by pondering “if only” this or “if only” that over things and people completely out of our control? We trade our peace for all the “what ifs” instead of doing what WE need to do to change our own Hearts or our own circumstances. Sadly, lots of people choose to spend the rest of their lives in “if only” mode. No amount of “if only’s” could change the outcome of this day, and the “if onlys” ONLY lead to disappointment and heartache. The surest way to find Peace when people and things aren’t what we expect them to be is to Trust the Living God with the Road Map and to Believe that He’s got a Plan through it all. IF ONLY most people could reach that point…the world would be a more Peaceful place to live until He calls me Home.

Every person of Faith must reach a point where they’re willing to “die to” themselves because that’s the core of what it means to be a Christian. That’s not a place of sacrifice, neglect, or abuse, that’s the first step in Peace and Joy! We don’t become “Stepford” people when we give our Heart to Christ, BUT we learn to stop fighting against things we know we can’t control! It’s when we stop trying to anticipate the Next Move, that we learn to accept the Journey and we appreciate it every Step of the way. It’s when we strive to be Christ-like that we learn to love unconditionally…ESPECIALLY those people who aren’t so easy to love. It’s when we realize that we can’t control people, places, or things, that we stand a little taller and we REFUSE to accept less for ourselves because we KNOW that we are worthy. Instead of trying to change the ones that aren’t what WE expect them to be, we move on in Peace. It’s when we finally accept that God is Orchestrating Life and that our circumstances ALWAYS have a Purpose bigger than ourselves, that we learn to look past the details and the personalities that WE become Better through it all.

There’s no good rhyme or reason for why the temperature in Virginia is below freezing on this Spring day, but there’s no real rhyme or reason to this Life at all. So, I surrender to my Circumstances, and I always remember that the conflict I have with someone else has nothing to do with them at all…it has to do with what I EXPECT of them…things that I may or may not ever see in my Lifetime. I kick my expectations to the curb…and sometimes I move on to Peace instead of trying to put a square peg in a round hole. I’ve learned to “die to” myself, and I understand my Journey even though it doesn’t have much rhyme or reason from where I’m sitting because it ALL has Perfect Rhyme or Reason from where the Living God sits. He’s got my Full Attention no matter who or what I encounter on this 2nd day of Spring. Because I choose to die to myself and to live for Him, it doesn’t need to have rhyme or reason because everything and everyone else dims in comparison… and because I KNOW that “all things work together for Good for those called according to His Purpose”. I don’t sweat the small stuff.

How about you?