Writing A Better Story

 I want to write a better story going forward. Even though I finished the book "better decisions, fewer regrets" over a week ago I am still thinking about it. I think the question about what story do I want to tell when my decision becomes history has affected me the most. At this time in my life, I have a lot of stories to tell. I wish more of them were good stories. I wish I had made better decisions. If my life were written in a book there are some chapters I don't want to write.  there are some stories I have already written in posts on this blog I will probably delete although having been posted they are somewhere permanently. I felt convicted sometime back, before reading this book about perhaps not putting some exes in the best way I could. They belong to God just as I do. God loves them just as much as he loves me. I think I need to consider that going forward. The decisions were mine, I made them good, bad, or indifferent. Here I use the word indifferent as in between good and bad,  not the use of the word that I don't care. I do care. The story I wrote is mine because the decisions were mine, nobody ever held a gun to my head with the decisions I made. I take ownership. Like I said earlier, there are some chapters of my story I don't want to tell. A Christian should not have to say I have been through 4 divorces. That alone says I am prone to making bad decisions. I did what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. I look back to a lot of years of being a carnal Christian. Sometimes I didn't look that different from an UnChristian if I can use a title from another book I read recently. I'd rather be remembered as a radical Christian than a carnal Christian. Living a carnal Christian life is not being salt and light to the world around me. I have been claiming Christianity for a long long time and I believe God has been working on me the whole time. What story do I want to tell going forward is one of the questions that I think about the most.  The other question that I think about a lot is " What does Love require?" Love is supposed to be a defining characteristic of a Christian. We are to love our enemies. We are to love others as Christ loved us. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples. All five questions are really good questions to ask. I want to repeat them here as I want to remember them all. Repeating helps to remember them. 1. Am I being honest with myself.... really?  2. What story do I want to tell? As I have said above this one really makes me think. 3. Is there a tension that needs my attention? In line with this question if something is bothering you, let it bother you until you understand why it bothers you. 4. What is the wise thing to do?  When I think back to one of my worst financial decisions, this question alone may have helped me make a better decision if I was honest with myself. 5. What does love require of me? This also is one of the most important questions for a Christian to ask as love is suppose to be a defining characteristic of our lives. Sometimes it is lacking. So going forward I want to write a better story of my life. I want the last chapters of my life to reflect better decisions and thereby better stories. I can see where each question is really important, becoming more important in some decisions than others. Love is to be a defining characteristic of  Christian. I want to be salt and light to the world around me. May love shine through. God bless, LVZ.

If I wrote a book of my life the title would be "Carved By The Master".