A thought by Craig Groeschel from his book, Winning the War in Your Mind (p. 127). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon to buy the book.)
That is very true, isn't it?
Craig says, "There are sad moments in life that we can get stuck in forever. They are not the moments we want to freeze-frame, but too often we do. Those formative moments can become the lens through which we view what happens for the rest of our lives. They form our cognitive bias, the frame we use to define our reality. We need to unfreeze our frames. We need to go back and rewrite the narrative we have been telling ourselves."
He goes on, "So how do we reframe our past? We thank God for what he didn’t do. We look for God’s goodness.
"Thanking God for what he’s done is easy for most of us. But I’ve learned to also thank God for what he didn’t do.
"To discover those blessings can take a long time, but when you finally have that aha moment—wow!"
He tells a story, "Amy went into labor with Sam, our fourth of six, at five o’clock on a Sunday morning. I faced what seemed like an impossible choice. I had preached the night before in our Saturday night service. There was now no way I could be there to preach without deserting Amy and missing my son’s birth, neither of which I wanted to do. It was too late to ask anyone else to speak for me. We didn’t know what to do. I wondered, Why, God? Why couldn’t this baby be born on any other day at any other time?
"Feeling desperate, we decided to show the video of the sermon from the Saturday night service. Our team thought people would forgive us for showing Saturday night’s teaching on the screen, hoping they would understand, since Amy and I were at the hospital having a baby."
He continues, "We showed the video, and people didn’t seem to even notice! The response was great. Even more people came to Christ than on a usual Sunday. We started wondering, Wait, could video sermons work as a strategy? Could we start new church locations and show the message on video?
"Today, Life.Church has more than thirty-five campuses meeting in eleven states. Tens of thousands of people are impacted by the gospel all over the country through Church Online.
"Why?
"Because God didn't answer my prayer that Sam would be born on a different day of the week at a different time. Our son was born on a Sunday morning to a woman I met because God didn't answer my prayer to become a professional baseball player and instead sent me to a different collage on a tennis scholarship.
"I'm so thankful for what God didn't do in my life."
Later he says, "Sometimes we need to thank God for what He didn't do. Developing that discipline helps us reframe our past."
So, let's look back and see how God has worked even when it wasn't what we wanted and asked for. We need to go back and rewrite the narrative we have been telling ourselves. Okay?
Yes, yes!
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