I Choose…

Permission to rant? Thank you! Here goes:

I am tired of dealing with all the Covid stuff, personally, and as a leader. I am weary of complying with regulations and restrictions, albeit necessary. I would rather talk to people about baseball, the weather, or traffic patterns in Los Angeles, than have another conversation about masks, vaccines, or social distancing. I’m worn out over people judging one another over this issue, or me judging them for judging. I’m tired of conspiracy theories and political positioning. I’m fatigued by it all, yet these realities are real, the challenges remain challenges, and as a leader it’s not time to bail or quit. I’m tempted to say more, but enough-is-enough, and my rant is over.  Thank you for indulging me. 

Instead of choosing to complain about all this, how about I choose something else. To “choose” means that I can select from a number of possibilities. I can choose anger, frustration, aggravation, irritation, skepticism, or I can choose kindness, compassion, patience, forbearance, or trust. 

Resting on one of my office shelves is a piece of wood with the following two words painted on it – “Choose Joy”. I think that’s what I should choose… joy. In fact I should choose to do a positive rant about all the good in my life, like dear friends, a family that loves me, a godly and beautiful wife, good health, children who follow Jesus, salvation gifted to me from a loving Savior, and God’s steady hand of protection and provision. That’s a better rant… for sure. 

If you are one of the people who will be at Mount Hermon this summer, let’s choose together to focus on joy. Sure, Family Camp will look somewhat different, but let’s choose to enjoy those differences. Let’s choose to appreciate what we can do and not focus on what we can’t do. Let’s choose to soak in God’s amazing creation, and let’s choose to soak in our amazing God who created that amazing creation. Let’s choose to embrace one-another and not judge. Let’s choose to make the best of what is handed to us, and give God the glory for it all. If we do that, I choose to believe that we’ll have a great summer!!!

I choose joy. How about you?

Mike