Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein
Do you ever have those days you just want to get back? You know, you want a do-over. Maybe it was a chaotic day, maybe things didn’t go the way you planned, or should have gone. No matter, that’s just how life goes. It’s just not reasonable to expect roses and sunshine all the time.
But, there are days that I wish I could do-over, not because of the happenings of the day, but because of how I handled those happenings. That’s what I’d like to do-over. You know, the whole attitude and mindset of a crazy day not handled well. You know, anger, frustration, loose lips, the evil eye all the result of a crazy day. Actually, those are not the result of my crazy day, but more like my poor handling — an attitude out of check. Ugh! It’s not what happens in a day, it’s my response to those things that happen. Ugh!
There’s a hymn called Be With Me Lord we heard of a couple of weeks ago at Church. It goes like this:
Be with me Lord, I cannot live without thee;
I dare not try to take one step alone.
I cannot bear the loads of life unaided;
I need Thy strength to lean myself upon.
This would definitely help with the handling of the chaos of life, wouldn’t it? I’ve been trying to memorize this song and it occurred to me this morning that that’s all well and good, but it does me no good to memorize it, if I do not learn from it, call on it, lean into it, and submit to the Spirit. You see, my handling of many things yesterday, and countless other days, would have been different had I really believed those words, called on those words, and lived those words. I could have saved myself a full 14 hours of anger, frustration, self-pity, whining, sugar-eating, temper tantrum-like behavior. In fact, a lot of times I could save myself from the pattern of poor handling, day after day, if I would just go to the Source.
Einstein was right — It’s crazy to think that doing the same thing over and over is going to glean a different result. Handling our days in the exact same way, with the exact same attitude, expecting them to be different. ..Always leaning on self. Rarely leaning on God.
Think what our day may look like (or our evenings after a long day at work) if we (I) didn’t mishandle the happenings of the day. Think about how things could be different in our days if we would live Be With Me Lord. Our aim everyday should be to cling to Christ, not be self-sufficient. We can’t live without Him – not one step alone – we can’t bear the burdens – without His strength. If that’s not what we’re doing maybe we need to look at our prevailing attitude and thoughts — maybe it’s time for a change.