You become who you hang around with?
You become who you hang around with.
Birds of a feather flock together.
As a disciple of spirituality on the topic of God, it baffles me how little I understand about how the transcendent can make me the better person the Bible advocates I should be.
Changing and being what I try to become is experienced as a life long struggle, achieved with great failure. Yet, being a persistent woman, I am determined to make a go of it. There is something I am not getting.
I can’t do this, God- it is too hard.
My faith has certainly evolved over the years since I gave my life to God’s Royaume. I am glad that I am baptized & that my name is written in the lamb's book of life. I am the apple of God’s eye.
“But it has not been this peachy keen feeling of acceptance for very long.”
My faith has evolved over the years, let’s say over twenty years. It’s been a battle and a struggle due to my ignorance and simply not asking the right question. The other day I admitted to God that I did things over and over that I wanted to change, through trying and trying, I had little control over my ability to actually affect change in a situation I did not like.
I am not a drop-down drunk, yet alcohol has been a friend for many years, and so pleasurable to be with. The bottle has been my friend for many years. But for this new year I want to see what my life could be like without alcohol. I know what it is like living with alcohol but have decided to experience my everyday life without it. I was not born drinking alcohol and lived sober up to my twenties. I know I do not need alcohol to breathe.
Putting away the desire to have wine or beer around by rethinking the pattern to what I do want to do- not have alcohol dominate my growth in any area of my life. Where the undesired habit, is replaced, undone and exchanged from old views, gestures and action with new patterns and thinking that lift and undo the mind control of apathy and mindlessness.
“Now what?”
I have convinced myself not to think thoughts about drinking so that not to spiral down the usual road of patterning that will surely have me set out to get something to drink. Before, I just simply rolled with thoughts of getting wine or beer for the pantry. Now I catch myself as soon as one little thought creeps in my head for the desire for alcohol and counter it with a big dry-NO!
Not that enjoying wine is wrong, but when it's a habitual action that makes me say and do things that do not promote my integrity or person - it time to address it square on. I want to be in control in 2021.
Today in my kitchen after a day of sledding and fun- I returned home to think.
“Oh, a glass of red would be so nice, right about now!”
I stopped and asked myself-God, you say that drunks will not enter into your kingdom, well I understand this because I too don’t like to be around drunks either- who slobber over me or talk incessantly without any consideration of my person, acting as if I were a piece of furniture. I get that, but I said out loud in my kitchen trying to ask better questions.
“Can you take away my desire for something that is so much better than thinking about You right now? Can you make me feel as excited and good about You, as I would feel after a half bottle of wine? And how could this actually be possible, because wine is so good and gives me a warm feeling, that I have never felt from You- God. How can thinking about you, replace a nice glass of wine?”
I am now old enough to know when to stop persevering at something that is not bearing much fruit in my life- especially since my efforts have been for the most part unfruitful. This morning while praying and singing Psalms and deeply asking for the presence of the Holy Spirit so as not to just ramble scripture but to understand what I was actually reading- I realized that I was in the presence of the same Spirit that was with Moses, Joseph of Egypt, and with all the amazing people of long ago who called on the LORD.
Lord I started...
God continually says not to worry about things we cannot control or change but to trust Him.Well I have decided to take this on this new year. When I realized that I am in the presence of the Creator of the Universe- I don’t have to figure anything out. I am becoming and evolving into the entity and Persona and Character of the one I AM hanging around. Hanging around someone who is great is effortless and easy. You just enjoy their presence and soon enough you become the person like them.
They say dogs begin to look like their owners, couples start to look like each other after a while. And we too start to look and act like our Creator after a while. When we let go and enjoy the company of the great God who has it all figured out.
“I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts.” Revelation 21:6
"Come, eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed. leave your simple ways and you will live walk in the way of understanding." Proverbs 9:5
More Reading
https://gavaut.medium.com/change-pill-sold-here-a0d72bc433ec