As far as it depends on you....

On my road trip to North Carolina, I caught up on my Elevation Church sermons. For whatever reason I haven't been catching them live lately, so I listened to them while I drove. [Steven Furtick can PREACH!]

Back home, I decided to try to listen to one sermon a day. So while I was wading through vacation laundry two nights ago, I opened YouTube and clicked on a video that had a picture of Steven Furtick. As the person started talking, I realized this wasn't Steven Furtick and this wasn't a sermon. I backed out and read the title. What I was actually listening to was a podcast of someone bashing Steven Furtick.  They had just used a picture of him in the thumbnail. 

For quite some time God's been forming a lesson in my heart. It has taken several different forms, but they all spring from the same truth He wants me to see. 

*Initially I heard it this way: there were just many people who thought Miss Haugh was the best teacher they ever had as there were people who thought that Miss Haugh was an obsessive-compulsive, control freak put in their lives to make them miserable. 

*I  have heard it multiple times during this election season: Donald Trump is the best thing that ever happened to America vs  Donald Trump is destroying America.

*I think that Steven Furtick brings the Word of God hot and fresh every time he steps up to that pulpit, and clearly the woman in this podcast does NOT think that.

As I started to ponder to find the lesson God wanted me to get, I breezed right by everyone has the right to their opinion and landed on something else.... 

I started to wonder does Steven Furtick REALLY never preach a bad sermon? Is Donald Trump really as evil as CNN wants me to believe? Was Miss Haugh ever out to get people? 

Is it more likely that our opinions shape the way we respond to things? Is it possible that Strven Furtick gets up in my kitchen every Sunday because I go into the sermon expecting him to? Is it possible that the media sees Trump offering to send troops to Seattle as dictatorial because they hate him? Is it possible that you overlooked and excused Miss Haugh's OBVIOUS flaws and shortcomings because you liked her?

Stay with me please.... I know this one is long.... but it's been brewing in my heart for quite some time.

Because IF those things are possible, THEN we have the power to just make them different! We can just switch the lens we are viewing those situations through. We can have the power to choose joy over depression. We can have the power to hear a word from God out of a donkey's mouth. We can have the power to submit to and learn from an authority figure (like Miss Haugh or Donald Trump) who we dont agree with.

I like this power. I hate being a victim. I want the control to decide to HEAR from a preacher I don't prefer.  I want to FLOURISH even in the presence of my enemies.  I want to GROW even when my teacher bores me near to death. 

So here's what I'm doing today. I'm taking back my power, and I'm examining my heart, especially when something offends me or I dislike something.  I am going to look more closely and see if its possible that my bias is causing me to roll my eyes, get my hackles up, turn off my ears. I am going to change the ONLY person I have control over.... ME!

If it is possible, AS FAR AS IT DEPENDS ON YOU, live at peace with everyone.

Romans 12:18 

(emphasis mine)