Get Out of the Pity Pot

We all have problems to deal with.  We all have moments of feeling sorry for ourselves.  We all become absorbed in self-pity at some time.

I’ve often heard it said, and I know I’ve shared this in previous blogs, that the best way to get out of the pity pot is to reach out to someone else in need.  You will quickly see how severe the problems of others are when you seek those in need. Your own problems may not look so bad.

God reminded me of this just the other day on the way to a routine medical test.  On the drive there, I cried to God asking him, “Why Lord” and “When Lord?” - feeling sorry for myself in my fatigue over this desert journey.

After my arrival and obligatory waiting room experience, the tech called my name.  She asked the dutiful, “How are you?” to which I automatically replied, “Great!  How are you?”

She responded, “I won’t complain.”

After some discussion about how people usually complain and my tendency to ask questions, she slowly revealed to me that she lost her daughter to a drug overdose two years ago.

Her son was the obvious light in her life, but she had an underlying fear that God would take him, too.  That would be the one thing in life that would push her over the edge.

She was on her second marriage and both her stepsons were drug addicts.  The one was just coming out of jail after a year to be immediately transferred to a drug rehabilitation center for another year.  His two children were being raised by his in-laws because his ex-wife was an alcoholic.

I have to tell you, I walked out of there feeling so convicted of my pathetic, self-absorbed attitude.  I prayed to God all the way home.  I made a vow to keep this family in my prayers – and to stop feeling sorry for myself.  (The prayer part is easy – not so, the promise to stop feeling sorry for myself.)

I have spent a lot of thought on this whole “life” thing.  We are sent to earth to reach out to others, to teach them about heaven and eternity with Jesus.  How is it we get so bogged down with living that we quickly forget our purpose?

Our Pastor had an excellent sermon yesterday and ended it talking about ‘Eternal Mindset’.  We need to keep our minds focused on our life after Earth.  After all, we will spend eternity in heaven, so our time on Earth is but dust in the wind compared to that.

 

Colossians 3:1-2 “Since then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things."

When we keep our focus on “things above”, our worldly burdens disappear.  They are but dust in the wind. 

*More to come on “Eternal Mindset”.