Feel Bad List:
When we’re in the fracas of the moment, we don’t have—or take—the ability through our days and nights to step back and look with a more critical, discerning eye.
Time is filled with swift transition, naught of earth unmoved can stand. Build your hopes on things eternal, hold to God’s unchanging hand (Jennie Wilson)—and the idea that time is also an illusion.
I was listening to a speaker and his question was, “What is time?” There are various answers for this and several of them could be accurate. Taking a stab at a definition I would say time is an arbitrary measure of time we choose to use to calculate our lives here on earth.
As I look back on times of my life many things seem like a mirage. I’ve come far enough from anything of my youth or of many people in my youth it feels more like something that slipped away and is gone. Or as a mirage did it really happen?
From my childhood and on I have wanted to keep a diary but I have been so busy it never happened. Now, I would like to go back and slow down certain times taking more important things a bit more slowly.
When we’re in the fracas of the moment, we don’t have the ability through our days and nights to step back and look with a more critical, discerning eye.
We just jump in and live for better or worse, day by day. Only after time has passed do we see more clearly. This is why we have the “I wish I had done, or said, or responded in such and such a different manner.”
Some months ago I received from my friend and fellow writer, Jackie Zack A Year’s Journey of Thankfulness Journal and I’m looking forward to writing in it.
It has a line for the week date and then each day of that week has a line to fill in the items of thankfulness. At the bottom of the page, it has a scripture for each week.
I haven’t started the journal yet. I have my reasoning, mostly I want to begin at the first day of the week and encourage myself to fill in the whole week.
A line of poetry from Robert Louis Stevenson comes to mind. “The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.” And we should be as happy as kings. On the other hand, we aren’t as happy as we should be.
Instead of our thankfulness journey, what happens is our feel bad list. When someone has committed an infringement on us we take it to heart—literally. We put it in a feel bad box and every once in a while we pull it out and feed it.
Or if life hasn’t gone the way it should have, we tend to feed the ill will we have in spite of Jesus warning us “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. (Matthew 6:34)”
I can’t think of a scripture that tells us to “Count your blessings.” Nevertheless it is a good idea to focus on our blessings in order for us not to drown in our sorrows.
It’s distracting. All the moments we waste focusing on the feel-bad list simply serve to make us feel bad. That’s the list’s job.
Ephesians 5:
15 See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,
16 Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
17 Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.
18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;
19 Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;
20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
21 Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
