WHAT IF...?

What if... you didn’t get that job.
What if... you didn’t get that endorsement.
What if... someone important to you says “NO!”
What if... you didn’t get that house you really want.
What if... the dream career falls through.
What if... you think you’re a contender, but they think in reality you’re a dreamer.
What if... you don’t get the break you’re depending on.
What if... what you’re counting on doesn’t come through this year... or next year... or ever.

WHAT if?  How important is it?

You would still be okay.  Life would go on.  God would reveal ‘another’ plan – just as good, and MAYBE infinitely better!  Sometimes out of disaster even, a better way emerges.

You accepting the status quo that you can’t change is a gift.

BUT....

What if... you got (or have) cancer.
What if... you died (or are dying – our bodies are dying).
What if... you must live without someone you love.
What if... there are regrets you can do nothing about.
What if... there are eternal things that you cannot change.

Sometimes we get the luxuries of pettiness, of entitlement, of boredom, of short-sighted frustration, of entertainment, and of self-absorption, when we get to complain about things that really don’t matter (as compared with things that really do).  And sometimes, it’s a more serious sin of moral bankruptcy, of deceiving or of being deceived.

The thinking we engage in that misses the mark — which is probably much of it — fails for either a lack of awareness or a lack of will.  This is something to think on:

“A carefully cultivated heart will, assisted by the grace of God, foresee, forestall, or transform most of the painful situations before which others stand like helpless children saying, “Why?” 
― Dallas Willard

The heart is either our must faithful ally or it is a thing to be feared.  It will serve us toward wisdom or it can send us forlornly to folly; it all depends how we cultivate it.

There is something remarkably empowering in keeping ‘what if’ on the tips of our tongues, on the gait of the conscious mind, adroitly before the conscience.  ‘What if’ may more often foresee what is being missed, it can forestall (or anticipate) many an error, and it might transform the given moment to reveal to our heart the thoughts that reflect the heart.  Out of our hearts the courses of life come to be.

~

Let’s not get stuck on the issues of life that bear little consequence, because there are plenty of possible consequences in life that really do matter.

The bigger changes and indeed the losses that occur in our lives have the ‘blessed’ effect of waking us up to differentiations of what is important from what isn’t.

Photo by Christian Lambert on Unsplash