If you’re going to produce (a thought, a relationship, a child), make it something good.

There is a familiar axiom: Same Sh*t, Different Day. We’ve come to expect it. Accept it as truth (hence the use of the word axiom). I don’t reckon that is the way God planned it. The same people in the same circle on the same schedule doing the same thing getting the same results and feeling the same ho-hum way about it. About life. Then they teach their children to expect the same thing. Tree. Apple. It doesn’t fall far.

Is your life what you want for your kids’? Are you going after what is important? Are you modeling what life is truly about? And what would you say that is? What, would you say, life IS truly about? Do your actions line up with that? And that feeling you got inside of your heart, do you want your children to experience that? Whatever it may be. Do you talk about it? Or is that a part of your “Same sh*t, Different day”? That same empty feeling that calls out in a faint whisper just how lonely you are but it falls on deaf ears because no one is truly listening to your voice anyway.

And, in fact, they’re not listening to their own voice either. We’ve come to expect that as normal. Not listening to ourselves. Not listening to others. Jesus said: Love others as you love yourself. Oh, you bet, we are, Jesus! And we’re doing a really shoddy job of both because we don’t know true love so we can’t love others nor can we truly love ourselves because we don’t know you.

And to further complicate the matter there are people who claim to follow Christ going around acting a fool and giving God a bad name. Don’t let them hinder your own relationship with the Creator of Goodness. “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in them” (1 John 4:16). As for those blasphemers, God will handle them.

Rotten tree. Rotten apple. So what’s the solution? Does it bother you to think that it might be God? That God could be the answer to what’s ailing society? That God could solve our problems, individually and collectively. God is love. All of these self-help books and self-love trends and positive behavior support programs and character building curriculum and yadda yadda are all pointing to God, but for whatever reason, we don’t allow ourselves to see that truth. Are you getting that concept? You hearing me? “With God (love), all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).

What do you say? I’d be okay with that: Same sh*t, Different day. So long as that sh*t is love. It’s good for those apple trees. So, let’s start producing good fruit, people. According to Galatians, the fruit of the spirit are as follows: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Let’s encourage these things to grow in our relationships, and in our children. But it all starts, with a thought. And that’s on you. ❤️