May 9th, 2020: Be Flexible

 The Dark Side of Your Emotional Needs

The weather has been up and down quite often where I live. There is a saying in Alberta that "if you don't like the weather, wait for a few hours". It is going to snow this weekend (yes, you read it correctly) after a couple of weeks of amazingly warm and sunny weather. We have to learn how to make needed adjustments quickly and to be ready for the unexpected.

It is good that we have learned to be flexible because flexibility is very critical in the post-pandemic time. Some of you might have heard me saying this: "I am responsible for what I know and I pray earnestly for what I don't know" as I respond to various challenging events of life. Being flexible requires tremendous personal discipline so that we won't be trapped in a helpless situation. It is also about having an honest understanding of our capabilities or the lack thereof. It helps us not to react but to rethink about what we are facing.

It is also helpful to have hope during the post-pandemic era. The hope is based on our willingness to grow, learn, and not to be afraid. Yes, things have been very stressful for some of us in many perspectives but losing hope should not be one of the perspectives we need to have at this time in order to move forward. Hope is an amazing engine that helps us going forward after a period of stress and bewilderment. Having hope helps us to de-clutter our minds at times.

So being flexible and being hopeful are two important ingredients in going about tomorrow and days after. They are actually bound together by prayers. To be prayerful in one's life is to have a constant awareness of God's presence and interaction with us. When that happens, we shouldn't be afraid.

"What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8: 31)

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