Thrive

What makes the laugh on your face glow? What makes your heart beat fast? What makes your eyes glaze over in passion? What makes you thrive?

I think its such a sad situation when people find themselves to be in situations where they wither, not thrive. God did not place you where you are to survive, he placed you there to thrive. Whether it be the single mom of 4 children barely making ends meet, the elderly gentlemen confined to a wheelchair in a nursing home, or the child feeling trapped inside the place he’s called home for so long. God did not place us here to just “get by!”

So meditate, for a second, on the idea that in all situations, there is always something that is thriving. What do you allow to thrive? Your dreams? Bitterness? Resentment? Or maybe, just maybe, in this season of life, your relationship and love for Christ is thriving.

God has us here, in this place, to thrive, but it’s up to us on what we allow to thrive. We can choose to allow stress to control us and pain to dominate us or we can choose to raise our hands to our mighty God and say, “take it, take it all, take all the stresses and weight that has weighed me down for so long, God.” In which case we find, when we sincerely surrender our hurt to Christ, that stress and pain no longer dominate us. It is then, and only then that God’s peace thrives in our hearts. Where are you in life? Are you in a hard time? I know I am! But it’s in this time that I find myself to be insufficient to thrive on my own, I need to remind myself to rest in his graces.

With that said, what are you passionate about? Find something you are passionate about and make the concious choice to always stay extremely interested in it. When we give our stress to Christ we find, not only his peace and grace in our hearts, we also find the time to use the talents and passions that are instilled in our hearts. When I remember to not obsess over my stress, to remember to feed my passions, I find the greatest fufilment. God gave me the heart that I have, the skills I have longed for and enjoy, not so I could spend my time “too busy” to enjoy these things. God gave us this awesome world to explore, enjoy, and dive into. In these everyday graces I find, not only my love for doing things I enjoy, but I find myself thriving off of Christ, for truly, he should be my greatest passion.