“It is between our ears that we decide how easily offended we will be.”

A thought by Mark Batterson, Richard Foth, and Susanna Foth Aughtmon (2015-04-28) from their book, A Trip around the Sun: Turning Your Everyday Life into the Adventure ofa Lifetime (p. 124). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

How sensitive I am is a decision.  Do you realize that?  I have within me the ability to choose how I take something that you do or say.  I cannot control what you do but I do control my reaction to what you do. 

As Dick says, “When Scripture says, ‘As a man thinks, so is he,’ it is raw truth. How we approach life and react to its vagaries determines the bulk of our character. How we love is locked into how we think about it. What angers us is triggered by how we think. It is between our ears that we decide how easily offended we will be. When it comes to harsh words from others, whether my skin absorbs like cotton or deflects like Teflon is a decision I make. All of that happens in a three-pound organ five-and-a-half inches across called my brain. In a very real sense, my world begins and ends between my ears. I don’t have to be brain-dead to be brain-defeated.”

If you catch that, it will change your life.  He goes on, “If from the outset we decide that life is not just meant to be survived, we will experience adventure at every turn— in every person we meet, every relationship we have, every book we read. If we believe life is an adventure, life is an adventure. If we believe we will make it through great trials, we will most often make it through great trials. If we believe that there is joy to be had each day of our lives, we will have it.”

Then he says, “This is not a new thought. Certainly not an original thought. It is an eternal truth that begs for mulling and musing. It deserves to be treasured deep in the heart… Flying home from a speaking engagement in 1992, I watched Hugh Downs on a 20/ 20 clip. He was interviewing folks from one of the fastest-growing population subgroups in the United States: people who had lived more than a hundred years. At that time there were 36,000 centenarians in this country. A study had been done to see what, if anything, these aging-but-vital people had in common.  The researchers found four qualities: (1) optimism, (2) engagement, (3) mobility, and (4) the ability to adapt to loss. This quartet of practices shaped the way they lived out their days.”

We are wonderfully made.  Our creator has made us along with a relationship with Him to live life in its fullest.  Use what He has given you to live it.

So how does this thought make a difference in how you are going to live today?