The Power of Small Decisions
A year from now, your life will look different because you were unafraid and you made small decisions that changed everything.
All of us make small decisions. When we're with someone we get a little more vulnerable. In a moment when you feel lonely you text and reach out to a few friends. It's these small little things that equal a life of connection. It's not some blazing big moment where you surrender everything and all of a sudden your life becomes totally different.
They will regularly go how you don't want them to go. However, that's okay. That's part of it. It's building resilience, and doing it anyway; taking the rejection and initiating. Try again. Get creative.
You want to keep choosing this because it changes everything over time.
3 QUESTIONS
1 - Who are your people and who do you need?
Those are two questions that matter a lot in your life. Who needs you and who do you need?
2 - Looking at the circles of relationships, what do your relationships look like right now?
Do you have an inner circle? This is an important thing to ask yourself, your husband, or your spouse. It’s something to ask somebody that you love or want to go deeper in community with.
If they have six people and you're not one of them, you need to know.
That might help you in the sense that they're not very available.
3 - What unhelpful habits have you formed in friendship?
This is hard to ask other people, but I can't imagine a shallow conversation around this question. You’ll learn a lot.
When I first moved to Dallas, I would ask people this question regularly: who are your good friends? Sometimes they would mention 5 to 10 names. Then, other people would say they’re still figuring it out or they have 2 friends who they don't see enough.
You get a lot of insight when you start to ask that inner circle question. Who are your people? Who do you trust? Who are you opening up to?
You realize whether this person needs friends or not. It helps you know what to spend a little more time pursuing.
2 VERSES
“But because of His great love for us, God who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved.”
>> It is out of that place of God being the main relationship in our life, that we're able to love, serve, forgive, exhort and encourage other people.
Relationships are only possible in a healthy form because of our relationship with God. Your relationship with God is the center of every other relationship. However, we don’t wait until our relationship with God is perfect to love other people. It never will be.
If you don't recognize that your relationship with God matters the most, you're going to constantly be frustrated and let down.
[Your expectations aren't supposed to be met by
other people. They’re to be met by God Himself.]
“Beloved, let us love one another for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.”
True love that is unselfish, unconditional, and without reserve, given to people freely regardless of how they love back can only come from God.
Once you have been loved by God, you can love other people. It doesn't matter whether your family loved you well or whether you have a billion friends that love you, you can love because God has met you in a quiet place and loves you. Therefore, you have something to give away.
1 CHALLANGE
The challenge is filling out the chart that is in the book club guide. You can download it for free. It has all the charts from the book. Fill out the chart that talks about ‘People who need me and people I need’.
Make those 2 lists and think about those questions. Start identifying the people you want to serve and those you want to love. Identify the people you want to be vulnerable with and tell them you need them in your life.
If you are following along, download the book club guide. You can invite your friends together, and read the book chapter by chapter.
