What’s your default setting?

We are more like computers than we realize. Think about the day you brought your brand new cutting edge computer home. Oh, how you eagerly ripped open the cardboard, popped a couple bubbles of the bubble wrap, and finally the Hachi Tachi 3000, in your trembling hands! What a beauty. Clean with no scratches or blemishes to be found from the top to the bottom. I can just see you now, plugging it into the outlet while listening for the electrical currents to signal the first signs of life. On to the installation process, if you are anything like me and not a computer programmer by any means... You opted to take all the standard default settings because Mom suggested it.

Let’s fast forward to when the brand new smell was only a distant memory! You’d become an expert at running your machine. Everything worked as it should, but inside you wished it would do a little more of what you specifically needed. Once you really had the swing of it, you began to have some expectations out of it. The more you grew the less functionality you seemed to get out of it. Everybody in your family had the same exact laptop, but yours just didn’t work for you anymore wreaking havoc in your life. It’s time to go back to those default settings Mom suggested and tweak them. Tweak you!

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We were all born with automatic default settings; genetics and principles. Your father has brown eyes, and you have brown eyes. Your mother was a Christian, therefore you are a Christian. Your sister went to a prestigious college, but you couldn’t pass Algebra to save your life. Your cousin is a mad scientist, but you hate CSI. Your son is a gladiator on the football field, but you prefer to read a suspenseful novel on a Monday night. You stress over feeling different from everyone else around you. You judge yourself from their eyes and by what you think their standards should be and feel inadequate. Why?

Interests are only add-ons, my friend. An add-on is something you don’t have to have. An add-on is not a requirement to a happy life, it's an interest that you find interesting. Defining yourself by someone else’s interests is such a waste of time. So, if you don’t have any time to waste, then don’t. Be productive with the little time you have left at the end of the day and focus on your interests and add purpose to your life.

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Don’t make failure your default setting because you are trying to walk in someone else’s size 7 shoe that you can't squeeze your 8 in to save your life. You are a size 8 and they are a 7. It’s neither a good or bad thing. It’s just a thing. Spend that time squeezing purpose inside your mind. Figure out what works for You and go do that!

My grandmother used to tell us (her kids and grandkids) all the time “don’t set out any shade trees for me to sit under.” I was an adult before I really understood what she meant. Don’t let anyone else write out a plan for your life and expect you to adhere to it. Do your own thing! Every attempt you make to be me will make you miserable unless…. whatever I am doing is in your plan. Don’t even consider my add-ons unless it will add value to what you have going. Even then, tweak the plan to make it work for you.

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You are your own person, be you. You have your own dreams, dream them. You have your own interests, pursue them. You have your own life, live it.

Don’t fail by default!

Luke 22:32

But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.