Generational Reality

READING: Psalms 1, Matthew 1, Genesis 1, Genesis 2

When we stop to think of our reality, we think about how the environment we were born into shaped our lives. I was born into a home where my biological father left within a year of my being born. My brother was born the next year with multiple life-altering health complications. My birth mother was left to raise the 2 of us alone. Many may have shared the circumstances that met the first few years of my life, but they probably all had different outcomes. These circumstances have generally led to severe outcomes, but not in my case. I was adopted by a loving family who gave me access to opportunities and experiences that have made me who I am today. In addition to the mark that my parents have clearly left on my life, I believe credit is due to my birth mother for doing what she could while I was in her care and making the tough decision to place my brother and I into foster care to have a chance at a better life.

Over the years, I have learned that there are many people who spend the first years of their lives in a single parent home who do not have access to the opportunities that I had, and their lives are met with significant adversity. If you are one of those who has faced significant adversity, you know that your reality is altered with every obstacle that comes your way. Even if you spent the first years of your life in the most desirable of environments, and even if you did not face adversity, your reality has been altered by every unique opportunity and experience you have accessed throughout your life.

So I have come to a conclusion that the world is always stimulating one or more of our 5 senses, and based on the reality from which we are perceiving the world around us, each stimulation will affect us differently. When I think about this, I think about what I read in Psalms 1, where it talks about being a tree that either produces fruit in its season or withers away in the wind. We can either let the world around us drive us to be an inspiration to others and to “produce fruit in the world” or we can position ourselves to where we are at the mercy of each environmental change that occurs in our lives.

In Genesis 1 and Matthew 1, we see that Christ is the same generation after generation. Without Christ, there will be changes in the environment that make us happy at certain moments, but there will also be changes in the environment that give us great sorrow. Every day there are several environmental stimuli introduced into our lives. Do we want to find comfort in the ever-changing stimuli that will leave us blowing from side to side in the wind? Or, do we want to find our comfort in the generations of consistency provided by Christ?

#comfort #generations #reality