We're Breaking Outta Here!

Flickr photo by "The Wanderer's Eye," creative commons
Hey chicks!
Yep, you're in the right place. Welcome to my new coop! I hope you like it.

It's funny how attached I can get to the way things are. Is this true for you? I find myself even holding tight to silly, unimportant things like a blog header that an artist made for me two years ago, or where I put the spoons and forks. Would you believe that I moved my silverware drawer back in March, and my hands still reach for the handle on the right side of the oven instead of the left? It's true!

I suppose when we do something over and over again the same way, we program the fleshy computer part of ourselves. Of course, sometimes this is a good thing. I don't want to have to go on mapquest.com every time I need to drive Sam to school, but it sort of scares me when I pull up to the curb to let him out, and I don't even remember the drive. Does this happen to you? Maybe it's human nature. (Or maybe you're glad I don't live in your neighborhood!)

I know I do this on a deeper level as well.
I have a certain vision of who I am, the way I behave with other people, the risks I take (or don't take,) and I tend to stay on my route, where it's normal and safe, where I know I won't fail. Where people won't notice and murmur to each other, "What's the deal with her?"

Sometimes it takes a kick in the pants/skirt/capris to realize how much we're missing when we go with what's always been.

Check out these verses that kicked my bahonka the other day...

"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."
Romans 12:1-2, The Message

I'd always read the part that says Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture as meaning the American culture, of which I certainly want to be wary. But now I'm thinking that God might also be saying the Becky Ramsey culture. The culture that I've created for myself. The one I sometimes confine myself to, really out of fear, if you get right down to it.

So I'm throwing everything up in the air, and I'm going to try to do this daily. I'm going to try to toss my Becky Ramsey Way of Living up in the sky, open my arms wide to catch what is meaningful, and let the rest of it fall. And when I find myself in new, uncomfortable places, with my hands reaching for a comfortable drawer and mapquest nowhere in sight, I'm going to remember the line that God seems to say to just about everybody who talks to Him: Fear not. I'm right here.
And I just might hum a little Diana Ross, too.

I just had to live
And I want to give
I'm completely positive...
I'm coming out...

So what about you? Do you ever find yourself in a self designed rut, like a comfy couch you want to stay in forever? Do you look for new life directions and throw yourself in, or are you more likely to test the water with a toe first? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Have a terrific Wednesday!
Love, Becky