Take time to reflect (1)

One day Samson encountered a lion and slew it. The Bible says, “Some time later, when he went back…he turned aside to look at the lion’s carcass. In it he saw…some honey. He scooped out the honey with his hands and ate as he went along” (vv. 8-9 NIV). There’s a lesson here for you. When you take time to stop and reflect, you discover “honey” in your experiences that you can eat and grow stronger and wiser. When you reflect, you are able to put things into perspective; you gain new appreciation for things you didn’t notice before. Few of us have clear perspective in the heat of the moment. Most of us who have survived a traumatic experience usually avoid similar situations at all costs. This can leave us with unresolved issues that leave us tied up in knots. Reflective thinking enables you to distance yourself from the intense emotions of an experience and see it with fresh eyes. Indeed, this process is one of the first steps to getting rid of our emotional baggage. President George Washington observed, “We ought not to look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience.” Each of us has been shaped by the experiences, good and bad, that we’ve had in life. What we refuse to deal with deals with us, and often in harmful ways. We “act out” of our unresolved issues. But when we bring them into the light and ask God for the grace to face them squarely, they lose their power over us.