Where's My Murphy's Repellant? Living The Life We We're Meant To Live
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Seems like one of society's favorite things to do is complain.
When was the last time you heard the news anchor tell about the wonderful things happening in the world today, the lives being changed? Or, how about our weather reports? When was the last time your heard there was going to be a 70% chance of sunshine instead of a 30% chance of rain?
Did you know complaining is an activity just as listening to the radio or turning on the TV is an activity? We can choose to turn on the TV or we can choose not to turn on the TV. Likewise, we can choose to complain or we can choose not to complain.
Are we reacting to life they way we always have because that’s what we’ve always done? Or do we act or say what we see everyone else doing or saying because everyone else is doing or saying it that way?
Do we wake up grumpy until we get our morning coffee, or sit in traffic without a smile on our face? Are we going through the motions at work or are our kids constantly stressing us out? Is our answer to, “How are you doing?,” always, “Busy.” Are we just busy, busy, busy because that’s just what you do in this modern age?
Do we feel like because it’s flu season then naturally we have to get it too? Do we hate going to the mailbox for fear of more bills piling up feeling like we’ll never get our head above water? Do our marriages look more like roommates living along side one another rather than a vibrant, life-giving relationship? But, that's ok because everyone feels like that too, right?
Does it feel like life is slowing killing us? Where’s the Murphy’s Law repellent? When will it change? Can it change?
Many times we can find ourselves doing things a certain way because that’s what we see the majority doing, or say things a certain way because that’s what we see on a regular basis. After a while, we’re “conditioned” to this way of life and don’t even realize it.
Conditioning can be great, if it’s being conditioned to the right thing. However, we need to beware of poor conditioning, conditioning to how the average person thinks and feels.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (NIV)
16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
It is God’s will for us to be joyful! His desire for us is to live a life full of joy. Unfortunately, this joyful decision has been conditioned out of most people.
Conditioning by definition is a process of changing behavior by rewarding or punishing the subject each time an action is performed until the subject associates the action with pleasure or distress. Conditioning is the process by which behavior is systematically and lastingly changed.
Have we allowed ourselves to be trained by everyone else's behavior?
The US standard rail gauge, which is the distance between the two rails, is exactly 4 feet and 8 1/2 inches. Why would we have made it such an odd number?
Well the English built their railways that way and it was the English ex-patriots who originally built the railroads in the US. So, why did the English build their railroads that way? Well, the same people who built the railways also built the pre-tramways using the same gauge of 4 feet 8 1/2 inches.
And, why did they build them like that? Turns out that their tramways reused the same jigs, tools and measurements that had been used to build wagons, which used the same wheel spacing of 4 feet 8 1/2 inches. If the wagon wheel spacing had been different, their wheels would have broken on those old, long-distant roads in England…which incidentally had wheel ruts with the same spacing.
So, who built those old rutted roads? It was the Imperial Roman Empire who built the first roads in England thousands of years earlier. Amazingly, these roads can still be walked on today. The ruts are spaced exactly 4 feet 8 1/2 inches apart, because the Roman war chariots had wheel spacing that same distance. And, all of Roman’s wagon wheels were spaced the same for fear of destroying them.
But, why did the Romans choose that odd spacing to begin with? Interestingly enough, it was just wide enough to accommodate the back end of two war horses. So, the US standard rail gauge of 4 feet 8 1/2 inches comes from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot or the back end of two war horses.
Here’s an odd twist to this story, when you see a space shuttle sitting on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral, you’ll notice two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tanks. These SRB’s (solid rocket boosters) were first manufactured by a company in Utah. The engineers may have wanted to make them a bit wider, but the SRB’s had to be shipped by trains from the factory to the launch site. The railways ran through a tunnel in the mountains and of course the SRB’s had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is only slightly wider than the rail road tracks of 4 feet 8 1/2 inches which as you remember is about the width of two Roman war horses. So, the major design feature on what is arguably the most advance transportation system in the world was determined, literally, by the width of two horse’s behinds. Can you imagine?* (Story taken from The Seven Decisions - Andy Andrews)
Do you see how powerful conditioning can be? But, it doesn’t have to be that way because it’s always been that way.
The joyful decision has been conditioned out of most people!
Joy is not an emotional phantom floating in and out of our lives. We can choose to be joyful because joy is not based on our circumstances.
“Joy is an outward sign of inward faith in the promises of God.” Tommy Newberry– The 4:8 Principle
When we choose joy over what our current circumstances say, we are walking in faith. We are showing God we really believe what He said in His Word to be true. And, we’re truly standing on the promises that Jesus Himself paid for on the cross for us to have. (See my story, The Day I Heard, "I Can't Find A Heartbeat.”)
We don’t have to live life hopeless like a large percentage of the population. We don't have to live by Murphy's Law.
We have a Heavenly Father on our side. We have Jesus as our advocate (He’s got our back). We have the Holy Spirit who teaches us all things. (See Romans 8:31-39; John 14:26)
So, how do we go about walking out this joy filled life – this walk of faith in God’s promises? How do we change our marriages, relationships, or feelings of hopelessness? How do we tell Murphy's Law to take a hike?
That's a great question! Hang with me until next week as we delve into how to live our lives with joy instead of living by Murphy's Law.