If you are like me, you like escaping into a good book. Maybe you find yourself escaping into a daydream like I do. Maybe for you it is a good movie. Removing yourself from your own reality and putting yourself into someone else’s. It is exciting, and not always bad, but it can also be devastating. If your reality is something that you are not happy in or if your daydreams and fantasies are making your current situation look terrible, or your spouse look like they are not the one, then run… RUN as fast as you can. If it is causing you to leave behind the responsibilities of your current situation or making being a Christian something you are questioning, try your hardest to stop it. If this escape is getting you into something that the “world” considers good and normal, but in reality is not pleasing to God, pray for strength to stop it.
I say this because I have been talking with a friend that has been escaping into fantasies or daydreams and not keeping in touch with their reality. They have been taking the time that they could and should be working, taking care of kids and family and household duties and wishing and dreaming they were somewhere else. They have been making her very bitter to the situations that she is in currently. I could relate with them because I used to waste so much time doing that.
I am a daydreamer… I love thinking of intricate stories (many of which do not even involve me) and thinking it through and feeling love and romance in my stories. I have always been a daydreamer. That is why I finally started putting the stories onto paper, so that maybe someday, sometime, (if my editing friends ever finish reading my story) that I might publish a story. I used to daydream that I was somewhere else, that I was someone else, not a Christian. My bitterness to my situation and the current state of my life grew daily. I was bitter, I was easily angered. I would get so mad at my husband.
I was then convicted. Colossians 3:1-17… http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians+3%3A1-17&version=NIV since it is such a long selection, I have put the link in here for you to go and read it. It says to set our minds on things above, not on earthly things… to put to death whatever belongs to your earthly nature… I highly recommend reading the rest of Colossians 3 also, what a great chapter!
Anyway – if we are of Christ, we need to be thinking of Christ. That means that the books that we read, the movies that we watch, the daydreams that we have, need to be glorifying to Him. I am as guilty as the next person as far as watching movies that are not glorifying to God. I love Romantic Comedies, but most of them have sexual immorality and bad language. I love a book, but most of them have bad language. I am not saying that escaping is bad, I am just saying that if it is detrimental to your life and to the situation that you are currently in, really consider where you are and if you can handle that escape.
Don’t allow yourself to fall into the ways of the world and to be tricked into believing that the grass is always greener, because often times it is not. What I have learned to do, since I love reading and movies and daydreaming, is to focus on what I have, only on the positive aspects of it and make my husband the super cute star in my mind (which if you have seen him, is not hard to do – hehe). I also choose to see the reality of the situation. Like the star that is being super romantic almost always has something else the matter with him, and if it isn’t evident in the book or in the movie, it is in a closet somewhere and the skeleton will come out soon.
WOW you WOW me with each of your blogs.i know you pray about what to write and i feel God leads you. you have such wisdom we can all take something away. I am sincere in my words, my admiration and I look forward to your next blog.
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