Thursday, January 29, 2009

Think Without Limits

Sometimes Dove Chocolate offers me more than a smooth milk chocolate rush. "Think Without Limits" was the message inside a few of the chocolates that I have opened in the week or so and every time I read that message, I feel a little inspired.

I've been writing about Paul in my Pour Out a Blessing blog through the month of January and this is a man that forced everyone around him to think beyond the limitations of their worldview. He dragged the apostles away from the belief that only Jews could be a part of the Kingdom of God. Because he allowed the Holy Spirit to stir his mind, he was able to think without limits.

It is difficult to throw off the limitations that the world places on us. I've felt encumbered by those limitations during my lifetime and wished that someone would have told me to think BIG! It never occurred to me as a high schooler that I would have been a great researcher or an engineer, that I could have loved physics or written a novel. I was a musician. All of the focus in my life guided me down that path. I wasn't encouraged to take math classes that terrified me, I wasn't pushed to think outside the box that had been set up around me.

To be honest, I also know that God has guided my life and brought me to this point right now. Any regrets aside, I am where I am because of what happened in my life and I love my life right now. But, even now, I find that it is difficult to Think Without Limits. Sometimes I don't even recognize the constraints placed on me by the world around me. I'm old enough that fear of failure is even more prevalent than ever before. I don't have time to figure it out if I really screw it up. Well, not as much as I used to have.

It's exciting to let my mind wander and delve into the unknown, to read things that would mean nothing to anyone but me as I attempt to make sense of the world in my own twisted way. I love the exploration.

The only other thing I want to do with this little bit of information is encourage people much younger than me to not allow themselves to be limited by the world and their own fears. Because at my age, I have forgotten the failures and I have forgotten the fears, but I have not forgotten the fact that I didn't try to do things that would set my mind soaring.

Encourage your spouse, encourage your children, encourage your nieces and nephews and godchildren and your friends. Encourage your parents and your siblings. No one should be limited. This world is so full of exciting and amazing things! And there is no limit to what we can create.

Think Without Limits

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