While skimming Facebook over the weekend, I saw this post. “Life has no remote. Get up and change it yourself.” I agree.

When I was a child, I was my Daddy’s remote. From the comfort of his recliner he would ask me to change the channel. The good news was there was only 3 channels! (I always think it is kind of funny when someone loses a car or TV remote that they do not realize there are buttons or keys for that…)

But just like a remote you have the choice to view channels. The real issue is perhaps not whether you get up to change a channel or use a remote, but what channels you will turn to. It is easy to turn to the “same old” channel you always watch. Easy to view something you know, or something easy on your brain. But what about the channels that are harder? What are your learning?

Life is like that. I watch a lot of people, who “remote” or not, make the same choices, over and over.

It may be the style of relationship. The same type of people who always agree or only can talk on one level or one plane. Does it grow you? Even the idea that you “need” a certain type of relationship, leaves you stuck on the same channel.

It may be the type of job or “ministry” you believe in. I remember one day a young man was in a meeting with me. I gave him a word. It was a clear “X” word. But he so much wanted a “Y” word, that 15 plus years later he is floundering still trying to be a Y. His inability to embrace a different channel, has cost him his ministry, his family and his wife over the years. (I love personal conviction, just not so big on foolishness!)

Here is an observation. If a relationship is “pinging on your screen”, causing you frustration, anger or similar feelings, you have a couple of channels to turn to. Is it something in them? Is is something in you that needs to be changed? But there is another channel. What if it is something in them, that affects something in you, that God is highlighting in you to change? “Oh, God would never do that. He loves me just the way I am.” Really? So a loving Father will never look at your anger, anxiety, worry or fear, and not allow situations that reveal it? That folks, may just well be the “cartoon channel” or Sesame Street. God truly will allow those things to be revealed in your life, so you will “get up and change the channel”. We are overcomers of demonic forces and situations. Not receivers or accepters! (There is an overcomers “channel”. “Greater in me is He…”)

Avoiding things to change, is probably not a “mature audiences” channel.

Here is the personal channel God has me on. It is the one called the “education” or “new learning curve” channel. Until a few months ago that button on my remote was not showing any “wear” from usage and then one day it felt like it was the only button left on the remote that worked. (Well, maybe the “family” or “faith” channel.)

I think a lot of folks are visiting the learning channels lately. Not education or learning “cuz” I can, but because I am sure this is the path. It is easy to “know what you know” but less easy to “know what you don’t know”. It causes “anxiety” over an uncharted path.

So whether you “use a button” by getting up or using the remote, changing the channels of life will require a mindset change. Not a method change. Who are you? What are you called to? Where do you want to be? What do you want to do? Before you “change” a channel those most likely will be the important questions.

Getting up or reclining, it is your mind that needs the refining.