Finding the right chair

Are you in the right chair? So many times we ask ourselves that as we go through life and consider the impact it has on our daily decisions.

I see the chair we’re in as the perspective we have and how it forms — and informs — what we do and why.

I went back to a special place this past weekend that has had a direct bearing on my personal and business life. I learned to love myself and others there, regardless of what was happening around me.

This mystical place is located a mile down a dirt road in the middle of the woods in Bulloch County, Georgia. It has a 44-acre lake that my family has always called “the pond.” (People in the South call anything that is not an ocean a pond.) The property has a wooden lean-to, which I lived in from 2012 to 2017. It was something to keep the rain off you, and keep you warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

It was a healing place as I went through a divorce and the death of my daughter, Abbie. During the five years I lived there, I was introduced to living a limited lifestyle with limited income. It also positioned me to get a gut check about who and what was most important to me in this one life.

When I woke up this past Sunday morning, after six years of searching for the right chair to do life in, I realized it’s not the chair that makes life feel uncomfortable or out of control. Rather, it’s the person who sits in the chair. And I understood that He is the North Star for my learning how to savor the good and bad times while in that chair.

We all hit rough times and have tough decisions to make. Sometimes that might lead to making choices in the moment that aren’t in integrity and will have to be cleaned up later, like lying to your boss, saying angry words to your spouse or having a terrible attitude toward your children.

What chair are you trying to sit in, and what kind of person are you trying to become? There is one who can guide you rightly, if you seek Him.

Live inspired,
Jimmy