Day 7 - Snapshot Living

Thoughts that have come from various quotes taken from the book, "Victor - Breaking Free From a Victim Based Society by John H. Hovis. Click here to link directly to the audio file.

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"Maybe we need to be looking at life as a motion picture and not a snapshot. "

As quoted from the book "Victor - Breaking Free From a Victim-Based Society" by John H. Hovis

Page 227

I don't know, maybe I'm kind of strange, but I love it when contestants on game shows chime in before the question is completed and give some random answer that has nothing to do with what was being asked of them in the first place.  Had they only waited a fraction of a second longer to better understand what the question was they wouldn't have looked so foolish giving  such a random answer.

That's the way it is when we look at our life as a snapshot.  Take some time and let the fullness of the fact that life is more than just the single frame that represents the circumstance we find ourselves in right now.  Our life is more than what that single frame represents right now in your situation.  Our life is a motion picture.  

Have you ever seen how motion pictures are made?  A movie is basically many, many hundreds and thousands of individual images spliced together in ran at a speed so as to make it look like normal motion.  Trying to guess the end of the movie by looking at one frame in the middle of that movie is nothing but foolishness.  Yet that's what we do so often when victim thinking has a hold on our lives.

Take a look at what the bible says about how we are to view each moment of our lives in light of its totality.

After looking at the way things are on this earth, here’s what I’ve decided is the best way to live: Take care of yourself, have a good time, and make the most of whatever job you have for as long as God gives you life. And that’s about it. That’s the human lot. Yes, we should make the most of what God gives, both the bounty and the capacity to enjoy it, accepting what’s given and delighting in the work. It’s God’s gift! God deals out joy in the present, the now. It’s useless to brood over how long we might live. Ecclesiastes 5:18-20 (THE MESSAGE)

How would you describe the snapshot of your life right now?  Are there challenges that you have to face?  Are those challenges overwhelming?  This is the time we really need to hang onto the fact that this particular frame in your life does not define your life - there are more frames coming!  That's the beauty of seeing life as a motion picture.  There is hope even in the worst of circumstances.  How can I be so sure of that?  Because just like any movie you've ever seen there is an ending. That ending will look totally different than the image that you see at any particular moment as watch that movie.

The same sentiment holds true if the frame you are experiencing right now has you in a good place.  The Victor seems to be able to live in the place where they realize that the good or bad circumstances that they face right now are not guaranteed in the future.  None of us want to give up our good times, but living in a place where we realize that there is power in enjoying where we are now makes it easier for us to face the reality of change that is inevitable in any human's life.

In the bible reading it says that it is useless to brood over how long we might live.  It is also useless to brood over what our life looks like at this particular moment.  Of course it's correct to work to maintain a good life as well as to work to come out of challenging circumstances.  What destroys our ability to hang on to hope is when we view our current circumstance as a defining factor in who we are.

As long as they're still breath in your lungs the motion picture continues.  Make today all it can be by not getting stuck in the victim thinking trap of believing the particular good or bad frame of your life right now defines your identity.  You are a victor no matter what the current snapshot  that describes your life looks like at this moment.