Wisdom Finds What It Can Do

Life is full of transition, and change is hard. When life changes, do you mull over what was and can no longer be? What you could do and can no longer do?

Transitions happen in many ways:

A move often means we can no longer rely on physical visits with close friends we once enjoyed, or enjoy scenery and landmarks to which we were accustomed.

Personal projects or dreams may run into closed doors, tempting us with discouragement.

Health failure can make most everything we once enjoyed impossible to do—going places, traveling, visiting with friends, sports, and much more.

Job changes might be good, or they may mean we no longer enjoy a job that seemed a “perfect fit.”

Job losses or financial setbacks can mean we no longer enjoy a dinner out, but instead, wonder how to keep food on the table.

Loss of loved ones changes so many things about every part of life. What felt good and right can quickly turn into to an uncomfortable loneliness.

Transitions must be grieved. This is needed. However, without wisdom, we can travel down a sad, sinking spiral. Transitions are so much better with wisdom. Wisdom finds what it can do, rather than what it cannot do.

Wyndham can’t do much of anything he once could do. Even basic conversation is hard since his speech no longer works well.  In all the transitions, I can be tempted to list in my mind things he/we can no longer do. But what good is that? Wyndham decided (from the time he began “crossing off” things he once enjoyed doing but can no longer do) to focus on what he still can do. Wisdom tells him there is no benefit in focusing on what he can’t do. Wisdom tells me the same thing.

Wisdom focuses on what can be done, not what can’t be done. It’s a good exercise, no matter the difficult transition, to focus on what we can do.

We can love.

We can be loved.

We can appreciate God’s creation. If we are blind, we can hear, touch, and smell it. If we are deaf, we can see it. If we have lost all senses, we can feel love in our soul and the kiss of God from the wind. 

We can notice the good in people.

We can be thankful.

We can pray.

We can meditate on what is true, trustworthy, worthy of praise, honorable, pure, and lovely.

We can hope.

We can imagine being with God forever.

We can laugh and cry.

We can feel.

We can hear the words of God.

We can pray some more.

No matter what transitions we face, these are things we can do. No one can take these from us.

When we have this wisdom, what we can do will be more than enough.

 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
 As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,
 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.    (Romans 8:35-39 NIV2011)

And, as the Message version states these last verses:

I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow,
high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.