Seven Ideas for Opening Windows in Your Life

I am a fan of windows.  I love light coming in and I love looking out.  I enjoy feeling like I’m outside while comfortable in my air conditioning (I do live in Florida).I especially love my Florida room—it is almost all windows.  We can look out into the woods behind our home, watch the raccoons sneaking after the cat food, listen to the frogs and alligators and enjoy the deer who often nap in our back yard.I am also a fan of windows for the mind and heart—to let light in, to welcome new ideas, to shake up thinking, to foster dreams.Just as windows often get stuck and must be forced open, sometimes we need some help—a little muscle or even a crowbar—to open our mind and heart windows.  Here are a few ways to let some fresh air in:

• Read a book that challenges you in your comfort areas, or that you might not agree with.  Does it reveal new ways for you to think about something?
• Seek out someone whose heart and/or mind you appreciate to learn how they think,  what motivates them, what influences them.  Ask questions and listen.
• Do something that is scary to you. (Include a friend if that helps.) Make note of how you feel and respond.
• Browse:  in a library, at a bookstore, on the internet.  What issues, trends, desires do you see reflected? What ideas are stimulated in your mind?  What makes you angry?What needs tug at your heart?
• Hang out with some children.  Observe how they live out imagination.  Can you let your imagination run wild, just a little at least?
• What were your dreams as a child?  Have any of them come true?  Are any of them still real to you?  Do you want to pursue any of them?
• Spend some extended time with God, asking Him to give you His ideas and His dreams for you.  What will you do to pursue them?

As we throw back the shutters and pull up the blinds, God will shine His bright light on us,  illuminating how He wants to work in and through us.  As we peek through a window, we will see open doors we had never noticed and we will have the courage to venture through them.So open the windows! Can you feel the fresh air?  Can you hear God better?  What is He saying?  Do you see the door opening on a bold path?  Will you step through and risk it?He promises to go with you.C 2011 Judy Douglass