I woke up this morning around 6 am to go to the bathroom. When I returned, Nadine was wide awake. She had been in that state for at least an hour. She couldn’t sleep and the more she focused on the beeping the wider her eyes became until she couldn’t stand it any longer. She got up and traveled to where the noise was. Here was the culprit.

Irritants happen every day. They are a part of everyone’s fabric throughout the day. It can be a beep every seventeen seconds. The irritant could be the taxes that many of had to pay and weren’t expecting it. I’m not going to get into a discussion on the pros and cons of government choices that cause us to experience the consequences of those choices. I’m just saying that unexpected taxes can be an irritant that gets us out of whack with life.

The irritant that I experienced a while back came when I put on a new pair of boots before Nadine and I went to do some shopping with some errands. As we walked, I began to feel my metatarsal rubbing on the side of my boot which caused me to focus on the pain that was begging to eminate from the inside of my left foot. The more I walked, the more pain I began to experience. It was only when I sat down that I could relieve the pain. During our journey, we had to get to the post office to mail some letters and so we had to wal rather fast. What was interesting about that journey is that I quit focusing on my pain and the need to get to the post office which caused my mind to move away from the pain. I didn’t think about the pain because my focus was elsewhere.

Paul in Philippians spoke to this issue and gave us a tool for dealing with irritants of life. “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Paul realized that irritants will come into our lives on a daily basis. We choose what we think about. We can think about the taxes we have to pay or on the money we have to pay those taxes. We can think about the beeping, or we can think about the device that can warn us of impending danger. We can think about the pain that a new pair of boots cause, or we can think about the boots we have to walk from one place to another.

On this journey, we choose where to put our focus when irritants come and they will come. Our choice will determine whether our day is filled with positive thoughts or a day that if filled with negative ones. Choose wisely.