That’s a big question to ask yourself when you leave any room in life and enter a new one. It’s the question you need to ask yourself before making that decision, especially when you are facing a major room change. These are the transitions in life that can cause great triumphs, or seasons of dryness; and all too often people want to blame God, or some ethereal influence for their issues after leaving a room, instead of taking responsibility for their life or decisions.
What room are you considering leaving?
Your marriage?
Your job?
Your location. Are you looking at relocating?
Your church?
Your friends?
What are you looking at making the change? You need to honestly be able to answer that question with conviction, if you want to leave the room right. Answer that question honestly to yourself. Life is a lot like playing golf – you can cheat and no one will know, but in the end you are the one who suffers.
Just before I sat down to write this, I got my laptop ready, my phone, my tablet (all the tools I want with me) and I noticed that I was missing one of the most important tools in my arsenal…. a cup of coffee!
Now if you know me personally, you know this could be a disastrous issue in my life. I checked my coffee cup and saw that it was empty, and I’m sad to say it had been empty for a while. I made a decision that drew me to the kitchen.
There was something I wanted in that kitchen, which is in another room. I wanted coffee, creamer, and some sugar free Hazelnut coffee syrup in my cup. Since I wanted it, I picked myself up and moved to the other room. Now I know that making the decision to get a cup of coffee pales in comparison to changing churches, leaving a marriage, changing jobs, moving to a new city, etc. but the principle is the same.
I left the room I was in, although temporarily, because there was something in that other room I wanted. I made a decision that if I wanted something that wasn’t in the living room, and I’d have to make the effort to go into the kitchen to get what I wanted. Now all rooms aren’t created equal, and changing rooms is necessary for growth, nourishment, and life itself. I didn’t have coffee in the living room, but the kitchen did. In my scales, the scaled was far outweighed by the coffee.
After I got my coffee, I then made a decision to leave the kitchen and return to the living room. That’s the beautiful thing about life; you can make the decision to return to a room, but that is only if you left it right. How to leave a room right… that’s the theme – leaving right so you can return.
I wasn’t leaving the room to avoid something.
I didn’t leave due to some argument.
I didn’t leave cause I was offended at someone, which is the stupidest reason to leave a room by the way.
I didn’t shout as I left wanting to prove some point.
Arguments, offenses, hurts, shoutings and the like, disturb not only the atmosphere in the room you are leaving, but you carry that with you, and in doing so contaminate the new room.
How often have you walked into a room, and the entire atmosphere is tense from the vibes of the other people who are there. They aren’t talking, but they are saying encyclopedias full that everyone in any language can understand.
Although we may not know what went on when we arrived, we all know this much. We don’t want to be in that room!
When you were a child did you ever ride in the back of the car with your parents or some other adults who were arguing? Shouting or yelling at each other? What did you want to do? GET OUT OF THAT CAR!
Now rolling down the window and jumping out at sixty miles an hour may sound great if the atmosphere of the car ride is that bad, but we all know that in real life no one is Bruce Willis and making the choice to leave a car in that manner just to escape that atmosphere can cause your own imminent demise. Leaving rooms wrong usually carries pain with it, and while making a transition abruptly may not cause the imminent death of jumping out of a car at sixty miles and hour; it will begin the cancer and hurt that slowly eats at your heart and life.
When you leave any room you need to want something positive in the transition. Don’t make the decision based on running from something. EVER! You want to leave right, so that if you want to you can come back.
If you do leave wrong, it’s hard to jump back in that car at sixty miles an hour. By the time you decide to get back in, the car is to far away, and besides you probably won’t survive the jump. Unless you are Bruce Willis. Are you?