The Way of the Warrior: An Ancient Path to Inner Peace

by Erwin Raphael McManus

Your mind-set is the filter through which you see your potential futures. If you enter into life with optimism and hope, you will see an endless number of futures filled with optimism and hope. You will see possibilities and opportunities all around you. You will see wonder and beauty. You won’t see just one choice that could lead to a more beautiful future. The only thing that may overwhelm you or make you feel paralyzed is that you have so many good choices from which to choose. Wouldn’t it be an amazing life if you had to keep saying no to extraordinary choices—to an alternative and beautiful future? So often we act as if there are only two choices for the future: a good one and a destructive one, the one that God chooses for us and the one we choose for ourselves. I think the future is much more like the garden, where humanity’s story began. We tend to focus on the two trees, but the garden was full of trees. One of the first commands of the Bible was for Adam and Eve to eat freely. They were allowed to eat from the fruit of any tree in the garden except for one. Most of the time, we act as if there is only one good choice and an endless number of choices that will destroy our lives. This is not how the story of the world began, and this is not how the story continues.