Live Out Loud

Lol. Most people know lol as laugh out loud. But I want to challenge you today to think about another lol...live out loud. In both cases, they have to do with an action and that action being done out loud. When something is being done out loud (whether it be singing, reading, talking, playing an instrument, laughing), it can be heard. When we do these actions out loud, it can be heard by those in our presence. Sometimes we don't always realize who hears us. We may be talking to someone in the grocery store and someone on another aisle hears us. Maybe we are sitting at our desk at work and start singing a song aloud. We may not realize a coworker has walked by us or come in the room where we're at. Just like we didn't know someone heard our conversation or song, it's the same thing with our lives. People are watching us whether we realize it or not. What is our life saying? What message does it send? How we live matters! People see what we say and don't say. People hear what we say and don't say. People see how we carry ourselves. People see how we treat others. In general, people see what we do and what we don't do. Most important, God always sees us (Proverbs 15:3). Our number one goal should be to live for God and please Him. When our goal every day is to please Him, we will watch we say, how we carry ourselves, how we treat others and what we do. We will pay close attention to how we live every day and at all times. Our lives are being heard and seen. In a sense, we are all living out loud! So once again the question is raised: what message does your life send? Are you setting a good example or a bad example? Do people turn away from you or do they want to hear more about why you live the way you do? Is your life sending out the message that you're living for God or that He's not even worth living for? How are we living? With everything going on with the COVID-19 and the quarantine, it's the perfect time for self-reflection of our lives. God really wants us to use this time to evaluate what we're doing (what's good, what needs to stay, what needs to go, what needs to be improved, what needs to be let go of). To live out loud sending a good message means to live with boldness, sincerity, genuineness, a realness about us. It's about being ourselves and embracing our talents, gifts and personality and not comparing ourselves with others. It's letting others know God is real and that He will help us through everything we go through. No day is perfect and no one is perfect. Everything may not always go the way we want it to, but we'll be alright because God is with us. It's being willing to take risks and try new things (I'm learning this more and more!). It's choosing to see the good when we have every reason to focus on the bad. It's doing our best at all times. It's taking a leap of faith because we don't know what's going to happen from day to day, but we can know God's got us! Living out loud is choosing to press forward and keep putting one foot in front of the other every day. Sending the right message will point people to God and give hope. It may look like hope is not in sight, but with God, it always is. Like never before, our world needs to know we can still have hope. Sending the right message with our lives means we're making the right choices regardless of everything going on around us. Every day, let's choose to send the right message and live out loud!