Monthly Archives: September 2023

affirmation, appreciation, bible, choices, Enlightenment, Expectation, faith, God, grace, Gratitude, Growing, happiness, life, love, mindfulness

Life Is Good!

So many times in our life and living, we are so focused on the next goal, the next day, the next accomplishment, the next “whatever”, that we miss the moments that are life. When we measure the success of failure of our lives through the lens of tasks accomplished, goals obtained or actions taken, we miss the biggest part of life by ignoring the obvious.

In the meditation movement, we are encouraged to be present in the moment, so that we don’t miss the life that is happening right in front of us. It is very helpful to take a step back every now and then to make sure that we are focused on what really matters and not on just what we have convinced ourselves that matters.

Being present is our God given capacity to step out of the busyness of life and into the moment, so that we might take in all that our present experience is offering us. Some of us are great at this and some of us battle to slow our minds down enough to allow ourselves the opportunity to enjoy this moment of life.

“15 Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” -Ephesians 5:15-16

It is possible to live life and yet not really be living at all. It is possible to miss all the good stuff while we are focusing on all the stuff that we are trying to bring into compliance. In those rare moments when we are actually present, life becomes magical. We see and smile at the fluttering butterfly. We breath in the sweet smell of the beautiful flowers and feel pleasure from the inside-out.

There is nothing wrong with getting things done. Accomplishment is a very satisfying gift in and of itself, but don’t allow the goal of accomplishment to cause you to miss out on the precious gift of life and especially life in the moments that all too often get missed.

Life is about so much more than what gets done through our accomplishments. A life well lived is a life that had learned to experience life as it happens by enjoying the precious gifts the moment.

Someone has said that this life is God’s gift to us and what we do with this life is our gift to God. When I give someone a gift and they appreciate and enjoy it, that is a gift to me. The fuller life that God has for each of us can best be experienced by not missing, but enjoying the moments.

Life is a collection of moments, enjoy everyone of them!

affirmation, appreciation, bible, change, faith, God, grace, Gratitude, Growing, journey, Lessons, life, personal growth, scripture, self improvement, Suffering

It’s All Good!

Many years ago, one of my best friends tuned his back on me, stabbed me in the back multiple times and began the unraveling of a life that I had spent all of my life trying to build and grow. The confusion, heartache and stress that it brought into my life, ultimately brought me to a place of just wanting to die. I asked him multiple times what was going on, what had I done in an attempt to find out how I might could fix what was obviously very broken. I never found out the answers to any of the thousands of questions that I had and eventually that became okay, because at the end of the day – that’s life.

As I sit here this morning, thinking about how grateful I am for the blessings that God has poured out upon my life, I can’t help but think back to those very dark times when I really didn’t care if I made it though another day or not. While I did not want to live, because the frustration, heartache and pain was just too much, God never left me. His presence was always with me, holding me and keeping me safe from myself. God used a lot of different things and people to help put the broken pieces of my life back together again. I am sure that to others I appeared broken, confused, lost and probably best just forgotten, but to God this “ole boy” was a different story.

Only a small handful of people really know the struggle between light and darkness that I was engaged in and of those that would say that they did, most of those people did nothing to help me, instead they looked down their noses in judgement and speculated in their gossip. It’s sometimes seems that others get their good feelings for themselves in the misery of others, which makes absolutely no sense to me, but I am sure that I have been guilty of the same.

At some point, the God, Who never left me, helped me to find my way out of the darkness and into His marvelous light. All of my life, I have witnessed God doing amazing and beautiful things through ordinary people. I now have a better understanding of how God uses the broken to bring blessing and it has changed the way I live by changing the way I see life, others, myself and God.

While I was lost in the darkness, wandering around trying to make sense out of the senseless and discover the purpose which I had lost somewhere along the way, God was preparing me to receive a gift, a new and improved outlook which reminds me that “God Gives Beauty For Ashes!”

To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes,the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD,that he might be glorified. -Isaiah 61:3

My point is this: Whatever is going on in your life at this particular time – EMBRACE IT! In my ole country boy way of putting things, I would just have to say: “It’s All Good!” It is true that God uses even the bad for our good as we love and trust Him. Life is probably not going to work out the way you think it should, no matter how good your thoughts and plan might be. Things will happen. Some days the sun will shine on you and some days the rain will fall, but remember this: There is a God, Who loves you and who has a plan to bless you. According to that plan, He will use even the bad for your good as you love and trust Him…