Category Archives: positive

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Running On Empty!

One of the things I began to notice in my life as I got older was how often I allowed myself to get to the place where I was “running on empty”. I started to understand that I wasn’t trying to run on empty, in fact, I was trying to fill myself up, but was using the wrong fuel. Often while we are busy filling our ego, we are emptying our spirit and this is no way to live, not if you want to live the life of blessing you were created for.

The old saying: “What you feed will grow!” is more true than ever and if we are honest, a lot of us have been feeding the wrong animal, while neglecting what really matters. This is why the Scriptures are so important to our figuring out this thing called life and why we need to read them and seek to put them into practice everyday. Even baby steps in the right direction produce progress.

5 Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. 6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. -Philippians 4:5-7

We’ve already learned that God does not promise us happiness, but He does promise us joy and if we will allow the joy of the Lord to be our strength, it will help us to live blessed lives that produce happiness. So the goal then, is to fill up your “JOY TANK!”

Filling Up Your Joy Tank!

The first strip to filling up your Joy Tank: Become Known As A “Take It Easy” Person! A take it easy person is gentle, reasonable, wise and able to handle whatever life throws their way! It is important to remember that gentleness is not the absence of strength, but strength that is disciplined and under control. This is the goal for this life and is a work in progress until when Christ returns!

The second step to filling up your Joy Tank: Don’t Worry About Anything & Pray About Everything! It is very important to remind ourselves that worry is present when faith is absent! Let me say that again, because we usually miss it. WORRY IS PRESENT WHEN FAITH IS ABSENT! If you have worry in your life, then you are not exercising belief/faith/trust in God and His promises. The key to your success lies in you being able to replace your worry with faith and the best way I know to do this is by taking time to have conversation with our Creator. Remember: Prayer is conversation and conversation involves speaking and listening! So, talk to God and tell God what is on your heart and mind and then make sure that you are listening for His instruction, guidance and wisdom.

The Third Step To Filling Your Joy Tank: Let God’s Peace Guard Your Heart And Mind! It is very important to remember one of the major life truths that we often forget: “You are in charge of you!” Whatever you are – you have made the choice! Wherever you find yourself, chances are it is because of decisions you have made. We can waste our time blaming everyone and everything else, but that will not change who or what we are. What will change the who and where is our making the choice and decision to do something about it! Here’s a simple question that can help to clear things up: Are you what you want to be and are you who God created you to be??? If not, join God in creating a better, new and improved version of yourself. It will be an amazing journey and you will find that it is amazing where you can go on a full tank!

happiness, joy, personal growth, positive, Problems, scripture, self help, self improvement, spiritual enlightenment, Spititual Development, Values, vision

Take A Joy Pill And Call Me In The Morning!

We live in some of the most uncertain times that we have ever lived in. We have no idea what the economy is going to do? There is the continual threat of another pandemic and the same ole, same ole, general stress of working hard everyday and paying bills.

It is very easy to get distracted by all that is wrong and miss out on what is right. And if we stop to think about it for just a minute, there is a lot that is right. We need to be careful not to miss the joy of today, because we won’t let go of yesterday or because we are worried about tomorrow.

4 Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. 6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. -Philippians 4:4-7

Anxiousness has a way of eating up our minutes and before we know it, we’ve lost hours and then, if we are not careful we have wasted another day. The best way I know to not waste a moment is to be grateful for it. I have found that gratitude creates a space and place where the “joy of the Lord is my strength!”

The Anxiousness Antidote Is Joy!

In Philippians 4:4 we are told to “Rejoice in the Lord always” which means that we are to have joy in the good and the bad, in the ups and the downs of life. We have joy not because everything is going the way we want it to, but because we have a relationship with the One, Who created us and we know that He uses all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

The Scriptures goes on to say: “Again I will say, REJOICE!” It’s Repeated For A Reason and the reason is that we often need reminding to shift gears and pull out of misery and heartbreak and pull into blessing and favor.

We don’t need to deny our feelings. It’s okay to feel your feelings. In fact, I believe it is very necessary to feel them. I think it is very important to feel them and process them, learn from them, grow from them and then move beyond them to the something better that we were created for. We need to process our feelings in light of the relationship we have with God our Creator. In other words: I feel what I feel, but God loves me and has a plan to bless my life, so I have the power to choose what I focus on, so I feel it and move onto the something better I was created for.

There are times when it seems that nothing is working right. We can’t ignore these times and hope they will go away. Instead, we need to acknowledge that circumstances aren’t good, but God is. When we take the time to make this acknowledgement, we are shifting physical, mental and spiritual gears and we cant help but to be filled with hope and blessing over worry and despair!

It really is just as simple as praying about it! When we pray about everything with Thanksgiving and bring our cares, concerns, worries and anxieties to God, we experience His comfort and peace, a peace that transcends all comprehension. We can’t explain it, just experience it, but experience is more than enough.

As a little boy growing up in Church, one of my favorite hymns that we sang was “What A Friend We Have In Jesus!” It went like this:

“What a friend we have in Jesus, All our sins and griefs to bear.

What a privilege to carry, Everything to God in prayer.

Oh, what peace we often forfeit, Oh, what needless pain we bear.

All because we do not carry, Everything to God in prayer…”

Give it to God, get your joy and love every minute of it! ><>

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You’ve Tried It Your Way???

In this thing we do called life, we all need someone we can trust. And most all of us have lived our lives long enough to have trusted and had that trust broken. Once trust is broken, it is hard to ever give it again to anyone, so we just sort of mettle through doing the best that we can. The problem with that approach to life is that we were created for relationship and we can’t really have a growing and meaningful relationship without trust. In other words: To get the most out of this life, we have got to trust someone!

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” -John 3:16

God loves you and He created you for relationship. The purpose of the relationship is so that God can bless you and you can glorify God. We glorify God by trusting Him. We trust Him by receiving His blessings and we glorify Him by sharing those blessing with one another. We can call it whatever we want to: “trust/faith/belief”, but regardless of what we call it, the results are the same, it allows the stuff of God to flow to us and through us…

If Not God, Then Who?

I hate to say it, but others don’t have your best interest at heart and even if they do, they can’t even get themselves to where they need to be. There is an old saying that “Misery loves company!” Others don’t really want you to be blessed and succeed, because then they would have to feel bad because they are not being blessed and succeeding. The truth is: We can all be blessed and succeed, but someone has to be willing to trust God and start the process.

You’ve Tried It Your Way!

You’ve tried and failed, so when are you going to learn? If we will take a moment to get still, quiet and look into ourselves, we will know that we can’t, but God can and has and will if we will just trust/believe/have faith in Him. We know our ways don’t work, so let’s honestly and wholeheartedly give God’s way a try!

God has always been the way, is the way and will be the way! The Bible teaches that He is the same yesterday, today and forever. I challenge you to trust Him in all things, not just some things and watch your life line up with His blessings and before you know it – you will be blessing others for His glory…