Tag Archives: Hope

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Are You Happy?

I used to have a friend that would ask me a simple, but powerful question on a fairly consistent basis. He would ask: “Are you happy?” I would answer: “I guess?” I mean, I wasn’t sad, so the opposite is happy, so I must be happy, right? Every now I then, I would wonder to myself: “Are you happy?”, but something else would come along and take control of my thoughts and I would drift onto something else.

I see and hear a lot of people in our world today that are not happy. I think if you asked most people, they would say: “I would like to be happy, but I’m not so sure how to get there. I think a lot of folks spend the first half of their lives, just trying to figure out what “happy” is. We think we know, get it rounded up and discover that what we thought it might be, turns out to be a wrong guess. Which is exactly why I think that a lot of us tend to give up and become satisfied if “happy” just kinda crosses over our tracks every now and then.

But the truth is, we were created for so much more than that. I think one of the problems with the idea of “happy” is that we think it’s a place to be, a destination to arrive at, but it is so much more than that. One of my favorite teachers, Wayne Dyer, puts it this way: “There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way.” I really do like that:  “HAPPINESS IS THE WAY!”  We just have to get our definition and understanding of happiness right and then the rest tends to fall into place.

So what is happiness? Happiness is a lot of different things and it really depends on who you are talking to. Happiness is a choice, a decision of direction that we choose for ourselves, regardless of the situation or projected outcome. Some are happy going and some are happy sitting at home. Some are happy in a noisy crowd and some are happy enjoying quiet time alone. Some are happy with abundance, while some are happy with very little. This actually gives us a clue as to what happiness really is…

HAPPINESS IS  A CHOICE!  Abraham Lincoln said: “We are just about as happy as we make up our minds to be!” That is why you can see two people go through identical situations and one will be happy and up on cloud nine and the other will be down in the dumps and ready to die. So, the one most important thing we can learn about happiness is that happiness is a choice that we get to make for ourselves.

There it is, YOU GET TO DECIDE FOR YOU! You cannot decide for anyone else, but you can decide for yourself and you, yourself can make a difference in helping others to get there for themselves. If you are going through something hard, difficult or challenging, you can be happy knowing that it is making you stronger, revealing wisdom to you and showing you a side of yourself that you never knew existed. If you are going through good times, blessings and success, you can be happy knowing that what you’ve dreamed of and worked for is a reality that makes life better, sweeter and easier.

Choose to by happy, regardless, you will be glad you did!

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Trouble Free Heart!

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“Do not let your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me.”     John 14:1

When Jesus speaks these words, he is not offering a suggestion to be accepted, he is giving a command to be obeyed, a principle to be followed.  It is not optional, it is the very foundation to our getting the spiritual life right for His glory.  Jesus was giving this information to his disciples right before he was to be crucified.  Life as they knew it was about to encounter the biggest change and most crazy challenge that they had ever faced.  They were about to have to live in a world without Jesus in the flesh.  Jesus was preparing them, by telling them that no matter what – “Do not let your hearts be troubled!”

Have you ever noticed that most believers and non believers respond in just about the same way to the challenges of life.  This should not be.  Believers should respond with faith over fear, with expectation over desperation and with hope over hopelessness.  Most all of us, tend to respond to the challenges of life with our emotions.  The problem with this, is that if we don’t control our emotions, then our emotions will control us.

The problem with emotions is that they tend to want to run and will run away from your control before you know it.  When Jesus says:  “Let not your hearts be troubled!”, he is teaching us to reign in our emotions before they get out of control.  You can rule your emotions, or they will rule you.  Every person has to decide for themselves – how they are going to handle the tough battle with emotions.

If you decide that you want to deal with your emotions, then you have to learn how not to indulge the negative.  Life is full of negatives.  We are surrounded and bombarded by them from all forms of media.  Indulging the negative is making an on purpose decision to live life in fear, not in faith.  If Jesus commands us to do something, then it is possible and what seems impossible, always becomes possible through the power of faith expressed in our everyday living.

Life is going to throw some challenges your ways this week, I want to encourage you to follow the instruction of Jesus and “LET NOT YOUR HEART BE TROUBLED!  I promise you will be glad you did!  😉

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Filled Up!

“We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. 5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.”  Romans 5:3-5

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Fillerup!

No one likes trials and troubles, but everyone has them and while we don’t like them, it helps to know that when we do, there is a purpose.  The Scripture teaches us that we can rejoice and be happy when we face the challenges of life, because the challenges are helping us to develop and grow endurance.

Endurance is the ability to remain active and productive even when facing adverse conditions.  It is the picture of something that lasts, regardless of time.  As we face trials and troubles, God is using the problems to develop endurance in our lives.  We can rejoice because this endurance develops character.

Character is the moral and ethical traits that make you uniquely who you are.  Someone has said that character is who you are when no one else is looking.  As we endure trials, we develop character. And our character as it grows and develops produces hope.

Hope is a feeling that things are going to be better.  Our hope is in our salvation and the relationship that it makes possible with our Creator.  This relationship is based in the love of a Creator for His creation.  This love is grown in the relationship of trust, which is strengthened in hope of an even brighter tomorrow.  This day and every day after this, is possible, because of our relationship with, to and through the Holy Spirit, who fills our hearts with the amazing and blessed love of our most awesome friend and Creator…

Take some time today, even in the midst of challenges to let Him fill you up with His Spirit!