Tag: happiness

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Pruning for Fruitfulness

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In all this you greatly rejoice though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 1 Peter 1:6

You may have learned at some point that wildfires actually can be positive for burning out old, dead wood and allowing for new growth.  God’s trials are our great refinery.  Every one of us experiences it.  But only Christians have the promises and therefore the hope for truly brighter days.  Only we have the guiding, comforting light of the Holy Spirit to remind us He is always with us.  

As the faithful we are led to forgive those who persecute us.  Not only forgive but to love.  Our fruit of our faith is joy, peace, patience, love, gentleness, kindness, self-control and faithfulness (Galatians 5:22).

If during a trial you don’t have this fruit you have to ask yourself if you have truly surrendered to Christ.  Or are you, as Pastor Tim Keller once said, “Sitting in God’s seat”?  Meaning, are you the arbiter of “the ways things should and must be?”  Are you so angry, sad or distraught when, after you’ve determined what is best in your life, that it all goes so differently? You’re sitting in God’s seat. 

The secular world says, “There is no future so I must have all my happiness in the ‘now.’” When that inevitable trial or suffering comes, the worldly are thrown into despair.  They think life should always be good.  But as the faithful we should and must put our ultimate happiness in the eternal.  When suffering comes to us it is to be expected because we live in a fallen world.  On the flip side, when life is good, we should be thanking God for what is actually the “unusual.”

Gopher Holes

This garden we are all in has a lot of gopher holes that have been dug out by the world who live by fleshly desires.  Greed, selfishness, hatred, unforgiveness, unkindness, sexual immorality and more are the result of Satan’s pull on mankind.  And it all slams against us at one time or another.  Trying to pluck us from His hands.

But God.  

He gives us this beautiful promise: “And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.” (Matt 28:20).  Jesus said this to the apostles as He sent them out to spread the seeds of the Gospel because He knew what they would face.  Death and persecution would follow them everywhere.

Is this all to just “get through” safely to eternity?  In one way, yes.  But remember those fruits?  We don’t have the fruit of fear and drudgery and timidity.  We have the fruits of what so many seek through self-help books and psychology.  Our trials help us learn to persevere and grow closer to God in trust.  They show us that He is truly worthy of all our praise.  He provides and protects until He calls us home.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. James 1:2-4

Beautiful Blossoms

So again, I ask, have you come out stronger in your trials?  Has your faith beautifully blossomed?  If not, it’s time to reflect.  To ask yourself if you missed God in the suffering and in the calm.  If you missed an opportunity for peace in the pain.  If you still seek to control outcomes and sit in God’s seat.  Are your roots at the surface or are they grounded deep in the love and knowledge of God?

You will face something difficult again.  He is trustworthy and has a plan for you.  Through your tears, ask Him to reveal Himself at work.  In your anxiousness ask Him to make your path straight.  In your heavy burden take up His offer to turn it all over to Him.

I promise you, because I have seen Him at work through many people, including myself, you will see your faith grow by leaps and bounds.  And the world will have a difficult time pulling your deep roots from God’s rich soil.

This week’s question: What promise of God have you relied on during difficult times?

Next week join me as we delve into the truth and the beauty of obedience and submission.

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Enjoying Life’s Possibilities

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It’s been a great adventure studying Ecclesiastes with you! I hope you have enjoyed it — please share the series with your friends or catch up on what you missed. Click here for all of the Enjoy Life: from Meaningless to Meaningful posts!

I’m going to be completely honest with you, my friend.  Today’s post was to be what the British call “a bit of a fob off.”  You see, I had always planned to write the last look at Ecclesiastes after I returned from a 10 day trip to see my daughter and grandkids.  With a five month old infant and a two-year old who is obsessed with every sport, it’s now too difficult to continue writing when I visit and take care of them for eight hours.  Let’s just say this 59-year old grandma (Guga as I’m affectionately called) passes out from exhaustion about 8:30pm each night after a day of bottles, diapers, up and down the stairs, laundry, baseball, football, golf, hockey, and little bits of quiet snuggling in between.  I love every single bit of it.

So here I was back home ready to jump in to the wise words of King Solomon.  And I started feeling ill.  After just a few days home I became so delirious and short of breath that I caused myself a full blown panic attack one night thinking I was dying.  My husband managed to get me to the doctor where I tested positive for Influenza.  I can’t remember the last time I had the actual flu.  A flu that then turned into pneumonia — which is why I didn’t seem to be getting better. My hopes of feeling up to writing even a few lines were put way, way back on the burner.

But through the blessings of the Lord, I was put on new medications just yesterday.  I now have a veritable neighborhood pharmacy on my counter.  And although walking from one room to the next still seems a bit like I’ve tried tackling the 213.7 mile John Muir Trail with my friend Betsy, I can feel my body recovering.  So instead of “fobbing off” and writing a placeholder, here I am through God’s providence, jumping into wisdom and life and the wonderful meaning of it all.

However, many years anyone may live, let them enjoy them all. But let them remember the days of darkness,for there will be many. Ecclesiastes 11:8

You see, even in my darkest moments when I was really sick I was remembering some important things about this life.  That I don’t know how it all works but God does.  Ecclesiastes 1 reminded us that although we are made in God’s image, He still is the ultimate creator and has more power and knowledge than we can ever hope to amass.

Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.  Ecclesiastes 1:10

I also allowed myself to ask why God doesn’t fix things immediately at my whim or even pleading?  Which, of course, reminded me of the famous Ecclesiastes 3 scripture:

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens … a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, 3  a time to kill and a time to heal, Ecclesiastes 3: 1 & 2-3

After my 4am panic attack and my husband had calmed my breathing, I laid back in bed thinking, “Is this what it will be like in the end?  At my final moments?  Worried and panicked?  Clawing to hold on to one more day of this life?”  

When we looked at Ecclesiastes 9, we ran head first into the only truth no one can deny, no matter how hard they try.  “The same destiny overtakes us all.” (vs 3).  And yet we cling so hard and forget about the other truth the people of this world want to deny – we have hope for those who believe.  We have an eternal place where God has a plan for justice.  Where He has brought every single one of our loved ones, who also believe, to live with us forever and ever.  Nothing left behind but sin and strife and pain and death.

My friends, if we accept that death is our future and as Solomon told us in verse 9:12, “No one knows when their hour will come,” we must take all that he says in wisdom in his last chapters 11 and 12 to heart.

As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things. 6 Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let your hands not be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well. Ecclesiastes 11:5-6

It’s a message repeated throughout the New Testament.  Know God, love God, trust God, obey God.  We are not God and we can only know what is happening this very moment (and we can barely remember what happened yesterday!)  

There’s a trend on Instagram where very talented photographers stop every day looking strangers on the street and ask to take their picture.  The people (usually women) tell the photographer all the reasons why they are not worthy of having a photo taken of them.  One adult woman with fairly new braces said she would start smiling once her braces came off.  In what — two or three years?  And yet her braces-filled pictures were gorgeous! 

Are you waiting to smile until something better happens in your life?  Until the right person comes along?  The right job?  The right bank account?  That “happiness” seeking roller coaster that Solomon warned us about in Ecclesiastes 6.  It’s a joy killer.  It may look like seeking meaning but it all becomes so meaningless.

Follow the ways of your heart and whatever your eyes see, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. 10 So then, banish anxiety from your heart and cast off the troubles of your body, Ecclesiastes 11:9-10

Solomon tells us, “go!”  Try that new hobby or skill.  Actively seek out new friendships and opportunities.  Tell your friend or family member how much God loves them – today.  Stop waiting until you get to the point where there’s no longer time, but also remembering all along who you belong to – our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Not hedonism as we looked at chapter 10 and the Right Side of Life.  That’s meaningless folly.  True joy, true enjoyment comes from knowing and listening to the Lord and stepping onto the narrow path.

I read a quote recently that went something like this:

Trusting God is like being married to adventure but if you are looking for an excuse, you will find one.”

In other words, if you truly trust in the Lord for His love and provision.  If you truly believe you are a beloved and beautiful daughter or son of God then He wants you to enjoy this short life He’s given you on this little blue planet.  

This ancient book of wisdom on the surface seems like the last place to go to for this inspiration.  I mean reminding us from beginning to end we will all die…a real party conversation killer.  But sprinkled throughout this truth are the six reminders to “Enjoy Life.”  Enjoy life while fearing the Lord and keeping His commands (Ecc 12:13).  King Solomon did a bit too much of the first and forgot the second until towards the end of his life.  He’s pleading with you hear his God-given words now.

I read this article by editor and founder Joanna Gaines in my most recent copy of Magnolia magazine.  I realized it was a great way to end this series studying Ecclesiastes and the meaning of life.  Especially for those of you who struggle with life’s changes, the good and the frequently not so good.  We may want to retreat, go back to the old.  We pray for God to remove the struggle and the pain.  And it might get us stuck.  Stuck in bad habits and bad relationships.  Stuck in not believing the God who created the heavens and the earth also has a plan and blessings waiting for you.  Stuck in the lie that your personal cycle of life will just keep plugging away, never changing and never ending.  Which keeps us far from the concept of joy and enjoyment.  Listen to this excerpt from Mrs. Gaines’ essay titled, “Space to See Possibility” (spring 2024).

When life swung, for the first time I didn’t hold my breath.  I stood tall.  I looked around.  I worried less what was changing now and instead looked forward to what it could give way to the next.  I asked myself, “What beautiful thing can come from this?  What did I learn that can carry me forward?  And I came to realize that it’s the aftermath that’s the most formative.  It was how we landed, how we let what was different be its own kind of beautiful.  It was how we reset, changed course, and believed in the goodness to come.”

As my head has started to clear from my illnesses – my dizziness is dissipating and my vision is clearing – I look back over how often I sought the Lord.  How often I thanked Him for seemingly endless boxes of Kleenex, soft sheets, a comfortable bed, doctors, pharmacists, drug inventors and scientists, friends, clean water, my husband and daughters, and more.  I pleaded but I didn’t know if I would be healed or when. I felt terrible yet, still I knew my life is good.  A life to enjoy even in the least enjoyable moments.  Because that’s what our faith gives us.  Head scratching, oppositeness from the world.  A life of meaning.

My friend, I hold out my hand to you asking you to join me on this great adventure called Jehovah, God, Jesus, Elohim, Holy Spirit.  Ask Him today, “What’s next?” and go enjoy.

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Enjoying the Right Side of Life

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I’ve mentioned in past series that I wasn’t raised in a Christian home.  My father is, to this day, an atheist and my mom is well, just sort of lost.  In my younger years, I would probably tell you I believed in God but I didn’t really know what that meant.  God was the creator and He was still hanging around, I supposed.  If I had died back then I would’ve had the same judgement as my father, I believe.  Because just like my atheist father, I didn’t have God as the centerstone of my life.

I hate to say it but I talk to a lot of folks who seem to be in this same boat.  They might even call themselves “Christian.”  But dig a bit deeper and they don’t believe the basic tenets of the faith.  Such as Jesus being full man and fully God who died to cover our sins and make us righteous before God.  Or that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God.  Without these basic truths to help us navigate through life what’s to keep them from wandering off the path?  To avoid a life of fool-hardy behavior and thinking?  To be led by foolish teachers and pastors?

“Dead flies make the perfumer's ointment give off a stench; so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor. 2A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left.” Ecclesiastes 10:1-2

Back in the ancient world of King Solomon, the right hand represented the place of honor and power.  The left hand (sorry lefties) represented weakness and even rejection.  In this introduction to chapter 10 of Ecclesiastes, Solomon shines the light on our propensity to lean a bit too far into our personal temptations and sins.  We give way to the left-hand side of life.  Those sinful “flies in the ointment” create a life that looks a lot like one without knowing or trusting in God.

Blessed is the man who has the God of Jacob for his Helper; he need not fear either want or pain, or death. The more you can realize this, the happier will you become; and the only means for so doing is to hold frequent communion with God in prayer. Get alone with Jesus, and He will comfort your hearts, and restore your weary souls.”

Charles Spurgeon

No only had I not put God as a cornerstone of my life I put so many other things and people there in His place.  In Solomon’s words I put “fools in a high position” (Ecc 10:6).  And wisdom?  Let’s just say it wasn’t a top priority for me.  

“The toil of a fool wearies him, for he does not know the way to the city.” Ecclesiastes 10:15

What a sad state to be in, as so many are today.  Lost amongst well-travelled roads.  Thinking they know the way to enjoying life to the fullest only to find themselves each morning back on the wrong side of a meaningful life.

I’ll make a confession to you.  I started having sex when I was about 16 years old – sad to say that may be a bit old nowadays.  By the time I met my future husband at age 22, I had been with more than 15 different men.  The first few sexual relationships were ones I sometimes, still today, thank God that He didn’t allow me to become pregnant because I was also unprotected.  In the midst of my sexual promiscuity years something inside me knew what I was doing was wrong but it didn’t stop me.  I plowed ahead in my left hand life.

Later, I even realized my behavior was borne out of a need to seek love and acceptance.  Of which, I usually received the exact opposite.  Folly, folly, folly.  And more wandering over the same roads.

My centerstones, or my go-to experts, were like-minded travellers.  Women’s liberation bullhorns, pro-abortionists, people who believed we deserved to do what we please, and others who scoffed at the religious right and their limiting “rules for life.”  I was going to do what I wanted, with whom I wanted, and was going to be happy and successful.  

Until I wasn’t.

As a person searching for a meaningful life, that younger me was bombarded by foolish rulers.  College teachers who were all about living the life that was “true to yourself.”  The people I worked with had no place for God and encouraged debauchery and folly.  Even the pastor of the church, where I spent about 10 years as  a new Christian, never talked about sin.

Now, as a Christ-centered Christian, it angers me that there are pastors who fall into these same categories.  Their own lives and their teaching don’t reflect God as their centerstone.  They are ok with abortion – murdering the innocent.  They are just fine with people having sex outside of marriage.  With living immoral lives as long we know we are “loved” and “don’t judge.”  They’re apparently reading from a different Bible than the one I have.  

They are not leaders of the right handed side of life.  When we look at who we’ve put as our centerstones we have to ask: are they simply leading us back around in circles to all our old sinful paths?

Click here for Enjoying the Right Side of Life Part Two as we discover the path straight to love and joy.

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Enjoying the “Enough” Life Part Two

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Did you miss part one of Enjoying the Enough Life? Click here!

Enjoyment without God is merely entertainment.  

Warren Wiersbe

No one on this great blue planet is without sin.  Without sinful desires and thoughts.  Without sinful emotions.  So, if we seek contentment, or unconditional wholeness solely from within what do we find?  Our sinful selves just like I did when I embarked on my happiness journey a few years ago.  And we turn back to the unfulfilling emotion of fleeting happiness.

What guides a person to being truly joy-filled or content in every situation? How do we achieve that “unconditional wholeness” researcher Daniel Cordaro mentioned after visiting that Himalayan tribe?  It requires something outside us to guide us through the ups and downs, the trials and tribulations of life.  It’s easy to enjoy a new car.  But what about when it breaks down?  It takes no effort to enjoy the birthday party at the park you so expertly planned but what happens when it rains?  Does your happiness bucket completely empty and you turn into Attila the Hun, raging at others?  Or you weep and sulk feeling the cosmos hates you?

"Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13I can do all things through him who strengthens me."  Philippians 4: 11-13

That strength to endure a peasant life that Tolstoy witnessed, a life of labor and toil, a life of disappointments and tragedy, and yes, even a life full of wealth comes only from God.  (Ecc 5:19 & 6:2) Through the Holy Spirit who comes to dwell in us when we say, “Yes!” to Jesus as our Lord and Savior.  It’s the fountain from which we draw on every single moment of every day to guide us and strengthen us.  Because my friends, you cannot find wholeness without Him.

Deep-seated in the American mind, for example, is the disastrous idea that we should pursue happiness. But what is happiness? And what are the realities through which one could achieve it? And how, practically speaking, does one pursue happiness? One might pursue happiness on the carpe diem principle. But that can be understood in many ways. It could endorse a sensuality of the present moment or endorse devoting the present moment to improvement of one’s character, to serving others, or to serving God. Usually in our times, however, it is some form of sensuality. Our choice between these options will have profound implications for our efforts to become a genuinely good person and to live harmoniously with reality, with how things really are.

Dallas Willard

My Bible study ladies are currently studying Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount by Jen Wilkins.  In the first week we read and discovered the messages behind the first 12 verses, also known as the Beatitudes.  Jesus’ goal in this sermon was to re-define for the disciples what not only the Kingdom of Heaven looks like but what its citizens look like.  The first four beatitudes describe the character of its citizens:

  1. We Are Poor in Spirit: accepting we are weak and sinful in need of a strength outside ourselves
  2. We Are Mourners: we recognize our sinfulness and weep over it daily.  Asking God for forgiveness for each time we act, speak or think (even feel) in opposition to God’s will for us.
  3. We Are Meek: in modeling Jesus’ submission to the Father in going to the cross for humanity’s sins and therefore suffering a terrible death, we too seek humility and submission to God. 
  4. We Are Hungry and Thirsty: not for earthly glory, praise and wealth but for our hearts and minds to be daily cleansed.  We constantly seek His will for our life so that we can glorify Him.  We cast off our old selves and thirst for the new bodies and New Eden to come.

These citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven?  They will be abundant with fruit and content in all situations.  The fruits of love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, patience, self-control and faithfulness can be seen by all around them.  They spread that fruit and His Word throughout our families, communities and the world.  We achieve the ultimate peace in the face of persecution.  Peace with God.  Our friction between us is gone.  We are made whole because He breathes the Holy Spirit into us, making us one with Him.

"And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one… 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me." John 17: 11 & 22-23

One with the Creator of all things seen and unseen – Elohim, Jehovah.  What more could a tiny, sinful human want for all eternity?  All other pales in comparison!  No self-help book without God can help you achieve such gloriously contented status. King Solomon discovered that our sinful toil without God is usually for our own gain and our appetite is never satisfied on our own (Ecc 6:7).

"The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
    They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;
    there is none who does good." Psalm 14:1-2

I once saw an interaction with a non-believer and a street preacher.  The young, unbelieving woman stated, “How can you say I won’t go to heaven (which as a non-believer why would she care?) when I’m a good person.  I’m better than most Christians.  I don’t lie, cheat or steal.”  Yet, as Jesus reminds us further in the Sermon on the Mount if you even let your heart yearn to do any of those things you are guilty.  And I would bet all that I have she has, in fact, actually lied.  She has probably stolen something – maybe someone’s dignity by gossiping about them.  And cheating?  She might have thought that little deed or breaking some municipal law wasn’t that “big of a deal” but it’s still cheating.  She is at odds with God, broken and not whole.

It is only through the gift of reconciliation for our sins, no matter their size, of which Jesus Christ paid for, that we can come upright before the God of the Universe.  Where we receive mercy and forgiveness so we don’t have to live in shame and hurt, grasping for pleasures to dull our pain.  No, instead He brushes us off and clothes us in white garments.  He brings us into His family and calls us His sons and daughters.  He pours out His love and gives a piece of Him to live in us so we can have that “unconditional wholeness.” He gifts us with “enough” each day so that we may be satisfied.

"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."  James 1:2-4

We are made perfect and complete, meaning made whole, when we face life’s trials and rely on the God who gives us strength and hope.  We are honed and shaped into the image of the only being that walked this earth who was sinless and fully content — Jesus.

Friend, if you want to get off the roller coaster of seeking “happiness” and then being brought low by trials, look to our All Mighty God and His Son.  He is our provider, our protector, our armor, our joy, our hope.  He has never broken a promise and He never will.  He promises you a new life at the end of the rainbow – not a pot of gold.  And with that promise and hope we can live a contented, meaningful life of “enough” in a world of chaos.

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Enjoying The “Enough” Life

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In 2014, researcher and founder of the Contentment Foundation Daniel Cordaro, took a team of researchers to the remote area of the Himalayas in Eastern Bhutan.  Their research subjects were a group of 200 nomad families with which no outsider had previously contacted.  It was to be the final look into a 5-year, cross-cultural study of how people identify and react to a long list of emotions.  Upon showing the villagers dozens of facial and vocal expressions, even having been cut off from the rest of the world, they recognized the vast majority of emotions with accuracy.  However, it was one emotion that elicited a different response to the norm.  That emotion was contentment.  Their guide, Dr. Dorji Wangchuk, stopped for a moment when they reached that word.

“In our culture, this emotion is very special. It is the highest achievement of human well-being, and it is what the greatest enlightened masters have been writing about for thousands for years. It’s hard to translate it exactly, but the closest word is chokkshay, which is a very deep and spiritual word that means ‘the knowledge of enough.’ It basically means that right here, right now, everything is perfect as it is, regardless of what you are experiencing outside.”

This explanation by Dr. Wangchuk brought chills to Cordaro who goes on to say in his story of this experience, “No matter where I went on planet earth, all of the cultures I interacted with revered contentment as one of the highest states to cultivate in life. Yet in the West, we were obsessing about happiness—and feeling more anxious, depressed, and stressed.”*

While Mr. Cardaro may have decided through his research that “happiness” rather than contentment is a relatively new goal which rears its head mainly in western society, I would argue it’s actually been around for a very long time.  You only need to turn to Ecclesiastes 6, indeed much of Ecclesiastes itself, to see pleasure seeking or happiness sits atop many people’s motivation in life.

"If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with life's good things, and he also has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he…even if he lives a thousand years twice over but fails to enjoy his prosperity.  Do not all go to the same place?"  Ecclesiastes 6:3 & 6

King Solomon would relate to this prosperous man; it might even be a reflection of the King himself.  A man who gathered riches, property, wives, children, slaves, food and wine with abandon.  Yet was drawn to study the meaningless life.  A life much the opposite of those Himalayan nomads.  

A 2016 survey by YouGov asked Americans whether they would rather achieve great things or be happy.  81% said they would rather be happy.   Despite the universalness of happiness as a goal, it was hard to know how to define it or how to achieve it.**  And I ask you, on a daily basis are you seeking happiness or contentment?  Are you seeking to feel the emotion that pleasure provides or resting in the peace of enjoying “enough?”  

"Better what the eye sees than the roving of the appetite. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind."  Ecclesiastes 6:9

The “I need to do and seek out what makes me happy” hasn’t really worked out that well for us humans.  It’s a life led by self-fulfillment and fleeting emotions.  Back a few years when I decided to seek happiness, I went about it working hard at changing myself.  I needed to be less, I suppose, like me and more like people who appeared happy with loads of friends.  The problem was I was still me.  I was still filled with sinful thoughts and behaviors, most of which I couldn’t see or didn’t want to.

"You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."  James 4:2-3

Through study of God’s Holy Word, I finally had my “ah ha moment.”  I was seeking with the wrong motive.  What I needed to seek was joy and contentment, not how to be happy.  Why? Because desiring happiness didn’t mean to love others, rather just myself.  It meant getting what I wanted, not what God wanted of me.  It led me to covet and be jealous of those who seemed “happier.”  

In the late 1800s, Russian author Leo Tolstoy experienced his own profound revelation when seeking the meaningful life.  Born to aristocrats, he had all that wealth could provide.  He ran in highly intellectual circles debating the politics and issues of the day.  And for all that upper-class privilege he once stated, 

My life came to a standstill.  I could breathe, eat, drink, and sleep, and I could not help doing these things; but there was no life, for there were no wishes the fulfillment of which I could consider reasonable… had a fairy come and offered to fulfill my desires I should not have known what to ask.”

In the course of events Tolstoy became involved with a group of Russian peasants.  What he witnessed was a hard life.  One with heavy, daily labor.  And they were content.  They, he said, knew the meaning of life and death and labored quietly.  They endured deprivations and suffering.  They lived and died seeing the good.

So how do we achieve this state of contentment?  Must we cast off all our hard earned wealth?  Sell our homes and become Himalayan nomads?  Become like John the Baptist and wear rough clothing and eat bugs?  

Enjoying life is a matter of character, not circumstance.

Booker T. Washington

Like so many lessons gifted by God, the hard won path to contentment is not about our outward appearance.  If it were, the successful business person would be doomed.  Yet success, from a wealth perspective, is not seen in the Bible as something to be disabused.  It is only seen as causing potential difficulty for the believer.  It wasn’t the prince’s wealth that caused him not to be able to follow Jesus.  But rather his clinging to it for his happiness. (Matt 19:21-22).  His character was filled with greed and pride.

In the completed study by Cordaro he found there were two views of what people think makes for a contented life.  The first he called the “More Strategy.”  It’s that view of the western happiness mindset.  More money, more stuff.  The problem, he found, was once you got more, that feeling of happiness drifted away like the mist.

The second approach is the “Enough Strategy.”  It’s when people look inward to find the happiness.  He poured through thousands of years of ancient wisdom traditions and found that the ancients almost never used the word happiness.  More than 90 percent of the time, they used the word contentment, and described it as a state of “unconditional wholeness,” regardless of what is happening externally.

The unfortunate diagnosis by Cordaro however, is that somehow we can become whole all by ourselves.  It’s the same mindset of modern, secular psychology and 1,000s of self-help books,  He didn’t research which ancient wisdom traditions were successful at this goal and how.  If he had, he might have discovered Jesus.   

Enjoying The Enough Life Part Two now available! Click here.

*Excerpt from Greater Good Magazine, May  27, 2020 What If You Pursue Contentment Rather Than Happiness?

** BBC’s Nat Rutherford

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Enjoy the Surrender Part Two

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A continued look at Ecclesiastes Two

My pastor recently asked us if we are committing our lives to God or surrendering them.  What’s the difference you might ask? “Committing” implies a bargain or an agreement from which we could divorce ourselves.  Whereas, “surrender,” waving the white flag, admits we can’t do this thing called “life” on our own anymore.  Our resources are depleted.  We come in rags, desperate for a Savior.  We succumb to the truth we can’t heal ourselves.  Heck we can’t even keep from sinning each and every day.  

So, we find our bodies fully prostrate to Jesus.  Our Lord and King who provides us with the salve for our wounds.  He gives us white, clean robes.  He holds us up steady and strong in front of God.  And God, in turn, showers us with love and blessings and meaning for all eternity.

Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose… only (upon) the Beloved who will never pass away.”

C.S. Lewis

If we think we can heal our pain and suffering with a better job, spouse or car, a bigger bank account, or even seeing those that hurt us suffer the loss of all those things we fool ourselves.  Because here’s the thing.  God is also the source of our ability to enjoy all the things we have.  Yes, as Solomon discovered, the LORD is the source for even enjoyment.  We can try to muster up happiness in our circumstance but without God it’s a wooden stage prop.  Look truthfully at the rich celebrities you see on tv, the news or social media.  They put off an air of glamour and grandeur and happiness.  Then you read of yet another acrimonious divorce, another entry into drug, alcohol or sex rehab.  Or even angry rants about how the “little people” just won’t do what they tell them to do.  A writer in The Wall Street Journal called money, “an article which may be used as a universal passport to everywhere except heaven, and as a universal provider of everything except happiness.”

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ Matthew 7:21-23

The LORD Adonai wants your complete and total surrender.  Not a contractual agreement.  He wants to strip you bare and give you all that you really need.  He is the creator of the source.  And He will send you the need – whether through yearning or trials.  

As for my friend, who knows what God has next in store for her.  She may or may not become a regular Sunday School teacher because that wasn’t the whole point.  He wanted to heal her through her willing obedience.  Imitating Jesus, allowing Him to set our direction, opens the world of possibilities.  It may be passing along the Word to 10 little children or He could give her even more responsibility now that she has taken her obedient steps.  The unknown path in the hands of God is more rewarding than any palace or banquet or man-made delight.

It’s time to enjoy the surrender.  To wave the white flag.  To enjoy the righteousness that God wants to bestow upon you.

It’s not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness. “

Charles Spurgeon
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Enjoying The Surrender

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Part One of our look at Ecclesiastes Two

A friend of mine recently surrendered a bitter, past hurt over to the Lord.  She started with obedience, albeit reluctantly she admits.  The pain caused by her last church has been difficult to overcome.  She told me she’s been praying one of the best prayers you could ever pray: “Help me imitate Jesus.”  As part of a study about revival we’ve been doing she’s also spent a lot more time just listening for God’s Word.  Not asking, pleading, telling, or even praising.  Just listening.  And He has spoken.

You see my friend used to love teaching children the Word of God.  At her old church she was deeply involved in children’s ministry.  After a tumultuous pastor change and the subsequent wrangling for top dog positions within the church, a few staff members were laid off without warning.  She was one of them.  She had given her whole heart over to the ministry and felt betrayed.  It caused her to pronounce she would never work in children’s ministry again, ever.  

And then in January we opened Pastor Robby Gallaty’s study on revival titled, Revive Us.  He encouraged us to spend time with God starting with just five minutes of quiet time.  We soon worked our way up to 15, then 20 and finally 30 minutes.  Over the course of the next two months, we shared what God showed us.  A word here and there, a vision of being loved, a message of strength, a picture of His majesty.  

For my friend?  After praying yet again on how to imitate Jesus, she found herself in her quiet time with a vision of a beach scene.  A man teaching little children at the edge of the sea.  Love abounded from child to teacher and teacher to child.  The teacher turned and looked at her and smiled.  It was Jesus.  She was overcome with tears; real tears streaming down her face in realization that to imitate Jesus would be to do the one thing she had refused.  To do the one thing she knew God had gifted her.  To teach the children.

So, although she had obeyed the week prior and told her new church she would dip a toe in to Sunday school the next week by “observing” she said it with trepidation.  That vision, given to her the day before she was to serve, filled her with love and joy.  When she walked into the children’s ministry department the administrator was so happy to see her – they were short leaders in Kindergarten.  “Would she take on the class?” she was asked.  Without any hesitation my friend agreed.  You should have heard the joy in her voice when she told us how she was immediately loved by the children, how she danced and sang, how she was filled with the Holy Spirit.  How she was healed!

"I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun. " Ecclesiastes 2:10-11

Juxtapose my friend’s experience at Sunday School with King Solomon in chapter 2.  The richest man in the world at the time.  He had everything at his fingertips.  He built palace after palace.  He made large parks and orchards.  He had plenty of female slaves to do his every (and I mean every) bidding.  He had singers, dancers, gold, silver, food, drink – all the delights of a man’s heart (Ecc 2:8).  And he was miserable.  He was seeking meaning and purpose.  He tried buying it and building it and owning it.

The abundant life is to be found in “treasuring up for God” rather than for self.”

Kenneth Bailey, Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes

What did my friend have?  A humble servant heart, slightly broken and needing mending.  She didn’t seek to enrich her life.  She asked to serve the One True God, Jesus Christ.  So, He gave her 10 little, beautiful faces that Sunday.  Little children who were eager to be her new friend and to mend her heart.

I read once that we should look at ourselves as channels not reservoirs of joy.  Meaning we don’t store up all the blessing for ourselves but rather send them on to others.  Pastor Gallaty reminded us of this truth.  Through intercessory prayer and acts of service we become those channels.

If revival coming to your family or community depended on your prayers, would it come?”  

Pastor Robby Gallaty

When our prayer life and subsequent actions serve only to enrich ourselves, we find our situation mirroring Solomon’s.  Striving and chasing wealth, status, knowledge and even wisdom – with God as a supplemental figure or not thought of at all, really.  When our seeking pleasure or even “peace” is above all else we miss the beautiful work of God He wants to do in our life.  

"A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil.  This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. " Ecclesiastes 2:24-26

My pastor recently asked us if we are committing our lives to God or surrendering them.  What’s the difference you might ask?  I’m glad you asked! Join me for my next post Enjoying the Surrender Part Two! Click here.

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The God of Hope

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Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1

When you hear people argue about God being a man-made construct I always wonder what they think about the concept of hope.  Hope, in general, is experienced by other animals in simplistic forms.  My dog hopes that a piece of my dinner will fall off my plate in to his mouth.  And given his level of whining and drooling his hopefulness can get pretty intense.  But if my dog were to say, get cancer, would he understand the hopefulness of being cured?  When my previous dog, Molly was old and ill we called in a woman who does home euthanasia.  As the drugs were administered into Molly’s body we gave her a feast of her favorite treats.  She resisted succumbing in her desire for one more treat.  But was she able to hope to not die?  To hope that something better awaited her after death?

It seems throughout God’s animal kingdom creatures were gifted with just enough mental capacity to meet their basic needs.  It’s obviously so or else we’d see them building super computers and skyscrapers.  The animal kingdom doesn’t concern themselves with their fellow animals’ living conditions in far off lands, much less those in the house next door.  As humans, God instill in us something that no man can truly explain.  A sense of the past, the present, and a hope for the future.

It’s that hope, that “looking forward to God’s good work” in our situation that is so uniquely human.  And I praise God for it.  

Like love, hope is found in many forms.  We can hope it doesn’t rain out the baseball game.  We hope we get the job.  We hope our vacation turns out the way we dream.  We can hope for a better life.  Hope for a cure.  Hope for a child.  But the hope God really wants us to rely on is the hope based on trusting that what He has in store for you and I is for good.  

We can have hope that the trials we currently are going through will teach us something important and will leave us with something good.  We can have hope that God has a good plan for not only ourselves but for our families who believe in him. We can place our hope in a future beyond this place more glorious than we can imagine.

I’m so thankful God gifted us with this unique brand of hope.  Without it we have hopelessness and despair.  We would be left only with anger and disappointment and confusion.  

When I look around these days, I can see the destructiveness from lacking in God’s hope.  The aching and yearning for answers.  It leads people to depression, violence, and self- harm.  But that’s because deep in each of us is the knowledge that brokenness is not the state God wants for us.  Its foreign in our bodies and therefore makes us uncomfortable and unhappy with life.  We desire to be hopeful.  Some of us just haven’t accepted the prescribed method – God.

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A Tiny Message #4

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Therefore, since we have these 
promises,dear friends, let us 
purify ourselves from everything 
that contaminates body and spirit, 
perfecting holiness out of 
reverence for God. 
2 Corinthians 7:1

When you think of the word “holy” the most likely target of our thoughts is God or Jesus. But the pursuit of holiness is what is required of us upon professing our faith. The word “sanctification” may be more aligned to what we think that process entails.

The ancient Israelites were tasked with bringing complicated offerings to God in order to work on their path toward holiness. Not only were the 10 commandments expected to be obeyed but many detailed animal sacrifices were to take place for the cleansing of sin. But the Israelites only could receive a shadow of complete forgiveness. As Christians, Jesus has taken the place of all those rituals. The rituals and forgiveness yes, but not the task of working toward holiness through obedience. I read this quote the other day while studying Leviticus that might help to spur us on toward right thinking about holiness.

Happiness, not holiness, is the chief pursuit of most people today, including many professed Christians. They want Jesus to solve their problems and carry their burdens but they don’t want Him to control their lives and change their character. It doesn’t disturb them that eight times in the Bible, God said to His people, “Be holy, for I am holy,” and He means it.

Warren Wiersbe on Leviticus

Let’s work together offering ourselves as living sacrifices so that our sanctification process brings us closer to God’s desire of holiness for us.

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Anchored In Joy

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And foreigners who bind themselves to 
the Lord to minister to him,to love the 
name of the Lord, and to be his servants,
all who keep the Sabbath without 
desecrating it and who hold fast to 
my covenant—these I will bring to my 
holy mountain and give them joy in my 
house of prayer.
Isaiah 56:6-7

These months of Coronavirus lockdowns and limitations have led to varying degrees of modified social gathering, decreased family contact and less human contact than any time in my 55 years on this earth.  Certainly, the psychiatrists and social scientists will write about this period of time for decades to come. The scientific themes and research will revolve around isolation, depression, anxiety and the overall physical decline of those who were compromised and the most vulnerable to the novel coronavirus.

There is no question that decreased physical contact and changes in routines and habits can throw all of us off our game. So many have lost their solid hold on the anchor lines of routine, comfort and familiarity. But did our dependence on other people for our happiness and joy make us vulnerable in ways we never expected? 

Happiness or Joy?

During the last nine months, I’m confident in saying we all have experienced the side effects of these pseudo government-imposed quarantines, confinements and solitude from limited human contact. Not many of us think it has been good for us and others, the social animals amongst us, think it has been the work of the devil himself.

Personally, I have learned some very valuable and lifelong lessons from this pandemic imposed by the changes to our day-to-day lives. Most importantly, my joy is not dependent on those around me and what they bring to the game. My joy comes from within and from above.

Praise the Lord! For he has heard 
my cry for mercy. The Lord is my 
strength and shield. I trust him 
with all my heart. He helps me, 
and my heart is filled with joy.
Psalm 28:6-7 

While happiness is temporary and fleeting, joy is deep, sustainable and long-lived if based in the promise of God’s plan for lives. Happiness is equivalent to a thread that can bind items together but has little strength under pressure and strain. Joy is a thick, tightly-woven and multistrand rope created to anchor and restrain heavy items like a ship or a barge.  When joy is fixed in our soul and anchored to Jesus’s love for us the anguish, the discomfort, and the turmoil we feel during a pandemic doesn’t knock us down to our knees. 

Joy is my equalizer that levels the panic and threat level and brings everything back into focus. I am not dependent on other people for my joy and my peace. My anchor rope is fixed to my Father who has promised strength, protection, salvation and joy.

Until now you have asked for 
nothing in My name; ask and 
you will receive, so that 
your joy may be made full.
John 16:24