An Encouraging Word

Worry is something the evil one uses to get our attention. When a child screams in a crowded store, everyone cringes. The focus you entered with has now shifted. You try to ignore it, but the sound reverberating off every surface causes you to lose interest, maybe to the point of leaving the store.

The evil one does the same thing. He introduces a worry into our minds, and elevates it until we can’t think of anything else. We try to push it aside and go on about our business, but we find our concentration has been broken.  The problem is, we can’t leave our own heads.

Most of what we worry about never happens. It’s a distraction to keep our minds from focusing on our Father’s business. In Matthew 6: 25-34, Jesus tells us not to worry, because we can’t add a single hour to our lives. The answer He says is to seek first his kingdom, and His righteousness, and the things we need will be given to us.

Easier said than done, I know. But trust builds over time. When you start to worry, remember the devil wants you to focus on the screaming two-year-old in your head. Instead, try to focus on the last wonderful thing God did for you. He loves to give us good things. And when we remember those things over and over, He is glorified, and we feel better.

In my family we have a little joke. When someone goes out Christmas or birthday shopping we say, happy thoughts, happy thoughts! We want the person buying our presents to be happy, so the gift will be a good one. But happy thoughts are important all year long. Every day we are tempted to focus on the negative. We can wallow in our troubles or we can remember God’s grace and look for the good.

I was reminded again yesterday when I had lunch with a friend. Traffic was horrible due to an accident, and I was really late. I absolutely hate tardiness, so I was out of sorts when we heard a negative news report. I said to her “the world is evil”.   She smiled and told me about her neighborhood facebook page,  where all kinds of people thanked each other for helping get their cars out of snow banks. I needed a reminder to look for the good.

Philippians 4:8 says “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

It’s impossible to be happy if we dwell on the negative, and it’s also impossible to be miserable if we dwell on the positive. Watch for good, search it out. It’s there waiting.

A stained glass window is gorgeous by itself, the vision of the artist intricately executed in glass. But when light shines through it, the colors radiate, touching every surface with beauty. God is like sunshine in our lives. We’re gifted with abilities and talents to use any way we wish, but it’s only when we allow God to work through us that our life expands and touches the people around us. When you let your light shine, good things happen. When you let God’s light shine through you, great things happen.

What is Joy? My favorite definition is a calm delight.  It’s different from happiness which comes and goes, triggered by events and circumstances.  Joy is deeper; more a state of being. I believe joy flows under the surface of our lives continuously.  We don’t always access it, but when we open the wellspring, we experience a soul satisfying sense of well being.

So how do we find joy?

1. Praise – 1 Thes 5:16-18 ¹⁶ Rejoice always, ¹⁷ pray continually, ¹⁸ give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.  He’s not so much giving a command, as He is providing guidance. The best route to joy is in praising our creator. If you’ve lost your bliss – start singing and praising God for each and every good thing, and keep it up.  It may feel strange at first, but it will grow.

2. Nature – The verse on my welcome page is a favorite of mine. Search out the beauty of God’s creation every day and discover joy in your surroundings. When the big picture is unclear, focus on a single flower, or the sunset, or a star filled sky. Pause and experience a moment of joy.

3. Generosity –The pipeline absorbs the blessing. In other words, when God works through us to fill a need, we experience joy in the doing. He allows us to help, and it takes our minds off ourselves and helps us remember his greatness.

4. Grace –Giving grace to each other is generosity of spirit. When we allow others to make a mistake without harsh criticism, we can allow ourselves to be human as well. Fear of a blunder can produce heavy stress. Giving a break to yourself and others will produce its own form of joy.

We who’ve been around the block a few times, know better than to ask for patience. Not because we don’t want it, but because we know what’ll happen if we ask. We won’t suddenly wake up feeling serene and unruffled, what we’ll get is something to be patient about.

I heard Joyce Meyer say it best. She said, “Patience isn’t the act of waiting, it’s how you act while you’re waiting.” Ugh. When she said that, I admit I squirmed a little in my seat. And when I repeated it in a bible study, it had a similar effect.

It’s not always a symptom of pride, although it can be if we grumble about waiting in line at the grocery store, or refuse to let someone squeeze in front of us in traffic. Sometimes it’s a trust issue. We may feel a delayed answer to our prayer means it’s never going to happen. We asked too much this time, or we don’t deserve it, or we shouldn’t have bothered God with such a trivial matter.

The truth is, God cares about our hopes and dreams. He has a plan, and he’ll bring it to pass when the time is right. Instead of questioning Him and ourselves, I think what He wants to hear is, “I trust you, Lord, and I know you’re working on my behalf.” Can you imagine the awesomeness of that statement? The almighty God is working on our behalf. It boggles the mind at times.

So we need to keep going, even when we don’t immediately see the answer. Maybe that’s why it’s called ‘practicing patience.’ I’m sure I’ll be practicing until Jesus comes back.

Humility is like patience, something we want, without going through the pain of acquiring it. I’ve heard it described as a courteous respect for others. The Bible calls it not thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought.

We all want people to think well of us, it’s human nature. And it takes some self confidence to make it in this world. So when does self confidence turn into arrogance? I’m not sure I know the answer, but I think it’s when we start treating someone as if they aren’t as good as us. We may not mean to, but suddenly, it happens. And if we’re truly humble, we feel bad.

I see humility as the result of a refining process designed to take the rough edges off our personality. Without it we can’t help others, because we won’t let God help us. If we think we can do a better job ourselves, He’s likely to let us get on with it. Unfortunately we can’t, and we trip and fall, skinning our knees in the process.

Don’t feel bad if you’ve taken a tumble. We’ve all had our share of skinned knees. The idea is to get back up, a little wiser this time. There’s an old saying “Don’t think less of yourself; think of yourself less.” It’s a valuable piece of advice. If we’re focused on the needs of others and building them up, we’re not thinking about how it reflects on us. And soon we don’t care if we look a little foolish. Hey foolishness happens sometimes, and it happens to everyone, it’s how we earn humility.

When someone says I see you, what feeling does that evoke? What about when God says it? Does it excite you because you thought he forgot you were down here? Does it make you nervous?

There was a movie where “I see you” was a greeting. It meant, I see the essence of you, I understand who you are at your core. Many times I think we long for someone to understand us, to know we don’t mean to harm. That the real us is someone who wants to follow God, who wants to be kind and gentle, who wants to get it right.

God sees you.  He understands you perfectly and loves you without restraint. He sees the puzzle completed; the picture that is you. And not just who you are but who you will become. He sees a spark of greatness. He knows it’s in you, because He put it there.

So stop being so hard on yourself. Try seeing yourself the way God sees you. He knows you’re not perfect, and he doesn’t expect you to be. He just wants us to keep trying – to keep reaching higher, and let Him help us get there.

And what about the people around us? Can we say that we “see” each other? Can we look beyond what we see with our physical eyes and see them with our spirit? It’s a tall order. It’s one thing to perceive greatness in ourselves, but what about that person in your life who makes you nuts?

There’s a spark of greatness in them too. There are hopes and dreams in them that we might be able to recognize and encourage. All through the gospels Christ told us to love one another, and he modeled it for us. He showed us that what we see on the outside isn’t all there is. Can we take the time to find out what makes someone tick?  What dreams make them who they are? What disappointments have warped their view of themselves or even of God? Maybe then we can understand them and encourage them to be everything they were created to be. And while we’re helping someone else fulfill their dream, we may look around and discover we’ve made some strides toward our own.

This picture makes me smile. It was taken in New Mexico at the Balloon Fiesta a few years ago. I was with my good friend, and we saw everything from a butterfly and a clock, to Darth Vader and Elvis, in balloon form, lift to the sky with effortless ease.

Of course it wasn’t effortless. Each team worked hard to get their massive balloon into the air. But once there, they gazed down upon the rest of us from a vantage point that I can only imagine made every problem along the way seem small.

Jeremiah 29:11 says “I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Whatever you’re going through now, God knows. He knows, and He cares. This isn’t all there is. He has a plan for your future. The dream you have in your heart, you know, the one that won’t go away? It’s there for a reason. God put a spark of greatness in each of us to be what he envisioned when He created us. What spark did he place in the center of your heart? Stop ignoring it, you don’t want it to go away.

Let your hopes and dreams soar.

Do you ever feel like you are between a rock and a hard place? That whatever decision you choose has negative consequences, and that a positive outcome is not possible? Sometimes there are only two options; bad and worse. But sometimes there’s a third alternative. I like to call that one ‘door number three’.

These are the solutions that don’t come to us right away. The ones that God whispers in our ear when we stop worrying and complaining long enough to listen. And believe me, I’m guilty of asking him a question and then moving right along without waiting for an answer. God gave me a hint recently when a problem seemed so insurmountable that I couldn’t see around it. I’m paraphrasing since I can’t remember the exact words that came to my mind, but basically He said, I heard you. I’m working on it. I want you to stop asking, and start thanking me for what I am already doing.

It was quite a revelation. Even I was tired of asking the same thing over and over, and I’m sure He was tired of hearing it. It gave me comfort to place my problem in His hands and know that He had everything under control. I won’t say that I didn’t worry about it again, that would be lying, and we know how He feels about that, right? I did pull it back and gnaw on it in my spirit, but I would remember what He said and I would thank him again.

He was working on it, and the solution was so much better than anything I could have imagined. The thanking part was for me, not Him, although He deserves our thanks. In thanking him, it moved me into a new place. A place of trust. Try it, see what happens.

When I thought about what this first blog post should be about, I made a list of areas in which people need encouragement. The list included family, marriage, work, a large task, etc. It seemed that many of the items on my list shared a common theme. Fear. Fear of failure, fear of success, fear that something bad will happen if…

Fear is one of the most insidious of emotions. It slithers into our psyche without our knowledge or permission, flashing pictures in our mind of the worst possible scenarios. Even when things are going well, it can raise its ugly head, suggesting misfortune is right around the corner. It’s a mist, a vapor that we can’t quite grasp. If we could only grab it by the neck and strangle it into submission, we could live and never be afraid. Alas, it slips through our fingers yet again.

One thing to remember is that the what we fear seldom materializes. Or at least it’s usually not as bad as we envisioned. The next is that it happens to everyone. Even the most brave person has felt fear, and will feel it again. So what do we do? Do we hide in the shadows, living our lives in the safe box that we’ve created for ourselves? Or do we step out and perhaps, just maybe, make a new life that we never dreamed could be ours?

You know what I’m going to say, I’m going to say step out. One step. Don’t envision the whole mountain, just the first step. You will probably find that the mountain begins to shrink to a hill. And if you’re wrong? If you find out it wasn’t the correct route? Hey, it was just one step.