“Be happy” is such an easy thing to say but excruciatingly difficult to attain if you don’t know how. You can find yourself seemingly locked out of heaven doomed to live on scraps of grace just because your perspective is wrong. Heaven is not in the business of closing its doors. It’s actually in the business of opening them to those who understand the simple fact that it’s a choice to be saved just as it is a choice to be happy.
The difference between a meaningful life and a waste of existence is what you choose to believe about it. God has given us free will so that we may choose the better truth. Oh how I wish I could say that knowing this makes it easier somehow but it doesn’t because I still find myself having to make the choice all these years later.
Things can go wildly wrong in a split second and they can leave you thinking that maybe the odds have always been stacked against you. The small glimmer of hope you were holding onto was just a hint of insult waiting to add sting to the wound when the cold reality finally hit. Unfortunately choosing to be happy isn’t a shield against the hard seasons in life, you’ve got to make the choice knowing that it’s not an exemption.
So I have a few things I’d like to share and I hope that it will help somebody to look up at the stars though we are all in the gutter (borrowed from Oscar Wilde’s – “We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars”)
Stop comparing your real life to your perception of other people’s lives
I read in a book once that we often compare ourselves at our worst with other people at their best and I’d say it’s a pretty accurate statement especially when we are dissatisfied with some aspect of our own lives. The other day Cynthia and I were having a chat and in the middle I found myself having to admit how much it was affecting me to see such perfect projections of other people’s lives on social media.
It was as if their hair is always newly done, their funds always on fleek, their little ones always so adorable and their homes always as inviting and desirable as the pictures say. I felt left out and depressed by it because it wanted to confirm that I really am lagging behind for someone my age.
Dissatisfaction is kind of a constant and we actually have to manage it if we are going to move forward. I find these days that the more open I am to myself about how I feel about something and how the feeling affects me I actually become better able to cope with it and can even be happy through it.
I no longer have to sit and blank out for hours on end all but accusing God of conspiring to keep me miserable and that is because my perspective has changed. It didn’t just change overnight though and it didn’t erase all the fears that still pop up every now and then but it gave me a fighting chance to make better choices about my emotional well being.
Don’t let what could have been stop you from what is and what can be
If we could just dare to dream then we would know what desires that God could grant us. A challenge in our world today is that we assume the worst to protect our fragile hearts from dealing with disappointment if our hopes don’t come to pass. These days when I encounter disappointment I don’t allow it to define me. I allow myself to mourn what I thought could have been and then I get back up again and give it to God, knowing that my life is His and His purpose is mine and nothing is ever wasted.
Through pain and tears I have learnt some of the most profound truths about life including the truth that sorrow is not meant to break us or to drown us, but it is there to grow us and increase our endurance for where we are going. Yes worse things may happen but you have not lost until you start thinking that you have. You may have walked out onto the water in faith but you only start sinking when you start questioning your progress and paying greater attention to your current circumstances than the bigger picture.
Be grateful for what you do have
You could have less or you could have none at all but you have that little bit. You may not see it as much but the Creator of the universe saw fit for you to have it. What if you were faithful with that small thing, do you really think God would withhold more from you?
I just want to encourage us to keep going and question some aspects of our perspective as we do..there are things that may be hindering us because we have always believed they were beyond our control and maybe now is the season to challenge that so we can step into our true blessed nature.
