21 Ways to Finding Peace and Happiness (9 page)

She seemed to function in that position well for a while, so I assumed I must have been wrong. But after a period of time went by, we began to have complaints of her mistreating other employees. She was always very respectful to me and other people in authority, but to those under her leadership she was a different person.

A phony is a person who pretends to be one thing to one group of people but is quite another at other times. I know she had the ability to be respectful because she treated me well, but she abused people when she thought she could get away with it. I absolutely despise that kind of attitude.

More than anything, Jesus despised the phonies of His day. He rebuked openly and often those who behaved well when someone was watching them but who, inside, were devouring wolves. People can pretend for a while, but under pressure the real person always shows up. I realized later that I should have listened to those inner promptings. God was giving me discernment about the woman that would have prevented a lot of heartache and wasted time and money had I listened.

There are intuitive (spiritual) feelings we should respect, but most of our emotional feelings will lead us into trouble if we obey or follow them. Emotions will tell us to bow down to fear, when actually that fear will destroy us if we don’t resist it. They tell us to give up on things that God intends us to finish or to purchase things we cannot afford and don’t even need. Satan uses our emotions to wreck our lives. Not only does Satan come against us through our emotions, but he also wars against our thoughts.

Examine your thoughts and feelings carefully. Don’t follow them unless you are sure they are conveying God’s will.

L
ET
P
EACE
B
E
Y
OUR
U
MPIRE

Paul told believers to let peace decide with finality every question that came up. We are to follow peace. If we will remember that, we will have lives we can really enjoy, not ones we just endure. I hate to see people with lifeless attitudes, people who are just going through the motions and enduring each day. I was one of those people for a long, long time, and I know from experience that we must press into peace and joy if we intend to have them. Satan definitely tries to steal the best in life. He is not enjoying himself and does not want any of us to enjoy life either.

If we would obey the teaching from Colossians 3:15, which says peace is to be the umpire in our lives, we would save ourselves unbelievable misery. We open the door for many difficulties in our lives through doing what we think or feel rather than following peace.

I’ve mentioned that, out of fear of being lonely, some people marry people whom deep down inside they don’t have peace about. I married out of fear when I was very young, and it ended in divorce a few years later. As I have mentioned in my teachings, I felt like used merchandise because of my father’s abuse. I was afraid that nobody would ever want me, so I married the first boy who showed interest in me. I think I knew it would never really work, but the fear of being lonely caused me to ignore the lack of peace I felt inside.

My first husband had lots of problems himself, and I know God was warning me that I would only get hurt more, but I took a chance. I gambled that maybe I could make a wrong decision and get right results. This, of course, was very foolish, and because of my decision I added another five years of torment and mistreatment to the ones I had already experienced. By the time my first marriage ended, I was twenty-three years old and could never remember being truly happy or having any real peace in my life.

It was not until I learned, many years later in life, to follow peace that I broke these negative patterns in my life. Peace is a wonderful thing; it leads us into many other blessings. We should be completely unwilling to do without it. As Psalm 34:14 states, crave peace, inquire for it, require it, and go after it! Don’t let worry or fear steal your peace.

D
ON’T
L
IVE IN
D
READ

Dread is closely related to fear. We might say it is the forerunner to fear. I believe a lot of people dread many things and yet don’t realize what a problem it is. We dread everything from getting out of bed to going to work, doing dishes, driving in traffic, paying our bills, confronting issues, and just about any little thing we can think of.

Why do we dread something we have to do anyway? Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can enjoy every aspect of life. An unbeliever may not be able to avoid dread, but a believer in Jesus Christ can. We have supernatural strength and ability available to us. Unbelievers have to depend on their feelings, but we can go beyond feeling and live by faith.

How we approach any situation makes all the difference as to whether we will enjoy it. We will, of course, be miserable if we approach driving to work in traffic with a negative, complaining attitude. It won’t do any good, because we must drive to work anyway.

It is actually extremely foolish to dread things we must do and know we will do. The main thing dread does is steal the peace and joy of life. It also drains us of energy and strength we need for the day.

God commanded the Israelites to “dread not,” nor fear their enemies (Deuteronomy 1:29). Can something like traffic be an enemy? Yes it can, if we perceive it that way. Anything that we don’t want in life, that hinders or aggravates us, we can perceive as an enemy. We are not to dread or fear anything—we are to live courageously and boldly.

Dread drains, faith energizes. Being negative drains us while being positive energizes us. Millions of people in the world today are tired. They see doctors who cannot find any real reason for their condition, so they tell them it is stress. Often we take medication for conditions that would be totally solved if we would eliminate worry, fear, and dread from our lives. If we will make a decision to approach every aspect of life, no matter what it is, with a pleasant, thankful attitude, we will see major changes for the better, even in our health.

The future is coming, no matter how much we fear or dread it. God gives us what we need for each day, but He does not give us tomorrow’s grace or wisdom today. If we use today trying to figure out tomorrow, we feel pressure because we are using what we have been allotted for today.

Probably one of the greatest ways we show our trust in God is by living life one day at a time. We prove our confidence in Him by enjoying today and not letting the concern of tomorrow interfere.

It made a big change in my life when I began to gain insight from the Holy Spirit on this problem of dreading things. This truth about living one day at a time greatly increased my peace and joy.

I learned that it really was not the event I was facing that was so bad—it was dreading it that made it bad. Our attitudes do make all the difference in the world. Learn to approach life with an “I can do whatever I need to do” attitude. Don’t say that you hate things like driving to work in traffic, going to the grocery store, cleaning house, doing laundry, changing the oil in the car, or cutting the grass. These chores are all part of life. Don’t let the events of life dictate your level of joy. It is the joy of the Lord that is your strength. Be joyful that you are going to heaven, that you have someone who always loves you, no matter what. Look at and concentrate on what you do have, not what you don’t have.

Everyone has to attend to some unpleasant details in life. We would not know what God’s peace was if we never had any difficulty to go through. It is in these difficulties that we learn how valuable His peace is to us.

Some things are certainly more naturally enjoyable and easier to do than others, but that does not mean we cannot purposely enjoy the other more difficult tasks. We can choose to have attitudes of joy and peace. Usually, if we don’t feel like doing something, we automatically assume we cannot enjoy it or have peace during that time, but that is a deception. We grow spiritually when we do difficult things with a good attitude.

I don’t always feel like being nice and pleasant, but I can choose to in order to honor God. We live for His glory, not our own pleasure. Dreading things does not glorify God. He wants us to live aggressively, to be alive and face each day with courage. How would any parents feel if their children got up each day and said they feared and dreaded the day the parents had prepared for them? They would, of course, feel terrible. God is a parent—He is our parent. The psalmist David said, “This is the day which the Lord has brought about; we will rejoice and be glad in it” (see Psalm 118:24). Notice he said, “We
will
rejoice,” not “We
feel like
rejoicing.”

W
HAT
D
OES
T
HE
F
UTURE
H
OLD
?

The future holds a mixture of things we will enjoy and things we would rather do without, but both will come. In Philippians 4:11–12, Paul experienced abasing and abounding, but he also stated that he was able to be content in both, and we also have this option (and ability) as a gift from God.

Jesus promised us that in the world we would have tribulation, but He told us to “cheer up” because He had overcome the world and deprived it of power to really harm us (see John 16:33). Dreading hard times will not prevent them from coming, but it will make them even more difficult than they would have been. Make life as easy as possible; don’t dread it. Face it with courage and say, “I will not fear, because greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world” (see 1 John 4:4).

No mortal really knows what the future holds, only God knows, and He does not usually tell us what it is. Why doesn’t He reveal more to us about the future? Because He wants us to trust Him that everything will work out for our ultimate good, that all things work together to help accomplish His will for each of us. We may not know what the future holds, but we can be satisfied to know Him, the one who does know.

I spent some time today thinking about the future, and I realized that everything out there won’t be something I will welcome with open arms. I will face things that I would rather not have to deal with, but I cannot stop them, so I may as well embrace and go through them with a smile on my face.

I am convinced of one thing: I may go through difficulties, but God also has wonderful things planned for me. He always balances things so we don’t become discouraged and defeated by too many difficult days without good ones in between. Remember, God never allows more to come on us than what we can bear, but with every temptation He also always provides the way out.

I have noticed in my life that when I have truly had all I can take, something happens to relieve the pressure for a while. I get built up, rested, and have times of joy, then perhaps go another round with the trouble. When I feel I have reached my limit, I pray for good news, because the Bible says that good news nourishes us, it encourages us and strengthens us. Another Scripture says that David prayed for God to show him evident signs of His goodwill and favor (see Psalm 86:17); I also pray for that, and God always gives me what I need when I need it.

Remember, James 4:2 says we have not because we ask not. Ask God for good news—ask Him to encourage you. Too often in life, we go to people for encouragement or even get angry at them when they are not giving it to us. We should go to God because He is the God of all comfort (see 2 Corinthians 1:3).

We would not need faith if everything in life went the way we wanted. We would need no patience if we never had to wait for anything. Faith and patience work together to bring our breakthroughs. While we are waiting, let us do so with joy and peace. This shows that we are children of God.

The whole world lives in fear and dread, but God’s children should not. We are to behave differently from the people in the world; we should let our light shine. Just being positive in a negative circumstance is a way to do this. The world will notice when we are stable in every kind of situation.

Make up your mind right now that all of life does not need to make you feel good in order for you to face it with peace and joy. Make a decision that you will not dread anything you have to do. Do it all with a thankful attitude. There are people who are sick and diseased or perhaps in the hospital who would absolutely love to be able to move about enough to do what you may be dreading.

I never considered driving down the street to get a cup of coffee a huge privilege until after I had been hospitalized with breast cancer and had surgery. When I was released, I asked my husband to take me out for a coffee and a drive through a local park. It was amazing how much joy I felt.

I was doing a very simple thing that was previously available to me every day, yet I had never seen it as a privilege. When I had faced the possibility of death or long-term treatment for cancer and discovered I would not only live but was pronounced well, I suddenly loved life so much that very simple things brought extreme joy.

Our son went on an outreach with a team of people who go visit the homeless each Friday evening. After helping in this ministry, he called me and said, “If I ever complain again, please knock me down and then kick me for being so stupid!” He was appalled at himself for the things he had murmured about in the past once he saw by comparison how some people were living. We would all feel exactly the same way.

Those without a place to live would love to have a house to clean, while we dread cleaning ours. They would delight in having a car to drive, even an old one, while we complain about needing to wash ours or take it in for an oil change.

I am sure you are getting my point. We lose sight of how blessed we are most of the time, but we should work at keeping it in the front of our thinking. Be thankful you can do anything, and don’t dread things you have to do.

Choose to bless God all the time, no matter what is going on, as David did: “I
WILL
bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth” (Psalm 34:1, italics mine).