Tag Archives: Happiness

Five pitfalls to avoid when looking for happiness. | Janet Perez Eckles

16 Jan

Walking by Faith, Not by Sight

Janet Perez Eckles

His Way

 

“I know the guy is not the right one for her,” my friend said some years back. “But as long as she’s happy.”

Her daughter married him and shortly after, it ended in a painful and bitter divorce.

Is wishing happiness what we want for our kids? Happiness is often confused with joy. Happiness can turn to sadness. And looking for it leaves us disappointed.

Here are five pitfalls to avoid when looking for happiness:

  • Looking for it in relationships. Happiness cannot be found in another person, for they’re looking for their own path to happiness.
  • Longing to be happy by pleasing others rather than pleasing God first
  • .Expecting circumstances to make us happy, for they change as quickly as the weather.
  • Waiting for someone to change before we feel happy.
  • Expecting that happiness will last and bring fulfillment

.Happiness is fleeting, often elusive and deceptive. Joy is what the soul longs for. Peace is what our heart needs. Wisdom is what brings the greatest rewards. And contentment is what ushers the richness of life.

That richness is found in complete joy, the kind that’s already in us when we believe: “As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Now remain in My love. If you obey My commands, you will remain in My love, just as I have obeyed My Father’s commands and remain in His love. I have told you this so that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” (John 15:9-11)

His joy can’t be taken away by circumstances, stages of life, unexpected turns or even tragic events. When happiness wanes, His joy in us remains vibrant. What will you do with your new-found joy?

Janet

Source: Five pitfalls to avoid when looking for happiness. | Janet Perez Eckles

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Minute Meditations~2

26 Apr

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills

                     

What is happiness? Or better yet…..what is your IDEA of what happiness is? Is it just a state of mind? Is our happiness determined by our circumstances?

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A pastor said once, that when we are God’s child, happiness is what resides in our hearts and minds always, and that joy or sorrow can’t really touch it; that the circumstances where we find ourselves do NOT determine whether we are happy or not….we have God’s abiding happiness within us.

Joy
Sorrow

 

Filling our hearts with God’s love gives us permanent happiness, that allows us to be happy, or content, in whatever situations we find ourselves.

My brother, Bill, wrote about this very thing. These are his thoughts:

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Can we see just how God wants us to look to Him for our happiness? No matter what happens, with God in our hearts, we can depend upon Him to give us the answers we seek to ALL our earthly problems. He is true and faithful to His word.

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The Promise

12 Mar

From the Heart

Louise Gibson

Louise Gibson

 

 

 

When we wake up in the morning

there is promise in the air.

We don’t know what the day will bring,

but the expectancy is there.

 

The time to be happy is now.

We have this day to explore.

Every day is a special occasion-

What are you waiting for?

 

 

“This is the day that the Lord has made.

We will rejoice and be glad in it.”

Psalm 118:24

JOY

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What Makes You Happy?

1 Oct

My Take

 DiVoran

I saw a documentary called, “Happy,” recently. It shows what makes people happy or unhappy all over the world.

The most shocking thing I learned is that many people in Japan are unhappy and worse they actually drop dead of overwork. It’s called Keroshi. It’s from trying to beef up their gross national product.(GNP) since the devastation of WWII. They have succeeded thanks partly to a hand up from the U. S. A.

So far, Danes are considered the happiest people in the world. They may choose lightly communal homes, which have large kitchens where folks share the cooking, and everyone takes at least one meal a day together if they want to. There’s always someone there and they make dear friends who become to them like family. Family and friends make people happy.

The Asian country of Bhutan is passing up striving for increased gross national product and going for gross national happiness (GNH) instead. When a business opportunity comes to the country the first thing the government asks is whether or not the steps they must take will further their goal of GNH or thwart it. This includes things like building dams and flooding communities just for material gain.

In America, we have a whole range from people walking around in Zombie fogs of self-pity to exuberant people (born extra happy).

Drs Meier and Minrith express a profound idea in the title of their book, Happiness is a Choice. Hannah Whitehall Smith echoes this idea, in hers, The Christian’s Secret to a Happy Life.

You may be wondering, however, what about money?

The thing about money is that if you have enough for the basic human needs described in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs you’re a great deal happier than if you don’t. Of course. Once those needs are met and you have some extra for comforts and fun things, then being rich doesn’t add a thing. That is unless like R. G. Le Tourneau you give away 90% of your income for God to use as he wishes. That’ll make you happy.

George Mueller is my hero. By 1875, he had lodged, fed, and educated over two thousand English children who would have otherwise been completely destitute and he did it without taking a salary and without fundraising. He prayed and taught the children to pray for all their needs and people obeyed God and brought the supply.

Here’s his take on happiness:

“I saw more clearly than ever that the first great primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord.

It’s miraculous how much that has helped me over the years as I have tried to practice it.

Nehemiah 8:10

 

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