Courage For Today

joy

Let Go and Let Grow

Grace

“…when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. ”  (James 1:2-4)

Trials in life are not usually considered as an opportunity for great joy, but that is just what God tells us to consider it. This doesn’t make any sense to our human logic, but through Christ it makes all the sense in the world. As difficult as it is during the trial, we must all learn to see our trials as God does.

Trials present us with the prospect of growth and development.  The trials we face should lead us to lean on the promises of God. They should encourage us to abide in His love and care for us; they should encourage us to go to the Word for the help we need. As we do this, we will find ourselves nourished spiritually and we will find the joy that abides in His presence.

Trials also teach us endurance or patience. They teach us to stay cheerful and hopeful as long as we remain focused on the promises of God. Faith and patience go hand-in-hand, and they bring God’s promises to fruition in our lives. As long as we abide in the Word and remain focused on God’s promises (rather than our situation) we will grow spiritually—–so, let it grow!

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The Peace of Returning to Your First Love

Encouragement

“But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.” (Revelation 2:4)

Complacency in life is something we all have to guard against.  It’s so easy to get in a comfort zone and lose sight of your true mission and calling in life.  When reading this verse in Revelation,  you see that Jesus was complimenting the Church of Ephesus on the longevity of their faith and some of their good deeds.  However, he was disappointed in them as they seemingly had forgotten their past and from where they had fallen.  They had gotten comfortable  and were not doing the things they had done at first—they had lost their Joy.  They had forgotten their excitement when they first met their Spiritual Bride–Christ himself.  In other words, they were just going through the motions of “playing church.”

I can identify with the Church of Ephesus.  There have been times when I’ve just gone through the motions of “Church World” and have even done what Peter did in John 21:3 when he said he was “going fishing.”  At that particular time, Peter showed us that he had temporarily lost his Joy and went back to what was comfortable to him.  We’ve all done this at one time or another.

The question is:  Are you going to stay comfortable and complacent, or are you going to return to your First Love and do what God has called you to do?

Courage Thoughts for Today:

  1. Think back on when you first accepted Christ as your Savior and how excited you were?
  2. Do you still have that same level of passion today?
  3. Have you gone back to what is comfortable in your life, rather than what you should be doing for Christ?
  4. What can you do, starting today, to return to your first love?

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Happiness or Joy

Grace

My Mom went on to be with the Lord in May, 2006.  There have been many days since then that I think back on how wonderfully blessed I was to have had her as a Mom.  I suppose there are many of us that would say the same things about their own Mom. Looking back on her now, after these years, it’s even more amazing to me how special she was.  How she lived her life and how she treated others made a permanent impact on the many lives whose paths she crossed.

It wasn’t that she was some “great” member of society, as we would know it.  She wasn’t a great business person.  She didn’t have a worthy profession such as a Nurse or School Teacher.  In fact, there was nothing that would really set her apart by the world’s standards.  But, as I came to learn, she didn’t live by the world’s standards.  She had another set of heavenly standards and priorities by which she operated.  Standards that are ever so hard to follow, but seemed effortless with her.

Mom was not blessed with good physical health.  She suffered through multiple back operations (8 or 9, I believe); multiple blood clots as a result of various surgeries; strokes; lung and breathing issues; and on and on I could go.  The point here is not what she suffered through but rather the victories that she lived while enduring these issues.  I know I am biased in saying what I am about to say, but I can honestly and sincerely say that I can’t remember a time where I ever heard her overly complain about her lot in life.  She never had the “woe is me” complex, or the “God, why me” complex.  I never heard her say she wished that she was not the way she was, or if she could be like someone else.  Honestly, not one time did I ever hear that from her lips.

To me, it was such a perfect example of how we should lead our life’s.  We are so caught up in materialism and “keeping up with the Jones'” that we lose sight of what is really important in life.  We think that buying the next car, or better house, or whatever might be on your list, will suddenly make us happy.  Instead, it just makes us emptier.  I realized that there is a tremendous difference between Happiness and Joy.  Contrary to popular belief, they’re not the same.

Mom had a special relationship with our Creator.  A personal relationship.  She just didn’t know who He was. She knew Him on a personal level.  She had total and complete confidence that her life was exactly as He designed it.  Even though, by the World’s standards, her life was painful beyond measure, she still had that inner confidence to know that she was in His hands and in His control.  Mom’s happiness was not based on the outer self.  It wasn’t based on the best car, or best house, or even how good she felt on a particular day—because she had many days in which she felt terribly.  She learned the difference between having an inner Joy and peace that only a relationship with our Creator can provide.  She learned that even though she may not always be “happy” with things that may have been going on in her life, she could still have that inner “joy” that gave her the strength to make it.

To this day, when I find myself feeling unhappy or sad, or even jealous of someone else, I remember my Mom and I remember that it really is the Joy in HIM that I should reach out and grab, and not the fleeing happiness that this world offers.  Happiness is temporary.  Joy is permanent.

Which one will you pursue?

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