I confess that I do not get to church now at 69 because of the 24/7 caregiving schedule I am responsible for. Still, I had a wonderful year about three years ago when I actually made it to church several times a week for almost that whole year. When I was in southern CA, in 1979, I watched TV preachers every Sunday. One Sunday, in Torrance, I went on a marathon from 7 a.m. until 1 p.m. and watched every one that was on that morning. At that time, the time slot was full. This Sunday morning, I watched Joel Osteen and was very glad I did.
I might not agree with all the TV evangelists all of the time, but the times that I do, I find that God must have directed me to that broadcast at that time. This morning, he spoke of letting our joy get away from us, letting others take it from us. He was absolutely right. We are responsible for our own happiness. We cannot make another person happy if that person does not want to be happy. But no matter what life is dealing us, ourselves, at this moment, we can choose to be happy about being loved by God, about knowing he is watching out for us, about being able to go to him with our problems.
If someone we know constantly tries to take our happiness away from us, our internal peace, we can try to avoid that person. Often, that is not possible. We can let them carry on, we can let them bait us, but we can refuse to take the bait, we can let if roll off of us. If a boss does not promote us and we feel we deserve it, we cannot change that employer. But we can change our attitude. We can be happy doing our job the best we can, with or without recognition. It is not our job to change that person. It is our job to be happy as a child of God. I am very glad I watched that broadcast. I needed it at that moment.
Thank you, Dear Lord, for guiding me to your messages when I need them desperately.
1 comment:
Thank you for this. It was a Godsend to remind me that we are in charge of our own happiness and that we can't rely on other people to make us happy.
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