Happy New Year! May God bless us richly in 2008! I hope we spend this coming year happy with who we are and accepting ourselves, faults and all. Loving ourselves as wonderful creations of God will help us to grow socially, physically, and emotionally according to Joel Osteen in Chapter 11 of Your Best Life Now. He also admonishes us to quit wishing we were something different and not to compare ourselves with other people. Hopefully, this is the year that we will choose to no longer see any value in comparing ourselves to others. When we find ourselves comparing who we are with who someone else is, we can now recognize that not only are we being unloving to ourselves, but we are setting the other person up as our enemy. Admiring someone's abilities and aspiring to them as a positive role model is quite different from drawing comparisons and judging ourselves or the other person. As we look for and find everyone's uniqueness and support them where they are, we can also appreciate and enhance ourselves. God made each of us an original. Joel says, "We should not feel badly because our personality, tastes, hobbies, or even spiritual tendencies are not the same as another person's......Be happy with who God make you to be." We need to be determined to be the best we can be. "Let each one examine his own work," says Galatians 6:4.
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Sorry....I posted under Frank again. We share the computer so that happens a lot.
Joel talks about seeking counsel but then relying on inner direction. We need to learn to accept direction from our inner, intuitive voice, which is our guide to knowing. That's listening to the Holy Spirit. He will provide the means for accomplishing whatever is necessary. When we make a decision that is right for us, a good feeling ensues....a feeling of peace.
I was thinking about chapter 11 today and about being happy with who I am, especially this time of year. New Years has always been a time of resolutions, usually about losing weight, for Frank and me. I think most of us try to improve ourselves, but this chapter reminds us to be grateful for who we are. I think if we begin with the premise of loving ourselves the way we are while at the same time realizing that we want to be the best we can be, we will succeed in our endeavors of self-improvement. Joel ends the chapter saying, "if you'll just be happy with who God made you to be and make a decision that you're going to be the best you can be, God will pour out His favor in your life, and you'll live that life of victory He has in store for you." Thank You, Lord. I'm claiming that promise right now.
Last year at Christmas time, Holly gave our bible study group a MAX LUCADO calendar. For January 5, he wrote something that fits chapter 11 very well. He said, "Da Vinci painted one MONA LISA. Beethoven composed one FIFTH SYMPHONY. And God made one version of YOU. He custom designed you for a one-of-a-kind assignment. Mine like a gold digger the unique-to-you nuggets from your life." That is so awesome. Joel says, "Be an original...God has given us all different gifts, talents, and personalities on purpose. You really don't need anybody else's approval to do what you know God wants you to do." Amen!
I look forward to 2008, a better understanding of my life, a greater wisdom and compassion and a deeper courage to continue my journey.
God has a plan for our victory. We have to trust Him today. The Bible says He has plans for your God, not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. We need to develop a prosperous mind-set seeing ourselves as the royalty God made us to be.
God has already blessed us now it's up to us to start acting and realizing what we already have. Be grateful.
It is difficult at this time to focus on happiness in the future with Casey's father dying. But I think of the happiness and peacefulness Steve Douglass will be enduring in a short while in Heaven and that makes me smile. He will have no more pain, no worries, and something we should all be looking forward to. I know Casey & Monica may not see it this way but I hope to make them realize the advantages of heaven. I just haven't had private time with them. I ran across an interesting article from a church newsletter that I will write a little later in this blog concerning our New Year.
Thanks, Jeanie, for sharing on the blog. I always look forward to hearing from you. I'm sorry about Steve Douglass. In this time when Casey and Monica will need comfort, I'm glad you will be there for them and their children. God will be there too, and they will not be alone. Deuteronomy 31:6 says, "Be strong and bold....it is the Lord your God who goes with you; He will not fail you or forsake you." Thank you, Jeanie, for sharing the verse about God having plans for us. It makes me look forward to 2008. This morning at church, the song leader referred to this year as Two thousand Great. That's what Tori called it too last time we saw her. Let's plan to have a great year! God will be with us through this journey, and we will never be alone.
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