Musings by John Weir

"Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength" (Neh 8:10).

One of the overriding evidences that someone has a genuine relationship with our living Savior is their consistent attitude of joy and outlook on life. A follower of Jesus should not be a person who always looks at life as if the glass is half empty. Instead, we should be the most positive people on earth. We should see opportunity in the midst of challenges.

The light that resides in you should be like the beam of a lighthouse to a ship that is seeking direction. Our lives should have the fragrance of Christ. People should be attracted to our lives just as the bee is attracted to the nectar in the colorful flower.

The apostle Paul understood this when he said, "But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life" (2 Cor 2:14-16).

I must admit I’ve been with some believers whose attitude toward life is more like a porcupine. It’s painful to get too close to them because of their negative and poisonous view of life that criticizes the world around them.

No matter what circumstance you may find yourself in, the joy of the Lord must be your strength. Paul learned this truth even in the midst of his adversities. "I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength (Phil 4:12-13).

I know I have to put more effort into practicing living the Joy everyday. We all do. Just remember that anything worth doing is worth doing well, and there is nothing more important than living for Christ.

How would others describe your joy quotient? On a scale of 1 to 10, where would they rank you? Today, make a commitment to greet every circumstance knowing that the joy of the Lord is your strength.

There comes a time in life when it’s time to let go of all the pointless drama and the people who create it and surround yourself with people who make you laugh so hard you forget about the bad and focus solely on the good. -Author Unknown

Do you often engage with people who take pleasure in espousing crazy talk, negativity or living in the past? Or do you share your time with people who are mostly positive, supportive and creative? If you are surrounded by the former, I recommend you start letting go of those people and look for those who will lift you up, inspire and motivate you. If today is the last day of your life who do you want to spend it with?

You have nothing to  gain by allowing people to hang around who are toxic, living in the past, disinterested in self growth … OR … whom have little interest in supporting you as you improve, grow and change?

It does not happen overnight, but start today by distancing yourself, making yourself a little less available, and work on making changes to your life. After all, you never know when your last day of life will be.

The next time you feel a strong joy, happiness, or whatever the good feeling when you connect with someone, understand that feeling, that emotion of joy is just a glimpse of the extreme joy that is in store for us in heaven.

1. Smile: If you smile, you’ll notice two things: smiles are contagious, and they actually improve your mood.  People respond to smiles with friendliness and generosity, which could turn your whole day around. Smiles even work during telephone conversations, where they can be heard clear as day by whomever you’re speaking with.

2. Project Confidence: Boost the positive energy in your communications by providing additional non-verbal cues: upright posture, firm handshake, uncrossed arms, calm demeanor, and appropriate eye contact. 

3. Dress the Part: You don’t have to dress like James Bond everyday (unless maybe you’re a caterer), but dressing near the peak of appropriateness for your surroundings has 2 important effects: people may lend you greater legitimacy and respect, and because of this, you may feel and act more empowered.  Superficial or not, the effect is real.   

4. Say Something Nice: Every day, life presents you with another opportunity to say something kind, generous, and genuine to somebody. Whether it’s complimenting a co-worker on his new tie or admiring someone’s accomplishment, boosting the positive energy in someone else’s life boosts it in your own too.

5. Increase Positive Relationships: If you surround yourself with positive, supportive people instead of deadbeats and abusers – well, that’s half the battle, isn’t it?

6. Group Learning: Find something productive that you love to do (writing, dancing, acting, programming, or whatever) and then find a group of like-minded people who are interested in learning this activity with you. The group is your support structure and your growth catalyst, and it will help you accomplish something you can be proud of.

7. Morning Gratitude: Every morning, remind yourself of all the things you have to be thankful for: relationships, shelter, food, family, and whatever else makes you feel happy to be alive.

8. Turn a Problem into a Puzzle: Sometimes a single word can make all the difference, and “problem” is one of those words. I’ve often wondered if children would take more readily to mathematics if we called them math puzzles instead of math problems: problem is such a negative, hopeless, impotent word. When a problem descends upon your life, think of it as a puzzle. Is there a way to solve this puzzle? If so, start putting the pieces together, calmly and with confidence.

9. Fill that Glass: Yes, the world is full of negative circumstances that require your attention, so don’t bury your head in the sand. But do remind yourself that there are just as many positive forces in the world as negative ones; your fixation on the negative is a matter of perspective and choice.

10. Make Negative Thoughts Count: Make sure the time you spend thinking unhappy thoughts is productive: planning solutions, developing serenity, or learning a valuable lesson.

11. Positive Introspection: Take time to inventory the characteristics that make you valuable: skills, attitudes, generosity, capacity to love, and so forth. Be aware of all the wonderful abilities you bring to the table. Write them down if you have to. Everyone has something valuable to contribute.

12. Positive Affirmation: I’ve never been much of an affirmation specialist, but my motto on affirmations is simple: as long as affirmations are representative of reality and are not keeping you from dealing with true problem areas, they’re good; do them if they work.

Within every love, there is fear; the fear of separation from that which you love.

A child fears separation from her parents, a lover from his love, the body fears separation from the soul and the soul from its Source Above.

So what do you love? Look at your worries and you will know. If you worry about your debts and financial future, then it is the material world you love, because you believe in the material world and you see it as the source of all good. If you sit and worry over the comments of others and the glances they throw at you then it is social acceptance that you love, that you have made into your god.

Cleave to the True Source Above and your heart will have no room for the fears of this world.

Tzvi Feeman

Take some time and watch this short video, then go out and practice this and see what happens.

So did you thank someone today? Maybe you started the day asking people to do something before you thanked them for what they have already done. Maybe you told the first people you saw, something nice. I got to work this morning and tried something fun…

First person, “Hey I want to tell you something, you are a driving force here, everyone looks to you because you know how these should be, and you make things happen.” You can imagine the positive reaction that got.

Second person, “I want you to know you are magnificent. You are like the rudder of a ship, you guide this facility to success. If it was not for you to keep everything running the doctors and nurses would not be able to perform their healing mission for these patients.” Again, you can imagine the positive reaction. Later in the day second person tells third person, “John always inspires me in the mornings”, or something really close to that.

What prompted me to do this. Well, I don’t really know. I did not plan it more than a minute before I spoke to person one, and person two was right after person one. The thought behind it I think, was more self serving then other serving. It goes back to something I try to practice; “Stay so busy giving recognition that you don’t need any for yourself.” I’m still trying to make that work but I have not given up yet. I imagine it takes a lot of daily recognition giving before you don’t need any, but slowly as I practice I can see it happening. As people recognize you as a recognition giver they like to return the favor, and there is the difficulty.

Do you give recognition because it is truly deserved, or because you want it in return. I guess it really does not matter as long as you mean it and it is for the right reason. So just keep doing it and prove me wrong, or right.

However, the real point of this is Gratitude. Do you show it, give it, live it? Do you know people who say the right thing at the right time? Go out of their way to help or show they care? How about just simple things, do you show gratitude? show that you are grateful? If not, here are some wonderful quotes to help you understand this better, and I’m grateful that you take the time to read these…

“Thank God–every morning when you get up–that you have something to do which must be done, whether you like it or not. Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you a hundred virtues which the idle never know.”
~ Charles Kingsley ~

“No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks.”
~ Unknown ~

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
~ Marcel Proust ~

“What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity.
These are but trifles, to be sure; but, scattered along life’s pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.”
~ Joseph Addison ~

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
~ Melody Beattie ~

“Blessed are those that can give without remembering and receive without forgetting.”
~ Author Unknown ~

“If you concentrate on finding whatever is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul.”
~ Rabbi Harold Kushner ~

“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”
~ Epictetus ~

“The sun was shining in my eyes, and I could barely see
To do the necessary task that was allotted me.
Resentment of the vivid glow, I started to complain–
When all at once upon the air I heard the blindman’s cane.”
~ Earl Musselman ~

“There is a calmness to a life lived in Gratitude, a quiet joy.”
~ Ralph H. Blum ~ ( American Author )

“You simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life. And you will have set in motion an ancient spiritual law: the more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given you.”
~ Sarah Ban Breathnach ~
Simple Abundance

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”
~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy ~

“A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.”
~ Joseph Addison ~

“To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven.”
~ Johannes A. Gaertner ~

“To educate yourself for the feeling of gratitude means to take nothing for granted, but to always seek out and value the kind that will stand behind the action. Nothing that is done for you is a matter of course. Everything originates in a will for the good, which is directed at you. Train yourself never to put off the word or action for the expression of gratitude.”
~ Albert Schweitzer ~

“Most of us, swimming against the tides of trouble the world knows nothing about, need only a bit of praise or encouragement – and we will make the goal.”
~ Jerome P. Fleishman ~

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”
~ Cicero ~

“Every time we remember to say “thank you”, we experience nothing less than heaven on earth.”
~ Sarah Ban Breathnach ~

“Gratitude is something of which none of us can give too much. For on the smiles, the thanks we give, our little gestures of appreciation, our neighbors build their philosophy of life.”
~ A. J. Cronin ~

“Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart.”
~ Seneca ~

“True thanksgiving means that we need to thank God for what He has done for us, and not to tell Him what we have done for Him.”
~ George R. Hendrick ~

“Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.”
~ Henry Ward Beecher ~

“Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude.
Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness.
Thankfulness may consist merely of words.
Gratitude is shown in acts.”
~ David O. McKay ~

“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”
~ Meister Eckhardt ~

Be Thankful

Be thankful that you don’t already have everything you desire,
If you did, what would there be to look forward to?

Be thankful when you don’t know something
For it gives you the opportunity to learn.

Be thankful for the difficult times.
During those times you grow.

Be thankful for your limitations
Because they give you opportunities for improvement.

Be thankful for each new challenge
Because it will build your strength and character.

Be thankful for your mistakes
They will teach you valuable lessons.

Be thankful when you’re tired and weary
Because it means you’ve made a difference.

It is easy to be thankful for the good things.
A life of rich fulfillment comes to those who are
also thankful for the setbacks.

GRATITUDE can turn a negative into a positive.
Find a way to be thankful for your troubles
and they can become your blessings.
~ Author Unknown ~

Everyday is an opportunity, another occasion to celebrate your being happy and healthy and hopeful. Life is the most important thing we have. We must not lose track of that. It is governed by time, and the times of our lives are meant to be fulfilling and rewarding.

We can help that belief become a wonderful reality, or we can stand in the way, and be unhappy.

That choice is ours to make. Make it a positive choice.

Hello again, the old hosting company was so terrible I dumped them and along with them all my posts. I’m putting things back together again as you can see here and while I won’t try to recreate all that I had I will serve up some new articles just in time for this new season of spring.

I read somewhere that yes you can start over so that is what I am doing here. Think of this day as your chance to do the same. All you need is to believe you can, and have some faith.

Speaking of faith… do you want to be comfortable and happy? To enjoy this life and to experience cheerfulness then “have faith in God”. If you love darkness and are satisfied to dwell in doom and misery, then be content with little faith; but if you love the sunshine and would sing songs of rejoicing, covet so very strongly the best gift God can give us, great faith.