Who doesn't want to be happy? Nobody. Who is searching for how to be happy? Everybody. Who has the answers. Jesus does. "I am the way, the truth, and the life"
However, it is our choice. Daily.
Did you know that it is each adult person's own responsibility to choose to nurture their own physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual and psychological needs? Nurturing these 5 human needs involves deciding who/what you will choose to surround yourself with, when and why you will do the things you do, and how will you change aspects of your life in order to make sure that these needs are met. Wowzers!!! You mean I can't depend on anyone else to meet my needs? Nope. Taking personal responsibility and meeting these needs results in the content and joyful spirit that I believe that our God meant for us to have; that is actually possible to have here on earth! Bottom line: your spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, parents, friends, pastor, counselor, boss, or co-workers, children, etc, etc cannot make you happy. Temporary feelings of happiness maybe...but remember, feeling happy isn't the same as choosing to live happy.
Consider this: You can CHOOSE to be happy, even when you don't FEEL happy. Um, ya, so I can easily say this, but have I mastered it? No way. I wish. I continue to let my feelings and emotions rule my actions and conclusions about myself much of the time......however, I have learned that they don't have to. That is a huge relief to me. Because......so much of my conclusions about myself have been made as a result of things that are out of my control, and as a result of how other people have chosen to treat me. And I have learned that those things out of my control are NOT what give me worth or make me who I am. I am who I am because of who God is and because of who HE specifically made me to be. My ultimate purpose is to glorify our God and LIVE my life loved by Him and to share that love with others. Sounds simple. But dang it, it's not! SIN messes everything up and is so entangled in our lives, that we will never experience the life God planned for us until we are with Him in eternity. All we can do is choose to get to know a God that loves us that much and allow Him to work through our human nature while we are here on earth. Our lives will never be perfect here. We will never be perfect here....but the more we get to know Him, the more we understand how loved we are by Him, the happier we will be in this life.
So back to our human needs. Why do we have human needs? Well, I know that I don't know that answer. God made us the way He made us. But I do know that they are there, whether I like it or not. And I do know that when I don't pay attention to them, bad stuff happens. I get sad, depressed, anxious, bummed, angry, hopeless, blah, blah blah...any of the emotions that we feel that are negative can be a result of not paying attention to nurturing our needs. Soooooooo, I wanted to share something. This is something that has helped me. When I feel this bad "stuff" going on.....I can ask myself, which of these 5 needs am I not paying attention to? And guess what, there's always at least one that I can pinpoint at any particular time that I need to re-think. Once I re-think, I have the first choice. Will I examine what I am not paying attention to? If I choose yes, I always see where I am "off" in my self talk/thinking/actions. Then I have the second choice. Will I make my decision about the thinking/situation according to what God says about it, or how I FEEL at the moment. And I wanted to share that EVERY TIME I CHOOSE TO SEEK GOD'S WISDOM, I feel peace and the positive feelings come....even if the "bad" situation doesn't change. When I choose to seek it, I find God's hope in every situation. Never have I not found it. It's almost bizarre. It's so freeing. So why doesn't everyone do this nurturing/examining thing? Because it's not easy and it doesn't come natural to us. AND we have been so engrained to BELIEVE what others (society) tells us, and that is usually opposite of God's word. So sad.
This may sound like a bunch of mumbo jumbo to you. To me, it makes sense and it gives me hope. I choose to blog it in order to get it out of my head.....and just in case it maybe makes some sort of sense to someone else and makes them think. Taking personal responsibility is so foreign these days. Everyone does everything because of someone else. Ugh. I fall into that trap all of the time! I feel sad because someone made me sad. I feel mad because someone said something mean about me. I feel stupid because I didn't know something I should have known. I feel (enter your own feeling that you CHOOSE to act upon or make conclusions upon). We all do it. We all need to deal with it.
You know what really helped me to realize my need to figure out what happiness looks like and where it comes from? Being a parent. So many children are enabled to blame everything on someone else. YES, many things affect our children. Many sad and negative things. However, I choose to teach my children about who they are in Christ and that they DO have choices in life....choices beyond their FEELINGS!! I teach this to my children because I want them to be happy and I want them to live their lives knowing they are LOVED. And knowing they have the choice.
This blogging is a way that I intellectually nurture myself. If you choose to read it, just know this is my "stuff" I'm sharing. MY struggles, MY choices, MY decisions result in MY happiness or lack there of <3 It never will be my intention to get my "stuff" all over someone else. And choose to not let other people's "stuff" get all over you. It is life a breath of fresh air when I choose to do this daily.
Happy Thursday!
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