Happy

To be truly happy is everyone's goal today, or so it seems. Some equate joy and happiness. Some make a distiction that happiness is about circumstances and joy is about the peace that we can have through circumstances. I think that they are pretty much the same - joy, happiness, cheerfulness - the amount that we have is a great measure of our spiritual connection. It is being proven over and over again in the scientific community that most all of our happiness comes from our thoughts and views about our life, our relationships, and knowing that happiness is something that truly comes from inside us, not outside us. As a counselor, I have been to many workshops, seen much research on the way our thoughts shape our lives. There is new research that is out that says that fifty percent of our happiness comes from genetics. Surprisingly only ten percent comes from the circumstances that we face each day. However, forty percent comes from how we think and process our world in our brain. We have much control over the joy and happiness we expereince in our lives! The scriptures, that are thousands of years old, support this:

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

2 Corinthians 10:4-6

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Philippians 4:8

Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live. I Thessalonians 5:16-18

I could go on and on with scripture, but you can study them. I have a quote I want to share. It says:

"Possession of material riches, without inner peace, is like dying of thirst while bathing in a lake. If material poverty is to be avoided, spiritual poverty is to be abhorred! It is spiritual poverty, not material lack, that lies at the core of all human suffering."

When I read that quote I immediately thought of a verse of scripture:

For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:32-34

"If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
"Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes. Matthew 6:30-34 (The Message)

Focus on you spiritual life, not your material life. The real life you live is not in the material or physical world. This is why you have read here many times that we are not human beings attempting to have a spiritual experience but spiritual beings having a temporary human experience. At times it is our spiritual poverty - the belief that God will not care for us, that we are disconnected from God -, that creates worry and fear. We do not steep our life in God reality and initiative, and provisions. We instead choose to steep our life in the beliefs (thoughts that we have had over and over) that happiness comes from our job, people's opinions, and material stuff. We are unhappy even though we have all the material needs that anyone could ever want. We need to change our thoughts, practicing over and over again until it comes belief, that joy, happiness, and cheerfulness comes from the inside and how we think about the reality around us. Once we become truly happy, joyful, and cheerful material things do not matter. Inner peace is present and we have no problem giving our life away. It is why America ranks 23rd in happiness in the world, we have forgotten that even though we call ourselves a "Christian nation" we are living in spiritual poverty looking for God to show up in giving us material riches and power rather than living lives steeped in God's love and compassion.

Live in God's reality today. Know and trust that you are a spiritual being. Practice noticing your thoughts and how they effect your view of life and your feelings. Practice cahnging them and come to believe something different. This is not think it and then feel it right away, this is about really allow God to change your beliefs about who you are, what life is about, and who God is. This is a process. Become rich spiritually and find happiness.

Namaste'