Have A Nice Day!

This morning, during my morning prayers, I found myself asking God to give me a nice day. As I prayed I realized that what I was saying was, “Heavenly Father, please give me a day that goes according to my will, not thine.” “I’m going to establish the criteria of a good day, not thou.” How foolish is that?

It follows then, that if I conclude to put God in charge of how my days go, that every day will be a nice day!

If I am willing, every day will go as God desires it to, so it stands to reason that every day will be a good day.

I can’t get a quote from Michael McLean out of my mind, “….all I ever dreamed of, everything I hoped and all the things I prayed for, couldn’t hold a candle to what I’ve been given, I’ve been given what I need.” I try to operate on the premise that God is predisposed in my favor and that this life, in it’s entirety is designed to bless me and help me grow. Accepting that notion seems to require me to realize that every day, even a tough one is a good day.

I think today has greatly altered the way I will pray from here on out. If my outlook is correct, I may freely assume that every day is a good day, at least good for me. I may approach each day with optimism, knowing that God’s will is being done. From now on, I wish to have a heart like Mary’s, when she said, “be it unto me according to thy word.” (Luke 1: 38)

Of course this approach begs the question, “Is everything that happens according to God’s will.” In the near view, absolutely not. Everyday, all day, people everywhere are doing their own will and not God’s. Unavoidably, each of us falls victim to the consequences of our own and other’s wrong and willful choices. It then follows that many days in our lives will go according to ours or someone else’s will and not Gods. The conclusion must then be unavoidable that not every day will be a good day.

In the long view, however, the opposition, pain and suffering we experience in this life are most certainly part of God’s plan for us. Satan’s influence and the victimization we experience at the hands of other mortals are also part of God’s plan. For it must needs be, that there is an ^aopposition in all things.” (2 Ne. 2: 11)

Seen in the light of Christ, every day is indeed a good day, even a great day! Every day is full of opportunity. Everyday is filled with grace from God to sustain us. Every day is a gift! Best of all, deprived of the frustration that comes of trying to control our lives, every day is an adventure. None of us knows what each new day will present to us. It could be easy and relaxing or it could be full of challenge and difficulty. Is one better than another? No, not at all. The easy days are recuperative and the challenging days are full of growth and understanding. The mournful days are days of closeness to the Giver of Life. And the bewildering days are days of introspection and discovery. All are great days!

The Art of Getting Everything We Need

Richard Eyre hits the nail right on the head with this one! In this little Meridian article he talks about the three deceivers: Control, Ownership and Independence. Three deceivers that most certainly drain us of joy.

The Only Guide to Happiness You’ll Ever Need

While the title may seem a bit superlative, this article from Zen Habits, has some really great advice on how to be happy.

Joy: Seeking and Using God’s Gift

“Capturing joy is a little like approaching squirrels. When one of our grandkids spots a squirrel, they lunge toward it. Inevitably the squirrel runs away. If we can get them to sit peacefully and watch quietly, the squirrels will settle in nearby. They will gather and eat seeds closer and closer. But they are exquisitely sensitive to any move to capture or control them.” A quote from Dr. Wally from his blog. Follow the link to read the entire, great article.

LisaRD is the Winner!!

LisaRD, please email me your snail mail address, so I can send you  your book!  Congratulations!  Sure hope you love it as much as I have.

Drawing Heaven Into Your Marriage

YOU COULD WIN A FREE COPY.  READ THE ARTICLE TO DISCOVER HOW.

I don’t often review books.  I make exceptions only when the book is exceptional.  Drawing Heaven Into Your Marriage  by H. Wallace Goddard, PhD, is exceptional!

Casting off conventional “wisdom,” Dr. Wally gets right to the root of successful, happy marriages and for that matter, successful, happy lives.  His approach is based entirely on the Atonement, Merits, and Mercy of Jesus Christ.  No more tricks and techniques, no more fooling around with each other’s behavior or feelings, Wally teaches us the true nature of love and change.  The book is refreshing, motivating, readable and hits close to home.  Without being preachy, Wally teaches fundamental principles that are full of warmth, compassion and believability.  I wish every married couple had and studied this wonderful, bright work of love and testimony.

So pleased, am I with Drawing Heaven Into Your Marriage that I’m going to give away a copy on the 15th of March.  If you’d like to have your name entered into the drawing please indicate in the comments of this article.

 Booklogged and I enjoy and warm and joyful marriage.  We’ve learned many of the things Dr. Wally teaches, in the marriage school of hard knocks.  We affirm that the principles are true.  Oh, how I wish I’d had this book in the earlier moments of our marriage, where I could possibly have avoided inflicting so much pain on her.  I did have Wally in those days, though, (he’s a personal and very dear friend) and he was, even then, catalyst for much of the progress I was able to make.  Why?  Because even 20 years ago, Wally understood better than I, the goodness, kindness and love of Jesus Christ and the impact my Savior could have on every facet of my enormously imperfect life.

Approaching Heaven

Sister Marjorie Peay Hinckley shared the following quote:

“I don’t want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with grass stains on my shoes from mowing Sister Schenk’s lawn. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor’s children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone’s garden. I want to be there with children’s sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.” Linda Bentley Johnson

Read more about why this matters in Dr. Wally’s article on Personality and Perfection.

Five Ideas To Maintain Stress In Your Life

1. Attempt to control absolutely everything – Instead of focusing all your attention on what you are doing in the moment, divert most of it towards trying to figure out how to ensure a particular result.

2. Believe in the possibility of ‘making it’ – This is a search for identity, and experientially it can be described as feeling like you’re never really at home anywhere you go.

3. Look for satisfaction out there – Most people look almost exclusively to external things and circumstances for their satisfaction, instead of looking within. It’s the reason why people spend most of their time working for the purpose of accumulating more things, and then their free time on trying hard to extract as much satisfaction as possible from these things in order to justify the means of attaining them.

4. Emphasize yourself – Telling yourself that you are special, and trying to convince everyone else of it as well, is almost guaranteed to create stress.

5. Be more and have more – At the core, all of the above ideas can be summed up in a single method: simply convince yourself that you need more than you have at any given moment, and you will be able to maintain a steady feeling of anxiety throughout the day.

Read the whole article at Everyday Wonderland.  Some fabulous insight suggested in the reverse.

Who’s Driving?

 

A while back Gus, a good friend of mine, told me a joke on himself. He grew up on a farm in North Dakota, his wife, Kathy, grew up in Los Angeles, California. She doesn’t think much of his city driving. On a trip to the city, Gus pulled the car over a short distance from town. He walked around the car and opened Kathy’s door and said, “Scoot over Honey.” “What’s this?” she asked. Gus answered, “No sense both of us driving.” I laughed of course, but didn’t think much more of it.A few weeks later I was struggling with the impression that God wanted me to begin attending a 12 Steps group called LDS ARP (Latter-day Saints Addiction Recovery Program). I didn’t want to go. I was in recovery, why did I need more help? I had participated in such a group online and hadn’t had a good experience. Members of the online group were far from careful about what they shared and more often than not they had triggered, rather than hampered my addiction. I feared the same problem with a live group. Additionally, I didn’t really want to expose my problem to any more people than I had to. I was afraid to go.

At the time of this quandary, I was reworking the 12 Steps. I was on Step 11, which encourages constant conscious contact with God. That very morning I had made up my mind, even declared to God in my prayers, that in order to maintain that conscious contact I would pay attention and be obedient to God’s instructions. Now, I was fully ready to re neg on my promise.

I went to God in prayer and explained why I was not prepared to comply with His wishes. I was pretty detailed and determined, but I felt no relief from His invitation to comply with His request. I went the rounds with the issue over and over again. I was determined to get my way and was so very hopeful that God would relent. He didn’t, in fact, cut me any slack. I was certain of this within my own heart. Finally, as I stubbornly persisted in my position, God spoke to me in language I could understand. In my heart, I heard these words, “No sense both of us driving.”

It was an epiphany that took me with such a sudden and complete paradigm shift that a cold glass of water over the shower door couldn’t have been more shocking.

Anyone who has ever driven knows what happens when a backseat driver begins criticising and correcting his driving. First it hurts, then embitters and often an abrasive altercation results. When Gus anticipated this, he arranged for he and Kathy to have a more relaxing, harmonious journey through the city. Had he stubbornly clung to the wheel and control, harmony may not have been the case.

I didn’t have to analyze all this to come to the conclusion I’ve just described. The realization was instant. If I insist on keeping control of my life, God will certainly prompt me through my conscience to do things differently. Being human I will most likely get my hackles up and push him away. Our relationship will suffer and I will inevitably make mistakes, probably even crash and burn.

On the other hand, if I let God take control, I can just relax and enjoy the ride. Is my Heavenly Father a better driver, through life, than I am? Of course he is. Will he ever take on paths that are not beneficial to my experience here on earth? No way, will he do that. I believe in Him and I finally have come to willingly decide for myself to trust Him.

Have I done this perfectly? Not a chance. There have since been moments when I got scared and grabbed the wheel back. These have all, though, been moments when it has become clear that such a move was foolish and ultimately detrimental to my progress.

I went to the meeting. I’ve been going ever since. I feel quite certain that I wouldn’t be sober today without regular attendance. God knew what was best for me. I’m so glad I let Him drive.

 Take Action:

Ask yourself, “Who is driving in my life?”  “Do I trust God enough to let him drive?”  “What are the advantages of giving God the wheel?”  “What prompts me to grab the wheel?”  “Where would God take me today, if I let Him?” 

Borrowed from Candleman’s Peek Into The Universe.

Let Go of the Outcome

 

The most significant cause of misery, unhappiness, disappointment and frustration in my life has been my propensity to predetermine how things should turn out.  I never really thought of myself as a control freak, but looking back that’s pretty much how it all turned out.  I would always script my life with notions like; if I do X then Y will be the result.  If Z or A was how things turned out, I took an emotional nose dive.

 Wanting life on my terms has always been counter productive, because I’ve never could manage the disappointment associated with reality.  Things simply don’t always go our way.  There are just too many variables.  Still, I don’t advocate letting go of the outcome because life has defeated me into submission.  That is foolishness.

 Letting go of the outcome is a matter of faith.  I am absolutely convinced that God is in charge.  He is presenting us with tailor made circumstances that lift, teach, stretch and strenthen us.  He doesn’t interfere with our choices, but if we choose to accept life as it comes, we come to get the most out of life’s experience and thus find joy in the journey.

This week a friend and I have been earnestly praying in behalf of a child at the Detention Center, where we both volunteer.  This little girl has built big walls around herself.  We have worked diligently to reach her, but so far had failed miserably.  Sunday, we were really seeking a breakthrough.  When Sunday came I came down with the flu.  My friend went alone and the breakthrough came in a magnificent way.  Would I like to have been there for it?  Sure.  Do I wish I had witnessed her opening up and finally offering some trust?  Absolutely.  Is it possible that, had I been there, she wouldn’t have felt comfortable opening up, trusting?  Yes.  Is it possible, that in God’s plan for this sweet girl, God took me out of the picture?  I not only think it’s possible, I think it is likely.  Am I disappointed?  No, I am filled with gratitude that God has found a way to help us reach her.  I would hate knowing some day that I stood in the way of her progress. 

Making such discoveries, without trying to control them, has brought me more joy than just about anything I’ve experienced.  Had I scripted this circumstance, I’d have cast myself in the starring role.  I’d have scripted a miraculous transformation in the life of this child, and I’d have expected the glory that such an achievement would deserve.  I’d probably have failed, crashed into a depressed slump, wasted a week in a pitty party and worst of all, prevented God from reaching out to a precious daughter.  Instead, it all worked out wonderfully and God gets the glory.

More on that word deserve.  All my life I’ve told myself that if I do X, I deserve Y.  I had this sense of entitlement.  I have made a wonderful discovery in the realization that I don’t deserve anything.  All of life is a gift.  A precious gift from God.  I am nothing of myself.  My strength, my intellect, my prosperity, my personality, my circumstances, even the air that I breathe, are gifts from a loving Heavenly Father.  I can make choices as to how I use those gifts, but ultimately, those choices entitle me to nothing.  Why?  Because I am in His debt.  No matter how I try to pay Him back, I’ll always fall short of evening the score.  We are not given these gifts because we deserve them, they are freely given and judiciously taken away.

Giving up on my entitlement to any given outcome, has been the most emancipating thing that has ever occurred in my life!

Take Action:

Here are some suggestions to help you let go:

1. Count your blessings.  Spend some time each day being grateful.  As Corrie Ten Boom suggests in her book The Hiding Place, you’ll even want to be thankful for the feas (unpleasant things) in your life.
2. Go beyond believing in God and start believing God.  Practice trusting Him.
3. Observe your outcomes.  Don’t judge them, just spend some time being fully aware of them.
4. Select an outcome from your own life, which turned out both different and better than you expected.  Ponder it.
5. Consider, with eager anticipation, where God will take your life next.  Don’t you love a nice surprise?
6. Keep yourself available. 
7. Stop directing God around the universe and start taking direction from Him.  In the words of the Alcoholic’s Prayer, “Lord, what you have me do?  Give me the strength to do it.”