Skip to main content

Rise above it

When you are stuck the middle of the proverbial worst case scenario, living life in a joyful, productive way involves more than just wading through the hurts and horrors with merely your vital signs intact. I have been there—dreading the alarm clock, and literally dragging yourself to work with the solitary, lofty hope of making to 5:00 without quitting, jumping off the building, or throwing your coffee on someone.

Don’t look for your worth among the feedback and flack of your workplace. Don’t allow your job’s daily ups and downs to be the barometer of your spiritual well-being. Don’t let the pressure of looming deadlines, impossible expectations, and unreasonable demands turn your day into a heavy yoke you begrudgingly put on every day, weighing your head down and robbing you of a broader, higher view. You were intended for greater things than just surviving – you were designed for something better: thriving, in spite of it.

Jesus said that He came to give us life—not just a regular, just-getting-by kind of life, but an abundant life. I am certain, in the context of the Lord’s many directives to us, that his definition of abundance is not so narrow as ours, which we tend to limit to the sum of our bank accounts, the newness of our cars, the number of pretty shoes in our closets, etc. Those things are certainly blessings in their own right, but abundance—true abundance—is an overflowing of good things in your life.


I submit to you this astounding concept, as you stand in the rubble of your career, surrounded by disappointments, limitations, and grown-up mean girls that torment you like those wretched flying monkeys in that childhood movie we all know so well. 

Contemplate this today, as we begin to explore the how-to's of thriving: Joy is not the result of blessings – it is the source.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Friday Frenzy

How the weeks fly by! It's Friday, already, and here we are, dizzied by the sight of our to-do lists...so many boxes, still unchecked! Where do you begin? It seems that your desk needs tidying up, your closet needs cleaning, or perhaps the fridge needs to be cleaned out. Rather than face the mountain of tasks we should be doing, we plunge into a frenzy of something I call " productive procrastination. " If it requires explanation, perhaps it's not one of your unfortunate inclinations, as it is mine. For clarification, however, allow me to define the phrase: exerting your efforts in otherwise non-urgent, comparatively mindless tasks, rather than the more urgent ones requiring your full attention. It's something we all do, once in a awhile--something I've done from an early age. The phenomenon (as I choose to categorize it, since it seems to take on an energy and behavior all its own) presents itself whenever feel unequal to the priority tasks at hand. For w...
Post a Comment
Read more

NEMESIS, TRAPS AND DIGRESSIONS, OH MY!

Let's begin at the beginning. You have challenges. You have issues. You have enemies. All of the above would be true for any of us -- from slacker to slave, from victim to hero -- but there is actually one very small but highly distinguishing characteristic: perspective. Yes, the thing that makes mountains out of molehills--and vice versa--is undoubtedly the key to success or failure, and the common thread through the story of every hero. Something interesting about perspective: it can be found, lost, and regained -- although sometimes elusive, it's always attainable.  Through the next week, we will explore the various things responsible for our lost perspective, and talk about how to get it back. I was about to say that there are three things that generally rob us of our proper perspective, but that would imply that it can be taken from us, by force. The fact is, unfortunately, we sometimes "lose" our perspective as easily as we misplace our keys, cell phone, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Getting Smarter

How can you be specific about your goals when they are just a bunch of vague, foggy, wishes, hopes and dreams? It's time to take that pie-in-the-sky endeavor down from its celestial pedestal and see if it tastes as good as it looks from afar. (Forgive me for bringing up desserts so early in your diet-shackled day)...Is it really, truly unachievable, or that your perception because you don't currently have the means or mechanisms to reach it? If there is a yellow-brick road to your dream, I promise you that underneath lies a foundation of solid research. It's the best preparation for turning those dreams into reality. Would we have ever reached the moon, or even this continent, without it? As brilliant and passionate as the explorers of Earth and space were, without their tedious hours buried in books at a drafting table, we would probably all still be back in the old world, and certainly never beyond it, thinking the Earth was flat and all of space was unattainable.  ...
Post a Comment
Read more