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Monday, November 10, 2014

22 Habits of Unhappy People


 This pop-up came across my phone this weekend… I think it is so true.  I have notice that as the world whirl faster, people get more dizzy. 

22 Habits of Unhappy People

1.       Chronic complaining.  Gossips about everyone, complaining about everything… have you realize that complaining actually doesn’t relieve your pent up stress?  It makes you look for reason to complain more.

2.       Retail Therapy.  Focused on buying and consuming.  The richer we get, the more impersonal we get and the more money we throw around at people.  Instead, we need to enjoy nature, face to face time and personal touch, and we need to be reminded that awesome nature and miracles still happen all around us daily.  And the busier we get, the more we miss.

3.       Binge Drinking.  I don’t think alcohol itself is bad, but if alcohol is your “reward” or your way of dealing with life’s tough times… it is a problem.

4.       Worrying about the future.  You are not in control, God is.  Let it go…

5.       Waiting for the future.  Don’t just sit there and only pray… get up and do something.

6.       Lack of hobbies. 

7.       Eating poorly.

8.       Talking poorly to others.  I think this reflect a lack of, or emptied, inner resources.

9.       Holding grudges.  Lack the ability to forgive.  You don’t have to forget, but forgive is vital to your own emotional health.  It is impossible to forgive without a true love to our God, who is the model of forgiveness.

10.   Stop learning.  Learning requires all senses, all of our mind and heart.  Once we turn off our mind and heart, we die.

11.   Not following through.  This builds trust.  This reflects your integrity and trustworthiness. 

12.   Hating your job or school (current responsibilities).  This reflects your ethics.

13.   Loneliness (how you choose to socialize).  This shows your trust for others and value in human connection.

14.   Letting negative thoughts enter your mind.  Negative thoughts always enter my mind, million times a minute.  Those who said they can purge those thoughts are not telling the truth, should not be trusted.  Even those who meditate as a discipline will tell you it is impossible to have completely pure thoughts or no thoughts.  It is what we do with those thoughts that makes a difference.

15.   Jump to conclusions:  2 ways of how this presents itself: 1. fortune telling (automatically assume poor outcome for yourself when a situation arise) and, 2. mind reading (automatically assume others are negatively reacting to you or something you have done when there is no definite evidence.  Make yourself the victim and result in unfounded resentments toward imaginary reactions).

16.   Magnification, blow things out of proportion.

17.   Minimization, telling yourself when real problems are not a big deal, sweep your problems under a rug.

18.   Self-labeling, negative self-talk does really affect your psyche.  Try tell yourself something positive every time you are faced with a negative thought… see what happens.

19.   Not having a goal or setting unrealistic and unobtainable goals.  Successful people are always setting and accomplishing goals.

20.   Worrying what other’s think.  Yeah, this is hard…

21.   Let strangers affect your mood.  There are lots of pissed off people out there who spend all their energy to drag other people to their level.  When someone does something unkind to you, don’t let them sap your energy.  Let me tell you a secret, people who are unkind to other… that is their profession!  It is their life’s worth to make others miserable…  Just smile, behave positively, and let their unkindness bounce off of you. 

22.   Wanting more money.  Illusion is that more money will solve your problem.  Look around you, how many people you know are working their life away to amass wealth?  What do you think is going to happen to all their money with the currently economy or after they die?  What do you think their kids will do with all the rich inheritance they get?  Will it make them better people or treat others better or to benefit society?

Friday, July 18, 2014

(*) There is Nothing New Under The Sun

 
Genesis 2:16, “And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
Genesis 3:1, Satan said to eve, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
Genesis 3:2, “The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.
Genesis 3:4, “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Genesis 3:6, “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Genesis 3:21, “21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.
Genesis 3:23, “23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden.”
 
Ok, let’s break this down:
1.      God created a perfect world and gave Adam a command
2.      Satan contradict God’s Words as a temptation to Eve to cause her to disobey God
3.      Eve tells Satan what God said, evidence that Adam taught Eve God’s Words
4.      Satan contradict God’s Words a second time, appeal to Eve’s mind to disobey God and Eve’s desire to become like God.  Satan told Eve that she is missing something… a total lie!  She is living in a perfect world!
5.      Eve disobeyed God’s Words, because it was 1) good for food, 2) pleasing to the eye, 3) desire to gaining wisdom
6.      Eve gave to Adam, and Adam made a choice to disobey God
7.      Consequence for disobedience is shame and death
8.      They made leave clothing to cover themselves
9.      God performed the first blood-sacrifice, made animal skin to cover them
10.   God is just, kicked them out of the Garden.
Wow!  There really is no much of a buildup of the story.  God just tells it right off the bat!  So, in the first 3 chapters, God laid out how man sinned and is eternally separated from Him.  Then, He performed a blood-sacrifice to set an example of how He is going to atone and cover-over men’s sin and shame.  What enlightened me about this passage today is what caused Eve to sin.  Temptations, by themselves, are neutral.  They are not sin in itself.  But, temptations cause us to stir up thoughts and actions that become sin.  Temptations to disobey God have never changed… it is always Satan’s attempt to invalidate God’s Words and cause our eyes to turn from focusing on God to focus on ourselves.
1.      Eve saw that disobeying God means fulfillment in her physical senses and her stomach
2.      Eve saw that disobeying God pleases her eyes, which as the windows to our souls.  Her heart comes to overwhelmingly desire the object of sin
3.      Eve saw that disobeying God means that she can become like God and satisfying her minds thirst for supernatural wisdom.
Really?!  Sin satisfies our Body, Soul, Mind…  It really has not changed… this is how we are today!  Our desires to satisfy all these areas drive us insane.  Look at our worlds, look at the themes of our TV shows and movies, listen to our popular music… 
How many religions and philosophies have told us that we are responsible for ourselves?  We can do it.  We can be a good enough person to get to Heaven…  Haven’t you seen what is going on around us?  Haven’t you been realistic to yourselves?  We cannot do it!  You cannot do it!  I cannot do it.  We simply are just too incomplete to bring completeness to ourselves.
It is easy to look upon our world today and give up hope… but, cheer up, we are in the same condition today as in Genesis chapter 3.  The Bible tells us that God has already atoned for our sins.  Now, it is not how we can please and obey God in order to be accepted into His kingdom… but, it is that we have already been accepted into His kingdom that we please and obey God!  We knew of this as soon as God sacrificed that animal to make covering for Adam and Eve.
There is truly nothing new under the sun.

Friday, March 28, 2014

(*) The Simplicity of Love

Love for the lovely warms our hearts and makes us smile. 
Love for the less fortunate is beautiful. 
Love for those suffering and unloved is compassion. 
Love for your enemies is Christ’s love.
 
The Bible calls us to be consumed with Christ and His love.  His love is true love.  True love makes you love a person when there are no apparent reasons to love.  We show our faith and trust in the promises of God when we sacrifice our time and comfort for the sake of others. 
In Deuteronomy 6:4-9, the Bible tells us “The LORD our God is One.  Love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, and strength.”  Our heart is the seat of our emotions and the very center of our being.  It is where we make all of the decisions.  Our soul is the basis of our traits, qualities, and personality.  Our strength consists of physical, mental, and spiritual.  This command to love God involves our whole entire being. 
As Christ the Messiah said, the most important commandment is to “Love God;” the second, is to “Love your neighbors as yourself,” including love your enemies.  This is an extraordinary call to love, which sums up the entire message of the Bible, and it is not an option… it is a command!
This is the message of Christ the Messiah that is unique and different than all the messages.  It is a call of sacrificial love, exemplified by God Himself.  It calls us to put our performances and achievements aside, and continue to love when it no longer makes any apparent sense...
Have you ever thought about how crazy and senseless it is to believe in the existence of God?  What about this command to love?  Throw our minds out the window and invite our heart back in!  Have you ever thought about why God didn't say "love me with all your 'mind'?"  No, no, no!  God says, "love me with all your 'heart', 'soul', and 'strength'." 

God's love is Crazy Love.  It is a command.  So, looking around the world... throw out what people say about themselves, how do you know who truly belongs to God?  ==> By their display of this Crazy Love.  Do you have Crazy Love? 

Our Struggle & Our Savior