A Perfect Life

I saw this yesterday and my first thought is that I want both. Then my second thought was that I have both. Then my third thought was that life can never be perfect since evil exists. However, we can have our own perfect life.

Too many people are waiting for life to be perfect before they can be happy. I hate to break this to you, but life will never be perfect.

Jesus warned us in John 16:33:

These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation (trouble); but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

Jesus told us to be of good cheer even through the troubles of life. He wouldn’t have said that if it were impossible.

There is a blessing that comes with age. We can look back and see these truths if we are honest with ourselves. Some of the worst times I’ve been through I found myself laughing the most which puzzled me at the time. Other times I found peace and comfort that couldn’t be explained.

When God is the center of our life then life isn’t as hard as others experience. Sure we still have troubles but knowing God’s Word gets us through those times. Trusting God and knowing that He’s with us and we are not alone is comforting in itself.

God promises in Psalm 91:14-16

"Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name.

He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him.

With long life I will satisfy him, And show him My salvation."

Trusting in the LORD and knowing His Word will get us through the troubles in life.

We often wonder why didn’t God prevent this from happening to me. We’ve prayed, begged and more trying to force God to do what He is unable to do. He wants to but He cannot go back on His Word. If He did the entire world would evaporate killing everyone. The LORD is true to His Word.

He gave us dominion over this world. He gave us free-will. He gave us the ability to choose. He cannot force us or anyone to do His bidding. However, there is good news. He gave us His Word to help us through trouble and to prevent most of the trouble we face. We can avoid much of the trouble we encounter by following His teachings. Most often, the trouble we face is trouble we brought on ourselves. Not that we intentionally did it. But nonetheless, we choose to disregarding warning signals, or we did things we knew we ought not to do, or we put ourselves in a dangerous situation.

Happiness is a choice. It is an attitude we choose every day. Every day I choose to be happy regardless of my circumstances. I no longer wait until everything is perfect to be happy.

What I found in my pursuit to be happy every day is that I had to eliminate those things that made me unhappy. I had to choose to love people and realize they were struggling to get through life just like I was. I realized that they were only acting like they thought they should. I also knew they were listening more to the devil then they were to God and didn’t even know it. I knew that I have been guilty of the same thing. Maybe not in the same way but I have angered people too.

I realized I had to forgive and that including most of all to forgive myself. I realized that forgiveness is a gift that I give myself. It releases the bondage of unforgiveness. It released the weight from dragging the past around with me all of the time. It set me free.

That’s life. Everyone finds different things offensive. It’s based on our philosophy of life. It’s how we see the world.

I changed my philosophy to align more like God’s. That’s when I found true happiness. That’s when I found my perfect life. At least as perfect as it can get here on earth at the present moment. The more I understand and learn about God’s way, the more perfect my life becomes.

The world thinks the opposite of God. They believe that to be happy everything must be perfect. But in fact it’s the opposite. To have a perfect life, first you must choose to be happy and get rid of the thoughts that make you unhappy and realize that troubles are never permanent but happiness can be. Happiness causes the troubles to become just a speck in time which are quickly forgotten. Most often, the troubles of last week are not the troubles of this week. They come and they go. But happiness can always be with us.

The next time you find yourself unhappy realize that you chose to be unhappy. Shake it off and decide you're going to be happy no matter what is going on around you. You are in control of your happiness. So take control and see your world change in almost the blinking of an eye. It's a wonderful journey that you'll be glad you decided to take.