It's No Secret

I can appreciate the intent of this statement. When we depend on someone else for our state of joy, we place ourselves, and them, in a precarious predicament. No one else can make us happy. We must learn to find inner peace and joy within ourselves because the truth is we will spend a lot more time with ourselves than we ever will with another human being. If we don’t enjoy our own company, why would anyone else?

So many of us are waiting for someone else to rescue us from the tedium of our daily existence, that we often place unrealistic expectation upon them that even we can’t live up to. I’m not saying that we don’t live interesting lives, but we hunger for something more and we hope and pray that someone else will bring it with them when they arrive on the scene. When they don’t, we feel deeply disappointed; truth be told, some of us may even feel as if we’ve been cheated out of something.

The apostle Paul, in spite of enduring great hardships and trials, tells us in Philippians 4:11-13 that he had learned to be content in ALL circumstances. He wasn’t seeking happiness as we know it, which I have learned depends on a delicate balance of timing, other people, weather conditions, and a few other things that are mostly out of my control, most of the time. Paul’s contentment came from the knowledge of who he was and Whose he was and where he was going when it was all said and done. He had an inner peace that can only come when one realizes that they don’t create their own happiness because Someone else bought and paid for it once and for all and it wasn’t up for grabs. He wasn’t waiting for someone else to complete him because Someone already had.

What are you trusting in this day? Where does your hope reside? Something to think about. It really is no secret…