Philippians 4:8-9 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.
There are way too many times in life that I have wasted hours upon hours worrying about something that I had no control over. It took me years of prayers and conversations with God to finally accept this one small fact. Although I like to be in control of every situation, I am NOT in control, and worry as I may, my fears and worry will not change the outcome of a situation. Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? (Matthew 6:27) I’ve also discovered that worry itself is not the only thief of joy. The way we look at things plays a big part in how things go.
If we look at a certain situation and make up our minds that the situation will end badly, in all likelihood it will. We tend to look at things and determine an outcome perhaps based on past experiences. Fear sometimes drives us to see only bad results, and unfortunately when we see bad results we get bad results. But that is not the way the our Father designed us to live. No, He has much better plans for us than that. And when we fill our hearts with Christ and things of Him, our whole perspective changes.
In Sunday School, I started a new routine with our class. Before we begin each week, we have to list one pit (bad thing that happened during the week), one peak (good thing that happened during the week), and one praise (something that we want to praise God for). I think this is a helpful reminder to put the events of our week into a godly perspective. We all have bad days, some weeks more than others, but it is important for us to remember that no matter how bad the week was, there is always something good, and there is always, always something to be thankful for. We must reflect back on the events in our lives from time to time and remember to truly be thankful and praise God for the blessings that he has given us.
Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you. Paul reminds us in the book of Philippians to fix our thoughts on what is true and honorable, right and pure, lovely and admirable. This comes naturally when we fix our eyes on Christ. If we look around and look for Christ in everything, we begin to see Him in everything. If we are searching for things that are excellent and worthy of praise, we will see those things, and when we honor Christ with praise that He so deserves, we find peace in all of our situations. I have experienced this first hand more times than I can possibly count.
This past year has been a trying one for all of us in many different ways, but there have also been a vast number of blessings. Let us not sit around and count the heartaches and the trials, but rather let us count our many blessings and in turn praise our Father for each and every one!
Inspirations from the Funny Farm 