21 Ways to Finding Peace and Happiness (10 page)

P
ROSPERITY AND
P
ROGRESS

God certainly wants all of His children to enjoy prosperity and progress, but once again I want to remind you that worry, fear, and dread can stop and hinder both of these. This verse says all that I am trying to say: “Then you will prosper if you are careful to keep and fulfill the statutes and ordinances with which the Lord charged Moses concerning Israel. Be strong and of good courage. Dread not and fear not; be not dismayed” (1 Chronicles 22:13).

The negative expectations of worry and dread hinder and prevent progress. Live courageously, live with faith, and keep a good confession.

Good things will not just fall on us; we must aggressively pursue them like the woman with the issue of blood pursued Jesus. She refused to take no for an answer, and she got her miracle breakthrough. We can have the same results if we press in and press on instead of drawing back in fear and dread. God will either give us a breakthrough, or at the very least He will give us grace to go through whatever we need to and enjoy our lives while we are doing it.

Recently a group of pastors asked me a question: Besides God Himself, what one thing had helped me get from where I started in ministry to the level of success I currently enjoy? I immediately said, “I refused to give up!” There were thousands of times when I felt like giving up, I thought about giving up, I was tempted to give up, but I always pressed on. I thank God for the determination He gives us.

Don’t let life defeat you—face it with boldness and courage, and declare that you will enjoy every aspect of it. You can do that because you have the awesome power of God dwelling in you. God is never frustrated and unhappy. He always has peace and joy, and since He lives in us and we live in Him, surely we can attain the same thing.

Right now, as I am writing this portion of this book, I have a terrible backache. I did some new exercises yesterday and apparently strained some muscles, but I will not dwell on the pain and let it ruin my day. I have something to accomplish today, and by God’s grace, I will do it. I will not worry that I might still have the same pain tomorrow or dread it if I do. Whatever we go through, God will always be with us. I choose to believe that Jesus is my Healer and that His healing power is working in my body right now!

When tempted to worry, Dave always says, “I am not impressed.” He believes we should be more impressed by God’s Word than our problems. He says if we don’t get
impressed,
we won’t get
depressed,
then
oppressed,
and ultimately perhaps even
possessed
by our difficulties. No matter what you are facing right now, God has a great life planned for you. It includes prosperity and progress in every area of life. It includes great peace, joy unspeakable, and every good thing you can imagine. Refuse to settle for anything less than God’s best for you!

Peacekeeper #5
DON’T BE DOUBLE-MINDED

D
ouble-minded, indecisive people are always miserable; they certainly don’t enjoy peace with God. Nothing is worse to me than being between two decisions and not making either one of them. I am usually a very decisive person. At times in life I have made decisions too fast and made mistakes. I have also found that I can slip into being double-minded and indecisive if I am not careful.

I believe this is something the devil tempts all of us with at various times. He does anything that steals our peace because he knows that without peace, we are without power. We often don’t make decisions because we don’t want to make mistakes. But making no decision is still a decision
and
a mistake. Decide to decide! It will produce peace in your life, as long as you don’t second-guess yourself and fall back into being indecisive once again.

Stick with your decisions unless you are definitely shown that they are wrong. Sometimes we find out whether a decision is right or wrong only by making it and seeing what happens. Making a wrong decision is not the end of the world, in most cases, and it is usually better than making no decision.

Some people do nothing most of their lives because they are afraid to commit to action. I hope you are not one of those people, but if you are, I want to help you. Please realize you need to start somewhere. Begin with smaller things, and work your way up to major decisions.

D
ON’T
B
E
A
FRAID OF
W
HAT
P
EOPLE
T
HINK

Most of us would not mind making a mistake if we thought we could make it privately. It is not the mistake, but people knowing about it that bothers us. We are afraid of what people think, and yet their opinions cannot really harm us. Our indecision can.

Many people have destroyed their lives by being overly concerned about what others think. Saul lost his kingdom and the opportunity to be king because he cared so much about what people thought that he disobeyed God on more than one occasion.

We have all experienced having to choose between God and people. It really should not even be a contest, but somehow it always is—at least until we are delivered from the fear of man.

Can someone’s
thoughts
really harm us that much? I think I have finally realized that if someone wants to judge me, he will find some way to do it, no matter what I do; therefore, I may as well follow my heart and get about enjoying my life.

We will be judged, criticized, and misunderstood at various times in life, and we really can’t do much about it. Fear of people’s thoughts about our decisions only prevents us from making progress. We decide nothing and then nothing happens, with the exception that we remain frustrated while going back and forth and being confused about what we should do.

Satan always threatens us with, “What if . . . ?” He shows us the most terrible thing that
could
happen, and it always revolves around our making a mistake. When needing to make a decision, we must remember that there is as much of a chance that we will be right as wrong.

We will never fulfill our destinies if we have undue concern over what people think. Let them think what they want. If they think wrong thoughts, they will pay the price by being miserable. Wrong thoughts can do nothing except produce misery. Many people blame their unhappiness and lack of peace on their circumstances when it really is rooted in their own lousy thinking.

People who can break free from caring about what other people think will instantly upgrade their level of living. They will increase their joy and their peace one hundredfold.

B
E
C
ONFIDENT

God wants us to live with confidence and approach life boldly. Being indecisive is neither. Make a decision today to start being decisive. It will never happen if you don’t. It may be a bold move for you if you have spent a lot of your life in fear and indecision, but it is necessary if you really want to enjoy a life of peace. Indecision is not a peaceful place.

Put your confidence in Christ and who you are in Him, not in what people think of you. We cannot base our worth on what others have said or how they have treated us. People who are hurting will hurt others. If you have come into contact with people who are hurting, they may hurt or reject you. They may have transposed their pain onto you, when in reality you were not the real problem at all.

Know yourself! Know your heart, and don’t wait for other people to dictate to you the truth about your value. Don’t assume you are wrong every time someone does not agree with you. Believe that God’s wisdom dwells inside of you. Believe you can make decisions. There is no point at all in believing something negative about yourself when it is just as easy to believe something positive—and it’s certainly a lot more beneficial.

People who are indecisive are usually more passive in nature or insecure. They are fear-based and should be faith-based individuals. Is fear, or faith, motivating most of your actions?

A believer without confidence is like a jumbo jet sitting on the runway with no fuel in it. It looks good but goes no place. People who are indecisive are the same way. They may have all the qualities needed to be successful, but if they refuse to make decisions, they go nowhere and accomplish nothing. Progress begins with a decision.

B
E
C
OURAGEOUS

Courage is a vitally necessary quality if we intend to do anything worthwhile with our time here on earth. Leaders are not always, or even usually, the most gifted people, but they are people with courage. They step out when others shrink back in fear. They take bold steps of faith, they do things that to other people might even seem foolish or unwise, but they are willing to take a chance. They may be wrong occasionally, but they are right enough of the time that it doesn’t matter.

I would rather try to do a lot and accomplish a little than try to do nothing and accomplish all of it. If I try nothing, I will accomplish nothing. The worst thing that can happen is I will be wrong, and that really is not the end of the world. After all, nobody is right all the time. I would rather take a chance on being wrong and trying to accomplish something than definitely be wrong because I have done nothing.

God expects us to increase, to be fruitful and multiply (see Genesis 1:28). He admires courage; in fact, He demands it from those who will work alongside of Him. The Lord told Joshua that he was to take Moses’ place and lead the Israelites into the promised land. There was one stipulation: He had to be strong and of good courage.

Be strong (confident) and of good courage, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only you be strong and very courageous, that you may do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you. Turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. ...Have not I commanded you? Be strong, vigorous, and very courageous. Be not afraid, neither be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. (Joshua 1:6–7, 9)

It doesn’t matter what qualities or provisions we do not have, as long as God is with us. He is all we need. He makes up for anything we are lacking. God told Joshua, “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you” (Joshua 1:5). Moses was great because God was with him and he took courageous steps to do what God told him to do. The same thing would hold true for Joshua—and will be true for any one of us who follows God’s ways in these areas. His way is not one of shrinking back in fear, but of going forward courageously in faith.

God’s way is one of being decisive. We are not to make decisions so quickly that we don’t give them proper thought and prayer. We should seek wisdom and be sure we are following peace. But once we have done all we can do to assure we are making a right decision, as far as we know, there is nothing else to do except be courageous and do something, lest we do nothing.

D
ECIDE BY
Y
OUR
H
EART
, N
OT
Y
OUR
H
EAD

A person who needs to have everything all figured out will not be courageous. People who do courageous things follow their hearts. They may not always fully understand why they feel courage, but they are bold enough to follow it. I am not suggesting we follow our emotions, which would not be good since they are rather unstable. But we should follow our born-again spirits, our hearts.

People who do bold things step out in faith even though they have no real proof they will even work. They make decisions by discernment.
Discernment
means to be able to grasp and comprehend what is obscure. It is the ability to see what is not obvious based on circumstances. A person might say he makes decisions by his “gut.” This simply means he does what he believes is
right
even if he feels uncomfortable. Jesus Himself did not make decisions based on natural knowledge.

And shall make Him of quick understanding, and His delight shall be in the reverential and obedient fear of the Lord. And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, neither decide by the hearing of His ears; but with righteousness and justice shall He judge the poor and decide with fairness for the meek, the poor, and the downtrodden of the earth (Isaiah 11:3–4)

We see from this Scripture that He did not decide “by the sight of His eyes,” or the “hearing of His ears,” yet He was of “quick understanding.” If we follow our hearts, we can understand quickly what we could not learn by natural means in a lifetime. It is sad, but most people are afraid to operate in the supernatural realm; they want to understand everything in their minds.

One year a man was helping me do my income tax. When he observed that we gave 10 percent of our income to the church each year, he promptly told me that we were giving too much, that it was not necessary, and we should stop.

He was looking at our giving in the natural and could find no reason why we would want to do such a thing. We were looking at it according to our knowledge of God’s Word. We understood spiritually what we were doing and believed that if we gave, God would always take care of us. I tried to explain God’s principles on sowing and reaping to him, but he insisted that even if we wanted to give, it did not need to be that much, especially since we didn’t have an abundance left over after giving to the church and paying our bills.

This is an example of a natural man not understanding the spiritual man. First Corinthians 2:14 explains that the natural man cannot understand spiritual things because they must be spiritually discerned. This simply means that spiritual things take place in the born-again spirit of the inner man, not in the natural mind.

This is one of the reasons God’s Word instructs us to let peace be the umpire in our lives, deciding with finality everything that is questionable. If we could go two ways, which way do we go? What do we decide? We decide to do what we have peace in our hearts about, what we are comfortable with inside of us. God speaks and communicates to the heart of man, not necessarily to his head. We know God in our hearts. He dwells in our hearts.