Morning Devotional

December  7, 2005
"Not Doing Their Job"         
    by Don Emmitte

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How grateful I am, and how I praise the Lord that you are concerned about me again. I know you have always been concerned for me, but for a while you didn't have the chance to help me. Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to get along happily whether I have much or little. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything with the help of Christ who gives me the strength I need. But even so, you have done well to share with me in my present difficulty. (Philippians 4:10-13 NLT).

In a Peanuts cartoon Lucy asks Charlie Brown, "Why do you think we were put on earth?" Charlie answers, "To make others happy." Lucy replies: "I don't think I'm making anyone happy," and then adds, "But, nobody's making me very happy either. Somebody's not doing his job!"

I know this may sound simplistic but in a very real sense happiness is a choice. Too many people in our Hollywood-crazed way of thinking expect other people to make them happy. People talk about finding the right partner to marry which is all back to front. To find the right partner we need to be the right partner. The fact is that only happy partners make happy marriages, and the only person who can ever make us happy is ourself.

 

Furthermore, happiness and/or contentment is not only a choice, it is a decision, a commitment to action and to personal honesty that requires a good hard, honest look at ourselves, and then a whole lot of hard work to resolve all the things in our lives that hinder happiness.

 

The starting point for finding happiness and contentment is by making up your mind that you will no longer look to anyone else to make you happy; that no matter what, you will accept responsibility for doing what you have to do to find happiness

I have often made the comparison of people to either thermostats or thermometers. The thermometer measures the environment it is placed in and reflects that environment. If it is hot outside, the thermometer will be hot too. If it is cold, it will be cold. It has not control over it’s own life. The thermostat is significantly different. It measures the environment it is placed in and then sends a signal back to the power source and that triggers a change in the environment to suit it’s own desires (settings). We are called on to be such people in our lives. We have an unlimited power source. We can send a signal back to that source and that power is enough to change anything! Make a commitment today to be such a person.