"The first time I was brought before the judge, no one came with me. Everyone abandoned me. May it not be counted against them” (2 Timothy 4:16 NLT).
Paul, one of the greatest followers of Jesus ever, was on trial in Rome, and not one person stepped forward to defend him. Not one! He was absolutely by himself. Nobody stepped forward to say, “This is a good guy. He’s alright.” Yet Paul didn’t say, “Those jerks—after all I’ve done for them all these years!” Instead, he said, “May it not be counted against them.” In other words, he was not going to let himself become bitter. Because bitterness always makes loneliness worse. This is just one of the ways Paul teaches us how to live when we are going through a season of loneliness. When you feel lonely, you need to minimize your hurt. You need to play it down and pray it up. Don’t rehearse it over and over in your mind. If you do, it just gets bigger and bigger and out of control. Refuse to become resentful, because bitterness will eat you up. Bitterness and loneliness go together because they become a cycle. You become lonely. Then you start feeling bad about it and have a pity party. Then you become bitter. Your bitterness makes you even lonelier, which makes you more bitter. Soon, you’re a hardhearted, depressed person that nobody can get close to. Nobody wants to be around a bitter person. Nobody wants to be around a cynic. Nobody wants to be around a person who is constantly angry. Bitterness will only perpetuate your loneliness. That’s why, when you go through a season of loneliness, you should minimize the hurt. Don’t build a wall around your life.
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“When you come, be sure to bring the coat I left with Carpus at Troas. Also bring my books, and especially my papers” (2 Timothy 4:13 NLT).
What should you do when you go through a season of loneliness? The answer is illustrated in the life of Paul in 2 Timothy 4, when he was in prison and awaiting his execution. When you go through a season of loneliness, you need to make the most of your time. That means making the best of a bad situation. Resist the temptation to do nothing. Take some action—any kind of action. Try to think of creative ways to take advantage of the seasons in which you are alone. Paul wrote to Timothy from prison and told him, “When you come, be sure to bring the coat I left with Carpus at Troas. Also bring my books, and especially my papers” (2 Timothy 4:13 NLT). In a season of loneliness, you need to be comfortable and productive. Even though he was lonely, Paul didn’t throw a pity party. He didn’t complain or give up. This is Paul, one of the greatest Christians who ever lived after Jesus himself, who won countless people to Christ, and who is completely alone in his final days. What does he do? He makes the best of the situation. He utilizes his time. He says two things:
Life is full of contrasts. We go through mountains, and we go through valleys. We go through successes, and we go through failures. We have wins, and we have losses.
In weather, there are four seasons. But in your life, there are dozens of different seasons. And every season of life includes both good and bad times. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 gives us a representation of different life experiences: “For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build up. A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace and a time to turn away. A time to search and a time to quit searching. A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear and a time to mend. A time to be quiet and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace” (NLT). Life is a combination of contrasting seasons. All sunshine and no rain make a desert. If you’re following God’s will, seeking to live your life according to the way God wants you to live, then you’ll eventually see that these experiences can have purpose and value in your life. You may think that the only time you’re in God’s will is when you’re at church or having a quiet time. You can be in God’s will as you’re cleaning out a closet. You can be in God’s will as you’re mowing your lawn. You can be in God’s will when you move to a new location or stay right where you are. There’s a time and season for everything. Ray Stevens sang a song called “Everything Is Beautiful” that included the lyric “Everything is beautiful in its own way.” That’s not exactly true. Everything is not beautiful. Cancer is not beautiful. Child abuse is not beautiful. War is not beautiful. The Bible says it differently in Ecclesiastes 3:11: “God has made everything beautiful for its own time” (NIV). That’s very different from “Everything is beautiful in its own way.” Because the Bible is saying that God can take even the bad things and, in the proper season, turn them around and use them for good in the way he intends. You may be going through a season right now that is not beautiful. Your finances look ugly. Your health looks ugly. Your marriage or a friendship looks ugly. Your future looks ugly. But God can make something good out of it as you trust him with the pieces. “Think about the things that are good and worthy of praise. Think about the things that are true and honorable and right and pure and beautiful and respected” (Philippians 4:8 NCV).
The battle with stress in your life begins between your ears. It’s in your thought life. What you fill your mind with determines the level of stress in your life. The Bible says to “think about the things that are good and worthy of praise. Think about the things that are true and honorable and right and pure and beautiful and respected” (Philippians 4:8 NCV). To lower your stress, change what you think about. In this verse, the Bible gives us eight tests for deciding if we should allow something in our mind. Ask yourself, “Is it good? Is it worthy of praise? Is it true? Is it honorable? Is it right? Is it pure? Is it beautiful? Is it respected?” When you think about things that are good, worthy of praise, true, honorable, right, pure, beautiful, and respected, you’re really picturing God. Isaiah 26:3 says, “You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!” (NLT). What you think about determines how stressed and worried you will be. If you fix your thoughts on God, he will keep you in perfect peace. “If you insist on saving your life, you will lose it. Only those who throw away their lives for my sake and for the sake of the Good News will ever know what it means to really live” (Mark 8:35 TLB).
God wired the universe so that happiness does not come from status, salary, sex, or success. Happiness comes from service. God designed you to be happiest when you are giving your life away. Why? Because God wants you to become like him. And it’s all about love! To have a happy heart, practice service and generosity every day. Jesus came to serve and give. Those two actions will bring more happiness into your life than anything else, and they define what it means to follow Jesus. If you’re not serving and if you’re not giving, then you’re not following Jesus. It’s that’s simple. God also wired the universe in such a way that the more you give yourself away, the more God gives to you and the more blessed and happier you are. In Philippians 2:17-18, Paul says, “Your faith makes you offer your lives as a sacrifice in serving God. If I have to offer my own blood with your sacrifice, I will be happy and full of joy with all of you. You also should be happy and full of joy with me” (NCV). Sacrifice and serving are two of the keys to lifelong happiness—generously giving your life away for the sake of the Gospel. “What happiness for those whose guilt has been forgiven! What joys when sins are covered over! What relief for those who have confessed their sins and God has cleared their record” (Psalm 32:1-2 TLB).
Feeling guilty or ashamed can cause us to lose our happiness. You’ve got to get rid of guilt and maintain a clear conscience if you want to be happy, because you cannot feel guilty and be happy at the same time. Philippians 2:15 says, “Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people” (NLT). You might say, “I’d like to be happy, but how do I keep my conscience clear when it’s not clear right now?” Do what Psalm 32:1-2 says: “What happiness for those whose guilt has been forgiven! What joys when sins are covered over! What relief for those who have confessed their sins and God has cleared their record” (TLB). Happiness, joy, and relief are three things everybody’s looking for in life. We all want to be happy. We all want to enjoy life. We all want relief from our pain. The Bible says it all comes from purity, and purity comes from forgiveness through God’s grace. How do you keep a clear conscience? At the beginning and at the end of every day, do a spiritual inventory. Talk to God about anything that is standing between you and him, and then deal with the junk from your day. You practice what’s called spiritual breathing—you breathe out your sins in confession and you breathe in God’s power and cleansing: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9 NIV). “I thank God for the help you gave me” (Philippians 1:5 NCV).
Paul wrote the book of Philippians to the church that he started in Philippi, where a woman named Lydia opened up her home and, along with others, welcomed Paul to the city. The Philippian church even helped fund Paul’s missionary journeys. In Philippians 1:5, Paul says, “I thank God for the help you gave me” (NCV). The thing is, Paul didn’t have a good time in Philippi. In fact, it was one of his roughest churches to get started. When Paul went to this city to start a church, he was beaten, whipped, humiliated, falsely arrested, thrown into prison, and survived an earthquake. Then he was politely asked by the city leaders to leave town. Yet Paul told the believers, “Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God” (Philippians 1:3 NLT). What is Paul doing there? He is choosing selective memory. Philippi was not a happy place for Paul, and he endured a lot of persecution and suffering during his time in that city. But he chose not to dwell on painful memories. Instead, he expressed his gratitude for the good things that had been done for him and through him. The longer you know someone, the more likely you are to take that person for granted, look for faults, and remember the bad things instead of the good things. Are you still clinging to some painful memories with some people in your life? You’ve never let them off the hook, and you can’t enjoy those relationships because you’re still holding on to the past. You need to understand that memories are a choice. There's a story one time about two friends who were talking. One of them asked the other, “Don’t you remember that time when your husband did this?” Her friend replied, “I distinctly remember forgetting that.” Your memories are a choice. If you want to hold on to your painful memories, go right ahead. But you’re not going to be happy! Paul had a lot of reasons to focus on painful memories of Philippi. Instead, he chose to be grateful for the people in his life and the work God was doing in and through them. When you do the same, God will bless your relationships far beyond your expectations. “Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God” (Philippians 1:3 NLT).
If you want to have healthy relationships, start with an attitude of gratitude. You will be far happier and enjoy your relationships more if you develop the habit of being grateful for the people in your life. Philippians 1:3 says, “Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God” (NLT). That simple truth is the foundation of good relationships. When you think of the people in your life, is your first feeling gratitude? Or are you more likely to ask, “What do they need to do for me? What are our problems? What do we have to get done?” Your first thought may not be gratitude. But Paul’s first thought for his friends was one of gratitude, and it is the model we should follow if we want our relationships to last. Here’s the problem: The longer you know someone, the more likely you take that person for granted. Isn’t that true? With the passage of time, it becomes easier to focus on that person’s faults and the bad times instead of the happy times. That’s why it takes effort on our part to choose to have an attitude of gratitude for the people in our lives. The longer our relationships have lasted, the harder it may be to remember. But we experience an eternal impact on our relationships when we develop the habit of giving thanks to God when we think of our spouses, children, parents, siblings, neighbors, coworkers, and small group members. “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21 NIV).
Happiness comes from service and giving your life away. Until you understand this, you’re not going to be happy for much of your life. Happiness does not come from self-gratification. It comes from self-sacrifice. Paul knew that to be happy, he had to stay focused on his purpose and not his problems. He summed up his purpose in Philippians 1:21: “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (NIV). If you were asked to fill in the blank, what would you say? “For me to live is ______.” Would it be entertainment? Sports? Clothes? Family? Friends? A career? There could be a lot of good things you could answer, but nothing deserves the place of the One who created you and gave you your life: Jesus Christ. How you fill in that blank will determine how happy you are in life. If you answer “money” or “success” or “pleasure” or “power,” you are going to be unhappy for most of your life. The issue isn’t whether there’s something wrong with those things; they just don’t deserve first place. You weren’t created to make a bunch of money, then die, and give it away. God has a far greater purpose for your life. There is only one answer that leads to happiness: To live is Christ. Give your life away. It is your purpose! “If by continuing to live I can do more worthwhile work, then I am not sure which I should choose. I am pulled in two directions. I want very much to leave this life and be with Christ, which is a far better thing; but for your sake it is much more important that I remain alive. I am sure of this, and so I know that I will stay. I will stay on with you all, to add to your progress and your joy in the faith” (Philippians 1:22-25 GNT).
When you stay focused on your purpose instead of your problem, you can be happy even when life seems to be falling apart. Paul was an old man when he was in prison in Rome. He was a long way from home. He was awaiting execution. Everything had been taken from him—his friends, his freedom, his ministry, even his privacy, with a guard chained to him 24 hours a day. It wasn’t exactly a happy time for Paul. But there was one thing they could not take away from Paul: his purpose. Paul made the choice to stay focused on his purpose, even when he had lost everything else. What was his purpose? Serving God by serving others. Paul says in Philippians 1:22-25, “If by continuing to live I can do more worthwhile work, then I am not sure which I should choose. I am pulled in two directions. I want very much to leave this life and be with Christ, which is a far better thing; but for your sake it is much more important that I remain alive. I am sure of this, and so I know that I will stay. I will stay on with you all, to add to your progress and your joy in the faith” (GNT). Viktor Frankl wrote a book called Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankl was a Jewish psychiatrist who was taken to one of the death camps in Nazi Germany. All of his family and all of his friends were gassed and murdered. He talks in his book about a day he stood in front of the Gestapo stark naked. They’d taken away the prisoners’ clothes and even Frankl’s wedding ring. As he stood there with nothing at all, he suddenly realized there was one thing the Nazis could not take away from him: his choice of how he would respond. You cannot totally control what other people do to you. You cannot totally control what other people do around you. But you can control how you respond. |
AuthorTaken from Daily Hope by Rick Warren. Categories
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