Category: Life

How to Live a Complaint-Free Life

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Many of our anxieties and frustrations are fueled by our complaints.  When we complain, we set ourselves up to embrace disappointment.  There is nothing wrong with saying how you feel, and being perfectly honest about those feelings.

However, venting turns into complaining when it takes on a “why me?” tone. When we have a pity party that is more concerned with why we feel a certain way instead of what we can do about it, we become complainers. Below are a few tips to help you maintain a complaint free life:

Have an attitude of gratitude  

Is it really that bad? Ask yourself if it could be worse.  If it could be worse be thankful that it’s not. Having a spirit of thanksgiving eliminates complaints. The next time you feel like complaining, count your blessings and be grateful for the life that you have. Being thankful is a cure for complaining.

Replace Complaining with Contemplating

We complain when something is broke, we are broke, plans have gone awry, there is no cell phone signal, no wifi, our cat peed on the rug, our husband drank the last cup of coffee, and so on. Complaints often arise when there is a problem. Instead of complaining about the problem, spend time contemplating a solution. When our focus shifts from the problem to the answer, the complaining stops.

Look for the silver lining

My former house had so many spiders. No matter how clean the house was they scampered down the hallway or dropped from the ceiling.  While I could have complained about the fact I lived in a place with more spiders than the Amazon, instead, I looked for the silver lining in the situation. So what is the silver lining? The silver lining is that at least I had a home for the spiders to invade, and I didn’t live in the Amazon. Always look for the silver lining.

Pray for the Persecuted Church

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Via Flickr

Years ago I read a book that changed my life. It was a book (written by Richard Wurmbrand) called Tortured for Christ. The book opened a world for me that I didn’t know existed – the world of Christian persecution. In the book, Wurmbrand talked about his persecution in Romania under the oppressive rule of communism.

Richard eventually went on to found an organization called Voice of the Martyrs, which is a Christian ministry that helps families affected by Christian persecution.

Since reading Richard’s book, I’ve had a heart for those who are persecuted. Every day I pray for those who are in chains. (Hebrews 13:3) God tells us to identify with our brothers and sisters who suffer persecution. I think this is one of the ways that we fulfill the commandment of Yeshua who gave us a new commandment in John 13:34,35: A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Loving each other means loving the persecuted church and those in North Korea, Iran, Iraq, India, Egypt, Syria, Columbia and all the other countries where Christians are persecuted. Let’s not forget to pray for our brothers and sisters on a daily basis that God would be their source of strength in times of trial.

5 Promises We Need to Make to Ourselves

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Below are five promises that we need to make to ourselves…

I promise myself that I won’t stay discouraged. We all go through times where we feel discouraged in life, but the trouble starts when we stay that way. Stay motivated, hopeful, and keep faith in God.

I promise myself to use ‘no’ and ‘yes’ responsibly. Life becomes less chaotic when you can learn to say “no” to the things that rob you of your energy and peace. The word “Yes” is equally as powerful. “Yes, I need help.” “Yes, I want that.” “Yes, I do mind.” Use “yes” and “no” responsibly.

I promise myself I will do my part in this world. Our part in this world is quite simple – it’s to love others extravagantly. What would the world look like if people chose love? Yeshua said that all the law hangs on two commandments. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

I promise myself I will be true to myself. Be honest. Be transparent. Be authentic. Don’t shed your unique personality or dreams because of the opinion of others.

I promise myself I will show myself a good time. Many people miss out on amazing experiences because they are too shy or afraid to try something new. Choose to create new memories. Travel, explore, make friends, take lots of pictures, do things that you love. Step out of your shell and live.

Let’s Be Thankful Every Day

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Via StockSnap

My family and I are not fans of Thanksgiving. When I discovered that it was the National Day of Mourning for many Native Americans, the holiday became far more sober and less festive. We ditched the traditional celebration in favor of simply being thankful all the time, and one way that I think we’ve achieved this is through our Gratitude Board.

Our gratitude board is a big, white board in the central part of our home; it’s the place where we write about the things that we are thankful for.

This past Sunday at our church, our pastor encouraged the congregation to post notes of thankfulness on an extremely large gratitude board. It felt good to post to the church’s board because it had been a couple of weeks since I’d posted to the one at home.

If you strip away the fallacious history of Thanksgiving and remove everything except the gratitude, you’re left with a beautiful holiday. Thanksgiving is a good reminder that gratitude is an everyday necessity – not something that we should actively engage in and pursue just once a year.

Let’s be thankful every day.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 – Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.

The Three Steps You Need To Heal an Emotional Injury

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People understand that if they’re injured in some way – if they burn their hand, cut their foot, bruise their leg – there are steps that they should take to make the injury heal quicker. A wise person wouldn’t pour salt into a cut or poke at a bruise expecting it to go away.

But when it comes to emotional injuries people usually do nothing at all or they exasperate the wound, making it worse. Sometimes people behave as if the injury doesn’t exist which allows the wound to simply fester. There’s a saying that time heals all wounds, and I believe that this is true. I think time can work for those slights, little insults, and small events that we run into that aren’t good for our emotional health. But some emotional cuts run much deeper than others. There are times when an emotional injury is substantial.

If you would go to a hospital, physical therapist or grab your first aid kit to deal with a physical injury; why wouldn’t you do the same for an emotional one? Below are three steps that you need to take if you are emotionally injured and need healing.

Step One

The first step that you need to take is it acknowledge that you’re hurt. Ignoring the injury is not going to make it go away. The injury is still there, and if it’s a big wound it won’t get better over time, it will simply turn into something worse.

Take anger for example. If you allow anger to linger in your heart, eventually it will create a root of bitterness. Roots run deep, and they are difficult to remove. If you are hurting, you need to acknowledge that you are hurting. Acting as if you’re not hurt won’t help you recover faster. It’ll only make things worse.

Step Two

The second step is prayer. Prayer heals. Contrary to what the self-help movement proclaims – you cannot heal yourself (emotionally) by your own power – it doesn’t work. You need God to intervene. He is THE healer of broken hearts. A heart surgeon cannot give you a new heart or even heal your heart. He can only use stents, pacemakers and other devices to make the organ run a little while longer. But God is the Great Physician, who can heal emotional wounds completely.

Pray and ask for healing. But don’t just pray for yourself, also pray for the person who injured you. I find that when you pray for the other person it makes it much easier to do the third step.

Step Three

The third step is to let it go. You need to forgive. You can take steps one and two and achieve emotional healing, but without forgiveness there’s an ugly scar that’s left behind. Forgiveness removes that scar. So if you want more than just healing – if you want to remove any trace of the injury, then you have to forgive.

Lighten Your Emotional Load: Go to Church

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People who carry unforgiveness, aren’t just carrying it in their mind, but also in their bodies. Scientific studies have confirmed that unforgiveness literally weighs you down. But I would hypothesize that it’s not just unforgiveness that ways a person down. I think that worry, anxiety, frustration, anger and other negative emotions can also weigh us down. The answer is to give those worries to God.

Leave your troubles at the altar is an old Southern spiritual saying. In Southern Baptist churches, there is this idea that you got to church and leave everything at the altar, in God’s hands. And you leave lighter.

I once attended a church with a congregation of about 15. It was a small church, and I liked it that way. I didn’t just like the size, but I also enjoyed the way that I felt after the service. I often left church feeling lighter – physically lighter.

Yeshua said His yoke is easy, and His burden is light. When we follow Him, we find peace and lightness – the weight of the world is lifted off our shoulders. When we trust in him, we don’t have to worry about everything around us and carry the burden of worry. Instead, He takes it upon Himself for us.

Cast all your cares on Him. This is a refrain echoed throughout Scripture. God cares about every little detail of our lives. He doesn’t want us to worry about anything. Instead, He wants us to pray about everything.

There is a freedom in knowing He cares for us. It makes us feel lighter.

Should We Help Syrian Refugees?

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Xenophobes fear people from other countries – and the fear usually produces an intense or irrational dislike or hatred. Most people don’t understand how difficult it is to be a foreigner – especially to be a foreigner in a country where you do NOT speak the language, or the language is not native to you.

I’ve been the “foreigner” before. However, semantically I was the “expat” because there is an unspoken (and not politically correct) idea that foreigners are financially broke – expats are not.

I have never met a xenophobe who has lived in other countries. Because when you spend time in the shoes of someone who can’t adequately converse with the majority around them you develop sympathy for the foreigner… or the expat. You get it. It’s not easy leaving your home country and starting anew. It’s a tough process – and when the locals are angry at you for simply being ‘foreign’ it makes things even tougher.

When it comes to the Syrian crisis, it seems that xenophobia is mixed with theophobia – a fear of religion – and the religion in question is Islam.

Should we be afraid of Muslims?

The simple answer is that we shouldn’t be afraid of anything – because fear is not a friend – it’s an enemy. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t understand how Islam works in the lives of those who follow the religion.

Islam has proven time and time again to be deadly. The Koran endorses the killing of those who are not believers in allah. I sympathize deeply with the Syrian refugees, and I DO NOT think that we should close our borders. However, I think that we have to be incredibly careful screening those we allow into the country.

Islam is dangerous. The sooner we acknowledge that Islam is not a religion of love or peace, the sooner we can effectively deal with the Syrian crisis in a way that doesn’t endanger our country.