It’s easy to see what’s wrong in our lives. The trick is to be intentional and find the good in our current situation. Learning to be grateful for what we have enables us to move beyond our frustrations and irritations and step toward joy.
Embracing “what is” means rethinking what we thought we needed. Embracing our actual circumstances means accepting that people are flawed, and life is not always the way we think it ought to be.
Living “what is” means putting our trust in God instead of people and things. (I’m not talking about accepting abusive or destructive relationships here. Those need to be taken care of immediately, so everyone is safe and stays safe.)
As my friend Stephen Weaver at Sandy Cove Ministries often reminds people, “Maybe when things don’t go the way we want, we need to fix the way we thought they should be.”
How do we do that? How do we keep from getting stuck in our perceptions of things? We can begin by praying, “Create in me a new, clean heart, O God, filled with clean thoughts and right desires” (Psalm 51:10 TLB). This is recognizing and acknowledging that only God knows what is best for us.
The Myth of Predicting What Will Bring Happiness
While we think we know what will bring us joy, happiness, and a meaningful life, research has shown otherwise. Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert states that various studies have proven we can’t predict what will make us happy. Why? Because we base those predictions on how we feel now. Dr. Gilbert explains that we are often wrong in our projections because “when we imagine future circumstances, we fill in details that won’t really come to pass and leave out details that will.
When imagining future feelings, we find it impossible to ignore what we are feeling now and impossible to recognize how we will think about the things that happen later.” Unless we are willing to give up our desires and what we believe we need to be happy, our emotions will take us on roller coaster rides. We will be up when our desires and expectations are met and down—way down—when they aren’t.
On the other hand, when we discard those desires, expectations, and demands that have become idols, we are free to experience God’s plans and desires for our lives. We are free to live in the here-and-now with peace and joy. Who among us doesn’t desire that?
Find the Good in 6 Simple Steps
Below is a short exercise that will help you become more intentional about finding good in your circumstances and step toward joy:
1. Desires: What are your hopes and dreams? What do you long for? Children? Grandchildren? To live in a warmer climate? To lose 50 pounds? Rather than bury your hopes deep within, make a list of what you desire. If figuring out what you desire is difficult, think of it as a wish list.
2. Needs: Realizing that sometimes we confuse our desires with a distorted need, go through the list you created for question 1 and write D for desire and N for a true need after each entry.
3. Expectations: Examine each entry you identified in question 2 as a desire. Ask, “How am I thinking about it? Am I hoping it will be met or am I expecting or demanding that it be met?” Circle any desires that have become expectations or demands.
4. Demands: When our expectations aren’t met, we can go to great lengths to demand that others fulfill our desires. Are there any expectations you are clinging to and refusing to get rid of? If so, what’s keeping you from releasing them and surrendering them to God?
5. Embrace “what is” to find good: Thinking about the desires you circled and the unmet expectations that may need to be grieved, how can you embrace reality?
6. Write down four things you can be thankful for today.
Warmly,
Georgia
P.S. Today’s content was adapted from Taking Out Your Emotional Trash. If you’d like to read more, you can purchase your copy of the book here.
