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Week #5 – False Gods, False Happiness

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

This is the 5th of our 14-week free program, where we provide Lesson #5, on false gods and false happiness. Here are some questions to consider:

  • What is “it” that you think will make you happy?
  • Does “it” bring you true happiness?
  • What do you spend most of your time on? Or money on?

Johnny Lee sings a song called, “Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places”. I believe most of us are guilty of that…in addition to looking for happiness in all the wrong places. I heard not long ago…we can never get enough of what we really don’t need. Think about that in your life. What are those things that you’re chasing, that you think are going to make you happy?

I’ve identified them as the 4 Ps, prominence, possessions, pleasure, and people. Let’s explore each:

  • Prominence – if we’re honest, most of us want to stand out, to be noticed. Prominence makes us feel respected and admired, held in high esteem, and most importantly, loved.
  • Possessions – houses, cars, clothes, gadgets, etc. It doesn’t matter the socioeconomics, we all value “stuff”. One indication of this is the amount of personal debt many people have, living way beyond their means.
  • Pleasure – is dependent on specific circumstances. Unlike joy, pleasure only takes place in the moment. Once the act creating the pleasure is over, the pleasure is gone. It’s fleeting.
  • People – whether we realize it or not, many of us turn others into false gods. They can be the rich and famous or those close to us. Neither is healthy and without fail, we will eventually be disappointed and often deeply hurt.

Here’s the truth, all of the above are false gods, bringing us nothing but false happiness. None of them will ever satisfy you on a long-term basis. Each is fleeting.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

Have you ever heard the story of the old man in the hospital, lamenting to his family while looking back on his life? He wishes that he had spent far less time at work. The clear inference is that if he had it to do over again, he would have been home much more, with those he loved.

The fact is that the only thing that is going to bring us true happiness is our relationships. We are made for community. We are made for friendship. We are made for authentic relationship. Although family and friends are vital, there’s no more important relationship we can have than with Jesus Christ, the source of all Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment.

Suggested Actions
So, what do we do about it? Here’s what I would suggest:

  • Think about the following questions. Take them to prayer. We can only understand an issue if we identify it. Ponder (think/pray) the following:
    • What are the things that you idolize in your life? What do you spend most of your time and money on?
    • Why do you spend your time (and money) this way? Not the surface answer, but truly “why”?
    • Do these things bring you true happiness…peace, joy, and fulfillment?
    • What do you think is missing in your life?
  • Whenever you’re doing whatever you’re doing, always ask yourself “why”? Why are you doing them? Is it going to make you happy long-term, or will it be fleeting?
  • Watch this Friday’s video on this same subject….it will be emailed to you.

Please join us next Wednesday for Week #6 when we talk about Life’s Tragedies. As always, please feel free to get to me with questions, comments, or concerns at [email protected].

God Bless you on your Path to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment!!!

Mark Joseph

 

Week #1 – Being Overwhelmed
Week #2 – Earning the love of others
Week #3 – Lack of self-love
Week #4 – Fear
Week #5 – False gods, False happiness
Week #6 – Life’s Tragedies
Week #7 – Wounds, Resentments

Week #8 – Discovering God’s Love
Week #9 – Forgiveness and healing
Week #10 – Becoming the best Possible You
Week #11 – Path to Peace
Week #12 – Finding your Purpose
Week #13 – You were made for Greatness
Week #14 – True Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment

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Weekly Blog

Week 4# – Fear

This is the 4th of our 14-week program, where we provide Lesson #4, on Fear. So, here are some questions to consider:

  • Separate from your phobias, i.e. snakes, spiders, heights, what are your fears? Examples are right below.
  • What has the impact been on your life? What have these fears prevented you from doing?

Depending on the resources you look to, the list of most common fears can vary. When writing my book, Overwhelming Pursuit: Stop Chasing Your Life and Live, the list that rang most true to me included:

  • Ridicule
  • Rejection
  • Conflict or Confrontation
  • Unknown (Uncertainty)
  • Loneliness

Having recited the above when giving talks, I always ask the audience which of the most prevalent fears is not among the list. Someone invariably answers….FAILURE.
Why are we so fearful of failure?

  • Being rejected
  • Not being liked, being loved
  • Not being good enough
  • Failure itself – what it says about us

Fear impedes progress in our lives. Think about it. Because of fear, you don’t do things or do them differently than you otherwise would. Therefore, the results you achieve, both good and bad, are different than if you didn’t have the fear. Without the fear, your lessons learned, your progress would be different, arguably better.

Photo by Kat Jayne from Pexels 

I have a plaque on my desk that reads, “What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?” Think about that for a minute. How would your life be different? I know mine would. How about yours’?

The irony here is that our true friends and those in our family who truly love us will support us no matter what. So will God the Father, who loves us unconditionally, and His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, who died for our sins, dare I say our faults and our failings.

It says 365 times in Scripture some derivative of “be not afraid”. God clearly doesn’t want us to live in fear. Yet most of us live with fears, including the list above, and especially (in most cases) the fear of failure. It used to be true in my life. I thank God for the journey He took me on, which will be shared as we move through these lessons.

Suggested Actions

Acknowledging that there are no “quick” fixes to anything in life, I’m going to give you a couple things that helped me with this idea of fear:

I would suggest

  • Think about the following questions. Take them to prayer. We can only understand an issue if we identify it. Ponder (think/pray) the following:
    • Make a list of the top three factors in your life that cause you the most fear.
    • Looking at your list, where do these fears come from? Are they rooted in reality?
    • If not (which is most often the case), what’s the truth in each of these situations?
    • Start to speak that truth in your life, whether that’s through writing something down and sticking it on your bathroom mirror or developing a mantra you can repeat to yourself throughout the day.
  • Sometimes the only way to overcome a fear is by performing the opposite action. Is there a fear you can face down by doing (even if in a very small way) the very thing you’re afraid of? See how you perform…you’ll probably be surprised.
  • During your morning prayer routine this week, offer your fears up to the Lord (discard them, give them to Him), basking in His love and internalizing your true worth. Replace those fears with phrases like “be not afraid” and “I can do all things through Christ”, both from Scripture.
  • Watch this Friday’s video on this same subject….it will be emailed to you.

Please join us next Wednesday for Week #5 when we talk about false gods and false happiness. As always, please feel free to get to me with questions, comments, or concerns at [email protected].

God Bless you on your Path to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment!!!

Mark Joseph

 

Week #1 – Being Overwhelmed
Week #2 – Earning the love of others
Week #3 – Lack of self-love
Week #4 – Fear
Week #5 – False gods, False happiness
Week #6 – Life’s Tragedies
Week #7 – Wounds, Resentments

Week #8 – Discovering God’s Love
Week #9 – Forgiveness and healing
Week #10 – Becoming the best Possible You
Week #11 – Path to Peace
Week #12 – Finding your Purpose
Week #13 – You were made for Greatness
Week #14 – True Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment

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Weekly Blog

Week #3 – Lack of Self-Love

This is the 3rd of our 14-week program, where we provide Lesson #3, Lack of Self-Love. This is a tough issue, which requires honest (and vulnerable) self-assessment. So, here are some questions to consider:

  • After you’ve done something, i.e. an interaction, project, performance (sports, speech, etc.) of some kind, do you find yourself second-guessing yourself?
  • Given the above, do you beat yourself up, which turns into not liking yourself…not loving yourself?
  • What is the impact on your life? During your day? Over the course of your week?

When writing my book, I wanted to vet the concepts with my therapist. I said to her something like, “70-75% of people suffer from lack of self-love”. She scoffed at me, laughing. I’ll never forget it. I said, “what do you mean?” She then said that based on her experience and research, that “lack of self-love afflicts more than 95% of us”.

Think about it in your life…

  • You do something where you believe you’ve not performed well or not met the expectations of others.
  • You believe that they didn’t like what/how you did it (true or not), then inferring that they don’t like you. You become hyper-critical of your actions.
  • It being a constant source of concentration, you beat yourself up, not like yourself, not believing you deserve to be loved, then not loving yourself.

 

Photo by Tim Mossholder from Pexels

If we’re honest, the above resonates.

Same Was True for Me
That was certainly the case for me. Born mostly out of the conditional love (needing to earn the love of others) we talked about last week (Lesson #2), I was beating myself up on a regular basis. According to that same therapist, it was stealing the energy from me to live a happy and fulfilled life.

From the outside, I was this confident guy, who had it all together…nice family, good business, nice things, and I was crumbling inside. It wasn’t just her theory. It was real….I had no peace or joy in my life. I was on that hamster wheel (Lesson #1) and I was exhausted, deflated, frustrated….overwhelmed.

Here’s the Truth About the Situation
Those closest to you, who truly love you, family and friends, could care less how you perform. They’re going to love you anyhow.

No one judges you as harshly as you judge yourself. You, like so many others, hold yourself to unrealistic standards. Yet your worth, your value as a person, has nothing to do with how you perform.

God loves you more than you’ll ever know, no matter what you’ve ever done.

Suggested Actions
So what do we do about it? As indicated, there are no “quick” fixes to anything in life, including LACK OF SELF-LOVE. In future lessons, I’m going to provide guidance on a more comprehensive fix that we can’t get to until covering more material. In the interim, I would suggest:

  • Think about the following questions. Take them to prayer. We can only understand an issue if we identify it. Ponder (think/pray) the following:
    • When was the last time you beat yourself up?
    • Think through what actually occurred in the situation. Looking at it as objectively as you can, how did you perform? Did the job get done? Were the goals primarily met?
    • Understanding that the answers to the above are typically “yes”, how did you allow the circumstance impact you…your day, that evening, even the balance of the week?
    • Imagine what things would have felt like that day or week if you didn’t have this self-doubt.
  • During your morning prayer routine this week:
    • Offer your negative thoughts up to the Lord (discard them, give them to Him), basking in His love and internalizing your true worth. Replace those thoughts with words like “I am loved” and “my value doesn’t lie in what I do”.
    • Try to concentrate on the positive. What are the good things in your life? The occurrences? Relationships? Job? Health? It would help to jot them down.
  • Watch this Friday’s video on this same subject….it will be emailed to you.

Please join us next Wednesday for Week #4 when we talk about FEAR. As always, please feel free to get to me with questions, comments, or concerns at [email protected].

God Bless you on your Path to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment!!!

Mark Joseph

 

Week #1 – Being Overwhelmed
Week #2 – Earning the love of others
Week #3 – Lack of self-love
Week #4 – Fear
Week #5 – False gods, False happiness
Week #6 – Life’s Tragedies
Week #7 – Wounds, Resentments

Week #8 – Discovering God’s Love
Week #9 – Forgiveness and healing
Week #10 – Becoming the best Possible You
Week #11 – Path to Peace
Week #12 – Finding your Purpose
Week #13 – You were made for Greatness
Week #14 – True Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment

Categories
Weekly Blog

Week #2 – Having to Earn the Love of Others

This is the 2nd of our 14-week program, where we provide Lesson #2, Having to Earn the Love of Others. So here are some questions to consider:

  • When growing up, do you remember times when performing well made you feel more loved?
  • Or how about when you failed at something or perceived that you failed, did you feel less loved?
  • Although you don’t do it intentionally (none of us do), do you treat people differently based on their performance, i.e. your kids, coworkers

The most glaring example of this issue in my life was winning the high school football championship my senior year. No matter where my teammates and I went, we were treated like heroes, like gods. Regardless of whether it was the school administration, our teachers, and classmates, or family…parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins, the media, friends outside of school, or the broader community…we were celebrated for our successes individually and collectively.

Having come from an incredibly loving home, the above made me feel more loved based on my success, us winning. Think about it in your own life. Based on my research, I’m quite sure you’ve experienced it.

Photo by Pixabay from Pexels

No Malice Intended

It’s not done intentionally or with malice. Most of us had good upbringings. That said, most also grow up believing, based on our lived experiences, that we have to excel to be loved. Stated another way, we fear that if we don’t perform well, we won’t be loved. And at a fundamental level, we all want to be loved; we all want to be accepted.

As we’re going to learn in future lessons, believing that we have to earn the love of others isn’t a good thing. It drives behaviors related to our own self-development, in addition to the way we treat others, that aren’t healthy. 

Suggested Actions

As indicated, there are no “quick” fixes to anything in life, including feeling the need to earn the love of others. That said, as we move through these 14 lessons, I’m going to give you things that helped me in my life.

Specific to this lesson, I would suggest:

  • Think about the following questions. Take them to prayer. Reference Daily Dialogue with God at this past blog for guidance. We can only understand an issue if we identify it. Ponder (think/pray) the following:
    • How did “earning the love of others” occur in your life?
    • How are you seeing it occur in others’ lives?
    • What do you think the impact was then?
    • How has what occurred then impacted you now?
  • We need to learn to separate our role (carpenter, banker, electrician, dietician, teacher) from our identity (loved children of God). Think and pray about the following:
    • God does not call us because we are worthy, but because we are wanted.
    • God does not call the qualified; He qualifies the called.
    • St. Augustine wrote, “God loves each of us as if there was only one of us to be loved”.
  • During your morning prayer routine (from last week), in addition to taking your worries and stresses to the Lord, asking for His peace, also bask in His love. You can meditate on each of the phrases just above, in addition to “I am a loved child of God”.
  • Watch this Friday’s video on this same subject….it will be emailed to you.

Please join us next Wednesday for Week #3 when we talk about lack of self-love. As always, please feel free to get to me with questions, comments, or concerns at [email protected].

God Bless you on your Path to Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment!!!

Mark Joseph

 

Week #1 – Being Overwhelmed
Week #2 – Earning the love of others
Week #3 – Lack of self-love
Week #4 – Fear
Week #5 – False gods, False happiness
Week #6 – Life’s Tragedies
Week #7 – Wounds, Resentments

Week #8 – Discovering God’s Love
Week #9 – Forgiveness and healing
Week #10 – Becoming the best Possible You
Week #11 – Path to Peace
Week #12 – Finding your Purpose
Week #13 – You were made for Greatness
Week #14 – True Peace, Joy, and Fulfillment