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HOLDING THE KEY TO YOUR OWN HAPPINESS – 3/10/18

While it is true that genuine happiness and real joy in life come only from a relationship with God, very much of this happiness depends on us. We cannot put this responsibility in the hands of other people. If we want to be happy, it is all up to us. The key to our success and happiness in life is in our hands.
What can we do to make this happen? The following are a few things we can do if we are to be happy and enjoy life:

1. Have a purpose in life. The best part of this is that you don’t have to create that purpose. God has already a plan for your life and all you have to do is to discover it. He says, “For I know the plans that I have for you, says the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you; plans to give you a hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11.
2. Have a strategy for happiness. Obviously, success is no accident. There are goals to be reached and everything you do on a daily basis should contribute to the attainment of these goals in life.
3. Make friends. Establish healthy and wholesome relationships. We have been created to be social beings. We are not meant to live in isolation. Therefore we need to be with other people. But we must be discerning in the choice of our friends or they could be our downfall.
4. Let people you care about know their value. We feed off other people’s positive energy. When we let our friends know how much they mean to us in a variety of ways, they will feel good and they in turn will contribute to a joyful environment for us.
5. Guess positively. No one among us is born a psychologist or may have been trained to be one. But many times, we try to figure things out and assign motives for certain actions of our friends and acquaintances. The best way to go is to err on the side of mercy. Make positive assumptions. Have the best possible construction on the motives of every action. If we are proven wrong, who cares? And if we are proven right, we’ve made a friend forever.

So let’s use these keys we have in our hands. And let’s enjoy the remainder of our days.

—Simeon Rosete, Jr.

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GOD NEVER MAKES MISTAKES – 3/3/18

A friend shared with me a nice story which illustrates a Biblical principle about an attribute of God which I want to share with you in turn.

Long, long ago, there lived a king whose most faithful and trusted servant would say to him in the face of adverse and even tragic circumstances that God is good. He is perfect in His ways and He never makes mistakes.
One day, the king went hunting with his servant and he was attacked by a wild animal. His servant came to the rescue and was able to drive the beast away. But not before the king was badly bruised, with one of his fingers bitten off. The king complained that if God was so good, why would He allow him to be attacked by such a ferocious beast and his finger bitten off. His servant could only say that it may be difficult to understand but that shouldn’t change the fact that He is good and perfect in His ways and that He never makes mistakes.

The king was furious and in his rage, he had his servant imprisoned for not coming to his aid early enough and further insulting him with his remarks.
On another day, the king was on one of his hunting trips again when he came upon a group of savages and was captured by them. This group engaged in human sacrifices and so when the time came, he was led to the altar where he was to be sacrificed. But upon closer scrutiny, the savages found out that the king had a missing finger. This stopped the whole procedure cause according to their tradition, they could not sacrifice an imperfect offering to their god. He was therefore subsequently released.

When the king got back to his kingdom, the news spread to his subjects and his servant who had been jailed reminded the king that God indeed is wise and never makes mistakes. He allowed the beast to bite his finger off so that he could be spared the tragedy of becoming a human sacrifice of his captors.
The king countered by saying that if God indeed was wise and never makes mistakes, then why did he allow him to be put in jail? The servant answered, “If God didn’t allow me to be put in jail, I would have gone hunting with you. And when the savages found they could not sacrifice you due to your missing finger, they would have taken me to be sacrificed in your place”.
A songwriter penned the following words:

“God is too wise to be mistaken,
He is too good to be unkind;
So when you don’t see His hand,
And don’t understand His plan,
Trust His heart.”

The preceding materials are expressing in a variety of ways the words of the apostle Paul when he said: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God; to them that are the called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28.

—Simeon Rosete, Jr.