If I weren't so lazy, I should make a resolution to sleep early and wake up early to catch the morning sunrise while on a morning stroll.
Mmm sounds pretty healthy and good.
I've been full of resolutions lately.
Okay, not lately, just last night.
Ahaha, but it's always good to be driven.
1) Travel more. Like, explore new areas. (Nothing big-scale. Yet. I'm starting small. 2) Be more courageous to step out of my comfort zone.
3) Turn Loneliness to Loveliness. (Now that I just typed it, I realise it's only a difference of one letter!)
4) Be nicer to myself and to people.
5) Stop complaining so much.
Just last weekend I fell sick. Sick in many ways. Sick physically, sick for my mom's fussing over me, sick for homecooked food, sick of life, sick of the pain, sick of loneliness. As I laid in bed, all I could think of was home. In times of sickness, the thing you want most is love. Although I went to bed at 8pm, I couldn't get to sleep till 12-ish. So meanwhile, I switched on John MacArthur's sermon. Best way to kill self-pity. And he hit me with this sentence:
The measure of a person's spiritual character, measure of
spiritual strength, and spiritual maturity is what it takes to steal their joy.
Wow. Strong words. It hit home with me because, as people who know me well enough, it takes so little for someone or something to steal my joy. It's gone within minutes, it can even be stolen in seconds. I'm sick of living like that. Sick of the joyful spurts that never last. Why should joy be based on our circumstances? Is our joy reliant on popularity, on money, on friends, on how good life is currently, on the good food we get to eat every day? Ask yourself this: What if all that you're happy about now is taken away from you? Would you still be able to retain your joy? If your answer is no, then oops sorry to tell you but that's not real joy.
Now you're saying, there's no such thing as real joy. Joy is about having fun and enjoying the moment. I thought so too. But it comes to a saturation point when you realise that you're just so sick of the ups and downs of life. Yes, shit happens. So what say you to having access to the joy that you can have in you forever even when shit happens? I honestly crave for a joy like that. I'm so tired of being manipulated by this world. Yeah so maybe I don't have many true friends, maybe I'm not rich. But so what? Paul wrote the happiest epistles when he was in prison. He knew not to fix his eyes on this world and materialism. Instead, he fixed them on the One who is the source of the everlasting joy and happiness.
Ah~ How I long for that joy. So I don't have to feel sad when noone cares enough to ask a simple "How are you?" when I'm having a rough day, so I don't have to feel lonely when people are surrounded with friends and I'm not, so I don't have to let the world tell me what I should think and act, so I don't have to question why I didn't reap what I sowed. Many times I ask myself why am I putting in so much effort into frienships with people who don't give a damn about me. Then I realised, because He did. Because He loved me when I didn't even know who He was yet. Because He loved me when I didn't want to love Him back. Because He loves me even though I'm so unlovable. We love because He first loved us. Now I truly understand what that means. It's nice to have a friend who will stand by you through thick and thin unconditionally, who will stand by you even though you don't talk to him often or you only talk to him when you need some love.
Forget all the inspirational books on happiness. We don't need them. Just look deep into yourself and ask yourself those questions. Joy is from internal, not external.
Lord, help my forgetful self to remember this!
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