It’s taken me a long time to realise that I am not responsible for everyone’s happiness and contentment. None of us can be that for another. All we can do is love people with open arms and help them where we are able. We set ourselves up for failure, disappointment and heartache if we try to do anything else, for in the process we can lose who and what God has called us to be. In being responsible for others happiness, we can easily get caught up in constantly modifying all we do and think in an attempt to bring contentment to another. When in actual fact no one can make a person happy except that person and their own decisions, beliefs and individual relationship with their Creator.
Everyone has to figure out their own happy space, and not put it on anyone else to fill it. So many husbands and wives, partners, girlfriends and boyfriends, parents, children, pastors, leaders and friends make this mistake. They try so hard to make those they love happy, while all the while neglecting the freedom there is in being joyful in themselves, and who God has made them to be.
There is real energising power in keeping our focus, energy and perspective on Jesus; and it’s catching because people around us are watching. When we get comfortable and joyful in who we are, and don’t lose our focus on what God has spoken and deposited within us, it liberates and motivates others to find that space too. It’s in our happiness and fulfilment that others are inspired, as our lives become a herald that it is possible; that you can live a peaceful, joy-filled, and purposeful life. We become a testimony to God’s goodness and faithfulness.
Today don’t fall into the trap of being responsible for another’s happiness and sense of fulfilment. We are to encourage, pray for, and believe the best for others, but we can’t compensate for what they haven’t yet hungered after and discovered for themselves. All God asks us to do is to let our lives be like a magnet drawing others to the ultimate path of life we all have the opportunity to discover in knowing Him.
Find your place of joy and fulfilment in Jesus, and all that you were made to be, and know that as you live in that place your happiness and joy will inspire, overflow and be catching to all those around you – just like a “Jesus magnet.”
“Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you.” (Proverbs 4:25)
“I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!” (John 15:23 NLT)
Prayer: Lord help me not to feel like I have to accommodate and be responsible for everyone else at the expense of losing who I am. I just need to concentrate on living in that space of joy and intimacy with you, so that my life is like a “Jesus magnet” to all those around me. In Jesus Name Amen.
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