He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts. ~Samuel Johnson

Every growing person is dominated predominately by positive thinking. When negative thinking grows in a person then the positive passion and power of that person fades and they begin to diminish. It is important therefore that we promote positive thinking in our own lives and resist the temptation to be negative. Only when there is more positive thinking than negative thinking will our lives be healthy and growing.

What is realistic positive thinking?

Look at the best side of a situation while acknowledging problems
Believing that God can change me and others
Believe in God answering prayer in a positive way
Having hope in what God will do with in the future
Supporting positive comments and encouraging faith in others
Avoiding griping, complaining, and murmuring
Find true encouraging things to say about myself and others
Confess my sins with the confidence that God forgives me my sins in Christ Jesus
Pray for the pastor, leaders, and the other people in the church while praising God
Pray for the political leaders of my nation and the world while praising God for working for good in the midst of history.
As led by the Holy Spirit try new or challenging things hopeful that God will use them
Get better as I reflect about the past, identify mistakes, and gain wisdom from it
Encourage new, creative, and inventive ideas and see them as possible
Try to see new things from new perspectives. Seek to grow as a Christian and person.
Take prayerful and thoughtful risks
Be encouraged by those who are looking for the “up side” of a disaster
Believe that God is working all things together for good
Praise attempts to fix a dysfunctional situation
Be open to changing my point of view to see things more from God’s perspective
Believe I am realistic not optimistic
What is negative thinking?
I look at the worst side of a situation and make that the focus.
I lack the belief that I could change or others could change
I lose hope in the future being better
I take the opposing view in any positive conversation
I never make upbeat or uplifting comments about myself or others
I turn conversations into griping, complaining, or murmuring sessions
I spread rumors and gossip about leaders and suspect them of evil without proof
I complain about the pastor, the leaders, and other people in the church, and even God
I complain about political leaders, promote the idea of secret conspiracies, and offer no hope for society. I don’t bother to pray for leaders I know God will not hear.
I try nothing new or challenging because I feel that I will fail.
I get bitter over how people treat me.
I put down new, creative, and inventive ideas as impossible without being willing to brain storm.
I limit my vision of what God could be doing in my life.
I take no risks.
I am cynical towards those who are looking for an “up” side of a tragedy, failure, or disaster.
I ridicule those who say “all things are working together for good.”
I ridicule attempts to fix dysfunctional situations.
I tell people I am realistic not pessimistic.

No one is totally positive or negative. These tendencies will go up and down in each of us as individuals and as a society as a whole. Where the majority of the people and the weight of the emotional energy is positive then growth in a society will normally occur.

People are attracted to positive groups and repelled by negative ones. We should strive therefore to be realistically positive in all we do if we want our lives, our families, our communities, our culture, and the world to become more healthy. It is by promoting such an attitude that we will enjoy the life that God has given to us and attach other people to live such a life as well.

You may be feeling very sad today. It is OK to feel sad on Christmas eve. God is OK with that.

He understands how living in a broken world can cause sadness. He came to live with you in the broken world. To share in it and to know it on an intimate level. He understands being abused, rejected, slandered, neglected, and hated. He has cried about all those realities and He has suffered all those realities.

One of the wonderful realities of Christmas is that in the person of Messiah Jesus, God is now with us. He is not watching us from a safe distance in heaven. He came to be with us in our pain, sorrow, confusion, loss, and hurt. He embraces us in our brokenness. He is not ashamed to be in a relationship with us even though everything is dark and polluted in our lives. He touches us where we are.

So even as you feel sad this holiday. Understand that God is with you in your sorrow and understands your sadness. He is embracing you with unconditional love and is fully committed to never leaving you. Live in that reality.

Merry Christmas

How to deal with the holiday blues

1. Recognize that the holidays will be over very soon

2. Remember that the people wishing you “Happy Holidays” really do for the most part want you to know happiness during this season. You may not be able to be happy but to have people wishing you blessing is never bad.

3. Take time to look at the cup half full. Make a list of what you do have. Keep yourself from denying the good that is in your life.

4. Choose to do one act of kindness for someone regardless of how you feel.

5. Give yourself the right to grieve your losses in the security that God embraces you in His love which is found in Messiah Jesus.

Remember: blessed are all those who mourn for they will be comforted.

How does one deal with the Holiday blues? To be depressed and disappointed when the rest of the world seems filled with joy and excitement is one of the most difficult experiences to have in our lives. Yet, every holiday there are tens of millions of people that find the holidays a difficult struggle and rejoice when they are over because they know that inwardly they are not filling happiness but instead sadness.

There are many reasons for the holiday blues. The holidays can force us to face the fact that we are in real financial trouble and cannot give the gifts we would like unless we want to add to our already over burdened credit card debt. For others this season is mixed with the loss of a loved one. Perhaps this Christmas will be the first one where that person is not around the table. Their loss is felt deeply and their contribution to the dynamics of the family is experienced. Sometimes the holidays force us to face the fact our family is split, divided, and alienated. We are alone not because of death but because of conflict. The New Year might just remind us that we enter it without any hope of our dreams being reached and the sense that our visions have died. We do not enter the new year with goals but with fear of losing what little we have left. All of these factors and many others can make the holidays a crisis of soul.

How do we fight the holiday blue? First to remember that the real message of the holidays is about God’s undonditional love for us in the middle of our struggles. God did not come to seek the happy but the helpless in the Messiah Jesus. Therefore, if we are feeling hopeless and helpless we are the very ones for whom Messiah Jesus came. He said only the sick need Him. If we confess that our soul is sick then we are qualified to have Messiah Jesus give us some of His joy freely. Maybe we need to allow ourselves to really listen to the message of the Chirstmas carols. They are not about how life is great, they are about how God loves us in our difficult and struggling lives. How God has decided to forgive our failures and give us paridise as a gift paid for by the death of His Messiah Son Jesus. The Holidays are Holy Days because they remind us of good news intended for those who feel poor in spirit. Maybe those who are not confessing their spiritual poverty are really the ones out of touch with the spirit of the season. Maybe in our struggle and pain we are the ones most ready to hear the wonder of God’s love and be touched by His grace.

Second, just decide to not be rushed or pressurred into doing more than your soul can take. Seek to have a meditative and quiet time. Seek fellowship with people who are safe. If you are emotionally fed by being alone then give yourself some thoughtful walks and take time to journal. If being around people helps you then most churches will be having events that allows you to have a spiritual family even if your physical family is not able to be with you.

Third this may be the time to find a counselor, coach, or spiritual director. Out of the ashes of the past you can decide to reframe and renew a search for answers. Out of the hope of the holidays you can decide to respond with new hope. If you need comfort for a loss, now is the time to begin a journey of healing and if despair had dominated your life, now is the time to seek hope. The holidays are a problem but they are also a potential.

I hope that you will feel the presence of the God who loves you more than your wildest dreams of God’s love. Even if you are angry with God, He is loving you. God loves His enemies. He understands your pain better than anyone else. He understands you better than anyone else. He is inside your mind and heart. Your soul is naked before God. He embraces you in Christ. In that embrace is healing. Open your heart to that comforting embrace this holiday season.

Everyone knows that positive thinking is better for us mentally, emotionally, and physically than being negative. There is real power in positive thinking. No one really doubts this.

The problem is how can one be positive when the facts of life seem so negative? How can one have a positive attitude when so many painful and disappointing events occur? Without losing touch with reality, how exactly can we keep a positive attitude?

To do this we must come to a deep conviction and insight about three ideas.

1. God has given meaning to our lives under all circumstances, even the most miserable ones.

2. There is purpose in all pain. Not one moment of suffering is unnecessary to fulfill our God given meaning and destiny. There was no way for us to achieve our end without suffering. Life is like pregnancy, it is a painful process but the end result is worth the discomfort.

3. We have the responsibility to interpret life from the perspective of faith that seeks to comprehend God’s meaning and purpose for our lives in every event.

To have a positive attitude is not to deny the pain of our lives. It is to seek the silver lining in the storm clouds. It is to look for the half of the glass that is full while not denying the half that is empty. It is believing that even our failures and mistakes are ultimately not powerful enough to keep us from reaching God’s original plan for our lives. It is trusting in God’s purpose and plan and seeking to accept it by faith.

We must believe that God exists and that God rewards those who seek for HIM.

So can we develop a positive attitude in a painful world without denying the reality of pain and suffering. But it depends on us viewing the pain and suffering in a different light.

Rom 8:28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

The other day I was thinking about depression. As one who has struggled with depression and one who has helped people struggle with the feelings of depression, the issue is one of interest and concern for me. Depression is a serious problem.

Now there is biological depression and psychological depression. These two can interact and impact each other. There are times when we need to seek medical help to overcome biological depression. What I am focused on today is psychological depression. It can create and increase biological depression in some people. So to overcome psychological depression can be a great help.

As I was thinking about depression it came to me that it reflects a total lack of motivation. I was reading some articles on motivation and one of the key things that motivates us is the belief that our competence and character will matter in what we achieve in life. When people or cultures come to believe that their competence and character do not matter and that their destiny are governed by “chance” or “luck” then their motivation to have great competence or praise worthy character declines. Helpless people lack motivation and are depressed.

The depressed person feels that their character and competence will not save them. They feel destined to defeat in what matter to them. So why get out of bed? Why put in the energy? Where does one find energy when one feels that the effort is hopeless? Depression is for many people the logical emotion for the prophecy they have set over their lives. When we are depressed we say to ourselves ” I will lose” and therefore our motivation to run the race of life comes to an end. We stop running. Why try?

It is interesting in a race and especially a marathon that most of the runners know early on that they will not be the first one across the finish line. If the only definition of success was to finish first then all but two or three of the runners could just stop running at about the second mile. In fact most of the runners know that the odds of them winning the race by being “number one” are slight if not zero. Then why do they run? They have defined “success” as the act of running and this gives them an internal reward when they do their best. These runners run not to be the first across the finish line or to have their names in the paper. These people run because they see the value of running.

I think that to defeat depression we need to have a personal awakening in which we change the rules we live by and see the value of the journey of life. We need to see that being a person who has maximized their personal competence and character has its own intrinsic value regardless of what it produces in outward change of our circumstances. To strive for this goal to be our personal best is an on going process day by day. Winning it to try.

It does in fact matter to God that we reflect the character of Christ Jesus. He just wants us to try to follow the Messiah. God the Father will forgive us our failures and strengthen our hearts. We really are actors before an audience of one. Due to God’s great grace in dying for our sins in the death of Messiah Jesus we are not accepted and adopted by God the Father. We receive a standing ovation from the heavenly Father when we strive to walk the life of faith. Regardless of the circumstances or the criticisms of other people, our striving to maximize our competence and character to give glory to Messiah Jesus for dying for our sins is appreciated by God and gives the heavenly Father joy. We are winning when as we strive to live sane, stable, and spiritual lives.

So t0 overcome depression we have to find a new source of motivation. The story we have been telling ourselves in which we define ourselves as losers has to be silenced. We have to find a new life story. A story that makes sense of our struggles. I would recommend the story of God’s love in Jesus the Messiah. This true story above all others can heal the soul and help us in our fight against depression.