Just Continue That Thought...

A thought by Max Lucado from his book, How Happiness Happens (p. 4). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) That is a great question, isn’t it? Max says, “Maybe your answer is ‘I feel that way all the time.’ If so, God bless you…   For many, perhaps most of us, the answer is ‘Well, it’s been a while. I used to be happy, but then life took its toll.’” Later he says, “The oft-used front door to happiness is the one described by the advertising companies: acquire, retire, and aspire to drive faster, dress trendier, and drink more. Happiness depends on what you hang in your closet, park in your garage, mount on your trophy wall, deposit in your bank account, experience in your bedroom, wear on your wedding finger or serve at your dining table. Happiness happens when you lose the weight, get the date, find the mate, or discover your fate. It’s wide, this front door to happiness.” Max says, “There is another option.

A thought by John Townsend from his book, Leading From Your Gut (p. 90). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) So we need to look at solving the problem, don’t we? John says, “Anger is a call to address conflict. When we need to face down an obstacle or right a wrong, our energy level rises and we prepare to confront or combat the situation in some way. Anger is a signal that there is a problem to be solved. It urges us to fix something that needs to be fixed. Again, anger can be a response to an external event or to an internal experience, but it must be addressed and dealt with. What makes us angry is not always a bad or difficult person, but at least a bad or difficult situation we want to see changed. We don’t like to see people we care about getting hurt. Or diligently planned projects go south. Or our efforts to reach out to someone result in us being blamed or attacked. Such situations often provoke an angry respon

A thought by John Townsend from his book, Leading From Your Gut (p. 88). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) You really can’t! John goes on, “In fact, they are critical to your success. I have to challenge many leaders about this because they are concerned that talking about anything negative will diminish their effectiveness. They would much rather be positive, energetic, and focused on taking the next hill. I’m as much a take-the-hill person as the next, but a team that doesn’t learn from the defeat on the previous hill is in jeopardy of repeating that defeat. “Every competent leader will look at things like negative financial reports, market problems, and sales issues, and dig into them, as the saying goes, ‘eating problems for breakfast.’ The same needs to be true with negative feelings. They’re just information, and they mean something.” John says, “Don’t minimize your negative emotions and say, ‘That’s t