Tag: happiness

The Religion of the Wet Towel

Ife J. Ibitayo

“I recommend having fun because there is nothing better for people in this world than to eat, drink, and enjoy life.” Where is this quote from? Good Morning America? A famous actor like Ryan Reynolds or Adam Sandler? You might be surprised to learn that this is a verse in the Bible.

Which begs the question, why is this so surprising? How was Christianity rebranded as the Religion of the Wet Towel? When did the faith that is supposed to bring “abundant life” become such a killjoy?

The Origin of the Wet Towel

It didn’t start with Jesus. In the book of Luke, Jesus described the words of His naysayers in this way: “The Son of Man feasts and drinks and you say, ‘He’s a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners’” (Luke 7:34). Jesus spent so much time partying and enjoying Himself that the religious establishment thought He should have less fun, not more. Time and time again, Jesus railed against the stodgy buzzkills of His day because they deprived people of the joy God had called for them to obtain. Yet, over the course of time, Jesus’ church has come to be known for the opposite. In its pursuit of holiness, many in the church have lost happiness along the way.

The Consequences of the Wet Towel

Too often, Christianity is portrayed as a religion of “don’ts.” Don’t curse, don’t drink, don’t sleep around. No more partying, gambling, or fun for you. Then, there’s all the stuff you need to do instead like giving up 10% of your hard-earned income. Do all the right things and don’t do all the wrong things, then you will be accepted into God’s family.

I was once part of a Christian organization that embodied this rigid, rule-based system. If we weren’t serving, we were evangelizing. If we weren’t evangelizing, we were studying the Bible. If we weren’t studying the Bible, we were hanging out together—by force. And if I ever missed a church event, woe to me for having chosen the movies over Jesus. I nearly suffered a nervous breakdown trying to do everything right at all times in every way, and I definitely was not having much fun. But Christianity was never supposed to be this way.

The book of Colossians says, “’Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!’ Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility, and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence” (Colossians 2:21-23). This means the true Christian faith is not about restriction but freedom, relationship rather than regulation. Otherwise, Christianity simply becomes another ladder we climb up to prove yet again that we’re worthy.

The Alternative to the Wet Towel

Our society tries to present us with a false dichotomy: be holy and miserable or happy and sinful. But the way of Christ is both happy and holy. It involves self-sacrifice, but it also entails appreciating the bounty God has blessed us with, living at a different pace than the hamster wheel of our culture, and enjoying time with our friends and family. If we’re not experiencing both, that isn’t Christianity.

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. [Jesus] came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

John 10:10

How to Be a Happy Creature of Habit

Ife J. Ibitayo

I am a happy creature of habit. Every morning, I wake up at 7 AM, brush my teeth and change into my work clothes. I head into the kitchen and grab a fruit cup, two cheese sticks, two granola bars, and a glass of juice. I spend thirty minutes reading my Bible, then dive into work. My patterns continue throughout the day. I used to joke that if a stalker were trying to peg me down, they’d be finished in a day.

Yet all of us are slaves to our habits. We just have to have our Starbucks latte and scroll through Instagram as we ride the train to work. Or we have to eat out for lunch because we just don’t have enough time in the morning to make something healthy. Or we have to binge scary Netflix movies before we go to sleep each night because that’s the only way we can relax (still don’t quite understand that mindset). When anywhere from half to three-fourths of our actions each day are habit driven, the habits we form are very important indeed.

But how do we change our habits when we are our habits?

Finding a Vision

The first step is laying hold of a vision. The Apostle Paul once said of believers, “We all, with unveiled faces, looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18a). We innately become what we fix our eyes on. We have to be energized by a goal, an end destination that is worth the high price of change.

Starting Small

Secondly, start small. For many of us, when we read an article like this, we may be tempted to go vegan, finish our magnum opus, and become the perfect spouse, parent, and employee all by next week. But drastic, unsustainable change never lasts. Someone once said, “Greatness is not composed of one big act but a thousand little ones.” When we commit to eating out one less time a week, or writing one page of that novel, or saying, “I love you” as soon as we wake up, we are setting ourselves up for future greatness, one tiny habit change at a time.

Celebrating Victories

Lastly, celebrate the victories, both big and small. I especially struggle with this. I tend to see each hill I climb as a fresh vantage point to start eyeing the next mountaintop. But science shows that the act of celebrating reduces stress and increases our productivity. Patting ourselves on the back for following through with our commitments makes it more likely for us to keep them long term.

Conclusion

Almost all of us have bad habits that we tolerate in our lives. But life was never meant to be tolerated; it’s meant to be lived. When we find the right goal, get off to a manageable start, and celebrate the progress we make, we’ll be just that much closer to the fullness of being God has called us to.

“I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.”

(Ecclesiastes 3:12)

Foundation of Forgiveness (Healing House Pt. 2)

For Part 1, “Reframing”, click here.

By Ife J. Ibitayo

Perhaps the greatest virtue in the world is forgiveness. I can dole it out in spades when someone scuffs my shoe or bumps my shoulder. But what about when life gets real? For instance, when I was in elementary school, I told my best friends who my crush was. The following day, my whole class knew. A bully in my class tormented me for months with fake notes and prank calls. This kind of story sticks to your heart like glue.

When we’re hurt, our first reflex is to hold on to that offense. When others do us wrong, they owe us. When life does us wrong, life owes us. When God does us wrong, God owes us. Our unhealed wounds give us an ever-flowing well of gripes and complaints that we draw upon to justify our present unhappiness and discontent. It provides a refuge in a bitter and cold world.

Mold of Unforgiveness

But most of us don’t realize we’re acting this way. Unforgiveness is like mold. It creeps in slowly, silently. Then it poisons every relationship in our life.

I remember one man I worked for. He was responsible for some of the most painful years of my life. One day, as I was crying out to God about the pain he’d caused me, I felt led by God to ask for his forgiveness (see Isaiah 55:9-10). So I followed through. I asked for the man’s forgiveness and internally made the decision to extend forgiveness to him as well. But I spent the rest of my tenure under him stiff and on edge.

Just as I illustrated, our forgiveness will tend to be half-hearted or, at best, incomplete. The sage King Solomon once said that “if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For in so doing you will be heaping fiery coals on his head” (Romans 12:20). But our forgiveness often looks like just stopping short of “heaping fiery coals on their head.”

Opening the Door

Some have said that unforgiveness is like drinking poison and wishing the other person would die. I’d say it’s like lighting their house on fire, then realizing you’re the one trapped in the flames. When we let others go, we set ourselves free. We fling the front door open and let the driving rain of grace and mercy in.

But as I said before, unforgiveness is our natural reflex, and it’s largely invisible to us. Most of us have let roots of bitterness spring up within us (Hebrews 12:15) because of our ungrateful children or our combative spouse or our demanding boss.  But God is the Lord of reconciliation, and He has created us to be ambassadors of reconciliation at home, at school, and at our workplaces (2 Corinthians 5:18). He loves to reconcile the estranged.

The first step is prayer. Countless believes have shared stories about how their hatred melted into compassion when they began praying for those who have wounded them. The word says that “the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” (James 5:17), and that includes the power to crack hearts of stone, including our own. The last step might be initiating contact: a phone call, a coffee break, or even dinner.

Conclusion

Forgiveness must come first. All other foundations are shifting sand. Just as our relationship with God started with the forgiveness He gave us through the death of His Son, so does our relationship with everyone else. Let bitterness die; let forgiveness bloom; and start building well.

“’Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.’”

(Matthew 7:24-27)

Stilling the Tsunami of Anxiety

By Ife J. Ibitayo

To see the original post on beamanjourney.com, click here.

It begins with the thoughts. What if they don’t like me? What if I’m not good enough? What if it’s cancer? And pretty soon I find myself flailing in a tsunami of doubt. When I was asked by my friend Pastor Stephen Law to write an article about overcoming anxiety, I laughed. It was like asking someone who’s barely learned how to tread water to teach others how to swim. But God is gracious, and He has taught me a few things about stilling this raging storm.

The Life Preserver of Prayer

Philippians 4:6 says, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.” Most worriers worry passively. It’s so natural that it’s like breathing and blinking to them. That is why God asks us to actively give our worries to Him through prayer.

I hated my tendency to see the thousand ways every situation could go wrong until I read a book called Draw the Circle by Mark Batterson. He wrote, “If you worry about everything, you’ll have a much higher likelihood of praying without ceasing if you simply learn to turn your worries into prayers. The Holy Spirit can redeem your anxious thoughts by using them as prayer triggers. Think of worry as a prayer alarm. Every time it goes off, you put it to prayer.” Once I discovered this gift, I realized that anxious worriers make some of the best prayer warriors. Through prayer God allows us to transform our mental suffering into spiritual blessing!

The Water Wings of the Word

Secondly, I learned that knowledge of the word of God is the best weapon to fend off the flaming darts of doubt. The Bible is more effective than more facts and data because anxiety often doesn’t stem from lack of information. I know that less than 1% of Americans suffer from glaucoma, yet I feared I might be going blind.  When layoffs swept through my company, I feared I might be let go even though they were still actively hiring in my group division. My problem was not with my head but with my heart.

When my head said I might lose my job, my heart should have said, “Look at the birds in the sky: They do not sow, or reap, or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds then. Aren’t you more valuable than they are?” (Matthew 6:26). When the threat of sickness pounded at my door, from glaucoma to an irregular heartbeat to high blood pressure—all of which I visited doctors about in the past year—I should have told myself, “By His wounds I am healed” (Isaiah 53:5). For every fearful question, God has a hopeful answer if we internalize His Word.

The Support of Other Swimmers

Lastly, anxiety thrives in a vacuum. When we speak fearful things to ourselves and answer them by ourselves, our worries will grow with time. We must expose our fears to others if we want to experience healing.

Galatians 6:2 says, “Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ.” This is not just a command to help other people carry their loads but also to allow others to shoulder ours. The level of need differs for all of us. We may need the listening ear of a trusted friend on occasion, or we may need regular, professional help depending on the severity of our anxiety. We may also slide along this spectrum depending on the season we’re going through. The key is recognizing this need and humbly admitting to someone else that we’re not alright.

Conclusion

Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, “We have nothing to fear except fear itself.” I used to roll my eyes at this worn-out phrase, but FDR makes a good point. He went on to define fear as “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

Fear really is the great enemy. It stole my joy for years and crippled my decision making. Anxiety kept me from the abundant life that God had for me, and it could be doing the same to you. Don’t let anxiety steal another minute of your happiness. Turn to God, speak to others, and start swimming down the stream of healing.

“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.” (Matthew 6:31-33).

Swimming Tips

  1. Start your day with a worry list. Write your worries on a sheet of paper, then title the list “God help me with…” and pray about them.
  2. Find a new verse each month that speaks to your specific anxieties and memorize it. Deuteronomy 31:6, 1 Peter 5:7, and Psalm 56:11 are all great verses to start with.
  3. Agree with someone you trust to talk regularly (daily, weekly, or monthly) about your fears and worries.

Money + Success + Wisdom = Happiness?

By Ife J. Ibitayo

If you had all the money, success, and wisdom in the world, would you be happy? This is the questions posed by the story of Solomon, the son of the giant-slaying King David.

Money

Solomon was filthy rich, and that’s an understatement. “Each year Solomon received about 25 tons of gold…All of King Solomon’s drinking cups were solid gold, as were all the utensils in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon. They were not made of silver, for silver was considered worthless in Solomon’s day” (1 Kings 10:14,21 NLT)!

Solomon is your friend who only keeps Benjamins in his wallet. If you wanted McDonald’s, he’d ask you if you wanted the whole menu or the whole franchise! As we consider that kind of ridiculous wealth, visions of yachts, supercars, and mansions can wash over us, and we might be convinced that this kind of life must be a happy one.

But Solomon certainly didn’t think so. He said, “Those who love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness! The more you have, the more people come to help you spend it. So what good is wealth—except perhaps to watch it slip through your fingers” (Ecclesiastes 5:10-11 NLT)! Something about wealth makes it elusive. When it comes into our lap, we’ll do everything we can to cling tight to it. Yet it’ll still find a way to slip back out of our grasp. We strive after it to our detriment, hold on to it to our hurt, and agonize over its loss. Because of these truths, riches can make happiness harder to find, not easier.

Success

Now what about success? We all have innate desire to be someone, to matter. And the fulfillment of that longing is what NBA superstars and virtuoso pianists slave night and day to lay hold of. King Solomon can certainly be considered successful. He expanded his father’s empire, finished the LORD’s temple, and achieved international recognition. “King Solomon became richer and wiser than any other king on earth. People from every nation came to consult him and to hear the wisdom God had given him” (1 Kings 10:23-24 NLT). Yet this too did not satisfy Solomon.

He said, “No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them” (Ecclesiastes 1:11 NIV). He realized deep down that no matter how famous anyone becomes now, they will be forgotten later. Britney Spears, Donald Trump, and Michael Jordan will all be buried by the sands of time. All success is temporary and short-lived.

Wisdom

Lastly, what about wisdom? If earthly belongings or social standing don’t satisfy, what about mental acuity? Solomon definitely had this in spades. To call him a know-it-all would be a fair description because he literally knew everything. From physical nature (1 Kings 4:33) to spiritual truth (Proverbs), King Solomon had the answer to every question.

Yet he said about wisdom “I concluded that even this endeavor is like trying to chase the wind! For with great wisdom comes great frustration; whoever increases his knowledge merely increases his heartache” (Ecclesiastes 1:17b-18 NET).

For the most knowledgeable people are those who realize how little they truly know, and they are the ones that wrestle with the irreconcilable incongruities of this world. Who’s right, Einstein or Newton? What is the solution to the mind-body problem? How do you reconcile God’s complete sovereignty with man’s free will? No wonder intelligent people are the most depressed among us. Finite minds faced with infinitely complex issues are guaranteed frustration.

Happiness?

With money, success, and wisdom, the problem is the same. We can only obtain finite amounts of them to fill an infinite void within ourselves. Only an infinite source can fill an infinite sink, and there’s only one that exists. That is why Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.”

“Taste and see that the LORD is good. How happy is the person who takes refuge in him!”

(Psalm 34:8 CSB)

Fortune (Unreliable Idols Pt. 2)

This the second article in a series on unreliable idols. For Part 1 on Fame, click here.

Money may be the most misunderstood idol worshiped today. Many of the patriarchs of the Bible—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Solomon, and others—were both rich and righteous. The problem with money is not desiring it but greed, which is loving it more than anything else.

Idol of Fortune

In the book of 1 Timothy, Apostle Paul tells his son in the faith to “instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy” (1 Timothy 6:17 NASB). This verse addresses two common drivers behind money accrual: Provision and pleasure.

Money as Provision

No one accumulates wealth simply for the sake of having money. Money has very little actual value (a $100 bill costs ten cents to print). Money is valuable because of what it represents, and for many that is security.

I have a friend who grew up watching his parents discuss the mounting bills they had to pay many nights. One of his primary reasons for obtaining an engineering degree was never having to worry like his parents constantly did.

The problem with that mindset is that money, just like every other idol, is unreliable. One needs to look no further than this financial crisis to understand how a mountain of cash can transform into a valley of debt overnight.

Money as Pleasure

Many of us agree with the popular adage, “Money can’t buy you happiness,” yet we don’t live it out. We believe that obtaining that car, house, or vacation will fulfill us.

King Solomon, the richest man on the face of the planet during his lifetime (1 Kings 10:23), put that theory to the test. Here is a small subset of the things he used his money to buy: luxurious homes, legions of servants, exclusive live entertainment, and the most beautiful women in the world (Ecclesiastes 2:4-8). Yet he said, “When I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind” (Ecclesiastes 2:11a ESV).

Solomon recognized that there was a yearning in his heart that material possessions couldn’t satisfy. There was something more than the natural, something supernatural, that his heart desired.

God of Provision and Pleasure

Jesus said the Father knows our needs and will always meet them—if only we keep our priorities straight (Matthew 6:22-23). More than that, He promises to provide us ample resources to enjoy life.

As 1 Timothy 6:17 says, God richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. This promise may not guarantee us a six-figure salary or an island in the Caribbean, but it does secure us what our hearts truly desire: the presence of God Himself. For in God’s presence there is “fullness of joy” and “pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).

Conclusion

If life has robbed you of your resources, know that you don’t have to hold out until you’re financially stable to experience security. You don’t have to hang on until you’re rich to be deeply satisfied. Our heavenly Father is offering you both blessings today if you are willing to exchange your idol for Him.

“I have set the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.”

(Psalm 16:8-9 ESV)