If you want happinesss...
you have to look outside yourself.
I was speaking recently with somebody who asked me
And that has been rattling around in my brain ever since. If we continue to look only at ourselves and our circumstances and have everything be about us, then we will never really be happy. Real happiness comes from looking outside ourselves and helping others.
At RCC we have two huge opportunities to be a real help in peoples' lives. Not just a feel good, here's a quarter kind of help, but really provide some necessary items to people who have nothing. We are willing to spend $4 on a foo foo coffee from Starbucks, but then we balk when the church talks about an opportunity to give. Altogether too often, somebody is complaining again that...
That is because they have made church about them. At the 0900 meeting on Sundays, there are around 40 people that have made church about everybody else. They are the ones who understand how to be happy!
The first opportunity we have is with Sri Lanka and our friends Chuck and Dhammika there. They are still recovering from the tsunami and still need help. We have an opportunity to fill an entire container with medical supplies to ship over and be used by a church in Sri Lanka to meet peoples' basic needs and it will only take $15,000 to fill this container up and ship it to Sri Lanka. What a great way for us to actually follow Jesus and meet a person's needs right where they live!
The other opportunity we have is to help orphanages in Mexico. A couple of ladies from RCC are heading to Mexico to scout out some orphanages for a possible missions trip later on in the year to take some of our youth on to help out. They want to go there with a bunch of gift cards for Wal-Mart so they can purchase basics for these children. They need diapers, bottles, pacifiers, formula, blankets, wipies, etc and we can help them out. How hard is it to put a $10 gift card in the cart the next time you are shopping so these kids can have some of the basics? They aren't asking for cell phones or cable TV or Tivo or an iPod, but rather they need a diaper to change when a baby gets dirty.
You want happiness? Start living outside yourself and your needs and look for opportunities to help others. Here are two. Only then can you really experience happiness.
I was speaking recently with somebody who asked me
How can I be happy? What does that look like?
And that has been rattling around in my brain ever since. If we continue to look only at ourselves and our circumstances and have everything be about us, then we will never really be happy. Real happiness comes from looking outside ourselves and helping others.
At RCC we have two huge opportunities to be a real help in peoples' lives. Not just a feel good, here's a quarter kind of help, but really provide some necessary items to people who have nothing. We are willing to spend $4 on a foo foo coffee from Starbucks, but then we balk when the church talks about an opportunity to give. Altogether too often, somebody is complaining again that...
church was okay today, but they started bugging us about money again
That is because they have made church about them. At the 0900 meeting on Sundays, there are around 40 people that have made church about everybody else. They are the ones who understand how to be happy!
The first opportunity we have is with Sri Lanka and our friends Chuck and Dhammika there. They are still recovering from the tsunami and still need help. We have an opportunity to fill an entire container with medical supplies to ship over and be used by a church in Sri Lanka to meet peoples' basic needs and it will only take $15,000 to fill this container up and ship it to Sri Lanka. What a great way for us to actually follow Jesus and meet a person's needs right where they live!
The other opportunity we have is to help orphanages in Mexico. A couple of ladies from RCC are heading to Mexico to scout out some orphanages for a possible missions trip later on in the year to take some of our youth on to help out. They want to go there with a bunch of gift cards for Wal-Mart so they can purchase basics for these children. They need diapers, bottles, pacifiers, formula, blankets, wipies, etc and we can help them out. How hard is it to put a $10 gift card in the cart the next time you are shopping so these kids can have some of the basics? They aren't asking for cell phones or cable TV or Tivo or an iPod, but rather they need a diaper to change when a baby gets dirty.
You want happiness? Start living outside yourself and your needs and look for opportunities to help others. Here are two. Only then can you really experience happiness.
posted by Pastor Tom at 7:24 AM
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