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This is Proverb Pic, the daily devotional newsletter that helps Christians become wiser in 2 minutes a day.

Proverb of the day

Proverb Pic

Meditation

This proverb teaches us that every day we have a choice on how we experience the world. The proverb describes people that are struggling. We all experience oppression in our own individual ways. However, the proverbs make a distinction between those people that are oppressed and how they experience their daily lives. Their inward experience manifests itself in the outside world. For one group of people, all of their days are terrible. For another group of people experiencing the same oppression, they experience continual feast or happiness. The difference between these two people is a cheerful heart.

There’s nothing more important than maintaining your inward, spiritual life. A broken body can be sustained with difficulty by a strong spirit, but a broken spirit cannot be sustained by even the physically strongest person in the world. We are taught that our happiness is based on external things such as beauty, health, money, and status. Here we are being told, “No, it has nothing to do with your outward circumstances. Happiness is determined by how you deal with your circumstances from inside, how you process, how you address, and how you view them.”

Almost everyone believes that spirituality and faith are supposed to bring us ‘peace,’ and that is a major theme of the Bible. Paul famously talks about that he has learned how to be content “whatever the circumstance.”(4:11) “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or want.” (Phil 4:12) What’s the principle here? Happiness is not finally a matter of whether our circumstances are positive or negative. Circumstances may be the occasion for our peace (or lack of it,) but they are not the ultimate cause of it. Peace depends far, far more on the disposition of the heart than on the situations of life.

God does not promise you better life circumstances if you love him. He promises you a better life. Grad school and marriage are circumstances. We’re talking about a joy that goes beyond circumstances. Jesus Christ did not suffer so that you would not suffer. He suffered so that when you suffer, you’ll become like him. The gospel does not promise you better life circumstances; it promises you a better life.

Prayer

Lord, I do blame my circumstances for my unhappiness, and that makes me secretly resentful toward you. But my joy is largely determined by where I rest my heart. Free me from enslavement to circumstance. Let me rest my hope and heart in you"

Application question

How are you tie in your happiness to the circumstances in your life?

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