Today's Word                                       

"Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."  Matthew 6:10  
“There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God;
10 for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his.
11 Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience." Hebrews 4:9-11(NIV)       

The Kingdom of Heaven is not a Place of Striving

Thomas J. DeLong, a professor at Harvard Business School, wrote this:

“A former student of mine who graduated 10 years ago and has a terrific job at a Fortune 500 company still suffers from comparison obsession. She is not happy. At least it seemed like a terrific job until she received her alumni newsletter and learned that a fellow alumnus, who was in the MBA program with her, had just been named VP at a Fortune 100 company. From that moment on, she could barely hold a conversation without bemoaning her lack of VP and Fortune 100 company status; on more than one occasion, she told others she felt like a failure.

It's telling that in my 500 interviews of "high-need-to-achieve-professionals" over the past three years, more than 400 of them questioned their own success and brought up the name of at least one other peer who they felt had been more successful than they were. Many of these individuals are considered among the best and the brightest, yet they are trapped by their comparing reflex. When you define success based on external rather than internal criteria, you diminish your satisfaction.

"It may be that Americans are among the unhappiest people on earth because we have the most which means  that  someone always has more than I do. Take a moment to read Matthew 5:1-12 (the beatitudes) where the word “blessed” can be equally accurately translated “happy”. Notice who’s happy!

Can you find a “Sabbath rest” from your striving for the “next thing”?

Prayer  

“Lord,all my efforts to find happiness on my own have been abject failures. I choose today to be content with being faithful to what you give me today and to allow my happiness to be in your hands, not mine. In Jesus' Name.  Amen”