In his article, “Resist Discouragement“, Rick Warren rates discouragement as being the second greatest enemy of fulfilling your life mission (first was procrastination). I agree with Rick that there’s very little that puts a damper on the accomplishment of activity in your life more than the oppressing weight of discouragement. I’m sure my readers will agree as well - when things don’t go the way you thought they would, when people pick apart your “grand ideas” or when illness prevents you from doing what you want to do the resulting discouragement can not only put a halt to any progress you’ve made in your dream, mission, or idea but can also create a cycle of second-guessing and apathy that hinder any future activity.

So what to do about discouragement? We all suffer it from time to time - how do we undo it? Well, I agree with the start that Rick Warren suggests. It comes from recognizing that discouragement is a choice. It’s a choice that occurs when something contrary to what we expect, or opposition to where we’re going disrupts our plans and we choose to be discouraged because of it. The truth is - nothing ever goes hunky-dory, there will always be someone opposing you, or a wrench of some sort thrown into the plans we make (sometimes little wrenches, sometimes wrenches the size of buses!). We have no control over those things - what we do have control over is what we think about such things…

I’ve always been against the practice of living together before marriage and for the wonderful commitment between a couple in getting married. However, even though I disagree with a guy and gal living together before marriage I still understand why some people think it’s okay. There are many reasons why I disagree and of course among them is the Biblical teaching on the sanctity of marriage. However, I must admit (to my chagrin) that the Bible just doesn’t carry the initial influence that it once had in society (gasp!) and frankly a “religious” argument just doesn’t have any impact on “reasoning” with people that it once had. That doesn’t make the Biblical teaching invalid or worthless - it just means that I can’t make the assumption that quoting scripture is going to convince people that living together is not a good idea or is even living in… (whispers conspiratorily) sin!

Today I went with my mother to her lawyer’s appointment. My Dad died about a year and a half ago and his life insurance company denied my mom’s claim for the insurance. To make a long story short she (with the support of us!) has decided to sue the insurance company as the advice we received suggested we have a case. Anyway, with the court systems the way they are it’ll be a while until we get to trial. I said all this to say this… My mom has had a lot on her mind in the last while (no wonder!) and she’s really finding it difficult to just let go and leave things in the lawyers hands. But this post isn’t really about my mom - it’s about the the observation going through my head that worrying really puts a damper on life. While this may be an obvious one for most people it’s surprising how many of us “non-worryers” still get caught in the trap of nail-biting, ulcer creating hyper-anxiety syndrome once and a while. The funny thing is - all our worrying really doesn’t accomplish anything. There’s a favorite scripture of mine in Matthew 6 where Jesus basically tells people ‘Don’t worry!’ The conclusion of Jesus’ thought as he goes through some of the things we humans worry about is that there’s really only one thing that matters