Self focus kills our joy.
In a world where self-help books abound with ways to get fulfillment in your life that statement might seem a bit odd. But I’d swear by it. Self focus and a self obsessive attitude, good or bad, will destroy your joy.
I think we really truly have no idea how much our very attitude can be a true disability. In fact I could posit that a self-focused, selfish attitude is a truer disability than any other.
Think about it. How often do you see people, rich or poor, with things going for them or everything against them, and they are so wrapped up in themselves that they are miserable? But the opposite is also true, you can find people, rich or poor, healthy or ill, and if they have an outward focused attitude they can be surprisingly at peace and happy with their circumstances.
It’s actually a rather huge assumption on our part to think that any physical, mental, or economic challenge can keep us from having a happy and joyful life. It’s one of the reasons I find it frustrating when people use the presence of a disability as cause for abortion. I’m not writing this particular post about abortion, though its something I feel strongly about, but I want to present this one thought- Why do we think we are somehow doing a favor to children by ending their life because we think their “quality of life” will be low? One such seemingly justifiable instance is when a child has Downs Syndrome, but most anyone who knows a person with Downs will generally state that they are some of the happiest and most loving people they’ve ever met. Their “quality of life” might not be what we might prefer, but they tend to be much happier in it than we are with ours anyway. How is that a favor to keep them from experiencing that? Is life harder for them? Sure. Less joyful? Less happy? Less fulfilled? That is not in anyway dependent on the presence of a disability.
One rather strong example I’ve seen of this principle that happiness is not dependent on the lack of disability comes from a very inspiring young man named Nick Vujicic. I came across his story awhile ago and I can’t honestly think of a stronger example of circumstances not being the reason you’d have no joy. He’s a happy guy, with a wife and a child, he surfs, he swims, he speaks all over the world…
And he has no arms or legs.
He wasn’t always joyful, he did have difficulty when he was younger, wrestling with depression and questioning why he was born the way he was, but you don’t see much of it now. As he focuses on God and serving others he seems to radiate a joy that is inexplicable. After all, if their ever was an excuse for sitting on your couch your whole life bemoaning your hard luck, well being born with no arms or legs would be it.
He has a statement that he says, I love it, I’ll quote it here:
“If you can’t get a miracle, become one.”
-Nick Vujicic
He’s referring to years of questioning why God wouldn’t give him a miracle and give him arms and legs. He believes God is capable of such miracles, so why not him? But over time he’s realized that the platform he has in ministry as this man without arms and legs is one that is actually larger because of his disability. If God healed him, well it would be amazing, but most people wouldn’t have believed it, and would brush it off as a hoax. His testimony, though amazing, wouldn’t have journeyed as far.
Because his focus came off himself, and his desire to have arms and legs, he was able to see what God had for him in his life to minister to others, and now he has a world wide stage to preach God’s love on.
We all have disabilities. Oh I don’t mean we all have physical disabilities or mental ones, but we all are, in some way, disabled.
We may be disabled by fear, fear of what others might think of us or how they might hurt us. Fear of pain, both emotional and physical. We may be disabled by depression, clinging to hurts and losses that we’ve never been able to move past. We may be disabled by circumstance, challenges that seem insurmountable in front of us and seem to defeat us every day. We may have medical challenges, family challenges, addictions, any and all of these things could disable us in our lives.
None of these things need steal our joy, need steal our peace and happiness. None of these things need keep us from God.
He is the source of our joy, of our peace and happiness. And whether we’d like to admit it our not, it’s our own choices that keep us in the dark places of our lives. I’m not saying it’s easy to turn our eyes off us and how we feel and how hurt we are. I’m not saying it’s easy to let go of the injustice we’ve had against us, or the frustration of circumstances that seem to beat us down every day. What I’m saying is that you really do have a choice, you really can turn your eyes off yourself and onto Christ. And then my friend? Nothing will separate you.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39
In fact, like Nick, we may find that our joy can be found even more in the middle of our trial, our disability, as we find that even though we don’t get the miracle we thought we wanted, we can be the miracle someone else needed in their own lives.
Because honestly, so many times its in the middle of our need, that we find Christ.
-for more about Nick Vujicic and his ministry go to Life Without Limbs
~Joy Aletheia Stevens
Photo Credit: by Taber Andrew Bain (CC BY 2.0)
Photo Credit: by Christliches Medienmagazin pro (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Photo Credit: by toffehoff (CC BY-SA 2.0)
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