Encouragement 4 The Day-"To take your mind off the pain…Keep Your Eye on the Game!"

The topic today was not meant to sound glib…instead I actually experienced that today. It was RUFF (misspelling intended ‘cause that’s how it was). I was sooo discouraged, and tired and wanted to spend the day in bed but was tired of doing that too!!! I paced my apartment miserable because the job search was turning out to be fruitless at every turn. Finally, I got on the internet and just started reading and looking. Then I’d come across something funny and start laughing and when I finally got up from the computer I was in such a better mood I was surprised. Not only had I responded to two more job postings when I thought I had no strength left but, I found humor in the middle of my job search.  I had to say a prayer of thanks to God because my mood, I promise you, had gotten pretty dark. I was feeling rather unloved and unimportant to Him.

A plug for sports: When you’re losing or not playing as well as you want to, don’t think about it- just concentrate on the game (I learned this while ‘playing’ tennis). If I thought about how many points I was behind sure enough it did nothing but put me in an anxious mood which consequently had an even greater negative impact. But, if I concentrated on just returning the ball man, the dumbstruck look on my opponent’s face would be priceless. I’d start to notice something also…when they realized that I was catching up and started to become anxious- guess what happened? It’s interesting to watch psychology at play.

Ok-back to spiritual matters. So consider Job. What if his friends had, instead of fault finding, encouraged him to keep his eye on what is important? What if they had filled their conversations with talks of heaven and the promises of God or just gotten a tub of water with some oatmeal and allowed Job to soak while singing songs? This brings me to another important matter- be careful of the company that you keep when you’re going through trials. Even though some people mean well, just their nature will cause more harm than God.

I read an article today about how Tyler Perry was one of the highest paid men in the entertainment industry. If you haven’t read his story here is a link:  Tyler Perry. What if he had given up when he was homeless? I’m sure that he had no idea at that time he would be where he is today. Keep your eye on the Game! Trouble will not last!

(Oh and by the way-I'd decided that I wasn’t going to write on the blog today. Well guess what happened?) (Smile)