What If Our Happiness Isn't a Location?

It was a hot summer day in Northwest Arkansas. The back-to-back Zoom meetings in the middle of a pandemic were wearing on me. My overwhelming thoughts were getting loud so I decided to take a walk around the block.

I’ll be really honest with you: I just wanted to quit everything. At the ripe age of twenty-six, I found myself wishing for retirement more days than not. Have you ever caught yourself in this place?

“There has to be more to life than this,” I thought to myself. If you’ve had the same thoughts, there are two things you need to know before we dig in:

You’re in good company and not alone.
Your thoughts are spot on: There ismore to life than this place we often catch ourselves in.

Up until this point in time, my happy place had only been a physical location. If you would have asked me what my happy place was, I more than likely would have said any beach along Florida’s scenic Highway 30A or Jackson Hole, Wyoming or hanging with my husband in a cozy coffee shop, even though moments in these places are few and far between.

Why was I wishing and dreaming of escaping from the very place God had called me to? On my walk that day, I picked a random Christine Caine podcast to listen to. Guess what she talked about on the episode? Retirement and how we are called to do kingdom work every day of our lives!

You know those moments when it feels like God is speaking through someone else directly to you? This was one of those. As I took one step in front of the other on my walk, my mind led me to a question that has challenged me to pivot my perspective ever since: What if our happy place is our everyday journey with God?

Trust me, there are days when I look at my own life and I remember picturing it to be so different. I was a public relations major. Have I ever had a PR job? No. I love running and being outside. Do I sit behind a computer screen every weekday for work? Yes. The list could go on and on.

Life often looks very different from how we pictured it, but where God has positioned us is exactly where we need to be. This is where the freeing yet challenging choice we have to make comes in: Would we rather spend our days wishing we were somewhere else or spend our days soaking up the very place where our feet are planted?

Just this week, my friend Olivia said something on the phone that stuck with me. She told me how her pastor refers to our time on Earth as “going camping.” Think about that for a minute: When you go camping, you typically bring a light load with you and have a posture that is expectant for some type of crazy adventure.

Friends, we’re on an everyday journey to do kingdom work until we are called to our forever home. It’s not an arrival moment we are aiming for but a voyage with Him. Our God is not only for us but is with us.

Are you ready to pivot your happy place from a precise location to anywhere He takes you in this life? Ephesians 2:7-10 in the Message Version says it best, “Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.”

There’s no better time than now. Welcome to your everyday happy place!

Tips & Tricks for Creating Your Everyday Happy Place:

Accept your ticket from God to let Him be a part of your daily journey.
Lighten your load. Give your burdens to God and allow yourself to receive grace. It’s the ultimate gift that has no strings attached and requires no transactions.
Get in the Word and really get to know God. Lean not on your own understanding and focus on seeking Him each day.
Spend time in prayer and confiding in God. He truly listens and will find the most creative ways to speak back to you. Instant gratification has nothing on the satisfaction you experience when you start seeing God reveal Himself to you. Come to Him with the good, bad, and everything in between.
Make moves and know that God is with you wherever you go. Love people on your journey and enjoy the abundant life He wants you to have now.

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Do you need a new perspective on life? Are you looking for cozy, inspiring, guided journal pages that will both meet you where you are and encourage you to keep going? Look no further than the newly released journal from DaySpring, This Is My Happy Place: A Positivity Journal to Finding God’s Light, by Hope Reagan Harris! In it, you’ll find encouraging messages, fun, interactive activities, and compelling, thought-provoking questions that will lead you to a deeper understanding of yourself and God’s purpose in your life. You’ll be challenged to choose a positive perspective in which, with God’s help, all things are possible. Write your heart out, explore your God-given potential, and find your happy place in the pages of this truly unique positivity journal.

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