Living your Best Life?

Have you ever wondered why, after the great and exciting times in our lives, an unsettling melancholy almost always follows soon after? Why are manic highs so closely linked to manic lows? The root is threefold. Firstly, the human body does not synthesise enough feel-good substances to keep you feeling happy, motivated, positive, energised all on its own, all the time. It was not created to do so. Secondly, circumstances outside of us, as we all know, are given to change and drag our feelings along with them as they do. Lastly and most pertinently; the human heart apart from Christ's power working in it, is fickle and defective. Even as a believer, your heart is determined to rebel and live a life of its own, making its own rules. ‬

‪Part of what that means is that it's all too easy to be misguided and consumed in the quest for (or the enjoyment of) the gifts, pleasures and comfort that the good Giver gives while being completely oblivious of the goodness of the giver Himself. I propose that this is one of the most common pathways to the prevalent disease of depression in our day. God will either grant you the wisdom to realise, or allow you to live long enough to see that the answers to the great questions of life; contrary to popular belief, are not found by following your heart and doing whatever makes you happy. The tragedy in fact, is not simply achieving a substandard, superficial, unfulfilling happiness; it's being so comforted by thought of having everything you want even on your way to hell. ‬

‪As long as you pursue happiness in yourself and your goals, real joy will continue to elude you. You will find your daily mood temperamental and your heart perpetually sick from reaching out for things beyond your grasp. You will find yourself melancholic even after what should be some of the best moments of your life, riding one wave after another until it inevitably crashes. You will find yourself dissatisfied and ungrateful in each season and people will call it 'ambition'. Your relationships will wither and die when those 'highs' that you chase grow further and further apart and you will tell yourself that 'everything happens for a reason.' ‬

‪Living for the euphoric moments without the wisdom to get through the mundane and strenuous will always give birth to discontentment. “but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”‬
‪‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭40:31‬ ‭ESV‬‬‬
‪The only cure is to bind yourself to The Anchor who longs to give you an unchanging, incremental joy and peace that will fill and sustain you through the thrilling and not so thrilling, the turbulent, the absolute worst, right down to the very end of your life. That is how to prepare yourself for your best life, the one beyond this one. “and he will be the stability of your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is Zion's treasure.”‬
‪‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭33:6‬ ‭ESV‬‬‬