The Magic, Miracles and Joy of an Artist: Live in the Present

Sunday, July 23, 2017

Live in the Present

Worry ~ the useless emotion that does not change or solve a thing.
I just read this page and it really hit home. It's a long read, but worth the time.

This page is from New Day New You - Devotions written by Joyce Meyer, #1 New York Times bestselling author:

July 23
Calm Down and Lighten Up!

"Do not worry or be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have worries and anxieties of its own. Sufficient for each day is its own trouble."
Matthew 6:34

My personal definition of anxiety is mentally leaving where you are and getting into an area of the past or the future. One of the things we need to understand is that God wants us to learn to be "now people." Too often we spend our time in the past or the future. We need to learn to live now ~ mentally as well as physically and spiritually. There is an anointing on today. In John 8:58, Jesus referred to Himself as I AM. If you and I, as His disciples, try to live in the past or the future, we are going to find life hard for us because Jesus is always in the present. That's what He meant when He said in Matthew 6:34, "Do not worry or be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have worries and anxieties of its own. Sufficient for each day is its own trouble."

Jesus has plainly told us we don't need to worry about anything. All we need to do is seek the kingdom of God, and He will add to us whatever we need, whether it is food or clothing or shelter or spiritual growth (see Matthew 6:25 - 33). We don't need to be concerned about tomorrow, because tomorrow will have problems of its own. We need to concentrate our full attention on today and stop being so intense and stirred up.

Calm down and lighten up! Laugh more and worry less. Stop ruining today worrying about yesterday or tomorrow ~ neither of which we can do anything about. We need to stop wasting our precious "now," because it will never come again. The next time you are tempted to get anxious or upset about something ~ especially something in the past or the future ~ think about what you are doing and turn your mind to what is going on today. Learn from the past and prepare for the future, but live in the present.

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For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come!

I AM A "SEARCHER"

"I am one of the searchers. There are, I believe, millions of us. We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content. We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret. We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand. We like to walk along the beach, we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty. We like forests and mountains, deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well. Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter. To share our sadness with one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know - unless it be to share our laughter. We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide. Most of all we love and want to be loved. We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls; that will take us for what little we have to give. We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love.

For wanderers, dreamers, and lovers, for lonely men and women who dare to ask of life everything good and beautiful. It is for those who are too gentle to live among wolves."

~ James Kavanaugh

I am THE LOVERS Tarot Card

Motive, power, and action, arising from Inspiration and Impulse. THE LOVERS represents intuition and inspiration. Very often a choice needs to be made. Originally, this card was just called LOVE. And that's acually more apt than "LOVERS." Love follows in this sequence of growth and maturity. And, coming after the Emperor, who is about control, it is a radical change in perspective. LOVE is a force that makes you choose and decide for reasons you often can't understand; it makes you surrender control to a higher power. And that is what this card is all about. Finding something or someone who is so much a part of yourself, so perfectly attuned to you and you to them, that you cannot, dare not resist. This card indicates that you have or will come across a person, a career, challenge, or thing that you will fall in love with. You will know instinctively that you must have this, even if it means diverging from your chosen path. No matter the difficulties, without it you will never be complete.