Once, there was an immigrant shop keeper whose son came to him one day complaining and said, “Dad, I don’t understand how you run this store, you keep your accounts payable in a cigar box, your accounts receivable is on the spindle, and all your cash is in the register. You’re never going to know what all your profits are.”

The immigrant, shopkeeper, father, said to him, “Son, let me tell you something. When I arrived in this land all I owned was the pants I was wearing. Now your sister is an art teacher, your brother is a doctor, and you’re a CPA. Your mother and I own a house and a car, and this little store. Add that all up and subtract the pants and that is your profit.”

I love this story. Where have you come from? What has God done in your life already? How far has He brought you? Who has He enabled you to be around? What do you have now that you never had before?

Be grateful.

Be grateful for what you have, where you are, and who is around you!

A while back, a mentor gave me a coffee table book from Life is Good as a gift. In the cover he wrote this note to me:

“Bubs, For your Library! The simplest of life’s lessons are often the most profound!!”

The book is literally filled with a picture on one page, and a short nugget on the page next to it. I go through it often to remind me that life isn’t as complicated as I make it out to be.

Here are some of my favorite lessons from the book:

• Optimism can take you anywhere
• Whatever you are, be a good one
• Youth knows no age
• Everything is a once in a lifetime experience
• Do what you like, like what you do.
• If you don’t go, you don’t see

• The best things in life are free
• The pursuit is the reward
• The World is Your entertainment center
• The little things in life are the big things
• Remember where you came from
• We will never know all the good a simple smile can do

We live in a world that tries to over-complicate everything don’t we? Even in our Christian walks, we over-complicate everything! Jesus came to simplify everything! The simple, yet beyond profound lesson from Jesus:

Love God, Love People

It is so true that the simplest of life’s lessons are the most profound. If we can just live out the simple lessons taught to us, everything we need to make up a rich and fulfilling life would take care of itself.

Let’s all simplify our lives.

Thoughts?

“Let your lives be built on Him . . . then you’ll overflow with thankfulness.” -Col. 2:7

“The blessings of the Lord makes a person rich, and he adds no sorrow with it.” – Proverbs 10:22

Everybody wants to enjoy life. God wants us to enjoy life. I know a lot of people who have the desire to enjoy life, but aren’t. Often we are looking for joy, success, and happiness in all the wrong places. I’ve found that enjoying life comes from:

• Having a relationship with God – this is the foundation and fulfillment of true joy and happiness.

• Having great relationships - There isn’t anything more important in our lives than our relationships with others – cherish and cultivate them.

• Recognizing that changing a life, not drawing a crowd, is true success.

• Creating great experiences and memories – not gaining more material possessions. Create them often.

• Living with High Standards, Integrity, and Character -  I live my life according to the Bible. God created us and He knows the way we should live to enjoy life. He gives it to us in His Word!

• Serving - “A life not lived for others, is hardly a life.” -Mother Theresa

• Giving your life for others – right now I give my life to the students at Revolution – I love all of them so much and it is one of the greatest joys to go through life with them, pour into them, and have them pour into me.

I think Ralph Waldo Emerson sums it up well:

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of earnest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;  to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Are you enjoying life? If not, start doing some of the things I mentioned and watch as joy comes into your life.

What have you found joy and happiness come from?