Just how perfect do things have to be for you to feel happy? What is required for your motivation and inspiration? Are you waiting for a list of things to be bought, a list of things to come together, and a list of confirmations to make life better?
What if we’re waiting on things we were never supposed to wait on. And what if while we’re waiting, life is passing.
Time in Bali is truly life changing. You simply can’t be in the middle of the raw beauty here and not see the fingerprints of the Creator. But of even greater impact are the people. People God made. People God loves.
The Balinese way of life shines a light on our own way of life and stirs a desire to change. I see God here. I hear the Holy Spirit here. He whispers, “My girl, you are precious, but this life has become unprecious to you. It’s time to change.”
Has life become unprecious to you? It has to be perfect before you’re truly happy, and honestly perfection is really hard to obtain and impossible to maintain. Overflowing happiness is reserved for radically special days, so the ordinary days you go into robot mode, and robot mode has your face looking like you’re either quite miserable or you’re quite disgusted.
Honey, you don’t look happy. Your energy doesn’t reflect a girl who recognizes the preciousness of life all around her.
Have we become the girl who needs to have a plan and for that plan to be working in order to be happy?
Have we become the girl who is wrapped up in the details and missing the whole point?
Have we become the girl who is always trying to rush everything? We’re rigid, negative and nit picky.
Have we become the girl who cares more about how it looks than the purpose of it? We’re fake, we’re superficial, and we are forever in a hurry about something.
I make my own self want to gag, quite honestly. Oh how I’ve strayed. Have you strayed too, my sister? Want to come back to a better way of living where life is precious, God comes first, people are loved and we’re back in balance?
Me too. Let’s do this together.
1 Thessalonians 5:16, “Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.”
Can I get an AMEN?!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is a life moto! This is a daily guide to living. And this is what I see in Bali. I see people living this command in our Bible far better than us. The Balinese people are Hindu, but before you dismiss them, I assure you they are not so unlike us in faith, and they are lightyears ahead of us in living out this command.
Here in Bali, they are truly always joyful. In some living conditions we can’t imagine, they overflow with joy. With daily hardships beyond our experience, they exude genuine happiness.
They pray continually. God is their priority in every detail of life, not just in word but in action. We learned yesterday that at noon when the sun is high above you and you can’t see your own shadow, it is a call to pray. Oh let that set in for a moment – when you can’t see your own shadow, you pray.
But even deeper than that, we learned to pray in gratitude for not just the things that are good, right, working and coming together, but to pray in gratitude for the undesirable things, the hard things, the uncertain things, the painful things. Be grateful in everything because you trust God knows precisely what he is doing.
Yesterday here at the BIG Life Bali Retreat, we spent the day with our local drivers who taught us the deepest life changing lessons. Their teaching words were powerful and left us each deeply moved. But it was the behind the scenes moments we witnessed that hit me the hardest.
While driving down a tiny street in Ubud, we came upon a ceremony at a village temple where dozens of mope...