“In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.”

(Ecclesiastes 7:14 ESV Bible)

This is great wisdom from Solomon and has become my favorite verse in the Bible.

Because in life you will experience happiness and sadness; joy and pain, or ups and downs and how we handle them both will make a difference in our lives.

Nobody escapes both sides of the coin: rich or poor, black or white; male or female; important person or common everyday folk.

Unfortunately, we have a culture that only wants to talk about or sell you on happiness. This philosophy has even effected Christianity where we have pastors saying you can have the best life you want in 7 steps or God will make me rich (if you give to my ministry through a seed) and so on.

I do believe that God does want to us experience happiness in our lives and even have some financial independence.  But, that is only one part of living a full life. And we have deal with the rain as well as the sunshine.

Even if you had a life free of problems it does not necessarily guarantee a piece of mind. Our peace of mind comes from the savior, not things or money or even people. The Lord is more interested in our character than our comfort.  So we have to appreciate our lives totally: the good and the bad.

I actually had a different column I was going to post this week.  But, I felt someone needed to read this post instead. For that person I want you to know that bad times don’t last forever and if you focus on Him, you will get through it.