Do you or circumstances prevail?

Are you unhappy in your job?

Perhaps you are looking for work.

Well the US August job figures have apparently come as a little surprise against the expectations of economists who were expecting 70,000 new jobs.

US employment figures show the country has not added any new jobs in August, prompting fears the world’s largest economy is grinding to a halt.

The Dow Jones industrial average, based on the news dropped 2.2 per cent at the close of trade.

It just seems as if there is no end to the bad news but what if we look at things differently.

How would we feel if the report was as follows.

Today economic figures revealed the good news that employment figures have remained steady with no jobs lost during the month of August. Admittedly the expectation of an increase in jobs was not realized and the Dow Jones was down 2.2% on the day but across the week only about 150 points were lost.

How we look at things does have a bearing on how we cope but when times are tough, or something we highly value receives a hit, then we may well struggle.

Paul, that great old time Christian was often in a tight spot and he once said

Philippians 3:7 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ

This great man had a set of values which recognized that things of time pale into insignificance when measured in the long haul.

Why even what happened yesterday on the Dow Jones, when measured over a life time is not even a blip as the graph below reveals.

Let me ask this. How in reality does what is now important to you measure when one considers the broader scheme of things?

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Renewable Energy for Life

Renewable Energy comes in many forms. Life itself must also be renewed.

Over many years I have chatted with people of all age groups.

A sad aspect has been to see those, from all age groups, who are dissatisfied with life and are in the need of renewal.

Life is a beautiful privilege but if we are honest, there are those moments of staleness. To cover these times, various pursuits are employed. Some chase more material possessions. Others look for illicit thrill and in general diverse methods of avoidance are employed to overcome a lack of freshness.

Then there is the elderly who experience their brand of staleness. Many aged folk say that time seems to fly at an ever increasing rate. Christmas and birthdays no longer wait the full twelve months before turning up again. What has this to do with staleness? Well read on!

Neuroscientist David Eagleman, from the Baylor College of Medicine (Houston, Texas) has the following suggestions.

He suggests that when we are young and encounter an experience for the first time, it really burns into the brain and resides as a detailed memory. According to this scientist, the brain actually uses more energy to record novel and exciting experiences.

So when we journey on a new route for the first time it is recorded in significant detail. Much more detail than subsequent travel when we repetitively follow the same track. For instance, we all know that familiar trek to our normal work place and after many repeats, we sometimes arrive at work without remembering too much about the journey. Later journeys for this reason may seem quicker than the first.

The suggestion is that older folk have less novel and exciting experiences. So this, as we age, may lead to a matter of fact life where everything has a tendency to pass one by. If all this is true then the answer for older folk to slow down the fleeting years, is to seek new experiences.

This article opened talking about all age groups experiencing staleness and I believe this to be true. However, dependent on our age, there is a difference in the way staleness is covered. Younger people through their energy of youth are able to activate new excitement and temporarily delay that empty feeling. However, no matter what our age, unless we deal with staleness at its root, it will eventually run us down.

Staleness of life is remedied by new start. New life, in its fullest form, is only available in Christ as expressed in 2 Corinthians chapter 5:17

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

The epistles to the Ephesians sheds more light on this newness.

Ephesians 4:22-24  You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

Christ died to bring us the possibility of dealing with our old ways. Negative ways powered by our own deceitful desires. At our election we can be renewed in attitude our minds.

This potential for real living is mentioned in a special way in Romans chapter 8:10-11

But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

What is special here is that Jesus rising from the dead in newness of life is a historically attested fact.  The same Spirit who raised Jesus resides in the life of every person who truly believes in Jesus. His residency is capable of bring fresh new life, irrespective of our stage in life.

Folks, the secret to living a fulfilling life is to live it, renewed.

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