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Put Joy in your Life!
Updated February 15, 2026

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Make Your Life More Meaningful!

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I have retired and no longer offer Life Coaching. Now I offer you something different.

Is Christian belief fragile for Christians? . Only when they're not paying attention. Some many years ago Moses led the enslaved Israelites out of Egypt. God paved the road for them over and over again, to the point of drowning the pursuing Egyptians in the Red Sea. He fed them Manna, a nutritious flat-bread every day. About the third day they needed water and complained bitterly to Mosses. Clearly not paying attention or they would have realized that God was looking after them all the way. So the moment that one thing, the drinking water, is not perfect they become upset and demanding with Moses.

Hundreds of years later, the Apostle Paul, who had been imprisoned and whipped many times, said, "I Have learned to be content whatever the circumstances . . . I can do everything through Him who gives me strength." Philippians 4:13. Clearly Paul is paying attention. He knows that God is there and is looking after him. He has built up in his mind a perpetual reserve of faith. James 6 in the Bible says, It is important to us that "we believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind." He is not pleasing to God. From this I conclude that the Christian with a fragile belief system is not paying attention. He is drifting along. Hard to know where his mind is focused but possibly he is feeling sad that his life is not easier. God doesn't promise us an easy life on earth.




Religion in today's North American society is scorned by many. Is it accurate to say that? As my reader here today possibly God and the Bible are scorned by you. In our society I see devastation as I look at major homelessness and poverty, government and other corruption and what appears to be a society that is very self absorbed, self focused and if you'll pardon me saying so, greedy. This replaces any idea of brotherly love and caring.
Is God not really there? Is he an imagined being brought to life by desperate people? Many think this is the case: a popular belief. Is the bible just a collection of imaginary stories? I think God is real and offer three support pillars for this belief.
What drives an atheist? Lots of things. Pride is certainly a part of it. Very often, people don't want to be told what to do, they want to do what they want to do. Believing in God involves following his commandments and being accountable to him. Pride can make us spiritually blind. "Don't tell me what to do!"

Atheists can range from being righteous to very ungodly but most share a willingness to "spread error concerning the Lord," in a bunch of different ways including presenting arguments that suggest that God can't really exist. Sometimes these belittle the Bible in different ways. What can be funny here is that very often these people know very little about the Bible, and very much don't want to know about it.

Think about that for a minute. It's like you or I running down life on Mars, without knowing much about Mars or space travel: Do atheists wonder where life on earth started from: Did it just come out of nowhere or did it come from life itself. If the "Big Bang theory is correct, how did life itself happen? Atheists just seem to live their lives under a rock in this respect. Like the Ostrich burying its head in the sand. Likely you know that the Ostrich story is truly just a joke and not a reality Where Atheists, on the other hand are real. Uninformed, but real.




Pillar One: The Bible.
Most of the old testament of the Bible was written more than 2500 years ago. It tells the story of the people of the Middle East and their connection to God, and it does a fair bit of predicting of the arrival and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Isaiah 11:1 says "a shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a branch will bear fruit." Jesse was the father of King David. David killed Goliath and later ruled Israel. The bible traces the biological lineage of Jesus from Jesse to Mary, the mother of Jesus: a shoot from the stump of Jesse. Matthew 1 goes through the genealogy. The Bible book of Isaiah: 53 tells the story of the origin, life and death of Jesus Christ. The New Testament book of Matthew tells the reality that occurred about 700 years later. Then back to Isaiah 53:9, tells how his grave was to be with all bad criminals but instead was "with the rich in His death," and Matthew 27:57 tells how Joseph, a rich man from Arimathea collected His body and put it in his own tomb. It was from this tomb that God resurrected Him. Backing up a moment to the crucifixion, Psalm 22:16, written a few hundred years earlier, says "a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet . . . . they divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing." A possible premonition of the crucifixion of Christ, see John 19:23.

Moving on Biblically now to access to God, and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, 2Chronicles 15:2, says "The Lord is with you when you are with him. If you seek him he will be found by you." Seeking God involves praying and reading the Bible, which is considered the word of God, to have been written by men under the direction of the Holy Spirit. James, in James 4:8, says further, "come near to God and he will come near to you." and in John 15:4, Jesus says: "Remain in Me and I will remain in you."

In the New Testament, Jesus Christ is born, raised, lives, is crucified and is resurrected. All of this could have been either made up or written by dreamers. But, people who believe in God, who are baptized as adults and read the Bible regularly, come to know something different. They pray and their prayers are most often answered, not necessarily right away. If they are not answered, the Bible addresses this in many places including James 4:3 who says prayers are not answered if you ask with the wrong motives. Other verses that address this issue include: 1Peter 3:7; Psalm 66:18; 1John 3:21-24; 1Samuel 28: 16-18; Matthew 5:23; Jeremiah 11:17; and Psalm 51.

Now we have come back to the 2nd Chronicles with, "The Lord is with you with you when you are with him."

I am a strong believer in God and in Jesus Christ and in His resurrection two thousand years ago. Given that, I can still have my lost moments. Sometimes this will happen when I am amidst non believing people for too long. During these times I tend to pray and read the Bible less and drift from Him. On the other end, when I keep close to God, I often experience "His peace," which is described in Philippians 4:7, where it says, "the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." I can tell you that Christians who keep close to God every day know what the peace of God is. You may be having a very bad day, with a multitude of bad serious things going wrong. You may be getting bullied at school or your marriage may be struggling or your Country may be threatened. The sky is falling and then you realize that you are smiling and have joy in your heart. This is the peace of God. He gives it to us when we need it. He takes away our worries. Psalm 23 says, "He restores my soul." My own experience suggests that God does a lot of this for a lot of us. He restores our souls when we need it most. Here are some Bible verses about God's promises.
The second support pillar is the experience of Christians in their connection to God.

Pillar Two: The Christian experience.
First let me tell you what a Christian is. The word has the name Christ in it because a Christian is a person who believes in the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus, as told in the Bible. With that belief in place this person reads the bible often, usually at least a bit every day, and thinks about the bible and prays often. This is what the bible tells us to do. The bible also tells us to obey the ten commandments: to not cheat, steal or lie and the Christian does his best to comply with all of this. While the Christian is working at compliance, his best way to do this is to maintain and build his faith in God, who then "teaches us what is best for us and directs us in the way we should Go."(Isaiah 48:17)

Having said this, now I'll say that all Christians can have their moments of doubt. (moments, not days) This stems partly from the fact that God is a spiritual being and we are earthly beings. To know Him we have to make this jump into the spiritual realm. But, He helps us make the jump, over and over again. He wants us to succeed. In Psalm 23 it says, "he restores my soul." He does this, restoring our souls, over and over again, as long as we are still with Him.

From looking around and watching the news and television we all know that there are many "Christians," often regular church goers, who are missing, or whom we suspect are missing, the Christian experience. That is between them and God. Here, right now, I'm talking about believing Christians and their experience of God and the Holy Spirit.

In James 1:5-7, James says, if you need wisdom, ask God for it and He will provide it but when you ask you must believe and not doubt or likely you will get nothing. Once baptized and accepted by God, the Holy Spirit is in you and with you no matter what. In Deuteronomy 31:6 Moses said, God will never leave you nor forsake you. But, if you forsake God, He will forsake you (2Chron:15:2) but the Spirit will still be with you. Likely you won't know it because you are no longer paying attention. Also he is no longer working on your behalf, because you are no longer praying to him and because He is not happy with you for ignoring Him. For the time being at least, you have quenched Him. 1Thessalonians 5:16 says, "Do not put out the spirits fire."

As an active baptized Christian, here is my experience of God.
He is with me when I am with Him. He restores my soul over and over again. In Jeremiah 31:33, in referring to the New Covenant, God says, I will be their God, and they will be my people." In the Bible, this is an often repeated bible verse, stating part of what God wants from us. Couple this with the 2 Chronicles verse mentioned above, "The Lord is with you when you are with Him," suggests strongly that God wants us with Him through His word and through prayer and through our behavior. For me the closer I am to God, the better by far my life goes: I find myself enjoying life more, and getting along better with others. In saying that, I am under-rating the Joy that God puts into me when I need it most. During times when I am praying often, memorizing bible verses or when I just need it badly, I find myself bubbling over with an unaccountable happiness. There is reference to this in Philippians 4: which refers to the "...peace of God which transcends all understanding," looking after us.


Pillar Three: God's revelations to us.

God reveals himself to Christians rarely but enough so that if we are paying attention, and if we believe in Him, we are aware of his presence. If our faith is not strong we might miss his presentation. Most likely he also reveals himself to at least some of those who are not baptized, ie, not born again.

Remember that God is a trinity of God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Once baptized, the Holy Spirit lives in you. If you forsake God you forsake all three and appear to live your life as a Godless person. If you've never known God, it might seem to go well enough for you. If you are born again and have forsaken him by pretending he's not there or ignoring him it likely won't go very well. Jeremiah 17:13 says "all who forsake you will be put to shame." However God wants to forgive and wants you back. If you come back to him, likely your shame will be lessened, or at the least the Spirit will again be with you to guide, support strengthen and lead you.

God's revelations to people can take any form at all. The Spirit may reveal something to you that appears in a miraculous manner. Jesus may come to you and say hello. As far as I know these are usually spiritual visits, but throughout the Bible God has engaged people to approach or contact others and likely he still does that.


It seems crazy to think that, as we are living our earthly lives, there could be a spiritual world right along side of us with a God, who created our world, created us and created all of the animal and other inhabitants. Sometime when you are outdoors you may wonder at the brilliance of nature. Around us there are a lot of animal, insect, plant, bird and marine species living and working all year long. Their systems are often less complex than that of humans but still very real and very sophisticated. They live, they feed themselves, they reproduce and some of them even play. Google says they got there through adaptation and metamorphosis and evolution. Is it possible that God made us all, as it says in the Bible. Is it scary to think that? In the Bible in Isaiah 41:10, God says, "be not dismayed for I am your God."Are we humans easily dismayed or defensive?

Two thousand years ago there was a guy, an Israelite, who claimed to be the son of God. He was born on earth and as he reached about thirty years of age he started performing miracles. He turned wine into water, little bits of food into lots of food and healed hundreds of maimed, crippled and sick people. The church people of the era, called Pharisees, had a strong position of authority and control and were threatened by this man, and killed him by nailing him onto a cross. They held a trial of sorts in the night and did the crucifying early the next morning. The man was not caught by surprise and went along with it so that His death would be symbolic of a new foothold of religion: Christianity. Interestingly enough, three days later, after being resurrected by God, this man started appearing and talking to many people he had known while living here in human form. In the next two thousand years, he reportedly appeared along the way to many other earth born people. The man's name was Jesus Christ.

Salvation for Christians refers to going to heaven after our bodies die on earth. Jesus is clear that many of us will not get there and that believing in Him is essential in this process. So what about Muslims, do they get salvation? They seem to think so but Jesus is very clear in John 14:6, that "no one comes to the father except through me." It seems to me that only people who acknowledge Jesus, His resurrection and the Holy Bible are in any way likely to receive salvation. Romans 10:9 says that "If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."

I used to read the Bible without having a strong realization that the words meant much. Back then they were just words, sometimes a bit boring. This is probably true for many of us. Now I have a very strong sense that it is all very real. Having experienced the Holy Spirit in me, it is now very easy for me to imagine that the Bible was truly written by God. I'll talk more about the Holy Spirit later.


Bible areas and verses about trusting in God, a major Bible theme.
  1. In Genesis 22 God instructed the Prophet Abraham to kill his only son as a sacrifice. Abraham trusted God so much that he attempted to comply, and God stopped him at the last moment.
  2. In Exodus 14, God brought the Israelis out of Egypt by parting the waters of the Red Sea, and then drowning the pursuing Egyptians
  3. "Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord, is the Rock Eternal."-Is:26:4
  4. The book of psalms: Many of the Psalms written by King David: David's trust in God was superb. Psalm 46, God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in trouble.



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