Monday 8 August 2016

Intentional, Happiness

After bumping in to The Happiness Dare book, I was skeptical, but I took the Happiness assessment and to my surprise, it told me that I'm a Thinker. I was unsure of this result, I sat back in my chair and said no ways I don't know, I gotta think about this. It took me 3 seconds before I realised what I had said and I burst out laughing, yip I beheld the truth, thinker one. Having exposed myself to some of the material about this Happiness Dare, Abba Father really started speaking in to my heart about a number of things regarding my personal journey with Him and the aspect of real happiness.

I opened my heart to His Grace and intentionally let down the walls that were blocking the experiene of Grace birthed happiness, flow in to my soul. Yeshua even showed me how my reality of being a deep contemplative thinker, can effect my prayer life positively and it has. We are not all the same. I emailed this Happiness assessment to my parents, my in laws, my closest friend and my husband, I wanted to know their happiness style so I could know how to relate to them and how they experience happiness. By knowing their hearts, so much makes sense to me and I am better able to love them in a way they understand. At the same time bits of my world has changed and is still changing by the power of God's Spirit. 

I am seeing His messages all over. I am taking time to receive in the moments I am alive in. I am seeing beauty around me, in people and their hearts. I am reading messages on walls (like the one below that I saw today) and I am intentionally practicing spiritual disciplines leading to happiness. It's holy to be happy, finally I get it and I missed it for so long. 

My first happiness style is  the thinker, but my very close second is Experiencer. I love experiencing moments. Its amusing to know that my husband is a Doer and in the test it said how thinkers and doers have a hard time getting along. For many years we bumped heads because I wanted to go out and live in the contemplative moments that would become beautiful memories. But he would want to rush through sight seeing, experiences and miss the beautiful things because he wanted to be in the office working. We have since managed to work though this and meet half way and we have learned to know each other better. I have a lot more insight in to his style of happiness (even when he's a workaholic) and we help one another, it's pretty cool.

This week has been amazing. My eyes are standing on stalks at what I'm taking in and what my heart and spirit are experiencing. In many ways there's an awakening taking place in me and it's Holy, God - breathed. This afternoon my parents took us for lunch over at a very posh restaurant, it was so much fun, filled with laughter and ice cream. In a side room leading off the veranda, there was a birthday party happening. A family gathered. A big cake wheeled in and two candles sat on the top of the cake, the candles read 95

For real, I wondered, is this birthday person really 95? To me, that's pretty old. But lo and behold, a cute old man stood up and kissed everyone after speeches. In his blue pull over he hugged everyone, made sure they were all doing okay and almost seemed to be serving hearts at his own birthday. I was watching him so intently, the way he looked so healthy, the way he beamed at 95. My parents eventually suggested I go wish him a happy birthday, but it seemed pretty rude to push open the doors to a private party and interrupt. So I watched from a distance, this family and their 95 year old father, grandfather and great - grandfather. I wondered if they knew how blessed they were to see 95 years of some's life, is a gift from God. In truth, I have never met a 95 year old and I was in awe, like I was seeing father Abraham or something! I guess that's also the message of happiness, we need to open our eyes to appreciate the beauty and the rareness of what we have right in the midst of us. Just like those great - grandkids who have to choose to appreciate what they have, we need to open out eyes and experience what is good in the midst of us. And it doesn't have to be perfect and we don't have to wait until the perfect moment, we just have to let our Father open our hearts to the tender Grace that is everywhere and in this, we are happy with a Holy, Heavenly Happiness. 

Sharing with my Sister Lisha Give me Grace

7 comments:

  1. I took the happiness dare and I scored as relater with giver 1 point behind. I guess it was pretty much on target, though I do think a lot, too. This is so true:"I guess that's also the message of happiness, we need to open our eyes to appreciate the beauty and the rareness of what we have right in the midst of us." Sometimes we're so busy we miss what is right in front of us. Blessings to you and thanks for visiting my blog earlier!

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    1. Hey Gayl! Nice to see you. I just love how we are all so different and learning about one another makes us grow closer. Thank you for visiting and I pray for a great week for you! My thinker and my experiencer were also 1 point different, mmm, it's interesting :))) Thanks for visiting!

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  2. I had never heard of The Happiness Dare Book. It sounds very, very interesting and similar to the Love Languages. I'll have to check it out!

    If I were to guess, I am probably a thinker too. I could relate so much to your description of watching the 95 year old from afar and taking it all in. I loved how you described it.

    I very much enjoyed my visit here today. :-)

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    1. Hey Karen :) I Actually visited your site today as well, I really enjoyed the Love Languages book as well, it made sense to me. I feel as though a lot of these different tests and books can add pieces of the puzzle together and make one whole. BLess you and would love to know if you are a thinker! I enjoyed your visit, bless you!!

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  3. I've had to put this book on my "to read" list. I've heard so many good things about it. I still need to take the assessment. Thank you for sharing!

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  4. You know I love this post lol! I'm catching up on all your posts. Hope you're doing okay.

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    1. Hey Anna :) So glad you catching up hehe, and your post about the Happiness Dare was the last nudge I needed to look deeper, thank you! I'm doing good thank you and hope you are super awesome! mwaaa

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