The penny.....and us

According to superstition, pennies are supposed to bring luck. Recently, the opposite has been happening. How much effect can a penny have? Well, quite a lot. Pennies waste 120 hours every year and cost 1.5 cents to produce. By simply no longer minting pennies we could save $16 billion each year. The one-cent coin has a tremendous impact on our economy. Something that seems so insignificant, that we walk past or tread on or shove into sock drawers, actually has significance. 

I don't know what you're going through in your life right now, but I do know that sometimes it's very easy to feel insignificant. In those moments we feel like the penny: forgotten, thrown away, walked past, unnoticed. 

And it's painful. 

But you have a bigger impact and more significance than you know. Think about all the people that know you, all your family and extended family members, co-workers, friends, enemies and acquaintances. You have touched all of their lives in some way. Now I don't know if that's been positive or negative, significant or insignificant, but I do know that you are around enough people that adding up all those interactions would equal a pretty significant impact. So in some way, you are making a difference in your world. People do know you, and I'm willing to bet that you can think people who love you. Lives are changed because of you, your life has significance. 

No matter how small you seem, your impact is great. 

We can be reassured by that and have hope because of that. But our hope should not be founded in that. Because our significance goes far beyond our impact on society. We are important because we are loved by God. We may feel like a drop in the ocean, a penny on a street corner, insignificant and lost and hopeless. But God who is rich in mercy, who created us, sent His only Son to die for us. His love for us is more than the drops in the ocean. We are significant to Him, we are rescued by Him, we are loved by Him, we will never be forgotten by Him. Loneliness is painful, but we never have to experience it because we have a God who promises to never leave us or forsake us. 

Pennies right now are seen as small, but their impact is tremendous. You and I have an impact on people, even in the moments when we feel lost. So don't let yourself believe that you are forgotten or worthless. Don't convince yourself that you are insignificant. Even seemingly little things have an enormous impact. And you have been purchased with the precious blood of Christ. Jesus says that not even a sparrow falls to the ground apart from God, and we are more valuable than many sparrows. We are noticed, cared for, and loved. We are important, valuable, and precious. 

Joy

Listen to Joy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu-8EoJFmxc

"It is the calm water
In the middle of an anxious sea.
Where heavy clouds part and the sunrise starts
A fire in the deepest part of me.

So I let go and in this moment, I can breathe."

At this point, what would you guess these lyrics are describing? 

They're from the song "Joy" by Sleeping at Last and, in my opinion, they do a great job summarizing what joy is. Because joy is hard to describe, we know we're commanded to be joyful, we know it's a Fruit of The Spirit, we know it lasts longer than happiness, but the comparisons the song makes gives us a good picture of what joy is like. That first verse mentioned calm water in the middle of an anxious sea, which is a great way to describe joy in my busy life. The feeling of joy seems to calm everything around me down. 

 "A silver lining spilling over,

The rumor of buried treasure,
The starting line of an adventure,
It's a glimpse of light in a mine of gold."

All of these are metaphors that the song gives for joy. My favorite is a glimpse of light in a mine of gold. Picture that. Imagine a mine. A gold mine. Deep down in the earth. Cold. So dark you don't even have hope of seeing anything until you approach the surface again. No light. Complete blackness envelops you, so thick it almost seems tangible.

 And then someone strikes a match.

 All of a sudden the whole room sparkles, the light is reflected from every point in the room and everything shines. The darkness disappears because of that glimpse of light.

 Joy is that glimpse of light in a gold mine. Joy is the feeling you get when you receive a 100% on your hardest test, when you and your family are laughing about something amazing that just happened, when you're so happy you want to burst. Joy can transform the darkest day into the best, put a positive spin on anything, and light up a room. And yet, joy can be quiet as well. We can't always laugh, hard times do hit us, and we don't always feel amazing or positive. Joy doesn’t mean always being happy, or always smiling, or always shouting to the world in exuberance. It can be the quiet pleasure of realizing God is in control and every moment is for Hs glory. We have hope in God’s grace and power to give us joy even when we don't feel like it. And that joy doesn't disappear.

 "It's the brightest sparks that we remember.

When our eyes are closed, we still see embers"

 Joy is lasting, something we can always feel the effects from. We can always let go of our burdens and sorrows and get a glimpse of joy. And in that moment we can breathe. Philippians 4:4 says, "Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice." We are commanded to have joy. Even when we don't feel like we can be joyful, God can give us the strength to rejoice. Ephesians 3:20 says, "“Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” Lasting joy is supplied by God, who has the power to accomplish more in us than we could even ask for. It is possible to be joyful always. The command "rejoice in the Lord always" is not a burden, it's a gift and a blessing because God makes us able to rejoice. So that when our eyes are closed, we still see embers of joy that brighten our lives. 

Don't let go of joy. Seek it, ask for it, find it. Be joyful and spread joy, because people will look at you rejoicing and be inspired by it. Joy will give you calm in the middle of your anxious times. Our life is a gold mine, and joy provides the light that illuminates every part of it. 

Confidence

Today, we have a problem. We have a box, and we don’t like to go outside of it. Then slowly that box becomes our prison and we are bound by shyness, fear, and anxiety. The main solution is confidence. Confidence is a requirement for most things in life, without out it, we wouldn’t try new things or talk to new people, or even leave a message on a phone. Confidence allows us to throw off our chains and step out of our box. Sometimes we have it, sometimes we don’t. I want to share with you a couple of ways that make us more confident. I hope you put them into practice because, in my humble opinion, I believe that confidence is the number one key to success. 

From the moment you walk into a room, you’re giving off numerous signs that hint at whether you’re confident or nervous. To have an image of confidence, one of the first things you have to fix is your stance. An anxious person will tend to shift their feet constantly or put weight more on one leg communicating the readiness to move. Keep your feet balanced and planted firmly. Our hands also play a big part in our image, for example, holding on to a water bottle is fine, we can occasionally take sips from it and look calm and cool while holding it. But twisting the cap back and forth or squeezing it too tightly makes you look anxious, which is a nervous habit I am working on breaking. Our hands are a big communicator to others, so what we do with them has a big impact on how we appear, Business Insider reports that holding them still and in the open makes us look honest, calm, and confident. Lastly, we have to fix our posture. Posture is the first thing people notice about us when we enter a room. So to appear confident stand shoulders back and head up, don’t be afraid to make eye contact and smile. Over the last few months, I’ve started to try to appear more confident in front of people. To do that, I developed a drill. Every time I walked through a door I would fix my posture. Behind that door I could be freaking out, eyes downcast, worried. But the second I walked between the door posts I would work on raising my chin and standing tall. Now, whenever I walk through a door, it’s automatic. It’s a good habit to get into and it helps make you appear in control.

Having an image of confidence is one thing, the voice of confidence is very different. Often the reason we are nervous or unconfident is because we were put in a situation where we have to speak……to people. To truly be confident we have to have a voice that conveys that confidence. Caroline Goyder, a voice coach and public speaker, says that the number one key to confident speaking is breathing. Not with your chest, but using your diaphragm. Now, we don’t think about our diaphragm a whole lot, but it’s the key, it’s how you calm yourself down in that moment when people are watching you. We often tend to breathe only with our chest, taking shallow, quick breaths. Instead, we should be deeply breathing.

There are also some great speaking tips that can make your voice sound confident. One of the most important things to speaking more confidently is not saying um. Lillian Glass, author and body language expert, says that cutting out “um” and “like” makes us seem more articulate, direct, and confident.

But being confident is more than just sounding and looking like it, it’s more then just a façade. To truly step out of our box and break our chains of fear we must learn how to feel confident. We can experience this feeling by doing a few things. The first is hugging people. U.S. Health news reports that when we hug someone it releases oxytocins in our brain triggering a drop in stress hormones and slowing our heart rate. So next time you’re stressed, give someone a hug. If you’re really not a hugging person though there are still ways to feel confident. Huffington Post says that squeezing stress balls reduces tension and reminds tightened muscles to relax. When we release the tension we can breathe easier and be more confident about whatever we’re about to do. Peppermint also reduces stress, so eating a mint when you’re anxious will help calm you down.

I can tell you from personal experience that all of these methods do help me feel and look more confident. Unfortunately, not for long. They work for a little while, calm my nerves, help me to feel better about what I’m about to do, but I have to keep coming back to them again and again. There is only one source of confidence that does last. God’s word. Lasting confidence comes from trust in God and His power to work through us not matter how badly we mess up. Philippians 4:6 says, “Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God.” We are commanded to stop being anxious and pray.

I know what nerves are like. I know the grip that anxiety can have on us and how fear can immobilize us and persuade us to stay in our box. But I also know the peace that flows through me after a friend has prayed with me, and I am so thankful for the way people around me have reminded me to have confidence in God. By trusting in God, I have been able to change my stance, breath deeply and fix my posture so that I can step out of my box, break my chains, and do whatever the Lord asks me to with confidence.