The Mind Body Project
The Mind Body Project
SoulFit: The Trap of "I'll Be Happy When..."
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We challenge the “I’ll be happy when” mindset and reconnect happiness to contentment that we can practice right now. We lean on Philippians 4 and Psalm 118 to show why joy is learned in real life, not earned by the next big milestone.
• the hidden cost of postponing happiness to a future moment
• how “happy” and “content” often mean the same chase
• Philippians 4 and the learned skill of contentment
• why vacations, achievements, and new seasons lose their glow
• choosing small moments with family instead of wishing life away
• living in yesterday as regret and tomorrow as worry
• practicing contentment daily through faith and attention
What moments today, right now, in the next few hours, can you be content with?
Welcome To SoulFit
Welcome to SoulFit. Thank you for taking time to join us today. Each week we just join our live call call as I share a little bit from scripture and then how do we make that applicable to our everyday life? So let's join our live call.
The Trap Of “I’ll Be Happy When”
I know Crystal's answer to this, but how would many times how would maybe you complete the this sentence? I'll be happy when. I bet Krista wouldn't say I'll be happy when I get back to the United States and get to go back to work. A lot of times it's probably the other way around. We're at work and we'll say, um I'll be happy when I get on vacation. A lot of times we might say, I'll be happy when I get into a certain size of clothes. I'll be happy when. I know Kim and I say this when our kiddos. I can't hear you. No one can hear you. Yeah, he went away. Okay, can you hear me now? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's what happens when you hit the wrong button. Let me back up. So we say, When we're gonna be happy. I know Kim and I, when our kids were little, we're like, we'll be happy when they get older. When they get out of diapers, when they're potty trained, when they get out of junior high, when they get out of high school. And we kept saying that now they're adults, and you can't just whip them like you used to when they were kids. It was easier, I think, when they were kids. But we say that we can't wait till they get older. We can't wait. I'll be happy when I'm not so busy. I'll be happy when life kind of slows down. And the interesting thing is we keep saying that. We get into the next stage of life, and and I think sometimes we go, well, I'll be happy when. I'll be happy when. And it's all maybe I'll be happy, and maybe it's not even a long season. Maybe I'm like every time when this time of year rolls around, I'll be, I always say, I'll be happy when the grass stops growing. Yet I'm really happy when I look at my green yard and it's just freshly mowed, and then the next day when it looks like it needs to be mowed again, it makes me so happy. But we find that I'll be happy when.
Learning Contentment From Philippians 4
Indeed, you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I'm not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content wherever the circumstances are. And we're going to talk about, I have learned. We're going to talk about that. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned, again, the word learned, the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want, I can do all this through him who gives me strength. And we're going to talk about I'll be happy when. And really, isn't that what I'll be happy when is about? It's about contentment because we're looking for I'll be content when the kids are gone, when I get this new job, when our relationship is better. And really, we could almost interchange contentment and happy because we think happy is contentness, being contempt, not being content, being content. And so is what happens is we keep chasing after happiness because we and and part of the the theme this year with our our keychain is the 12 keys to happiness. Because we find out that happiness isn't a destination. A destination we might look at like one more achievement, that's a destination, one more accomplishment, that's a destination, one more vacation, that's a destination. And so we keep chasing these
Why Big Moments Fade Fast
things. I was listening to an interview this week from Priscilla Shriver, I believe is her name, and she was talking about her parents. And I don't know if anybody knows Tony Evans, he's a preacher. I didn't realize that that this was her dad, but he's a preacher, and her mom and dad were planning this big trip when they were 70, and just two months shy of them turning 70, and they'd been playing it for years and years and years, and just two months shy of them turning 70 and going on this trip that they had planned, her mother passed away. And she was really sharing about how they were waiting for that big moment. And she said it really taught me to be more content and happy with the smaller moments, that it wasn't this thing wasn't gonna be the thing that made us happy. And she was really sharing about trying to do those things in the now, not waiting for later. And we think about those things that we thought were gonna make us happy, or that we keep saying are gonna make us happy when the kids get out, when we get on this vacation, and those things happen, and probably Crystal mentioned earlier, coming back from Mexico, excited to go, months and months getting excited, getting all the clothes ready, all the swimwear ready, all the plans ready, you know, all the everything, all the excitement. And then when you come back from a trip like that, and think about any trip you've been on, months and months of planning and excitement and joy and all that, and the buildup. Did that vacation, how long did the afterglow of that last? It might have not lasted until you got. I mean, it might have happened, you might have lost it once you got on the plane to come back. Yeah, it depends on how your airport experience is. It depends on how your airport. I mean, you could have lost it before you ever got on the plane, you could have lost it on the drive home, you could have lost it when you went back to work the next day or the next week. So as long as it feels like it takes to get there and what it's bringing you, it's gone very quickly. And it's kind of that way on a lot of things. Usually those things that excitement for it might last a few days, a few weeks. I mean, if we're really lucky, it'd be a few months, maybe months. But typically, Morgan had started a new job this the other week, and it was like a 12-hour shift. And I said, Did the time go by fast? And she said, Oh my gosh, it went by so fast. And I bet in a couple months, if I asked her how fast that 12-hour shift went by, I bet she's gonna say, Dad, it was the longest day ever. Still the same 12 hours, but why was the beginning so much faster and the end so much slower? Or when I ask her in a couple months, it's because of that that excitement of learning all the things, doing all the things. You're excited about it. So it goes by quickly, but then afterwards, it's like I gotta do this again. So a lot of times we're always I'll be happy when. When it
Seasons, Kids, And Missing The Now
our verses talked about contentment, it talks about for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstance. We might put circumstance in season because circumstance, I think sometimes we think in the moment. I like seasons because is a season short? No, we only have four seasons in a year. Unless, I mean, here we have in Texas, we have a season in in two weeks, but typically it lasts in a year. And so a season isn't always short. It's kind of easy to be content in a circumstance, you know, in a moment, and they think, okay, I can get past this moment. Like, you know, it's easy to be, okay, I just have to do this exercise for 30 seconds. I can do that. But if I said, hey, you gotta do that same exercise for a whole week without stopping, it'd be a little harder to be content in that moment and happy. You'd be like, I'm done with this. But that's sometimes what our season looks like, and that's kind of what we're talking about. How do we be content in those seasons that are kind of drawn out? Because a lot of times we is it hard to be content when we're on a beach vacation or on a dream vacation or have some days off. It's not always hard to be content. It's pretty easy to be content, but it's a lot harder to be content when things aren't going right. And and and and and part of that is when we're always looking for that next best thing, the thing that's gonna make us happy. We miss out on sometimes our kiddos growing up. You know, we wish school hadn't ended so fast for them. You know, our busy season, you know, a lot of things happened in our busy season, but we missed a lot of small moments. Our grandkids were here, uh Cow and Riggs this past week. And so in the afternoons, I tried to go home some and and and and see them and visit with them and play with them and all that. But because I was thinking about my kids when we were little, when they were little, not when we were little, when they were little, that I can't, man, if they can just get older and start driving and doing these things. And before I knew it, they were out of the house. And there were times that I wish I had it was a busy season, I missed those things because I'll be happy when they do these things. I'll be happy when they can do this. And so I missed a lot of those moments. And with our grandsons, we can go back and do a little bit of that. One of the things that I get to go back and do that I don't get to do over with my kiddos is I get to spend time with them. There's I don't I don't buy them anything. I don't, there's nothing that I give them that they're like, oh, this is the best. I just can give them my time. And so, and as I realize Cal's, you know, gonna be five in September, so he'll start school. And so they live in Oklahoma, so we won't get that opportunity. He won't be able to be here during the week. So we just have a few more months left of that, and then that opportunity is gone forever, unless it's around the holiday schedule based on the school. But that flexibility is gone forever, and and and that's one of the things I learned when our kids were little is there's some things that I didn't get done this week, but that's okay. Because in the big grand scheme of things, nobody's gonna remember that. It's not gonna matter to anybody but me. But being able to go home and spend a little time with them is gonna make all the difference in the world. So in those moments, I was able this week to find some contentment, to find some happiness. Was my whole week happy? No, there's some other things I wasn't real happy about, but in those one to two hour slots, I could be really content and really happy. And I didn't find myself this week saying, well, I'll be happy when this week is over. There, there I'll be happy when some of those things are over, but I tried to find contentment. And as we, as I talked about, we have to learn that. And that is a learn, and you know what? Sometimes we learn contentment from mistakes we made in the past. That's how we learn things, is we didn't do it right, so let me do it better. When you took a test and you got a bunch of red marks in school, I got a bunch of red marks on my test. I learned, you know what? I didn't know that as well as I thought. Maybe my studying methods of just glossing over it the night before the test wasn't the best study habits I ever could have used. So I learned to study better so those red marks would get less because we have to learn from our mistakes and find those times to be content. And the hope is that we can learn those before it's too late. Before we go, well, I wished my life away, which is very easy to do on our busy schedule, is we we wish it away. And before we know it, we're out of wishes because it's the end of our days, and we used up all of our wishes for the next thing. I don't know if anybody's have watched has ever watched Click. You know, I love movies. It's with Adam Sandler, and he has a remote control, and he can fast forward over different things he wants to go by fast, whether it's work, whether it's, you know, go into a kid's practice or and so but the interesting thing about this remote control begins to know what he likes and doesn't like. And so it starts fast-forwarding past his life of the things he really he would have fast-forwarded. And so he gets to the end and he goes, Well, how'd I get here?
Practice Contentment And Live Today
And the remote fast-forwarded everything, and he and he missed his life because he was wishing to fast forward through it all. Because one day we will run out of tape, we run out of fast-forward, we run out of wishes. There's no more genie left in the bottle, we're out. And how do we capture that genie in the bottle? How do we capture those moments? Those, let me get my one wish in. We take those moments and learn contentment. Is this moment gonna make me happy? In this circumstance, does my whole life look great? No, but can I be happy in this moment? In this moment that the Lord has given me, and in Psalms 8 uh 118 24, it says, The Lord has done it this very day. Let us rejoice today and be glad in it. It doesn't say tomorrow, it says today. Let us rejoice today and be glad. And going back to Philippians 4.11, it says, I have learned to be content. Contentment doesn't come naturally. If it came naturally, in that those verses, it wouldn't have said learned. Because we do have to learn, it is a learned skill. And how do how do we get better at anything we learn? Practice. If you've ever played a sport, how do you get better? If you watch little dribblers, if you watch those little three and four-year-olds, oh my gosh, they can't bounce a ball, they can hardly walk with the ball. It's the funniest thing. But then if you watch kiddos in elementary school, they're way better than those little ones. It's because it was a learned skill. They kept going, they kept learning it. They got a little older, they got a little wiser, they got a little smarter, they knew how to handle the ball. And so is what the world tells us a lot of times is more equals happiness, or the next thing equals happiness. What it says in those those verses, it it says contentment can can exist regardless of the circumstance. And so, as I've mentioned before, we have no control over the outside world. The thing that we do have control over is the inside, and the inside is what is contentment, that is what is in us, is the contentment we have for where we're the moment we're at in life. And and that's what makes the difference. But just for time's sake, it the the very last sentence in that it says, Each day has enough trouble of its own. And isn't that the truth? But right before that it says, But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. So I'll be happy when tomorrow's gonna have more troubles, and the next day is gonna have more troubles, and then next day is gonna have because we don't live in a perfect world, we don't live a perfect life. A life of following Jesus never said it was gonna be perfect. A lot of times we have a lot more troubles than it is a perfect life. So living yesterday, we have regrets, there's mistakes that we live in, there's missed opportunities. Living in tomorrow has worry and fear, anxiety, what if. And if we're living in yesterday, and we're living in tomorrow, we are completely missing today. And today is just simply made up of a bunch of moments. We get many, many moments, many, many minutes in the day. Can we take some of those minutes and be content for a minute, two minutes, five minutes? I was content last this week as I got to spend some time with my grandsons for for many minutes, for hours. Very enjoyable, very time well spent on contentment. And was the whole week a happy place? Not necessarily, but those moments were happy and because of contentment. It is a learned skill because as scripture tells us, tells us, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have its own troubles. There's plenty of troubles, plenty of problems. Just wait till tomorrow, you'll get some new ones. So if you don't have any today, wait around, you'll get some new ones tomorrow. But but my challenge is simply is this what moments today, right now, in the next few hours, can you be content with? And go, that's a happy moment. Because contentment and happiness can be interchangeable. Because maybe if we're waiting, I'll be happy when, we're really saying, I'll be content when, and that's a little bit harder to hear. So, what moments today can you be happy in? I mean, that's really the the challenge for each of us because and when we do that, when we practice that, as the as it tells us in scripture, it's learned. And when we practice it, we become better at it. And then the better we come become at it, it can be our everyday way of life. So we walk in happiness every day. It doesn't mean the whole day is, but it means that parts of our day is, and when we have more parts than not, we can say we look back and the whole day was pretty happy. So I'll finish this up in prayer, and then we can get on with our phenomenal
Prayer And Weekend Sendoff
Friday. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for bringing us together. Lord, I just pray that we work in recognizing those times that would make us happy, that would make us content. That sometimes, Lord, we're looking for whole seasons. And maybe sometimes, Lord, we're just in a season or a circumstance that we all we can do is we can find that moment that we are content and that we um rely on you and we give you all that we have, and we rely on your strength to give us that contentment, that happiness, that joy in that moment, in that season, that we may grow in that, and that we may grow in your word, and that we we may learn that happiness is a journey, and a journey is a contentment, and a journey in your word is gonna lead to that contentment and happiness. And just watch over us as we go out, be with us, and give us that strength. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. And thank you, everyone. Hope you have an amazing weekend, and thank you to each of you for joining us on SoulFit. Look forward to seeing you right here next time on Soul Feet.