"More Than Memories" -Too

"Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise." (Psalms 98:4)
Not that it matters, but this life sure can suck the joy out of us sometimes. If I wanted to, I could have so many things to complain about; but if I do, I do not feel one little bit better when I do; and can I ever. If it's one of those days, you really do not want to be around me. Can you feel what I am trying to say? No pun intended, but feelings are the reasons for so many of our issues. I feel like doing something else; I feel like I want to be another person; I don't feel loved. You get the point? We just can not base how we live our life based upon feelings, ever! I feel like I want to escape and go live on a mountain somewhere else; but I cannot, so I had better find another way to feel, or just quit feeling all together. I really don't know how long God is going to keep this up, but it is totally up to Him, and I am okay with whatever He wants to do. I know what I must do, so I need to focus upon that and stop thinking about the things that I don't have, and I need to praise Him for all that I have. Love is not a feeling and neither is our praise to the LORD. Although people might want to make it so, our praise is all about doing something that needs to be done, whether we feel like it or not. If we don't, then we need to move past the way that we feel and move into the heart of worship; that's where it's not about us anymore, but it's all about God. We are no longer our own, so way do we keep thinking that we are, and why do we keep trying to make all of our own plans? Somewhere between where I am and where I want to be, there has got to be something that I can settle upon; but every time I think that I have found it, it seems to slip away. Not following me? That is okay, sometimes I don't even follow myself. But really, what is it that I have that I can hold onto? Don't you just love how God works? "I once complained that I had no shoes, until I meet a man who had no feet." Jesus is my Rock! Can we ever even come close to His pain and suffering at the cross? I seriously doubt we ever could; but for the joy that waited on the other side of that suffering, He endured all of that pain and all of the suffering and all of the humility. So what do you have to complain about? Just as I thought. Now let's focus upon what is ahead...
"I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God's way of making us right with himself depends on faith. I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead! I don't mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us." (Philippians 3:7-14) NLT