The Joy-Back Guarantee

FOR A PERSON IN A HELL-OF-A-PICKLE there surely is little to lose in giving faith a red hot go, especially if it’s never been tried before. This message mightn’t even be for you, today. Maybe tomorrow.

People at their rock bottoms invariably have the choice to continue to fight their way out of the most recent set of struggles or finally surrender, allowing a ‘Higher Power’ to take control; and it’s basically going to be a guaranteed better result. Most people at this point are just sick ‘n’ tired of fighting their battles, going against the flow. Resolve to fight, when ironically a fight beckons, is understandably at an all-time low.

Giving faith a try is something that can easily be done for, say, a three-month period—a joy-back guarantee, no questions asked—after which you’d be free to return to your old life.

But people generally find that the newfound way to joy is actually the right way and never go back to the way it was—that is, if they find truth there. And this is where truth and love are linked...

But faith (a form of “trusting”) is never really facilitated alone; we just don’t get there without support. Faith can never be acquired by ourselves, separate from others to guide us. I know programs like AA and NA are set up like this for this very reason; as is the Christian church. We need to see how fellow human beings genuinely care for one another. In this is modelled a better way of life. In these places, not only is support for faith found, but so to, love—perhaps the love you may never have experienced before. Love like this transforms people’s personal worlds.

The joy-back guarantee means you’re in ‘no-lose-situation,’ and you either keep the newfound source and sense of joy, ever growing in it, or you return to the “joy” of past, which oftentimes is seen for what is really is: literally, a hell-of-a-lifestyle, devoid of a Higher Power to trust in.

When we’re sick ‘n’ tired of being sick ‘n’ tired it won’t take that much to impress us and gently begin to lift us out of the mire. The love of concerned new fellows—those who have faith—will often be the catalyst of this newfound joy.

If you’re in a bad place currently, give this joy-back guarantee toward a journey to faith a genuine try. You’ve really got nothing to lose!

It might turn out to be the best decision you ever made.

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.