There is one perfect path to well-being, and it is centered on truth and grace.
Perhaps the circumstances you find yourself in today have never been more challenging. We all long for happiness, rest, security, and overall well-being. We want well-being for ourselves, and also for everyone we care about.
Each day, we are bombarded with a multitude of ideas on what will give us well-being. Usually, the message is: this is what you must know, do, or buy to finally be well.
And yet, none of these methods for well-being live up to their promises. They more often tend to exhaust us in the process. What we really need is... something that will take the pressure off. How about a shift in managing our well-being from us, to something (or Someone) more powerful than us?
That is exactly what God's grace (through Jesus) offers. It is the one perfect theory of well-being.
Grace-based Well-being
It requires no money (completely independent from finances).
It reduces fear and eliminates unnecessary suffering.
It transforms all suffering into positive growth (i.e. post-traumatic growth).
It increases self-control, happiness, joy, peace, and more...
It empowers healthy thought and behavior.
It produces well-being that goes deep below the surface (forget about the glossy well-being portrayed on social media).
It gives us permission to be messy, clumsy humans- and yet unique and valuable by design.
It creates a perfect, complete identity (bigger and better than identities based on sexual preference, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, education, family roles, etc.).
It automatically provides a community of love, belonging, and acceptance.
It increases freedom.
It shifts the responsibility for maintaining our well-being from us to an external Source.
It goes far beyond knowing, doing, and obeying.
It promises a future that consists of dreams fulfilled, needs satisfied, and abundant. love. In fact, it delivers on increased well-being for today, and ultimate well-being for all of eternity. Well-being times two.
WHAT THE RESEARCH SAYS
Grace has been linked to positive self-esteem, mental health and spiritual growth.
Grace is linked to less shame, psychological distress, childhood adversity, depression and hopelessness.
Participants that scored higher on measures of grace were more likely to be self-compassionate.
Grace was associated with increased coping abilities.
Higher grace scores were associated with lower scores of anxiety and depression.
Higher grace scores were correlated with lower scores of shame, scrupulosity, and perfectionism.
High grace scores predict outcomes of flourishing.
Bufford et al, 2015; Watson, et al, 1988; Judd et al, 2020
Grace is not religion.
Grace is the abundant love of God, showered on us, regardless of our abilities or performance. It is the mission of Jesus, and it's one He fulfilled spectacularly.
Would you like to know more about flourishing in grace?