A Prayer!

This will be the first post in a long while, but this post is more like a prayer, than a story. Lord my God, Heavenly Father of all above, most Holy Lord, thank you for the breath in my mouth to speak, and my hands to write with, you Oh Lord are most high above all, Forgive me when I forget that I am mere dust and vapor, and why should you consider me! But for some reason in your thoughts and mind it was in you not only to make Adam, but to also redeem him and all his family, when we fell from the innocence and believed a lie that we could be like you! When you placed all of your wrath on your own Son, who bore our sins in his flesh for our redemption, rather than just removing man from your creation and starting over, you chose to love me first when I was incapable of true love, your mercy is overflowing, your compassion deep beyond comprehension. Lord when I forget my place, forgive me, and draw me gently Lord to repentance and cover my sin once more, Let me give Honor to my Redeemer Jesus and praise most high to the Father who showed his true nature to the sons of men through the life of his most precious son, I know my Redeemer lives, so I may come before you Lord. Show your mercy and compassion upon me that all may see how great your love is and how freely you give it to all who you draw unto you. Praise to the Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit. Only you are worthy!

The Set of the Sail!

It is not the storm we are weathering but the set of the sail that determines our success! That is a phrase that was said to me in a training on personal development, it was about being successful with anything!
But here it is coming out of my pastor's teaching, a completely unexpected question was posed, what storm has blown into your life and how will you react to it? You can sit at the foot of the master and learn and practice and learn and practice and grow in your spiritual life or let the storm come into your life and the Lord will use that to force your training, force your change, and setting the sail will allow you to not founder, but start to move upward toward the high call you are to move to! We are encouraged to move from where we are in reality to where we should be ideally! All of this come from our bible, our Lord teaches us that the all the solution is accomplished, he has been their ahead of us, he has purchased everything for us that work is accomplished, our salvation is complete in him. But the reality is he meets us where we are at, but does not want us to stay there, imagine that, when God meets you as a drug addict, a thief, a murderer, a pervert, he does not want you to stay there! While that seems like a no brain for those obviously broken people, but sometimes when you are just a person, who was seeking to fill that empty spot, to mend a broken heart to find a relationship with God, maybe you grew up in or around the church, you don't see the need for the radical transformation, but nothing could be further from the truth! God has a plan for everyone, it is a process called sanctification. It is called the process of finishing you into the Man or Woman of God that he knows you will be, not where he found you! " Focus on the process you get the goal, Focus on the goal and you will get frustrated."  This is true for everything in life, it is the principle taught in the Slight Edge philosophy. And of interesting note, lots and lots of personal development (personal growth) arena is ripped straight out of the Gospel, and old testament scriptures! We need to concentrate in our spiritual life,to pray, study and share!
We also need to give the Lord the chance to change not our personality, he gave it to us, but to make us into loving, kind, giving people. People who bring others into the boat of a saved life, one that has a future on the other side of this boot camp, we call life, but is only the door to the real life, ready to graduate and have the Lord say, "Well done, enter into my rest!"

So here is the takeaway, if your business has a proven model, with a process that works, do it, over and over again until you are perfect, if you are working at weight loss, it is not the doughnut you avoid but the process if you keep on, that will work to your goal! Whatever you do, focus on your guided development and you will change! Move incrementally each day forward doing the small things everyday that add up to huge change over the long haul!

Build your spiritual life!
Build a Business!

Share the Season- Discovering peace #1

Peace and Anxiety do not go together, they can't exist in the same place and yet when we are anxious we should turn to peace but how do we discover peace and cling to it in the middle of turmoil? Rediscovering Christmas Peace was the topic of Jeff Vines sermon Sunday and spoke directly to me. In this time of high anxiety for me and my family it is hard to grasp peace, the season has become one of stress all by itself, let alone without the added stress of employment, finance, turmoil and self involved examination of one's self! 
Here is a bit of Christmas peace, Luke 2:14  "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!", it is not as you might expect that I took comfort from the part about peace, but the phrase "with whom he is pleased!". Yes, with sin in the world, with it seeming that God is really mad at us, wants us to tow the line or be destroyed, that is not the case at all, he is pleased with us and is in the process of bringing as many as will come to peace and fellowship, not destruction! Isaiah 43:1 "But now, thus says the LORD, your Creator, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel, "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name ; you are Mine!". In Luke just as he was announcing the birth of Jesus he told the shepherds in the field, "Do not be afraid", for as Jeff pointed out, most of the time when people see such a display of God's glory, they expect judgement, we seem to be fearful all the time! Christians love Christmas, it is the day we designate in the year to celebrate the birth of Jesus, and we don't really care at this point if the exact date is not right, it is not about evergreen trees, or presents, it is about the birth of God's message of Love, Peace, Fellowship, his Olive branch, the making of Peace with mankind that he wants to exist between Him and Us. God taking on flesh and blood to identify, redeem and be able to touch us and know our fears, hopes, dreams! Anxiety draws our attentions in many directions, it keeps us in the perpetual state of not knowing what to choose, fearing the unknown. Shed anxiety by trusting in the peace of knowing who you believe in and what you believe in. Here are three keys for discovering Christmas Peace.

1. I will remind myself that I belong  to God!
2. I will remind myself that my response to anxiety reveals who I really am and what I really believe.
3. I will remind myself that that God is always with me.

I am not the brilliant one, those points are straight from Jeff Vines message! But this part is from me, the message I get here is Relax, God is with me, I belong to Him, and when I am not checking in with him and letting him be in charge, I get anxious! Whatever I am going through, by my own stupid efforts or the malfeasance of the government or the fool in the car ahead of me, God is using it to make me better, it works so much easier if I just relax and let the maker shape me! When he finds the hard parts in me, they have to be broken up, or reshaped, to take the dust and granite and mud that I am and turn it into the masterpiece that he desires!

Remember the seasons of your life, be glad for what has happened, give thanks for the bad things that have not happened, love those around you, never use anyone for your own purposes but seek the higher good of everyone you meet. Remember when you are on the side of a mountain, or skipping down a slope, you are not alone! Have a Merry and Blessed Christmas Season!

Too tired to post!

I have something to say, really I do, but I am just too tired! It will be something deep and profound, but it will be tomorrow! It is too important to do it wrong, so I will do it tomorrow! It will be about what is most important, but the problem is I will just ramble...if I do it know, so I will quit and get some sleep, awesome day!
MOP
Yeah my blogger tag, what do you think!
God Bless

Whimsical Friday

This is a lighthearted post that touches something I love, yes, it is true, Cats! But cat loving can put you at odds with the world, and don't get me wrong, I am not a dog or chinchilla or fish hater and all pets have their merits and demerits but they all do one thing, they become companions, helpers and friends! Whoops, that is three! We can become deeply attached to them, and it really makes no sense at all, but find me a pet hater, well this person is...I feel sorry for them! Now I can't value a pet above a human, nor deify them, that is wrong. But here is something of a mystery to me, it seems to me a bit odd, but science claims to explain a great many mysteries, why the PBS Nova series has been claiming to explain the way the cosmos works! Yet it can't come to really explain exactly how a cat purrs, Yes, I had heard this but a really very short search of the Internet and some really prestigious research work has come to at least three explanations as to how a cat purr is created. We are unraveling the human genome, we purport to explain the universe, and yet no one has conquered this small mystery or why it is that cat's that roar don't purr, hmmpff. Thank you Lord for confounding the wisdom of the wise and giving us the happiness that comes when we hear a cat's contented purring. Remember this, no one has had the police called because of a cat purr...some interesting Cat facts are linked here. And for Diesel truck fanatics, check out the link to find what the cat has in common with your beloved engine! That is all for a Friday. Thanks for reading, and for checking out the Ads, they are helping with the rent!

We have a mystery!