Tag Archives: Choices

Getting past a big mistake

By | | , , ,
Leave a comment

Jacob had twelve sons.  Two of his sons, Simeon and Levi, were full brothers, meaning they had the same mother.  Their full sister, Dinah, went out into the local city to see all the local girls.  If she was anything like the some of the girls I know, she wanted to see what they were wearing.  While she was out surveying the fashions and styles of the region, One of the princes of the land saw her and was smitten.  She was “taken” by the prince of the country.  His name was Shechem.  The scripture gives the inference that she might have been raped by him.  The sons of Jacob heard about it and blew a gasket.  So they made a deceitful deal with Shechem’s father.  They said the prince could marry Dinah, and that Jacob’s sons would be open to inter-marry the locals.  The locals wanted this for economic reasons.  The only hitch was that all the local men in their city would need to be circumcised.  The men of the city agreed because Jacob had wealth and they wanted access to it.  Three days after the mass circumcision, while all the men were painfully incapacitated and unable to move, Simeon and Levi went in, killed every single man, and spoiled the city.  You can read it in Gen 34.

When Jacob found out about it he said (Gen 34:30)  “You have troubled me, to make me stink among those living in the land, among the Canaanites, and among the Perizzites. And I being few in number, and they gathering against me, they will strike me, and I and my house shall be wasted”. But Simeon and Levi were unrepentant.  They said “Should he treat our sister like a harlot?”

I think the Lord’s response in chapter 35 illustrates how serious this became.  The Lord immediately told Jacob to move to Bethel and build an altar to God there. The Bible says that as Jacob moved his family, the terror of God came on the cities all around them so that the men of the cities didn’t pursue them as they went.

I’m not trying to minimize what happened to the Dinah, but any action to be taken should have come from Jacob.  It was not the place of Simeon or Levi to decide how this situation should have been handled.  The entire family was affected by the result. They were all put in jeopardy.

That brings us to Gen 49:1, where Jacob is calling his sons to his bedside to bless them, here he begins to tell them of their future.  When he gets to Simeon and Levi, he declares “Instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.  O my soul, come not into their secret; unto their assembly, my spirit, be not united: for in their anger they slew a man and in their self-will they dug down a wall.  Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel”.

In the very first post I wrote on this blog, I wrote about the beginning of honor.  You can read the post here.  The point of that post is that to truly honor your mom, dad and family, you must first determine to not cause them shame.  It seems that the older we get, the greater the cost becomes to remain a fool.  A teen boy can can get himself into so much trouble that the consequences could last for years.  I can think of at least three occasions where my stupid actions brought the police to our house.  Remembering my days as a young man, when I think back on the times I got into real trouble, it seemed like each time, things just “suddenly” went wrong.  While my friends and I were always goofing off and pushing the boundaries, each time we got into real trouble, it seemed like a “suddenly”.  We just suddenly knew that we had gone too far.

Unfortunately, these “suddenly” episodes didn’t have a “suddenly” resolution.  We couldn’t get out of trouble as quickly as we got into it.  The consequences in my case were hard, but could have been so much worse and took quite a long time to get through.  In some cases, it took years to pay the price for being stupid.  Some people will pay for the rest of their lives for mistakes made when they were young.  Some are no longer with us because their consequences were immediate and final.

My brother and I were talking about these things the other day and the thing that kept coming up in my heart was that God can turn things around.  These things don’t have to become a life sentence.  Even with Simeon and Levi, later we see Balak trying to get Balaam to curse Israel, but all he can do is bless them.  This includes Simeon and Levi.  Balaam says I can’t curse what God has blessed.  Later we find that Simeon received his inheritance out of the inheritance of Judah, because Judah’s inheritance was too great for just him.  We also see that the Lord made Himself the inheritance of Levi and commanded the other tribes to give Levi cities in each of their inheritances.

The point I’m making is that, the mistake they made was a big deal.  It cost the family and the Lord had to step in and give Jacob specific direction to deal with it, but it wasn’t the end.  They still had a future filled with hope.

There are a couple of points here worth noticing.

First – What the sons of Jacob did cost them down the road.  We can see from Jacob’s declaration over them that they were scattered in Jacob.

Second – It wasn’t over for them just because they blew it.  While what they did cost them, they were still blessed, and they still received a part in the inheritance, and the promises God made them.

Third – Almighty God cared enough to get involved.  He led and protected Jacob while He brought him to a safe place.  This included Simeon and Levi.

Sometimes people can get themselves into messes so bad, that it takes all the faith they have to get out of it.  This is the reason God gives us standards to live by.  It’s when people harden themselves against God that they get into trouble.  We know from the story of Job that God puts a hedge of protection around His people.  The problem is that when we harden our heart against obeying God, we take ourselves out from under His protection.

The first piece of advice I would give you is this – Don’t disobey.  It’s through obedience that things go the best possible way they CAN go. The second piece of advice is – I’ve you’ve messed up, repent!  Repent means turn around.  Stop going down that path.  If you will humble yourself before God and turn away from your rebellion and hardness, His grace will begin to flow into your situation.  His grace includes His power, His favor, His equipping, and His calling.  God will get involved in your situation and lead you.  Then, keep doing what you know to do.  Don’t stray from the path you know, and keep the switch of faith turned on. Don’t stop believing.  When it comes to trouble – If you follow Him, submit to Him, allow Him to lead you, and obey every time, the promise is that “a thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come nigh you.  Only with your eyes will you behold the reward of the wicked” (Ps 91:7-8).

 

 

What Are You Looking At?

By | |
Leave a comment

If you’re like me, you’ve got dreams.  You’ve got stuff that you’re passionate about and goals you’re hungry to reach.  But it’s so easy to get caught up in the details of life that, before we know it, we’ve lost focus.  This is a constant battle for me.  The many “Urgent” things start to crowd out the few really important things.

The reasons for this are pretty straight forward.  – You’re sitting, minding your own business, focusing on something specific that’s important to you, but little do you know you’re being watched!  You look up, almost feeling the gaze of something predatory lurking just out of sight. You shake it off as nothing, double down on your focus and just when you’re making good headway – it pounces!  Someone else’s agenda!  Aaarrgghh!

The sad truth is that if you don’t have plans for your time, someone else does.  And their plans are almost never for your benefit.
#1 – You lose focus on what’s important to you when you allow other people’s agendas to steal your time.

Maybe you’re one of those chronic people pleasers.  You love people and see things you can do to help them.  You commit to do more and more because you want to make them happy.  It’s not necessarily that they are asking, you’re just offering.  You find yourself severely over committed and you just have too much on your plate.
#2 – You can’t get your important stuff done, because you’re too busy and over extended in the service of your fellow man.

Maybe you’re like me.  If I were a dog, I would be a sight hound.  Some dogs track by scent and some by sight.  I track movement.  I am a visual learner.  This doesn’t work in my favor when I’m trying to focus though.  Pop-up distractions are everywhere.  I may start off a Saturday morning with a pretty specific schedule of things I want to get done.  The next thing I know, I drove past a store that reminded me of something I wanted to get, or investigate, and pop-up by pop-up, my schedule gets blown.
#3 – You can’t get your important stuff done because of you yield to pop-up distractions.

Michael Hyatt often quotes his wife Gail Hyatt concerning purpose.  She says “People lose their way when they lose their why”.

The Why is super important with it comes to having the discipline to stay on track.  Our why is directly coupled with our vision.   2 Corinthians 3:18 in the Bible tells us that we are changed by what we see.  You may have heard the phrase If you can see it, you can be it.  This is true.   It’s also true that if you can’t see, you can’t become.  We see from both 2 Corinthians 3:18, and Romans 12:1-2 that what we see changes us.  Romans says that if we’re not intentional about renewing our mind with God’s word, we will default to being conformed to this world.

The word Conform here comes from the root meaning Union, and from an alternate word meaning A figure.  A figure is something you see.  United with what we see.  Changed by the image that strikes the eye – that’s what it means to conform.  When we renew our minds intentionally, we replace that figure with a new vision painted by God’s Word.  Keith Moore says it this way – We become what we behold.  This vision gives us guidance.

“People lose their way when they lose their why.”  – Gail Hyatt

The Bible says that Where there is no vision, the people perish. – Pro 29:18.
The literal version of that verse says that where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained.  when I think of unrestrained, I think of a horse’s bridle.  A trained horse can do remarkable things when it’s bridled.  The restraint of the bridle keeps the horse focused and it’s energy moving in a specific way.

When I was a little boy, we had a Shetland pony.  At night when it began to get dark, my job was to get a halter and go bring her in from the pasture.  It seemed like every night, as I would draw close to her, she would trot away from me about 20 yards and start grazing again.  This would happen over and over.  I eventually learned that once I got close, I would run up and jump “shot cowboy” style across her back, working the halter on from there. Once the halter was on, I could lead her and keep her on track.  After a few nights of that, as soon as I got that halter on her, she immediately started walking toward the house.  She eventually became so trained to it, that all I needed to do was get on her back and she would start in from the pasture.  The halter eventually became a trigger for her that it was time to do something else.

Like the halter, or the bridle, vision provides guidelines.

Vision gives us purpose

In Genesis, God invited Abram to look up into the night sky. Gen 15:5 – And He (Jehovah) brought him (Abram) outside and said, Look now toward the heavens and count the stars, if you are able to count them. And He said to him, So shall your seed be. (15:6) And he believed in Jehovah. And He counted it to him for righteousness.

God had just told an old man that the child coming from his own body would be his heir.  When Abram asked how these things would be, God used the sky to give Abram vision. Can you imagine how compelling that was for Abram?  God later used the sand in the desert to bolster Abraham’s faith, reminding him of the promise of the covenant – so shall your seed be.

This changed the way Abram thought.  It gave him faith to become what God had called him to become.  Vision gave him purpose.

Vision gives us priorities

It keeps us reminded of what really matters.  All of us get the same number of hours per week, and there are a lot of things we could be spending our time on. The truth is that for every thing you say yes to, you are automatically saying no to something else.  Our Vision helps us weigh out opportunity cost of saying yes to the wrong thing.  It helps us make decisions in line with our priorities, and by doing that, helps us alleviate the regret that comes from making a bad choice and wasting our time. Vision gives us priorities.

Vision gives us passion

It becomes clear that one of our most important things we can do is to find ways to keep what’s important in the front of our mind.   There are several ways we can do this.

  • One way I do this is my Vision Wall.  I have a cork-board in my home office that has things on it that I need to be continually reminded about.  I have pictures of ministers and charities that we pray for, and often support. The main thing is to have pictures, or some visual representation of your goals.  These need to be compelling.  They need to have some pull on you, so when you see them, they have a motivating affect on you.
  • I have a written out prayer on my bathroom mirror for my children.  I mumble through it while I’m brushing my teeth.  I also have Psalm 112, and 1 Corinthians 13:45-8 (Amp) on my mirror to read to myself while I’m getting ready in the morning.
  • I also keep a folder called Vision Images on my computer desktop.  This folder has images that I’ve gleaned from social media of all my brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews and various relatives and friends.  It’s sole purpose is to bring them to mind so I can pray for them.

By keeping vision before our eyes, it gives us the passion we need to move forward.  I once heard it said that there is no such thing as a lazy person, there are just people who have not been properly motivated.  I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that when my vision is in my face, and compelling, I don’t have to drag myself out of bed in the morning, I wake up with my engine revving, anticipating the day.

Dig deep this week.  When it comes to your vision, where do you stand?  Does your vision motivate you?  Are you passionate about where you’re heading?  I encourage you to press the pause button on your life for a minute and reconnect with your WHY.

If this helps you at all, please share.  Also, if you’re not already getting these posts in your email, consider subscribing.

I appreciate you.

Art

 

Decisions & deceptions. How we make choices.

By | | , ,
Leave a comment

The fact that there are so many people who report to have and enjoy a real, sincere relationship with God should at least be reason to have an open mind. For His existence to be so lightly considered and so easily dismissed seems to be unusually closed minded. I have heard people who profess no believe in God, compare the early church gospel writers to “near Cro-magnon men”. This argument is meant to belittle Christians and try to strike at the credibility of the writers of the Bible. The problem is that this statement actually reveals a very strong bias and prejudice, and isn’t scientific at all.

Man on mountain at dawn

When science and Christianity don’t seem to fit together, it doesn’t mean one is true and the other is not, it just means there’s more there to know and there’s a hole in our understanding. What these gaps in our collective understanding mean to me is simple. It just means we don’t know yet.

Most people would agree that there is a spiritual realm and that people have a connection to it. The problem materialistic thinkers have with spiritual things is that they can’t readily be measured. When we find that something can be perceived but we can’t figure out how to measure or quantify it, denying it exists is a huge leap. What we begin to see is something Chip & Dan Heath discuss in their book Decisive call Confirmation Bias.

Confirmation Bias is the way we deceive ourselves. Confirmation Bias is when we form a quick belief about something and then seek information and evidence to bolster what we already believe. I may make a poor choice and then afterwards try to build a case for why it was the right choice. I’m trying to justify my position. This is Confirmation Bias.

I may choose one of my team members to help me with a special project. I choose this person because I like them and we just click. They may be poorly suited to do what I need them to do but I didn’t choose them on that basis. Even if I made a Pro’s & Con’s list, it would be slanted by the bias I have already built in.

A CEO has an idea that will change the direction of the company, he believes it is the right move and he needs to convince the board that it’s the right move so he starts compiling data, but his data comes back nearly evenly split for and against the change in direction. What data will be used when talking to the board? The data that supports the idea. The data against the move may be minimized or even ignored totally. It may all appear very scientific but in reality, the bias was added early in the recipe.

Dan Lovallo says “People go out & collect data and they don’t realize they’re cooking the books”. We think we want truth but what we really want is reassurance. Do these jeans make me look fat? A lot of our questions don’t crave an honest answer.

What do you think? Have you noticed yourself falling for confirmation bias? Join the conversation & leave a comment.

Does the “Who” change the quality or level of Love from YOU?

By | | , ,
Leave a comment

Matthew 5:43-48 New International Version (NIV)

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.’
44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?
47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?
48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Back of Girls Staring into distance

Have you ever witnessed someone receiving special treatment because of who they are? Maybe the pretty girl buying popcorn at the movies didn’t pay full price.  All because the young man behind the counter was trying to get her attention.  When we think of special treatment, we almost always think of it in a positive way. It’s not always the case. I remember hearing a story about a boy riding the school bus, who was beat up by some other boys just because of his last name. He was certainly receiving specific and different treatment, but it wasn’t good.

People with disabilities receive special treatment to accommodate their handicap.  We change the height of toilets, sinks & put in ramps for wheelchairs. Sometimes they’re also treated differently out of sympathy. Those without disability may look at them sadly as if to say “You poor thing”.  I don’t think most people with disabilities like that. There’s a great TEDtalk about it here.

In the movie The King’s Speech, Lionel Logue insisted on an equal relationship with King George VI when they were working together. When Prince Albert became King, he became known as George the VI.  His full name was Albert Frederick Arthur George. While he was prince, he went by Albert.  Lionel called him Bertie. He even went as far as to say, “My castle, my rules”. Lionel knew that in order for him to be able to really help, When they were working, Albert needed to be a student. Lionel realized that Their sessions together needed to be based on who he was, not on the fact that his student was royalty.

As believers, we too, need to make it a point to treat others based upon who we are, not who they are. In the verses above, Jesus points out how that in the world, the natural tendency is to respond to each other based upon who the other person is. Is he an enemy? Is she a friend? Is he rich? Is he or poor? Is she pretty?

All these things come into play when people are navigating through social interaction in this world. Not so with the church. Jesus said “Love your enemies & pray for those that persecute you”. We do this because we are children of God. Not for gain. Not to impress, or to exert influence, but because God commands it and it’s in us to do.

God loved us when we were His enemies. His love was made clear to us when we were opposing Him. God commends His love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom 5:8)

If you are a child of God, the Love of God has been shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit which has been given to you (Rom 5:5). This means that the Love of God is on the inside of every believer.  We just need to begin to mature in it.

Some might say “I really love God! He an I are tight! It’s just all those creepy people I have to deal with…I can hardly stand them.” Sorry – It doesn’t work that way. If you love Him, the main way it is shown is by loving people. Especially your brothers and sisters in Christ.

Even though the Love of God be in you, It needs to be perfected. In other words, you still need to develop in it. We need to allow it to grow in us and dominate our thinking , speaking and actions. You can have this love in you and completely ignore it. You can quench it. You can yield to your temper and feelings instead – when all the while, the Love of God is on the inside endeavoring to influence you. It’s up to us what we let influence us. The Love of God or our carnal feelings, desires & emotions.

So – we as Christians are to be governed by the Love of God inside us and let it flow out of us to those around us. We shouldn’t operate out of prejudice, favoritism, or selfishness. Rather, we can be resources and examples of God’s love in our daily life and make a real difference for others.

I want to encourage you today to yield to God’s Love. It may be hard if you’re not used to submitting to it. The more you develop in it, the easier it will come.

How can you put this into practice this week?  Is there a specific person you can intentionally love?

Join the conversation & leave a comment.

Art

You have no choice? Really?

By | | , , ,
1 Comment

I have noticed a problem plaguing young men today.  Many of them seem to be perpetual victims. They are suffering under some unseen hand that is keeping them down. They don’t know why but they just don’t ever seem to get a break. I know where they are coming from because I had that problem too.  I seemingly had no advantage. I wasn’t born into privilege or opportunity. I didn’t have a last name that opened doors for me and for a long time, I used these things as my excuses for why I wasn’t going anywhere.  All these reasons were not really my problem though. They were not where my limits were coming from.

I have no choice-Lie

Part of my problem was that I was a captive in my thinking and consequently in my saying.  Constantly saying things like It’s not my fault and I Can’t or What choice do I have? I am convinced today more than ever though, that I have no choice is a lie!

Pro 6:2  you are snared with the words of your mouth, you are taken with the words of your mouth. (Modern King James Version -MKJV).

Sure, today you may not have the choice to move to the neighborhood that you really want to live in, or drive the car you really want to drive, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t have that choice in your future. Here’s where we find a fork in the road.

Path number one is the path of continuing down the road you are on.  You are making only choices that drift in front of you, and hoping that someday an opportunity will float into your life. An opportunity that will change your life for the better in a big way.  This is wish mentality. Wish mentality leaves choice and opportunity in the hands of outside influences so that you are basically the victim of whatever comes along.

Path number two is the path of living on purpose. You may not have the power to make some choices today. But living on purpose, you can make intentional choices today that will create excellent choices in your future. You determine where you want to be, or are called to be, in your future. From there you begin to make strategic decisions that will take you there.

“Living on purpose, you can make intentional choices today that will create excellent choices in your future.”

I have chosen path number two.  Because I am a man of faith, getting vision & direction for my life start with prayer. The Bible says “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Prov 3:5,6).  While I will do research & get as informed as I can with my options, I lean to my heart when it comes to making decisions. If you have a relationship with the Lord Jesus, it is in your heart that He will lead you.

Proverbs 3:5,6  Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. (KJV)

Thank God, I am not where I used to be. I am no longer a victim, left to the whims of a life I have no control over. I can’t control everything, but I will control all that I can control and I will continue to make a future where good choices and opportunities show up in my life.

It was a choice that was mine alone to make. So it is with you. You don’t have to leave your life to just HAPPEN on it’s own. You also don’t have to turn over the reins to your life and let others take you where they want you to go. This is probably not where you would want to go anyway.

In order to get where YOU want to go, this path choice is a decision that only YOU can make. Truthfully, you and God are the ones who care the most, and have a vested interest in how your future unfolds.  Are you ready to take control of your life?

What’s one choice you can make this week to start you in the direction you want to go?  Share your answer in the comments.

For more content on choices, see Ruth Chang’s TED Talk entitled “How to make hard choices” by clicking here.  It’s about 14 minutes long but pretty well done.

Please share this post with others & help me expand the reach of this blog.

I appreciate you!

If you can slow down and do this, you can avoid a future full of regret.

By | | , , , , , ,
2 Comments

In his anger he shouts “I don’t (cuss)ing care what you say! You need to get off of my back and stop trying to run my (cuss)ing life! You need to fix your own mess before you try to fix me!” In exasperation John picks up his coat and storms out of the house. He only hesitates long enough to slam the door on his way out, leaving his mom standing in the middle of the living room crying. “She won’t let up.” He thought as he stomped off the porch steps. John’s mom had been pushing him to get a job. She really wanted him to enroll in community college but he said he wanted a break first before he rolled into the “Real World”.

John had been staying in his room gaming for weeks now and hadn’t done anything except eat, hang out with his friends & borrow money since graduating from high school four months ago. She wanted more for him and she expected more from him. So she pushed him. She didn’t want to be a nag but she really wanted to see some forward motion. That brings us to this moment. The moment John is walking down his street thinking about how he had just exploded a few minutes ago and said all those hurtful things to his mom.

His mom had been single for many years now and had been raising him on her own. She was committed to doing her absolute best to raise her son up to be a good man. She often wondered and feared that her best might not be enough. She had recently had her own relationship go bad and she was still getting over that. She had no idea that John would use that to hurt her, but he did…just now.

As John walked, his conscience began to bother him. He knew he had gone too far. He didn’t mean it. He didn’t know why he said it. He was just mad and lost control. He was sorry but was unsure what to do next and he didn’t know how to make it right. Now shame was beginning to creep in. He began to tear up. “Why do I have to be such a jerk!” He said out loud in an anger that was now aimed at himself.

Few things can compare to knowing what to do.

 

We’ve all done what John did. We’ve been in situations where we have allowed the pressure to build until we’ve just “blasted off”, vented our anger, said mean things and hurt people we care about. We would probably also all agree that while we as individuals are not necessarily mean people, we just get caught up in the moment and react badly.

To be sure, even as I write this, I still deal with the temptation to think and say the wrong thing because of the heightened stress of a situation. I caught myself just this last week letting something slip out of my mouth and then quickly having to try to recover and minimize the damage because of my poor reaction to pressure.

This matters because we’ve all said or done things that we regret and wish we could change. If a person can get this, they can live with no regrets.  So what’s to be done?

Prov 21:3 says – Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles.  The World English Bible (WEB) says it this way – Whoever guards his mouth and his tongue keeps his soul from troubles.

To guard or to keep imply that you are watching for because you are expecting trouble.  When it comes to our mouths, this could not be more true.

James the Apostle said – For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body. The New Living Translation (NLT) says it this way – Indeed, we all make many mistakes. For if we could control our tongues, we would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way.

The bottom line is that we are the ones responsible for our words.  We are to make sure our words don’t offend or hurt.  Some have said “God, Why did you let me say that?” – but we should not be asking God to do something that He has told us to do.  He will help, strengthen and empower you but it’s you who must do the doing.

Set your standards before the moment so you don’t waiver in the moment.  This one truth has helped me so much in this area.  I try to run all things that happen in my life through the filter of the Word of God and if I can, I want to establish my thinking in advance.  One definition I’ve heard for Wisdom is “The skillful use of knowledge.”  In the 24th chapter of the book of Proverbs, the writer talks about the field & garden of the foolish & lazy.  He says in verse 32 “I saw and considered it well: I looked on it and received instruction.”  That’s the take-away.  Consideration.  If we will establish in advance how we will act when the heat is on, then it eliminates all the choices we might have to make when the heat is on.  Can you see the truth here?

I heard a story many years ago about a man who was called to testify in court against the man he worked for.  He was told that if he lied and protected his boss, he would be richly rewarded.  When the time came for this man to testify, he simply told the truth.  His teenage son talked to him about it later and commented that it must have been a tough choice to make with the possibility of all that money hanging in front of him.  The dad simply told his son that the choice wasn’t tough at all because he had made it many years ago when he decided that he wouldn’t tell lies.

Consider in advance and set your standards before the moment, so you won’t waiver in the moment.

If this post has helped you this week, I would ask you to please share it with those you know who it might also help.  I really appreciate your support in helping me reach those who can benefit.

Have a most excellent week!

Art

Your Success Is Closer Than You Think.

By | | , , ,
Leave a comment

When I was younger, I was always looking for the magic bullet.  The truth, thing, event or person that would solve my problem. Then, presto – all the tumblers would just fall into place, the door would open, the birds would sing…Hello Easy Street!  If you are anything like me, you find yourself looking for the hack.  I like hacks, easy ways of doing difficult things.  I really like finding a better way to do almost anything.

Dart board bullseye

While that “Magic Bullet” idea may be pretty unrealistic, your success and victory are closer than you think. What if I told you that you could improve your life, build strong relationships and enhance important ones, now. You wouldn’t even have to pay separate processing and handling to get two for the price of one. While this is worth a lot, it’s absolutely free. Well, kind of.

How you might ask?

By doing what you know to do. That’s right. You and I already know that there are things we should be doing. We already know that there are things we should be quitting. We  already know that there are things we should be and should NOT be saying. How do I know so much about this you may be asking?  Because I deal with it too. But I recognize that we are limiting our own success and happiness in many ways because we are not doing what we know to do.

True, there are probably plenty of things you ARE doing that you know you should, but we all seem to have things that we either don’t want to do or we are simply afraid to do. Maybe we have a deep notion that we need to reach out to a loved one who has grown distant, but we’re afraid of rejection or making things worse. Maybe we are yielding to personal immaturity and are trying to punish a loved one for a past hurt. Either way, we really know what needs to be done, we’re just not doing it. It takes guts but…do what you know to do.

James 4:17 in the BBE says a Man who has knowledge of how to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.

You can even take it a step further by doing ALL you know to do.

When I was a younger man, I lost my license. Yep, the state said “That’s enough out of you”.  As time went by, it became a real problem in my life. I prayed about it but I also feared it. It was a big mystifying problem and I didn’t know what to do. I remember the night I got my breakthrough. I didn’t hear an audible voice but it was a still small voice deep down inside me.  Here’s what I heard, “Have you done all you can do?” I thought about that for a few seconds and I realized that there was really only one step that I could take that was small enough to actually take. That was to pay the $40 reinstatement fee. Everything else was just too big and scary. I knew that paying the reinstatement fee was something that I should be doing after I had resolved all the other things, but it was literally all I could do. So I did it!

A couple of weeks later I got a phone call from the State that had my license, asking me why I had sent them a $40 check. I told the lady on the phone that I didn’t know how to fix my problem but I was taking the only step I could see to take. She then began to unravel the whole problem for me and in just a few minutes, I had a clear road-map to get completely out from under the suspension and get my license back. It was just a few weeks later that I was able to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles and get my license. I know I’ve talked about this before but I just can’t encourage you enough. If it seems too big and mysterious, take that step that you can see to take. Begin doing not only what you know to do, but start doing ALL you know to do.

It helps me to break things down into steps. Steps allow me to make incremental progress and at the same time record little wins that help me keep my fire stoked.

  1. Decide. You need to make a decision that you will not hold back anymore. A lot of the pain and suffering that we experience is partially in our control. Often, we have the power to make it better if we would just quit holding out, waiting for someone else to make the first move. Decide to do.
  2. Pray. Ask the Lord for guidance. How should you move forward? He knows. Two things you can be sure of. If you are going to do it His way, Love will be in your words and your actions. And, you will do it by faith. You will not necessarily see immediate results. You will have to walk and stand by Faith.
  3. Make a list. Honesty Time! Write down the areas where you know you’re not doing all you know to do. It’s important because once you get it down, you can now start to make a plan of action. I will often write it down and then work backwards, asking myself questions & writing down the answers to get clarity about how to move forward. This also gives me something to physically mark off when I’ve followed through and completed a step. Great victories are compiled of lots of little wins

If you are dealing with difficult or broken relationships, YOU take responsibility to make the first move.  You may be surprised at how little it takes to make a huge difference.  You will at the very minimum be able to breath easier knowing that the distance between you and them is no longer because of you.  You have done what you know to do and ALL that you know to do.  Also, by acting by Faith, you are giving God an open door to get into your business and work supernaturally.

What steps could you take that would help you move from being a hearer to being a doer this week? I would encourage you to write down at least two actionable items & make it your goal this week to follow through and be a doer. Join the conversation & leave your comment.

Recommended reading = James 1.

I love our community and I look forward to more awesome interactions with you all in the coming year!

Happy New Year!

Art

Simple Guidelines For Making Great Decisions In 2016!

By | | , , , , , , ,
Leave a comment

Jeff Walker in his book Launch said that in a workshop that he was hosting, an attendee came up and asked him what was the one thing that made all the difference to him and his business success. The thing this man should be focusing on as his business grew. Jeff ‘s answer was this – Opportunity Cost.

Opportunity cost is a theory in Micro-economics.

www.netmba.com defines it this way – The value of the next best choice, that must be given up when making a decision.

www.wikipedia.com defines it this way – The value of the best alternative foregone, where a choice needs to be made between several mutually exclusive alternatives given limited resources.

Opportunity Cost image card

When I was a teenager, I started learning to play guitar. I used to lay in bed imagining myself playing my favorite songs in front of large audiences. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s ever had rock-star dreams. The thing is, I also liked hanging out with friends and I was getting interested in girls. While I did learn quite a bit about playing guitar, I knew several guys in my school who could play far better than I could. Why? Because they didn’t spend the majority of their time hanging out with their friends. When they had spare time, they were sitting on the edge of their bed practicing scales. Here is where we find the Opportunity Cost. There has to be a trade off.

We all have the same amount of time every week. We all get 168 hours to work with. While we would like to be awesome at everything we pursue, we simply can’t. We humans develop excellence through study & practice, so we can’t realistically expect to be stellar in every area of our lives. We need to make choices as to what we are going to give our time to because for everything we say yes to, we have to say no to something else. You will be saying no to opportunities in order to say yes to (hopefully) better opportunities.

“The chief cause of failure & unhappiness is trading what you want most for what you want right now.”  -Zig Ziglar

One of my favorite Zig Ziglar quotes is: “The chief cause of failure & unhappiness is trading what you want most for what you want right now”. Isn’t that sad? We sometimes short circuit our own long-term success because we run off after vain, short-term satisfaction.

Another favorite Zig Ziglar quote is “Success occurs when opportunity meets preparation.” Let’s take that to heart and take the time as we enter the new year to build a plan. Set a goal to make the life we dream of, a reality. As we make our plans, here are some things to consider:

  1. Look through the corners; Another thing I learned from Jeff Walker. If you only focus on what’s immediately in front of you, things will “suddenly” pop up in your field of vision and you will not be able to react in time. Make it a practice to look around the turns & see what’s coming before it gets here. Also, consider how your actions will affect your future. Wisdom sees down the road.
  2. The value of a good reputation is immeasurable.  Therefore, sacrificing a good reputation is not acceptable. When considering Opportunity cost, saying no to a solid, honorable reputation in order to achieve short-term gain is not worth the trade-off. Above money or power, your reputation will work for you, or against you. Protect it constantly.
  3. Money should be a byproduct of making the world a better place. When we focus on enriching the lives of those around us, we stand a better chance of finding happiness and fulfillment in our own lives. There’s a book by Marsha Sinetar called Do what you love and the money will follow. I believe this to be true unless your love is sleep. I haven’t seen anyone making a long term living at that one yet. I will say this though. There are now people making a living playing video games on youtube. No joke. The bottom line is that when money is at the top of the priority list, things are on shaky ground.

“Success occurs when opportunity meets preparation.” – Zig Ziglar

As we stand here staring square in the face of 2016, let’s examine not only our goals for the coming year and beyond, but also the opportunity cost to make them happen. If we carefully choose only the few truly important things we want this coming year, we can use these to guide our decisions about all the other things. The things that while eating up all of our time, don’t really get us where we want to be. Let’s get where we want to be in 2016! Let’s be strategic with our “Yes & No”. Say NO to good opportunities so you can say YES to great ones!

Happy New Year!

A Good Man. How to Become One.

By | | , , , ,
2 Comments

You decide what kind of man you are going to be. When the ink dries on the story of your life, it is going to reveal that you were the one behind the wheel. You were the one making all the choices and determining the direction in your life. The important thing for you to realize while your story is still being written, is that the tools are in your hands to build yourself into the man you should be. You’re going to have to be intentional about your life though. You must decide for yourself what you will allow and what you will deny to exist inside of you. These choices are yours alone. As Jesus said – A good man, out of the good treasure of the heart, brings forth good things; an evil man out of the evil treasure in his heart will bring forth evil things. It therefore becomes very important for us to examine what we’re allowing to get inside us.

When I was in what was then called Jr. High School, a new kid started mid year. I realized that he was walking home the same way I did, so we began to talk and I found out that he lived less than a block away from me. As I began to spend more time with him, I learned that he was one of five kids. His family had four boys and a sister who was the eldest. I didn’t see his mom very often because she was always working, but I did see his dad all the time because he wasn’t. As I think back on it, all the years I knew my friend, his dad never worked. He just smoked cigarettes, drank beer & watched TV. My friend and his brothers didn’t have a very good example of how to be a man…and it showed. While it could be said that they were not the best boys, it could be said that none of us were the best boys. We were all ornery and sometimes it seemed like we were the poster children for really bad ideas.

Shaping pottery

Around the same time, I had another friend that I hung around with. His dad was an executive in a large manufacturing company and his mom was a home-maker. They lived in a pretty nice house and he had all of the things that he needed to be comfortable. As I think about it now, his parents really cared about him and it seemed that they did a lot for him. He was the middle child and the youngest of two sons. This kid was the crowned prince of trouble though. He was constantly rebelling and doing his absolute best to ruin his own future. The thing is, as far as I could tell, he had a great example in his dad. His dad got up everyday and took care of business. I looked up to his dad and respected him.

Years later when I was in Bible School, one of my instructors said that it didn’t matter if you came from a broken home, or if your dad had abandon you, if you fully trust God to make up the difference, you will not be deficient. The second he finished that statement, the young man next to me spun around in his desk, looked right at me and declared, I want to say it again, he declared it to me. “I am not deficient!”. I believe this was a defining moment in this young man’s life. Hearing what the instructor said really ministered to his heart and it was apparent that most of his life, he lived with the believe that because his dad had left him, he was in fact deficient. I immediately identified with him because for years and years I too felt deficient. I felt like I was disadvantaged and because of my station, I was less than everyone else.

There are so many things that are directly affected by an absentee father. There are so many dysfunctions that usually arise in the lives of children who’s fathers have kicked them to the curb. As they grow up, many will use this as their primary excuse to act pitiful and not try to better themselves.

Truth Bomb Dead Ahead!

I DO NOT BELIEVE that failure in life can be completely blamed on a poor or absentee father. There is more at work here than the example your dad gave you, and I am living proof that you don’t have to be deficient. You don’t have to stay down. The quality of a man can not be fully attributed to whether or not he has a good, bad, present or missing father.

The longer I live, the more I’m convinced that the truly healthy family is the exception and not the rule. There’s drama and weirdness in every family. In some cases, people are just downright bizarre. If this were a good excuse to live a pathetic life, most of us could use it. But it’s not. So many people have allowed situation, station and circumstance to define who they are. I have seen young men time and again blaming dad, mom, girlfriend, company, economy, government for their unhappy life. They see themselves being held down and just not being able to land a break.

“Take a good look at where you are. If you don’t like where you are and want things to change, you are going to have to do something different.”

Others have refused to be held back. They did not allow circumstances, station or an absentee father to define them. They reserved the right to choose their path for themselves. You can think like this too. I know because I used to think like a victim. Everything was beyond my control. I just had to play the cards I was dealt. One day I looked back at all of the “breaks” people had given me that I didn’t value. Time and time again, people would do little things to help me out. Things like setting up an interview or hiring me for temporary work. I was ashamed when I realized that I was to blame for not valuing the things people were doing to help me. This is when I changed my mind and took responsibility for myself. I began to realize that God had created me on purpose and for a purpose. He has great things in store for me.

Yes, your dad may have kicked you to the curb. Yes, it may have left a world class hole in your heart. Yes, it may have taken away some of the things that would have otherwise made things easier.

Truth Bomb Dead Ahead!

It doesn’t have to define you. It doesn’t have to limit you.

You decide what kind of man you are going to be. I encourage you today to step out from behind all of the reasons you’ve been hiding behind, that have held you back. Decide today to put away victim thinking and take responsibility for your future.

Take a good look at where you. If you don’t like where you are and want things to change, you are going to have to do something different. There’s a saying attributed to Albert Einstein that says “Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

Jesus is the perfect man. To find a perfect example of how we should be, we need to just look at His example. In Ephesians 4:13 we see God’s plan for us. “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ:”

God’s plan for each of us is to first of all, submit ourselves to the Lordship of Jesus, and then to grow up on Him. We are to grow and mature until we take on the very measure, stature and fullness of Him. Verse 15 says of us, “But speaking the truth in Love, may grow up in Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.

Ephesians 2:10 says that each of us has a part, a function, a calling, a divinely ordained purpose and place.

You decide what kind of man you’re going to be.

Be a good one.

Start today!