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The Very Next Step…

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stepping-outHave you ever found yourself cornered and didn’t know what to do?  Maybe you were foolish and your bad choices caught up to you or maybe you were the victim of someone else’s heartlessness. You find yourself stuck, suffering and don’t see a way out.  I know I’ve felt trapped before.

The year I graduated from high school I lost my driver’s license.  I lost it because I was uninsured and in more than one car accident.  The insurance companies for the other drivers wanted to recover damages from me that my insurance should have paid.  I was led to believe that until I paid that money I couldn’t get my license back.   My job was about 13 miles away.  I couldn’t get there in a timely manner anymore and part of my job was to make local deliveries so I was let go.  I now had a very large problem.  I couldn’t pay down any debt without a job but I couldn’t get & keep a decent paying job because I couldn’t get there.  My life sort of went on hold.  This was the last straw and it seemed like within a few days, my whole life fell apart.  I literally did not know what to do.  None of the options in front of me were good ones.  They were all bad…or so I thought.

Ben Stein
 There is no sudden leap into the stratosphere. There is only advancing step by step, slowly and tortuously, up the pyramid towards your goals.

THE VERY NEXT STEP!   If you find yourself in a situation like this, the very next step is a crucial one.  The next step can mean the difference between going deeper into your situation or it could be the very first step toward the answer that you so desperately need.  Think about it.  This next move could be the defining moment that changes everything.  My problem was that I sort of shut down and took on a victim mentality.  Never mind that it was ALL my fault!

I actually stopped taking steps for a while.  I was so polarized by the size and complexity of the situation I was in that I didn’t know what to do or what questions to ask.  Don’t allow yourself to get to this point.  Sometimes no action is the worst action. You can only effectively steer a moving vehicle. Even if it starts out going the wrong direction, it can only be corrected if it’s moving.  You can’t give up.

WHERE IS GOD IN ALL OF THIS?  Psalm 25:5 (NKJ) says “Lead me in your truth, and teach me: for you are the God of my salvation; on you I wait all the day“. Isaiah 48:17 (BBE) says “The Lord who takes up your cause, the Holy One of Israel, says, I am the Lord your God, who is teaching you for your profit, guiding you by the way in which you are to go”.  I know that sometimes the pressures of life can act like blinders and all you see is the problem.  Lift your eyes.  God Himself has promised to lead you if you will listen.  He will guide you “for your profit”.  He doesn’t want you to suffer, He takes NO pleasure in it.  He wants you to have peace.  Sometimes when you’re right in the thick of the battle, it may seem like you have to take five steps before you’re close enough to even ask for help but that is not the truth.  God says in Hebrews 13:5 “I will never leave you, nor forsake you”.  You will never be out of His reach.  He says in Isaiah 59:1 (WEB) “Behold, Yahweh’s hand is not shortened, that it can’t save; neither His ear heavy, that it can’t hear”.  The separation is on our part.  We fail to look to Him for help.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 The heights charm us, but the steps do not; with the mountain in our view we love to walk the plains.

THE BREAK THROUGH.   Remember, I said I stopped moving forward.  It took me a little while to start moving again.  A few years later, through many wonderful events, too many to talk about here, I was able to get a good job and even get married,  but I still didn’t have my license.  I really wanted to get this fixed but still didn’t know how.  I had however been praying about it a lot and asking specifically for wisdom to know what to do.  One night while relaxing in the bathtub (Yes, God can deal with you anywhere) the Lord began to deal with my heart.  I didn’t hear a voice or anything like that but a thought occurred to me just as clear as if I has spoken it myself.  “Have you done everything you CAN do?”  In a split second I could see that there was ONE thing that I COULD do.  I could pay the re-instatement fee.  I didn’t have the thousands of dollars it would take to clear the whole mess up, but I had the re-instatement fee.  So I paid it.  Why you may ask?  Because it was the one thing I COULD do, so I did it trusting that God would make something out of it.

A few weeks later I received a call from a very nice lady who worked for the Secretary of State’s office in the state where I lived.  She indicated that she had received a check from me and was wondering why.  I explained my whole situation to her and about paying the re-instatement fee.  She then began to give me a very detailed roadmap to fix my situation.  She told me what forms I needed and where to get them.  She told me what to do in each situation in order to get resolution.  I thanked her and hung up the phone.  I don’t remember today if I jumped around the room or not but I remember being “off the hook” excited.  I was thanking God!  To make a long story short, within two months I had my license and had about $7,000 of an $11,000 debt forgiven.  God knew exactly who I needed to talk to.  I am convinced to this day that it was a divine setup.

Step in Sand

The thing I want you to remember is this.  You are never more than one step away from the right direction.  You are never more than one step away from help.  I don’t care how dark it may appear where you are, God is not too far away!  Let Him lead you.  The very next step could be the first step toward the answer.

How can you move forward?  Even if it seems like an insignificant step, what could you do?  What example in your own life could you share to help others?  Please join the conversation by leaving a comment.

 

 

 

 

Hello, My Name is ___________.

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Name tagWhen I was about 18 years old, I was helping one of my uncles roof a house.  The house was owned by a man that I had known since I was a small boy.  My dad worked with him many years ago.  When he saw me, he immediately knew who I was.  He walked right up to me to say hi and ask how I was doing.  The second sentence out of his mouth surprised me though.  He said “Your daddy was one of the nicest men I’ve ever met, but I couldn’t believe a word that came out of his mouth”.  Wow! I just stood there.  How do you react to that?

Another time not too many years later, a step dad of one of my friends, a man who had known my family for many years, said “I’ve never met a Mills who’s ever had anything”. Now, I’m pretty sure he’s never met all of the Mills family.  There are a bunch of us.  But the real point of his comment was that he thought I wasn’t going to amount to much because in his mind, the Mills family doesn’t amount to much.  This kind of prejudice says way more about him than it does me, but the point was clear.  To these two people, my name had not been well represented.

“A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered.  Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.”  Charles Spurgeon.

You may be facing some of these same prejudices in your own life.  Maybe some people don’t like your color, or you came from the wrong side of the tracks, maybe your family is poor, or maybe you really were what they say you were but you’ve changed and now you need a break.  You have a choice to make. Are you going to continue to become what they say you are, or will you find another way to define yourself?  For me these comments became the catalyst for change.  I made a decision to defy the odds.  I was now faced with the challenge of living down a negative perception and a reputation I did not create.

The invisible thing called a Good Name is made up of the breath of numbers that speak well of you
~ George Savile (also attributed to Lord Halifax)

“A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor rather than silver or gold” – Proverbs 22:1.  If you’ve ever thought that you were powerless to change the image, perception and reputation tied to your name, I have good news for you! In this very powerful verse in the Bible, pay close attention to the one word, CHOSEN!  This means that not only can you choose to have a good name, which for some is excellent news, but that really ONLY you get to decide what kind of name you have!  You do not have to be shackled with the name or the reputation that was handed to you.  You alone decide who you are going to be.  This verse actually gives us a roadmap that will lead us out from under the negative prophecies of our past.

  • Choose a GOOD name.  Your name is your identity. It’s the culmination of all that you are, and it’s tied directly to your word.  You will not have a man who has an excellent spirit who is also a liar.  If you will have a good name, you will have to be a good man! Kenneth Copeland said it this way in his series “The Image of God in You” when he said “A man and his word are inseparable”.  You can’t have a bad man who’s word will be consistently good or a good man who’s word is bad.  When I say good I mean honest, trustworthy and reliable.
  • Choose it over money.  A good name will serve you longer and in better ways than money can.  The honor that comes from choosing a good name over great riches answers a deeper need in all of us than just having money.  A good reputation will win when money can’t. People of honor will not be moved by your money but they will by your reputation and your good name. Just last night an associate of mine was telling a story about some college students from New York who bought an old sofa for $20 at the Salvation Army thrift store and started finding envelopes full of money in different parts of the couch. According to the article, they immediately started asking “What kind of boat are we going to buy?” or “Where are we going to go?” but then they found a deposit slip with a woman’s name on it.  They almost immediately reached a consensus and decided to track the woman down and return the money.  “It’s her money” they said in an interview.  It turned out that she was a 91 year old woman who didn’t trust banks and had hidden her money in this couch.  While she had an extended hospital stay for a broken hip, her family had donated the sofa to the Salvation Army.  She gave the honest young ladies $1,000 for returning the money.  What they gained by their honesty will go far beyond what the money would have bought.  It also demonstrated that they care about people.
  • Love and pursue favor rather than money.  Rev. Tad Gregurich is the Dean of Rhema Bible Training College in Broke Arrow, Oklahoma, and an associate pastor at Rhema Bible Church.  In a recent message he stated “You can do business on nothing but the name of some people.  Their name is so honored and respected that the name alone is trusted in business.  You don’t even need a hand shake”.  Don’t you just long to have that level of favor?  I strive for it everyday.  I want people to be able to have such a level of trust in my name that when someone comes along and starts talking bad about me, everyone that hears it immediately doesn’t believe it.

Ecclesiastes 7:1a says “A good name is better than precious ointment…” Imagine, even the mention of your name could bring healing, reduce pain & reduce discomfort in the person who hears it.  Does the very mention of your name cause heaviness to lighten in others?  Will others smile and be comforted when your name is brought into the conversation? They can be.

“I’d love to work with an Asian guy named Wu Hu, because just saying his name would get me all pumped up and excited.”
― Jarod Kintz, There are Two Typos of People in This World: Those Who Can Edit and Those Who Can’t. 

Rev.  Bob Yandian from Grace Church in Tulsa, Ok. mentioned in his series “One Flesh” that whenever you read the words “My Son” in the book of Proverbs, the message that is really being conveyed is “Builder of the family name”.  Adapt this for yourself.  Realize that what you say and do really does matter.  Rise above the labels that people have tried to chain you with and render their words untrue.  You can do it!

What prejudices have you faced and how did you live them down?  I would love to hear your comments.

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