Live Your Life Now!


life nowMaybe it’s not until middle age that how short life actually is becomes a realization for you. The time, the moments that we have are fleeting. Each moment we are in, however sublime, is a moment that is lost forever except where it lives on in our memories. The children grow up much sooner than expected. Before you know it your life is halfway over and sometimes you might even find yourself in the fourth quarter. And throughout it all time marches forever forward. The lesson therefore isn’t to lament the brevity of this life or to revert your eye in sadness over the past. The idea is to do your best to live every moment of your life. Remember the past good times with fondness and anticipate the future with excited anticipation, but do not forget to live the life you have right now. Indeed, live your life now!

It is so easy, as you settle into life, to fall into various routines and habits that you employ without thinking day by day. There was once a time when you were excited about what the day might bring, but now maybe follow the established patterns of a routine day with nothing too thrilling on the horizon. It seems, in our country anyway, that so many of us are living for the weekend; that grand time when we can freely choose how we might occupy our time. But whatever happened to Monday? What, besides work, did we enjoy for the other 32 hours before the good times were upon us again? It seems we fall into these rote behaviors, absent any thinking, forever prolonging our happiness for some future time when we can truly enjoy ourselves. We fail to enjoy the now. We fail to seek happiness and fulfillment in the moments we are in. We stop being able to see the precious time we occupy right now and instead waste our existence looking back and peering ahead. I am not sure how to describe it, but it is as if we trade the now for the promise of the future. We make, as I read today, “when I” statements in reference to an imaginary future time frame when we can finally be at rest and enjoy the short life we have been given. All of us it seems are waiting for something. We are waiting for something. The new job, our life partner, our future children, our financial success, our ship to finally come in, our new house, retirement, yet all of these things do not exist now while we are waiting for them, they exist later on. So the question that begs is what are we doing with our lives in between these milestones? Where is our subject of focus in this moment we live in now? What happened to us that convinced us to perpetually defer our happiness to the future? Who convinced us that our enjoyment of life was restricted to certain significant events and that the entire rest of the time was to be lived in the doldrums of everyday existence? Indeed, who talked us out of living the life that is right now?

Suddenly it dawns on you that the time to live is now. Your mother is getting older and won’t, if the Lord tarries, be around forever. Your children grow up and though the incredibly fond times of raising them is over, they are still there for you to spend time loving and enjoying. Even your grandchildren refuse to remain little children and soon enough they too become an older version of that little person you loved so much and still need your love today. Yet the sheer routine of life minimizes your visits, talks you out of your interactions and steals away joy you were meant to continue experiencing today. Time marches forward. Your enjoyment of life doesn’t need to become unable to keep pace. Why would we need the thought of losing the people we love so dearly to prompt us into action? The time for giving love and sharing love is now. The same holds true for the things we enjoy in life. Do your favorite hobby as often as you can. Eat the cookie, for God’s sake and stop trying to be the distorted media version of yourself. If you are creative and have ideas, do your ideas now. Pursue your interests now. If you are blessed enough to find something that makes your eyes light up, make your eyes light up as often as you can. The time is short. Life is short. Your opportunity to dig deep into this great life of endless possibility is short. Do now what you will wish you would have done earlier once you are older. Write the book. Start the business. Share of your abundance. Help somebody else. Do it now.

It seems we spend far too much time analyzing life and not enough time living it. We carry this false set of rules forever threatening us with the prospect of too much and slow down. We can’t do such and such on a weeknight. We have to be careful not to have too much fun. It is as if every enjoyment comes with a secret curtailer whose job it is to make sure we don’t have too much pleasure; too much enjoyment. And, while every enjoyment has its limitations, we all seem to succumb to the argument before we even get started. Before you know it, everything you like becomes wrong and to be avoided in favor of the drab, the monotonous, the routine. Who taught us to live this way? You and I have a finite number of breaths on this earth and one day we will find ourselves at the end of it. Why not choose instead to live life now? Why not pursue the things that make us happy today? Why not savor the moments we are in and not take them for granted? Enjoy your job. Enjoy your family. Enjoy your spouse. Enjoy the little things that all add up to the big thing we call life. Live life, your life, now!

It does not matter where you are in your journey. What matters is that you take advantage of every second you have been blessed to live. Enjoy your successes. Enjoy the learning you gained from your failures. Enjoy this whole experience of life, the ups and the downs because every day is a brand new day to live and to discover and to thrive. Make the most of the time you have on this earth and thank God for it. For that is your portion under the sun. Live your life now!

Just some good thoughts…

Advertisement

Stop Running Away!


running-away1-659x465-1All of us have a fight or flight mechanism built into us as a function of our survival. This mechanism served to protect us from danger and to encourage our ability to procreate by producing progeny. When we sense danger our automatic reaction will be to either fight or run away. But, if you take this human tendency into the spiritual arena, in the midst of the spiritual competition that goes on day by day, we have to learn how to stop running away from the perceived danger and get in there and fight. In a perfect world there would be no such thing as opposing spiritual forces and we could live our lives without conflict. However that is not our reality today. In the competition we will find ourselves challenged, annoyed and hassled in a multitude of different variations. Every day we encounter negative situations, negative thoughts, temptations to be afraid and we may simply try to run away. But those forces that oppose our happiness, our health, our prosperity won’t just go away on their own. Instead they will continue to impede us and oppose us until we learn how to get in there and fight back. Passivity is not one of the fruit of the spirit. Every time we seek to escape from challenges by running away we find ourselves miserable and defeated. We wish the circumstances would change or that God would do something to make it stop, but what makes it stop is our willingness to take it on with the truth of God’s Word. It’s not a function of bravado but rather a decision to take the challenge on with God’s help. Most people, myself included, would rather not have any conflict. We wish that God would simply remove the challenge from our lives. But God never promised that we would not be challenged. Instead God offers to help us overcome any and all challenges that show up in our lives. God wants us to win. But you won’t win until you decide to stop running away.

How people run away may not be that apparent to you. It’s not the kind of running you might do if you encountered a bear. Instead it is what goes on in our minds in the midst of a challenge to our minds. The mind is the arena where the competition takes place. Everyone is in the contest. There is one great force that seeks to help you to live the life you want to live and there is one dark force that endeavors to steal away your enjoyment of life and brings troubles upon you. The competition involves who you are going to believe. What happens when you are faced with a serious challenge? Most people tend to fold fairly quickly. That is how we have been trained to respond. Folding presupposes that there is nothing that can be done about the scenario you find yourself in. Then fear sets in and things go south in a hurry. But what if there was another choice you can make? What if it was your job to take on the challenge? The reason fear rules the world is because people do not know how to take on fear and overcome it. Fear is always an illusion. Remember James and the Giant Peach? It wasn’t until James finally decided to take on the fear that he was able to see it for what it really was – a lie. Our lives are like that. We have to learn to stop running away from everything that threatens us. I don’t imagine most people like to fight, but sometimes you simply have to fight, especially with the things that are most important to you. Much of the anxiety people are experiencing today comes from a large pile of unresolved issues they have chosen to ignore (run away from). Often the peace follows the fight. Stop running away!

As contrary to public opinion as it may seem, we have to learn how to take on our spiritual opponent. The things that are happening to you aren’t happenstance or random in any way. There is no such thing as accidents. These perpetual disturbances have been carefully plotted and planned by those opposing spiritual forces. The end game is always to make you afraid and bring you into bondage to them. Then they can control you as they control much of the world. But, you do not have to live that way. You can learn from God’s Word how to fight back. But make no mistake, much like the bully in the schoolyard, you have to fight back. Instead of just passively accepting these things that assault your mind, you must first become willing to recognize them and then do something about them. It’s not convenient and at times it is a pain your ass, but it is necessary to ensure your continued blessings and happiness. Letting things go is a form of running away. You wonder why we as a nation are over medicated and numb? It is because of running away. Even children know when they are not happy and do not move forward until the situation causing their unhappiness is somehow resolved. It’s only later on in life that we learn to just eat crap all the time and accept it patiently. Look, if something is bothering you and persisting day by day, you have to do something about it. Otherwise you will spend your lifetime defeated and depressed. And by doing something about it I’m not referring to your human capabilities. I’m referring to God’s limitless ability to solve problems in your life. It seems many people just busy themselves with other things in order to escape this reality. It is as if being preoccupied won’t let the troubles in. But this is not true. Every trouble you let go or ignore just leads to more troubles and more difficulty. You owe it to yourself and your one short life to learn how to take things on. Stop running away!

Every morning I write my Morning Pages as I have written about before. For me, my Morning Pages represent a time I faithfully carve out in order to, with God’s help, get things straight. I use this treasured time to talk things over with God. I ask lots of questions. I tell Him about things I don’t understand. I communicate what is bothering me and why. I leave no stone unturned. And, I do not ever leave that morning session without the answers and understanding I need to get back to His peace. Some things I have to learn over time and other things the answer becomes immediately clear. Often He will bring His Word to my mind. My point is that however you want to do it, it will greatly benefit your life to take the time to get things straight in your mind. Maybe instead of writing about it you simply talk it over with Him. Maybe you go for a walk or a drive. However you do it, do it. Pretty soon it begins to dawn on you that there is no challenge you cannot take on with God’s help. Now instead of perpetually running away, you purpose in your heart to stand still. You learn to hold your ground. (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. II Corinthians 10:4) Don’t you think God is able to clue you in about what is really going on and do it in a way that causes you not to be afraid? Once you stop running away and dare to believe God in the midst of the challenge, you will find that your life takes on a glorious, peaceful glow. The things you want in your life will start coming your way and the things you do not want will be dispelled. It is that big and it is that real. Stop running away!

We all have to start somewhere. Maybe your life habit has been to run away. Maybe you have let so many things go that you don’t even know where to start. That’s okay, God will help you. Your job is only to take on the next thing. Your life is worth fighting for. You are worth fighting for. Stop running away. Instead, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord!

Just some good thoughts…

Do You Know?


doyouknowRecently I have been watching a Netflix series documentary called, “In the Name of God: A Holy Betrayal.” Basically it is about different so called religious leaders in Korea that led their followers on unimaginable paths proclaiming to know, amongst many other things, God’s will for their lives. These kind people were led astray despite having a humble, heartfelt desire to learn about God. The false leaders and teachers were successful in obtaining their allegiance by promises of love, fulfillment, a ticket to heaven and many other things that most people seek after. But, what struck me the most wasn’t the weird things people can unknowingly get into. It was how little of the truth of God’s Word these people knew. Using the Bible as their guide, the charismatic leaders introduced all sorts of things that are not found anywhere in the Bible. One claimed to be Jesus himself appearing for his second coming. However, unlike Jesus, he demanded sex from his followers as a token of their love for God, even reporting that he himself was God. As incredulous as that seems, if not outrageous, the people were led astray because of what they did not know. And like what happens to all people when they are ignorant, they were led down painful, disgusting paths as a result of it. All sadly, in the name of God. Which begs the question, do you know?

People that do not understand what the Bible says or have been taught erroneous beliefs supposedly based on it, are ripe for deception. People do all sorts of illogical things because someone falsely attached God’s approval and blessings to it. If you want to make people give you money, fall under your control, be manipulated by you, all you have to do is convince them it is somehow God’s will. But, let me ask you a question. How do you know what God’s will is? If you do not have a standard for your beliefs outside of yourself and your own thoughts, how would you know what was true? How would you know if you were really doing God’s will? You see, you wouldn’t and that is exactly what happens to so many people today. These damnable leaders and false prophets have people doing all sorts of things that are nowhere to be found in the Bible or maybe are in the Bible but not addressed to them today. It matters. Otherwise your sincere heart will be taken advantage of all in the name of God. How many good people live each day drowning in their sins and sinful nature completely unaware of God’s solution for them? How many tender hearted believers are living on antidepressants and other medications because they just cannot stand themselves? How much precious life and experience are people missing out on because someone convinced them that everything they like is wrong? Ignorance is not bliss. The reason so many people are living under the control of others (and I do not just mean at church) is because they have these wrong beliefs floating around in their heads. Wrong beliefs are built on error. And no matter how sincerely you work according to your wrong beliefs they will continue to produce bad results, i.e. more error. Then folks want to get mad at God. God is very, very clear in His Word about who He is, what He does and will do, and what He does not do! Do you know?

There is an opposing force in this life that does not want you to know. He overloads you with other options. He derides the Bible for its antiquated beliefs. He convinces people that what he actually does, God does and what God actually does, he does. He gets people to call the light darkness and the darkness light. He works in people and the world to put limits on what you can have and not have. He convinces you that certain things have no solution. He gets you to believe that either God can’t do anything or worse, won’t do anything. All outright contradictions to what God says in the Bible. See, do you know? In that same Bible God says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” If you knew for yourself what His book says and what it doesn’t say, it would be a lot harder to lead you down these calamitous paths. As soon as the first leader in the documentary said he was the second coming of Jesus Christ, I knew immediately it could not be true because of what God clearly says will occur before Jesus Christ’s second coming. Error! When he said they had to obey him in order to get to heaven, I thought – false, getting to heaven is based on what you believe, not on what you do! Again, error! The problem with not knowing is that you can be led down any crazy path the leader wants to take you down because you do not know for yourself. If the suggested beliefs and actions contradict what God says is true, they will always be error and if followed hurt you. There are dark spiritual forces behind all of the insanity, all of the illogic, all of the hurt and pain people experience in this life. ALL of it! The sooner you can begin to recognize evil, the sooner you can seek the truth that will set you free. Not knowing or relying on someone else to know for you won’t get the job done. If you know, you know. Do you know?

A lot of stuff is said and done supposedly in the name of God. Many things that defy logic and good sense are portrayed as the will of God. All manner of cruelty is done in the name of God, not just today, but all throughout history. And it happened because the people did not know for themselves or relied upon religious leaders to make it make sense for them. But, at the end of the day, some things simply do make sense. Some things are full of hypocrisy and contradiction. Another female cult leader in the documentary stated that all sex and pleasure was sinful and wrong and to be excluded at all costs, even between married couples, yet she herself could have sex with all of the young men because it was “pleasing to God” among other things. How do people reconcile those types of things? What kind of abject deception makes that concept plausible or remotely acceptable? God is the one that built sexual desire into people and outlines a perfectly acceptable expression of it. The sex was the least of the horrors that occurred all because people did not know for themselves. Although any of us can get caught up in things that seem good, but aren’t really good, the true acid test will always be found in what the Word says. If God says something is evil, no matter how many disguises you cloak it in, it will always be evil and will always involve deception at some level. It’s not that people are so bad, it is what is behind it that is so bad. Many things people proclaim to be evil or wrong are not evil or wrong at all. But, how would you know? Do you know?

Since all of life begins with God and exists with God, the best thing you can do for yourself is to learn what God really says in His Word. All of us have to start somewhere unless you were blessed enough to have parents that taught you. But even then, it still might not be true (smile). If you want to know you can know. If you have a hearts desire to learn you can learn. If you are tired of being so confused about life you can understand if you want to understand. I can assure you the Bible is neither complicated nor confusing, you just need someone to teach you. Someone taught me. How can you be sure that what you are learning is true? Simple, does it work for you? Are you happier as a result of it? Are you getting your needs met? Are you seeing your prayers answered? Are things improving in your life for the better? Or is what you are learning causing you more pain, limiting you and dogging you, condemning you and taking away your joy? That is not the results that come from the truth. Where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. But, not to worry, God looks on your heart. He knows that you are seeking Him and He knows if you want to learn. All that is required from you is a decision. Not a decision to live a bondage filled religious life as that is counterfeit, but instead to live the more than abundant life God promised us in His Word. If you want to know, you will be given a way to know. Trust me on that one. So my dear friends, do you know?

Just some good thoughts…

Morning Pages


Morning-pages-e1627386509389-800x600

A number of years ago I heard a famous celebrity talk about a book called, The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. The author wrote the book with the intention of helping people recover their creative tendencies by following a spiritual path leading ultimately to greater self awareness and self confidence. One of the main exercises in the work featured something called Morning Pages. Morning Pages are to be written in a journal first thing in the morning endeavoring to fill three pages with whatever is on your mind. The idea being to unlock things that have been going on in your mind and gain greater clarity concerning your purpose and whatever it is you have to offer the world. Enter Morning Pages.

After reading the book, I began my own journey writing my pages every morning. At first my pages were literally filled with whatever was on my mind, but after some time I began to adapt my process to something I found more beneficial for me. My early pages were usually filled with complaints and negative scenarios, fears, worries and whatever it was that I was angry about at the time. As time passed I began to notice that my thoughts were very similar day by day and that I did not enjoy whatever it was I had written on the previous day. To some extent I was writing the same old stuff with different content and context. I noticed I had developed some patterns of thought that were not healthy. I began to gain clarity about where I was at the time. As the clarity continued, I began to recognize that my Morning Pages had a spiritual component to them. It was as if God was working with me to overcome my challenges. The more I wrote and the more honest I was about what I wrote, the more light I received to help me navigate through my challenges and overcome them. Eventually my Morning Pages evolved into direct conversations with God as that was what appeared to be happening anyway. Instead of whining away about everything like a victim, I began to inquire with God directly concerning my difficulties and negative patterns. I asked lots of questions to my ‘Papa,’ as I like to call Him, and the more I asked the more He answered me. Sometimes things would just suddenly become crystal clear. Other times I found myself on a journey of discovery. Often Papa would bring His Word to my mind which always led to some personal study ideas after I had finished writing. Eventually I looked forward to my precious morning time with Papa and the opportunities I had for learning new things. Enter clarity.

I think one of the most beneficial things people could profit from in their lives is greater clarity. It is so easy, as you’re living your life, to get entangled in a giant spaghetti bowl of confusing and distracting thoughts. Sometimes you are anxious and you have no idea why. Other times you begin to see recurring patterns. At times you might recognize that you aren’t being honest with yourself and other people and vow to do otherwise. We humans are complex beings and we need a little time to sort things out. Ignoring issues and problems only leads to more difficulties. We live busy lives and there is always a demand for our time. Yet we can become so discombobulated that we start missing out on life and experiences. Instead of being clear in our minds we walk around half distracted and half afraid. There always seems to be something that demands our concern and it begins to unravel us. Morning Pages is the time we need to unravel the messes. It’s a time to talk about how our lives are going with Someone who not only cares about us, but has the specifics we need to get back to being blessed. Instead of rushing into the day harried and upset, we can embrace the day with focused eyes and a clear, unafraid heart. There is just no substitute for that. As I began to grow, I realized that my Morning Pages could be whatever it was I needed them to be. Some days I needed a page and other days I needed four. Incredibly, similar to the Psalms, I may have began negative and distraught but I always ended up recovered and at peace, confident in God’s ability to care for me. Enter answers.

I found that the more I sought help, the more help I received. All I had to do was ask. Nothing was off the table as far as my life was concerned. If it was bothering me, I concluded it was bothering Him also and together we could work out the solution. That’s when the light shined the brightest. I began to understand things I had not been able to understand for years. Some errors of logic fell away like melted ice cream while other things took a little more time. At times I perceived that I was being led little by little, piece by piece until I understood. During the day I noticed things that confirmed what I began to learn earlier in the day. Holy smokes I thought, God is right here. All I had ever needed to do was to ask Him for His help. It wasn’t that I was getting better at something, but instead it was that I was developing more humility. I was willing to admit that maybe I didn’t already know. Then, almost instinctively, I began to inquire about things I really was sure I already knew. I started some days in confusion and quickly found my peace again. I think I have learned more in the past six months than I have in my entire life previously. And it has been sublime. How grateful I became for my time in the mornings writing my Morning Pages. How grateful I became for Papa’s willingness to teach me and to guide me. Indeed how exceedingly grateful! Enter the more than abundant life.

I write this today not so much to encourage you to write your own Morning Pages, but rather to encourage you to take the time each day to get things straight. Make the time you need before the hustle and bustle of the day begins. If weird things happened to you yesterday, use that time in the morning to get it straight. I often say quietly within myself near the end of a day, “we can talk about this in the morning Papa.” No matter how busy you are it is worth your investment. And if you really want to find your way and soar in this life, have that talk with God. There is nothing you can say that He doesn’t already know anyway and there is nothing you can say that will shock Him. He invented people and He is quite clear on how they function best. He isn’t judging you for your sins because He sees everything behind whatever it is you got into. If you want illumination you have to seek the light. Buy yourself a journal and give it a try. Morning Pages can be life changing in the very best way.

Just some good thoughts…

The Heart of a Child


child heartHave you ever considered what it means to have the heart of a child? If you have been blessed to have children or to be around children, you can easily recognize their genuine purity; their tender humility and their heartfelt willingness to learn new things. Children are like little sponges soaking up every word you say and learning from everything you do. In their minds, life is still a grand adventure full of infinite possibility and hope. They have not yet been jaded by the world to expect disappointment or to put limits on what they can accomplish in this life. They know that they do not know and as such are teachable and open to new experiences which they wholeheartedly pursue. They are full of life and happiness. They get over upsets and failures quickly without reliving those circumstances perpetually in their hearts and minds. They are active and alive seeking more life and more fun whenever and however they can. Children trust fully and with all that they are. Jesus taught his followers that to really understand and appreciate God’s kingdom and His rule over all, they needed to have the heart of a child.

When I was a child my father once taught me that you must never stand by the window during a thunderstorm and smile because if you did lightening might strike you. I was in adolescence before I discovered this actually wasn’t true. But, as a child I had absolute trust concerning the things my father taught me. I never really gave much thought to my every need being met because I assumed my parents would provide what I needed. In this I was dependent upon them and therefore free to pursue a life of fun and activity without anxiety and stress. All of us have experienced this in some fashion. It wasn’t until I got older and began to listen to the world and its claims that I began to think differently. All of a sudden what was simple and effortless became daunting and full of potential trouble. I learned somewhere and somehow, as we all do, that I was solely responsible to take care of myself. I had to figure things out for myself and assume full responsibility for everything. If things went wrong, as they often did, I had to find solutions on my own or work harder or smarter or better. This is the way of man absent life with God. What Jesus was teaching people was that God is sovereign over all things and that it was His job to take care of people and meet their every need. This is what it means to have the heart of a child.

When children are young they know they are fully dependent upon their parents and they have no problem with it. God’s plan for our lives works just the same. Instead of being dependent upon our parents though, we learn to depend on God instead. Where did we ever get the idea that life was supposed to be lived in perpetual difficulty and struggle wrestling in our minds day by day in how to figure out this problem and how to solve that dilemma? How could we possibly assume that we had the wherewithal or enough knowledge to navigate in a world that is so much bigger than we are? We literally do not control anything other than what we think, what we decide and believe or what we are going to do. The rest is out of our hands. How preposterous, even egotistical is it to think otherwise? The reason people suffer and live such miserable lives is because they have not yet discovered the best Parent, God our Heavenly Father. And God, unlike our earthly parents, is unlimited in power and scope. In other words, there is nothing He cannot do, no need He cannot supply, no problem He cannot fix. Imagine how much your life would change if you no longer had to be your own solution in every situation you faced. Imagine not having to live each day engulfed in fear and worry. Imagine how much freedom you would have to live your life and pursue the things that were most important to you. Most people only endure life and survive life because they have been completely overwhelmed by the troubles and afflictions of life. They have no answers. They accept things as they are rather than how they could be. They believe the world’s “facts” rather than the truth. And the reason they live this way is because they no longer have the heart of a child. They are unwilling to relinquish the lordship of their own lives and are not willing to learn anything new because, sadly, they already know. When it comes to spiritual realities and results we all need to have the heart of a child.

No matter where you are or how long you have already traveled down the path of life it is not too late for you. You can learn as so many others of us have learned that there is a better way to live. God never intended for us to take on life on our own or try to maintain control over thing with which we have no control. Instead He wants us to learn who He is and what He will do. It is not enough to simply believe in God, but rather we must learn how to believe God for the things we so desperately need in our lives. All of the things you have been missing and longing for in your life are still available to you. All that is required is that you humble yourself like a little child and at least entertain the notion that there might be a better way to live. Life with God is a joyful discovery and it contains the answer to every problem you have ever had. Surely you want that life! All you need is the heart of a child and you will find that for which you seek. God guarantees it.

Just some good thoughts…

Do You…


fishHuman beings reportedly share over 99% of the same DNA as all other human beings. Yet in the remaining less than one percent remains all of the differences that make every person on earth unique. There is literally no other person that is identical to you. But, instead of celebrating their differences and distinctiveness people are spending much of their lives trying to be someone else. Whenever you are not true to who you are, your likes and dislikes, your feelings, your tastes and your aversions you are cheating yourself from the person you were designed to be. I challenge you to find one thing in nature that is identical to another thing. God loves variety. Whenever you are not being your true self you end up as a performer exhausting yourself trying to be someone else. The fake smile, the feigned agreement, the getting along just to get along usually takes more from you than it provides. Who or what has convinced us that we need to be someone else instead of embracing just exactly who we are? Why concern ourselves so much with comparisons and competition? Maybe the real you, the one you’ve been hiding is wonderful just as he is without the endless need for modifications and self censure. If you really want to find your own personal happiness in this very short run through, you need to “do you” the authentic and real you.

Lately I have found myself on a devoted quest for understanding. I suppose you reach a certain age where all of your shenanigans run out and you realize there is so much more to learn if you are willing to seek it. This understanding comes from God, the very source and essence of life. The more I seek for understanding the more I realize that there’s a perpetual voice in our heads seeking to find fault in everything that we do. This voice called the judge or the accuser is on a mission to take away our enjoyment of life. It does so by talking you into certain narratives about yourself. Some of these false narratives have been playing for so long that you no longer even recognize them. These thoughts masquerading as your own, want you to believe that you cannot trust your own ideas. They pick apart your self confidence little by indiscernible little until you get to the place where you are loathe to believe that what you think is true is actually true and cause you to opt for another’s opinion. The message is to fall in line and do not question. Go down the same crappy path the masses are on and do your best from there. Crush all aspects of your unique abilities and conform yourself to everyone else. Now, if that was true, why bother to make you unique in the first place? I’m sure God could have created a series of robots all wanting the same things and speaking the same words. But, there is only one you. There is no one exactly like you on the earth. Maybe your quirks and your oddities add to the spice of your life. Maybe there is one thing that fulfills you and one thing that fulfills me. How could we ever find that fulfillment wasting away our lives trying to be someone else? It is our variety and uniqueness that the world needs. There is a taste only you can appeal to and how can you be appealing unless you “do you?”

Similarly, the judge takes away your enjoyment of life by seeking to censure and limit everything you like to do. You can get to the place where all things are wrong, all things will lead to trouble, all things are going to get you. This is the familiar voice of religion that drives your focus inward and seeks to make you doubt yourself. What, you do not have any control over your own life and cannot determine when something is getting out of hand? Can you not modify and adjust yourself as needed? This false judge is not speaking for God who wants you to freely enjoy all things. To this I say, do what the hell you want to do and make adjustments when they become apparent. Trying to live amidst the controlling voice of perpetual correction does not add to your life, it steals it away. A child living within the confines of continual correction never grows and never experiences life. You have molded little him or little her to be afraid of things and in so doing have stifled their individuality and ability to contribute to the world. If you want life you have to live life. You have to learn to silence that voice and just live. Everything else is just fear sucking away your existence. God loves you and I unconditionally, without conditions. All those damnable conditions and onerous rules do not come from God. There can never be perfection in your imperfect flesh. Why not live your life exactly as you want to complete with mistakes, errors, foibles and your own humanity? Why not learn to discern exactly what you do like and limit and modify what you do not like? Why drag about with this burden of a false existence constantly conforming yourself to every other person’s opinion concerning what you ought to do? If you are wrong or when you are wrong, it will become apparent rather quickly and you will have gained valuable insight. If you never take the chance to “do you” you will never know otherwise.

I often muse that God likes me to be exactly who I am in full acceptance of me. That guy is a lot more fun and interesting than the converse version. Yet I also fall prey to that false voice checking me at every turn. Telling me I am wrong and ever threatening some dire consequence for my actions. The judge closes all the doors and eliminates all of the options. Soon we find ourselves unhappy and depressed drowning in our own negative mire. Yet are we so wrong? Is it even possible that all of our choices are evil? Maybe just maybe we aren’t near as bad as we think. Maybe God looks on our hearts? Maybe God wants us to experience our lives and come to the right conclusions with His guiding hand, tender mercies and ever present foresight. Each of us has something unique that we can offer and there is no one else that can offer it. Yet we cannot offer it if we spend our lives dressed up as someone else. Everyone loves the authentic soul even if they are rude and obnoxious. We don’t like their abrasiveness but we can always admire their authenticity. They are the ones that speak up when everyone else is silent. They are the people who say what they like and what they don’t like even if it brings discomfort to the room. They don’t go along to get along, they offer themselves like it or not. Somewhere along the line, right or wrong, they have decided to honor their own opinions and stand behind them with boldness. They are real people who have decided it is better to “do you” than to try to do anyone else.

Deep inside we know what we want and what we don’t want. We know what thrills our hearts and what causes us difficulty and pain and when we learn better we choose better. We get a sense of what is unique about us and instead of hiding it we embrace it. Sure someone might think it’s weird, but they aren’t living in our skin. Once we learn to challenge those wrong thoughts coming from the judge, the limiter, the defrauder, we can finally begin to live choosing a life we actually enjoy without fear of punishment or retribution. We have one very short experience of life in this giant playground of experimentation God has given us. Why not get out there and take a risk? Why not learn to trust that true voice within each of us and find what we have been missing? Why not break free from the shackles of conformity and do what you love? Why not take a chance on the real you and shine brightly? You just might find a place that only you can occupy and in so doing bring love and joy to the world and to yourself. Oh my friends, “do you!”

Just some good thoughts…

Is Your Mind a Friend or an Enemy?


judge_gavelRecently a very good friend of mine suggested I read a book called, Positive Intelligence by Shirzad Chamine. I only just began the book, but have become fascinated by the spiritual parallels involving the things we say to ourselves and whether we are using our own minds as a friend to help and encourage us or as an enemy perpetually sabotaging our efforts towards success and fulfillment. The primary saboteur at work in all of our lives is called the judge or from a spiritual standpoint (parallel made by myself and not the author) the accuser. The primary purpose of the judge or the accuser is to constantly fill and overwhelm your mind with what is wrong with you, what you do wrong, what you did wrong and most sinister of all, how you can expect good things to happen in your life based on where you fall short? So, the grand question to ask yourself is, is your mind your friend or your enemy or a combination thereof and more importantly, how can you think more with your mind being your friend as opposed to your mind functioning as your own worst enemy.

All of us have a multitude of thoughts running through our minds in a day. Often we aren’t cognizant of those thoughts. Equally as often we associate those thoughts as being true because we thought them. It’s hard to separate what is generated by our own minds and what enters in via the influence of something else. How the judge or the accuser functions is by getting you to judge yourself. There are endless suggestions concerning what is not “good” about you, your behavior, your motives etc. The judge never puts you on the right side of things. The judge’s only function is to weaken you or diminish your confidence in yourself. I think it is fair to say that all self-doubt, all low self-image, all lack of confidence is a direct result of the judge having too much free reign in your mind, bolstered and strengthened by many years of listening to it and accepting it. The accuser is the one that brings up your mistakes from the past and doesn’t only bring them up as an occasion for possible learning, but badgers you with the thoughts until your opinion of yourself changes. The accuser convinces you that you are unworthy or undeserving of God’s love and blessings. The judge masquerades in your mind as you. However, even though the thought is occurring in your own mind, it is not you. Failure to recognize this leads people down many, many painful paths. If you will notice, judging runs rampant in the world today. Typically, the measure to which a person judges themselves is the measure to which they judge other people. The accuser is a liar falsely implying that your value as a person is based on what you do or don’t do or what you did and should not have done. And there is no end to it. The judge doesn’t restrict its function to your worst errors, but works involving every potential error and often when you are not wrong at all. The point isn’t to make you better. The endgame is to bring you down. It seeks to ruin your life by depleting your confidence in yourself and your own ability to make good decisions. Religion uses it to make you believe you are incapable of choosing on your own and instead need the approval of others in order to live successfully by imposing a tyrannical list of approved behaviors to be accepted. You cannot be truly successful in the long term until you begin to recognize this function operating in your mind and silence its voice. More friend, less enemy.

The first step in freeing yourself from the accusers voice is by recognizing when it is occurring. The accuser is often veiled and hard to detect. In fact, sometimes the judge appears as God reportedly chastising you for your behavior or pronouncing judgment in your life. You can sometimes spot this by how often you catch yourself telling God you are sorry about something. Can you imagine that our God of love and light, overflowing with compassion and tender mercy, would treat you like that? Or worse, can you even fathom that God would behave that way? The church folk say, God convicted me of this or that and it always causes me to scratch my head. God’s Word says that Jesus Christ paid for all of our sins, past, present and future hence the head scratcher. In reality, whether cloaked, hidden, disguised or posing as you, that perpetual self-judgment is like a cancer to your mind and heart. The judge is not helping you to be a better person. Listening to and worse responding to the accuser will do nothing but lead you to defeat, doubting yourself and ultimately doubting God and His willingness and ability to help you. Here is a newsflash worthy of remembering, God is not judging you ever! When you hear the judge’s voice stop yourself and say, “oh it’s the judge again” and refuse to continue the conversation. You are talking to the enemy and making or allowing your own mind to become your enemy. More friend, less enemy.

Once you decide to stop judging yourself or at least start working on it, you will be in a much stronger position to treat yourself as a friend. This means having some compassion for yourself. This means accepting the reality that you are an imperfect creature learning, growing and stumbling at times. Make a point to learn what you can learn about any mistakes you have made, then move forward with adamancy. Once you stop all that poisoning self-judgment you can begin to trust yourself and your ideas again. You can set your mind towards the beauty and curiosity of figuring out what you can offer the world and how you can set others free. You can at last be free from the insidious desire to make yourself better and just content yourself with who you are. Who said that you were in dire need of such improvement anyway? Maybe God loves you unconditionally for who you are and even delights in your unique ways. It seems in the final analysis that much of what we thought was sin wasn’t sin at all, but rather our reaction to that ever diminishing voice from the judge, which weakens us towards more sin, pain and error. Making your mind a friend is about you treating yourself with the same love and kindness with which you treat your friend. It’s about forgiving yourself and refusing to un-forgive yourself over and over again. It’s about actually having the audacity to like yourself just the way you are. Let God be the one that works in your heart to live your best life and while he is working just enjoy the ride. If you knew how much God loves you and diligently cares for you, you would never judge yourself again. More friend, less enemy.

It is up to you and up to me to decide which thoughts we will entertain. It is our decision whether we will make our minds a friend or if we will continue allowing our mind to be our worst enemy. We have all fallen prey to this type of thinking. We are all accused night and day by our enemy. We have all suffered as a result and not lived up to our full potential. Yet, we don’t have to keep living that way. We can live our lives by the works of another man. Let all that judgment go towards yourself and then to other people and see how much better you feel. If you can get past the judge with all of his sincere efforts to make you feel bad, you can open yourself up to a new life; a brand new life where there is no fear. Make your mind a friend by silencing your enemy.

Just some good thoughts…

PS Buy the book.

The Happiness Riddles…


questionIt seems there are at least a million books that promote finding happiness, stumbling upon happiness or discovering happiness in one form or another. Many of the books, as varied as they are, approach the subject of happiness as being something you must strive to get, seek to discover or find in ways you may not have considered before. There are principles and keys and laws and techniques all designed, if you faithfully apply them, to bring you finally to that elusive happiness you are seeking. But, what if that is not how people find happiness at all? What if happiness consisted more of what not to do as opposed to a litany of procedures and processes to do? What if happiness was not so much focused on adding onto but rather letting go of something? What if happiness was more the natural state of a person before other things entered in and clogged the system? It seems there are some common pitfalls that almost all people fall prey to and as such thwart their own efforts in being happy. These pitfalls exist as riddles, confusing and complex riddles demanding they be resolved before moving forward. But, these life sucking riddles have no end point. They cannot be solved and in trying to solve them we move further and further away from that happiness our Creator intended. Once you engage in these riddles, which most people do, you become entangled and embroiled in them and it is hard to escape their sticky grasp. These riddles are the real thwarters of genuine happiness. They hinder, they stymie, they retard efforts. They take people down empty roads and further and further away from the true path. These happiness riddles work by deception with man as the unsuspecting victim. All three of these riddles work using the same tried and tested approach. These riddles are called fear, judgment and remembering the past. They are intertwined and interconnected, yet all lead nowhere. If you want to enjoy the happiness that is your birthright as a human being, you have to learn how to not fall prey to these tempting riddles.

In the world of cause and effect, you can expect a certain cause to lead to a certain result. The human mind generally functions based upon logic. But, the human mind is also limited in that it can only learn via the avenue of the five senses, absent spiritual truth. Spiritual truth has to be ascertained as opposed to fully comprehended because it exceeds the capacity of the finite human mind. When it comes to conflict or things that oppose happiness there is a right way to think and a wrong way to think. Similarly, if the starting premise is wrong, the end result will also be wrong. People are deceived because they begin with a wrong starting premise. This will become more clear as we look into each of the pervasive riddles that assault men’s minds. But, suffice it to say that the way our adversary tempts people into thinking incorrectly is by making an appeal to their ego using their human logic system. It seems when confronted with certain ideas, especially when those ideas are negative, the logical course of action is to figure out a way to solve the problem. That of course is logical. However, what is not logical is to try to solve a problem that does not actually exist but rather only has the potentiality of existing. This is a wrong starting premise. No person with their limited human logic will be able to solve a problem for which there is no solution. Instead they will spend their time and life engaging something that seeks only to steal, kill and destroy. This is happiness lost. This is engaging the riddle. 

A good place to start concerns remembering the negative past. This refers to the many mistakes human beings have made in their lives. All people on earth have made these mistakes. These mistakes range from simply painful all the way to catastrophic. Every mistake, every error, every sin a person has ever committed was due to the influence of evil in some capacity. Absent evil influence sin would not exist. Some people spend their entire lives remembering some big mistake they made or someone they hurt or something they didn’t do that they should have done. And because it was wrong they often hate themselves for it and live a lifetime in bondage because of it. However, this becomes a riddle from which there is no escape. The enemy of goodness talked you into doing something bad and then seeks to hold it against you for the rest of your life. Yet whatever you did, you already did it. It’s in the books. Logically there is nothing you can do to change it nor is there any way to remedy it. It only continues to exist in your memory. The moment is gone seconds or years after it occurred. It is gone. You can certainly seek forgiveness from God for it if you haven’t already, but it is gone and over with. So logically, if the moment or moments are gone now and there is nothing you can do about it in the present, why on earth would you allow it to continue to live on in your present day mind? This is a riddle from which there is no escape. No amount of thinking or lamenting or wishing or crying can do anything to change the situation. You certainly aren’t doing God any favors by hanging on to it no more than you would continue to hold your child responsible for a mistake they made a year or twenty years ago.  Thus again logically, the best way to escape the riddle, the thwarter of your happiness, is by refusing to engage in the riddle. You cannot find a solution in the riddle because a solution does not exist. The only reasonable solution is to forgive yourself and let it go forever. Do not engage the riddle. 

The next riddle from which there is no escape concerns judgment, especially self-judgment. All people are born into the world with a sin-nature. This means the seeds of sin and error have been programmed into people’s bloodstreams. We all came from the factory that way. (It was not God’s original intention!) So the propensity to make mistakes is born into us. The old nature in a human being could never be cleaned up because the old nature is inherently sinful. No amount of discipline or righteous behavior or adherence to commandments can ever make the old nature clean. Yet, all of religion claims otherwise and by a series of rules and regulations tries to make the flesh bring forth spiritual fruit. Again, wrong starting premise, i.e. you can become holy and clean up that which is already inherently sinful. The Apostle Paul knew this because he said by revelation, “I know that in me, that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.” God provided a solution to this dilemma in the life, death and resurrection of His son, Jesus Christ. When Christ was crucified on the cross, God said that our old nature was crucified with him. Everything that was ever wrong with you and me was nailed to the cross. When we believed God and got born again, we receive a new nature spiritually that cannot be corrupted and cannot sin. So, stay with me now, every time you make a mistake or sin or zig when you should have zagged it happened via your old nature which God considers dead. God paid for every mistake, every looney tunes thing we ever did by the life of His son. It is paid for. It is finished! Thus, when we judge ourselves for our every error or human weakness and frailty we are engaging ourselves in something that has already been covered for us. Our old nature cannot do anything but sin. When we judge ourselves or analyze our every move, inspect our motives and find fault in everything that we do, we are simply engaging the riddle from which there is no escape. It is a wrong starting premise. We cannot make our old nature clean by doing righteous things and we cannot pay the price with our own sinful old nature. The more we look for error and flaws the more we will find. Doing so leads us nowhere. Instead we must refuse it by refusing to judge ourselves any longer. God has already judged the old nature and it is spiritually dead. Rest in what God did for you. Stop judging yourself. Do not engage the riddle. 

The final riddle that thwarts happiness is the worst of them all. It is fear. Remember fear is a wrong starting premise. It is a temptation to solve a problem that does not actually exist. Fear is a riddle from which there is no escape. The more you engage the riddle, the deeper grip it gains on you. The more you, out of fear, try to find a solution, the more afraid you will become. You will suddenly find evidence that supports your fear. Engaging fear is not logical problem solving because you have already begun the discussion by accepting a starting position that isn’t true. In this life sucking riddle it always starts with doubt, progresses to worry then ends in fear. This riddle is the most dastardly because it doesn’t just waste your time and your life or steal away your happiness, but will actually bring bad things your way if you persist in it. Fear is a strong expectation that something awful is coming your direction and strong expectations often come true. Like remembering the negative past and judging yourself (your old dead nature), fear is another riddle that must be avoided. You will never defeat fear by engaging it. You defeat fear by refusing the temptation to think about it and solve it with your finite human logic. Replace fear thoughts which are not true with thoughts that are actually true. Do not engage the riddle. 

The happiness you seek for your life is already there for you. You don’t have to go on a search to find it. But, in order to experience it fully, you have to avoid the riddles, the pitfalls of life that take away happiness. Stop holding on to a negative past that is long gone. Stop judging yourself for being a human. Stop letting fear and its companions put you in bondage and reduce your life down to survival instead of thriving. Much of life and living successfully is found in learning to let go rather than gaining something. Get rid of all that false weight and the burdens and live each day as a new day. The experience of happiness is always on the other side of the happiness riddles because the riddles are not true. When things get complex and confusing, error is involved somewhere. Let it all go and live the day in the freedom that God provided for you. He already solved it for you. Just get on board. 

Just some good thoughts…

Managing Your Expectations Part 2 (Fear Not)


fear notThere is more to managing your expectations than just being aware of the spiritual forces at work in your life and endeavoring to remain positive. There is also a hidden ingredient involved in many people’s lives and that ingredient is fear. Fear can be very subtle and has many disguises. Fear serves only to thwart and hinder life. Fear slows your experience down to a standstill. Fear engaged stops you from receiving the things you want in life. Fear is also an expectation, but it is a negative expectation. It is expecting something bad to happen and if you persist in it (ignorantly) it will lead to something negative happening to you. Fear is the adversary’s only weapon and he wields it masterfully in order to prevent you from living the life you want to live. It starts with doubt, progresses to worry and then when fully realized results in fear. When you are afraid you are now working against your own best interests. You are cooperating with that dark sinister force that wishes to bring you pain and suffering or at minimum frustrate and defeat you. Fear is an expectation that you don’t try to manage but instead work to eliminate. Fear has ruined more people’s lives than any other thing in the world. Fear is not your friend nor should you try to make it your friend. Fear, in the end game, results in unbelief of the promises of God which ties God’s hands from helping you or providing something that you need. If there is anything in your life that you really need and don’t have or have been seeking for some time, chances are there is fear involved somewhere. In order to successfully manage your expectations you have to learn how to get rid of fear.

The way that the enemy uses fear is by endlessly promoting negatives things that might happen to you. The world is fueled by it, lives on it and is controlled by it. Fear is always a lie. It is, as you may have heard, false evidence appearing real. The reason it works so well is because of how convincing it is. I had a friend who was particularly afraid of diseases and ill health. The moment she had any discomfort it had to be something dreadful. One time she was telling me about a persistent pain in her side and starting to draw negative conclusions. I said it was probably something simple and inquired what she did yesterday. Immediately she remembered doing some gardening and the cause was found. Instant relief. That’s how fear works. The more you look for evidence to support your negative conclusion, the more evidence you will find. Fear and reasons to fear are literally all around you. Fear has been called believing in reverse. The same way you can believe for God’s blessings in your life you can also believe for negative things in your life. And believing always equals receiving, except you receive from the wrong source, the one that works to make your life difficult and hard. How many people have suffered and do suffer at the hands of fear. Bad things happen not because you have a fear thought here and there, but rather because you persist in it. You hold it in mind and give it an audience. You begin to talk to it and consider it and rationalize with it. You are defeated by your own human logic. In considering it you are admitting its possibility in your life. And because the starting premise is wrong, the end result will always have to be wrong. The way to beat fear is not by trying to figure it out. Its source is spiritual and because it is spiritual you will never be able to figure it out with your five senses reasoning. This is how so many people are deceived by it. In trying to figure it out by running it through your processor, analyzing, churning, mulling it over, thinking and thinking and thinking about it, you are allowing it entree into your mind and are unknowingly persisting in it. You will never get rid of fear that way. You beat fear by refusing the discussion. Stop entertaining it. Stop trying to figure it out. Stop considering it. It isn’t easy because it feels like an itch you have to scratch, but like a mosquito bite, you cannot scratch it. Once you give in and scratch it, it only gets worse and unlike a mosquito bite, it won’t go away on its own. You manage your expectations by getting rid of fear and you get rid of fear by refusing it entree into your mind.

Refusing consideration of fear is only the first step in improving your expectations which will improve your life. Next you have to find that promise of God that negates those thoughts of fear. Fear not is the number one admonition in the Bible for a reason. God does not want you to be afraid, nor does He ever use fear to motivate you. Fear is sin because it works at cross purposes with the things God wants for your life. God only motivates by love. Similarly, people are motivated in life generally by one or the other. So many things are done in this world by people whose motivation is fear. But, when you are motivated by fear, no matter how hard you try or how hard you work, the result will always be negative or temporary. Lasting results and lasting change can only come from motivation that is fueled by love. As such, when you are confronted by thoughts of doubt, worry or fear, you must take the time to resolve those thoughts in your mind. Don’t ignore them or simply distract yourself from them. Instead you have to take them on as unpleasant as it is. But, you do not take them on by considering the fearful thoughts. You take them on by finding the promise of God that negates that fear directly and feed your mind that instead. When the temptation comes up to be fearful and it is a temptation, you resist the temptation by quoting God’s Word just as Jesus did in his confrontations with the devil directly. You will note that he didn’t try to argue and reason things out. Instead he simply said what God’s Word said (that he knew) and defeated his opponent in every case. The same is always true for you and me. You manage your expectations by framing those expectations in terms of what God says is true and vigorously rejecting EVERYTHING that contradicts that.

You see it is up to you and me to believe the things God says are true. When we learn how to believe God’s promises and persist in them, God is able to do all the good things He wants to do in our lives. Conversely, when we think fear, consider fear, cleave to fear and persist in fear, we tie God’s hands in our situations of life. God is always very willing to give us what we need by His loving grace which He generously and freely offers to all people and He is absolutely unlimited in what He can do. When we fear (and we all do at times) we limit His great influence and impact in our lives. We retard and thwart our own results. We make things take much longer than they ought to take, then we call that life. It isn’t the life God intended for us. If you have problems and unmet needs or have been frustrated for years seeking yet not finding, chances are you have some fear that you need to take on and with God’s help eliminate. “I sought the Lord and He heard me and delivered me from all my fears.” (Psalms 34:4) Everything you really want and need in life is on the other side of fear. Learn to manage your expectations and get rid of fear and you will experience how good God really is in your adventure of life. There is no other way. Fear not!

Just some good thoughts…

Managing Your Expectations…


manageAnyone who has ever been on a quest to find something or obtain something knows that things do not always move in your favor. The course that leads from where you are to what you want is rarely a straight line. Cause and effect are not free to play out perfectly because there are many other causes in play. The race does not always go the swift, as the Bible says, not because it should not work out that way, but because there are hinderances and obstacles built into the current systems of the world. There are opposing forces meddling in and interfering with the natural order of things. In a perfect world absent evil and evil influences all effort would have a just reward and all investment would result in some gain. A man or a woman who worked hard would always succeed and never risk losing that which they had already gained. Before Adam and Eve gave over their authority to evil, everything worked perfectly and beautifully. The creation thrived and brought forth bountifully. Yet once darkness gained access, thankfully a temporary condition, labor, sweat and toil became the norm. With that access came control over the systems of the world with persistent and pervasive difficulties and challenges intertwined. Which begs the question, how can God’s people still succeed and prevail in a world working tirelessly against them? One such remedy is found in learning how to manage your expectations. If what a man believes in his heart is what he will receive in this life, it behooves him to keep his expectations positive and abundant based not on what things look like, but rather, often in stark contrast, with what things God promises in His Word, the Bible. You have to manage your expectations.

It is obvious to all of us that it seems the things you want and need the most appear to be the hardest to receive. Some people attribute this to God himself as either rewarding good behavior or else punishing bad behavior. Others conclude that God is withholding His blessings due to some ethical failure on the part of the one seeking. Some even go as far to say that God is actually cursing certain people in His wrath over evil deeds done. Yet, thankfully, none of these things are true. In reality, God would give His love, His goodness, His blessings to anyone who would believe Him. God is never the source of difficulty or withholding. Instead the lack that we experience is either due to ignorance or wrong teaching. Ignorance from not knowing God’s promises or how to access them by believing and wrong teaching by all of these false ideas that have been promoted as truth. To take it step further, people must learn that spiritual truth and reality is absolutely not based on what things look like in the senses realm; the realm ruled by the five senses. Spiritual truth happens in spite of the senses registering. “We walk by faith and not by sight.” Remember the senses world and everything in it is ruled by the one that gained authority over the world. These spiritual marplots work in a tightly organized fashion to make things appear to be only one way when God promises another way. Take for example sickness and disease. A certain disease may be deemed incurable by the world yet God’s promise is that He will heal you. In order to actually believe and receive His healing you would have to successfully manage your expectations. If you allow the senses realm, which we have all been heavily schooled by, to hold sway over the promise, you will conclude that the healing you so desperately desire is not going to happen for you. The same principle carries out in everything you have ever wanted and needed. God does not set the limit, you do by the strength and source of your expectation. What you expect and continue to expect over and over and over again will come to pass. Similarly, the source of your expectation, the senses realm or the spiritual realm, will determine how far you can go. Manage your expectations.

Expectations are a function of your thoughts. Simply stated, what is it that you are expecting to happen? Are your thoughts happy and positive in anticipation of some good thing happening or are they dark and futile in expectation of nothing happening? You know the answer by how you are feeling about what it is you need to get. Anytime we feel frustrated and discouraged about getting something we really need clearly points to us allowing our thoughts to move in the wrong direction. There is no condemnation in this as we all fall prey to the senses deception and maneuverings at times. However, in the midst of our futility and exasperation we still have a choice. We still decide what it is we are going to think. At this point it is our duty to change our minds. We need to honestly recognize and acknowledge that our thinking has moved in the wrong direction and move it back in the right direction. It does not take discipline to do this. It takes only a decision on our part. We decide that the promise of God we are believing, i.e. “But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in Christ Jesus” is true no matter what it looks like or how much time has transpired with our need not getting met. We refuse to let ourselves become unhappy and despondent and choose to look forward to how blessed we will be when that need is met. Dwelling on the darkness won’t bring forth the light as the great man once remarked. We continue this process for as long as we need to until God’s promise is fulfilled in our lives. Keep talking to God about it and keep seeking His help and insight in getting what you need. The contest, the fight will always be between what God says is true versus what sense and reason says is true. The reason of the world is the facts, but the reason of the spiritual world is truth. Manage your expectations.

Though it may not be entirely apparent to you thus far, you can have your needs met abundantly. You can live above the negativity, the defeat, the so-called scarcity of the world. You can experience the fulfillment of your heart’s desires. But doing so means you are going to have to fight at times, not with God of course, but with what things seem like versus what God says is true. This is the spiritual competition and you are in it whether you like it or not. We have all experienced difficulty in getting our needs met at times, especially with those things we need the most, but God is faithful to do what He said He would do in every instance and at all times. Persist in your expectation for good and keep changing your thoughts when you need to and prove it to yourself. God is faithful. Manage your expectations.

Just some good thoughts…