Tag: be honest

Believing God…

On By Papa TonyIn Thought1 Comment

believeAs a believer it has been my personal experience over the years that anything that places the focus back on me instead of on God is usually suspect. That’s not to say that I have no responsibility for anything, but rather so-called requirements on my part tend to take me away from and not closer to God. One such example of this involves believing God to get our needs met. I’m sure it started innocently enough, but over time it seemed to morph into something bigger than it actually was. Every time we failed in some capacity or maybe did not get a need met, the reason was always centered on our own personal lack of believing. And while God does require belief on our part to receive from Him, too much focus on myself and whether or not I’m “believing God” tends towards the negative. All of the great power and ability of God is suddenly held at bay all dependent upon something I am doing or not doing. The first red flag to notice is when the focus turns away from God and His willingness and ability and instead focuses on something people are doing or not doing. You can see this happening over and over again in religion. Religion repudiates God’s grace and unconditional love for us and makes it all about me and you. God’s blessings somehow happen or don’t happen dependent upon how well we obey or “do the Word” or line ourselves up with His perfection. If that were actually true all of us would fail. God is already well aware of our human condition and the sin nature all people are born with dating back to Adam and Eve. In this He and He alone initiated a way for us to escape the bondage of sin and it was not based upon anything that you or I ever did. Similarly, believing God is not a measure from which we evaluate ourselves. Believing God is more about knowing Him, trusting Him and looking for His help in life’s situations. Believing God is likely much easier than we have heretofore imagined.

If you think about it logically, all of the good things that happen in this life have been initiated by God. He is the starting point and the end point. If I am struggling with something He knows where I’m at and where I need to get in order to prevail. He knows me and you better than we know ourselves. This notion that we have to somehow grit our teeth and believe God in order to get something cannot be true. Then “believing God” turns into this magic system, this thinking nirvana, this systematic approach we are putting ourselves through in order to receive from Him. Unbeknownst to me I have now instituted a work I must do to earn or deserve something God has already promised to me. God’s promises are absolutely not contingent upon something I must do. Instead the promises have already been given to me to help me, to save me, to rescue me. It’s a very subtle difference, but a difference nonetheless. The acid test will always be who or what is my subject of focus. If the focus is on me and what I’m doing or not doing chances are I am no longer believing God. If my focus is on God and what He said He would do, chances are I’m believing Him. So the question is, what or who is your subject of focus? The enemy of righteousness is quite adept at getting the focus back on you and me. Have you noticed? You have a need that you are endeavoring to believe God to supply and what goes through your mind? You start thinking about where you don’t measure up, how many, many mistakes you have made in the past, how you must not be believing God or this need would have already been solved. The focus is then where? Squarely back on your own shoulders from whence there is no power (absent God) or ability to effect change. This is how and where we get tricked out of believing God and start trying to make things happen with our own mental powers. It’s a slippery deception but it always produces the same result – nothing!

So, how do we believe God to get our needs met? Simply stated we keep our focus on Him and what He promised. When our focus turns inward as it often does, we change our focus back to Him. We don’t have to make something happen! God is the One that makes something happen! If everything that happened was based on what I think then that would sort of make me God wouldn’t it? (Shudder) But that is exactly how we tend to view things. Again as if believing God was some type of mental nirvana state I must enter and maintain in order to get results. OMG I just had some doubts! Oh no, I was thinking negatively! Now nothing will happen until I sustain a certain mindset, over time and in the right way. Can you see how this kind of thinking just drives me back to me? It’s not it folks. Believing God is looking at Him. Believing God is remembering what His Word says. Believing God is thinking what God says is true and endeavoring to not think what isn’t true. At the end of the day it is God who backs up His Word. He made the promises, not me. I think God is big enough to get past my own inadequacies and weaknesses. God meets us where we are. We don’t have to get somewhere to get His help. We don’t have to perform to earn His help. We don’t have to play mental games to get His help. If your kid wasn’t doing so well, don’t you wish he would just tell you that? No matter how frightful, how ugly, how impossible, wouldn’t you want him or her to just tell you about it so you could help? Well, I’m pretty sure God can exceed that. If you are struggling why not say so? If you are having trouble getting your needs met, why not just talk it over with Him? I think believing God is just laying your whole self out to Him and asking Him to help you. He knows anyway right? He has already seen your whole life through and He still loves you. He still called you. Hey maybe it never was all about you!

I think it is time to reframe our thoughts about God. He is so incredibly vast and so much higher than us in His thoughts and ability. We need to simply approach Him how a child approaches their parents. No pretense, no performance, no formulas and systems, none. Just say what’s wrong and what you need. Humble yourself in that you might not already know. What you think is your issue may not be the issue at all. There is no need to play mind games with God. You are the child and He is your Father. Father knows best. Believing God is really about getting honest with Him and honest with yourself. Life is way too big with way, way too many variables for you (and me) to figure it out with our own thinking alone. Believing God is about letting God be God and solving for us what we are unable to solve on our own. Look for the red flags of self-focus and become determined to focus on Him. Believing God is not a system or a law. Believing God is a willingness to trust in something higher and bigger than yourself. Believe God!

Just some good thoughts…

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Morning Pages

On By Papa TonyIn Thought4 Comments

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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…

You are where you are…

On By Papa TonyIn belief, living in the moment, new beginning, Thought2 Comments

o-START-WHERE-YOU-ARE-570In a flash of inspiration today it occurred to me that I am where I am. In the world of self-development and positivity, you can get tripped up from time to time. Tripped up because all self-development is a growth process and if you’re going to grow you have to start somewhere. You can smile a lot; say positive things; do your mantras and set your intentions, but you cannot lose track of the reality that today you are where you are.

This may surprise you, but I believe one of the greatest obstacles to your personal growth is in your failure to fully acknowledge who and what you are. You can get so swept away in speaking only of the person you want to be and blow right past the things that give you trouble. You know you have blind spots right? You know there are things that topple your castle with little more than a slight puff of air, right? Well, that’s part of who you are and why make that a bad thing? This where your personal honesty enters the picture. A whole interconnected system of things made you the person that you are and villainizing those sore spots serves only to talk you into not addressing them. Look, you are who you are. That doesn’t mean you are all that you can be, it just means you are at a place and time in your growth and you have to embrace that person before you can morph into a new person. What if instead of hating yourself for your absurdities, you decided they aren’t really the best you, but instead are learning opportunities to help bring out the best you? What if you had the audacity to love all of you, not just the good stuff? Imagine how much easier your life would be if you stopped devoting half your life to being mad at you for being you! Imagine…

My revelation today, amidst a very happy life I might add, is that I’m at a place in life where I know many things but also don’t know many things. It is infinitely easier to admit that I don’t know than to pretend I know; to guess, or analyze myself into oblivion. How much time have I devoted to a pain or a difficulty or a weak spot and have not moved one inch forward toward a solution? That is the clarity and the answer. I don’t have to know and neither do you. For goodness sakes, if you do not know, you do not know. This where my graciously Heavenly Father shows up. He knows and you don’t know. And, if you can stop condemning yourself for a minute and accept what is your reality, you can finally move to a place where change is actually possible. That is true humility, my friends. Humility isn’t just the absence of bragging, it’s acceptance regarding who you are and a willingness to learn something new. It’s the starting line of a race that lasts many years. How silly it would be to start a race in the middle and pretend you had a good start. You have to start somewhere and somewhere is exactly where you are today. What if I’m a bad person? Well, what if you are a good person with some bad parts? What if your bad parts came pre-packaged in your DNA and you had nothing to do with it? What if God knows your DNA and loves you anyway? What if God engineered a plan where your DNA is no longer even a factor?

There’s a tremendous freedom that comes with no longer having to know everything. The true design of life was that you would learn about your God and then He would be responsible to take care of you. That is the life that God envisioned. You were never supposed to be the “be all, end all” of knowledge. Let’s be honest, you couldn’t fix a cut finger by your own efforts. Oh, you could wash the wound and put a band-aid on it, but the real work happens outside of you. All of life works this way. Sure, you have stuff you have to do. Yes, you must work at things and apply your own best efforts! But in the end, someone, somewhere is helping you get where you want to go and He does it whether you believe in Him or not. His heart aches to supply your missing information. He longs to tell you and enlighten you and teach you. He just needs for you to admit you do not know and reach out towards Him, because He does know. He isn’t mad at you because He sees you for who you really are! He looks on your heart; that same heart that is reading this blog; the same heart that knows what I’m telling you is true…

You will be amazed at the transformation your life will take once you finally decide to relieve yourself of the burden of having to already know in exchange for accepting that you don’t know. Deep down you know you don’t know and pretending that you know is exhausting. Acting like you already are something you are not is also exhausting. Conversely, there are many wonderful things you already are, that you also haven’t discovered yet. There is a life waiting for you that encompasses all that you could ever imagine or hope for. You won’t discover it all at once, but that first taste is enough to keep you motivated for a lifetime of discovery!

You are where you are and you are who you are, today but, the promise of tomorrow awaits you! Embrace who you are, the good and the bad, and above all stop trying to know it all. Instead get to know the One who does…

Just some good thoughts…

 

 

The Great Honesty of Your Soul

On By Papa TonyIn belief, ThoughtLeave a comment

Honesty, December 11, 2011There’s a magnificent simplicity to life of which most people are totally unaware. Understanding it completely and thoroughly eliminates all superstition, luck and happenstance. It excludes all circumstances and apparent fortune or misfortune. It is not decided by God or by the devil. It is the law of believing; a law that basically governs your entire life. Your present existence, in all of its variation and complexity, is but the outward working of your inner belief system, or stated more simply, what you choose to believe. And, in order to really tap into its fullness requires a great honesty in your own heart and soul.

As long as you, the individual, attribute any cause other than yourself for the results or lack of results you get in life, you are only deceiving yourself. In truth, you get exactly what you expect to get, nothing more and nothing less. To say that God has already chosen what is going to happen in your life serves only to shift responsibility from yourself to something else. To think that your lack of opportunity and upbringing sets you at an unfair disadvantage implies that circumstance precedes expectation. The only thing that you can control in life is your thoughts, from which grow all of your beliefs. And while every one of us have been inundated and infiltrated with wrong thoughts leading to wrong beliefs, none of us have to remain there unless we persist in blaming and whining and reviling against what is…

If you are honest with yourself; completely and brutally honest, you will see clearly that your life is exactly what you expected it to be. It may suck and you might despise and loathe it, but it is what you thought (most consistently) it would be. If you live in a perpetual struggle always getting less than you thought you should get, you need to take an honest look at the person in the mirror. Somewhere, deep-down your beliefs, contrary to what you truly desire, want something less. Someplace, buried in your heart (from which your believing proceeds) lie hidden beliefs that question your self-worth and your value. Or someone (maybe a lot of someones) succeeded in convincing you that money is hard to come by or a loving relationship is rare or life is hard or the struggle is real or…you name it!

When you peel away all of the disguises and boil down all of the layers, your life is comprised of your beliefs be they good or bad. If they’re bad, you can change them if you will be honest. But, as long as you blame “the man” or “where you live” or “your upbringing and lack of opportunity” “or “lack of education” or that “God doesn’t like you” or “the devil is out to get you,” you will never take the solemn responsibility that belongs to you and to you alone! Instead you’ll spend a lifetime making excuses, pointing fingers and never getting your true needs met! Everyone you have witnessed living their life’s dream has believed to do so. Everyone living with tremendous prosperity believed to be so. The guy, who things seem to always work out for, believes things will always work out. Conversely, the poor guy, who nothing seems to work out for, believes nothing will work out also. Belief is inescapable and perfectly just whether you ever believe in God or not! Believing is the law that governs your life…

Man has been given control of his life, he just remains woefully ignorant of it. He makes decisions based on how things look rather than how he would like them to look. He begs for signs and assurances and in receiving none, chooses poorly. He settles and rationalizes and expects less than he should. When the world tells him what he cannot have, he accepts it without even batting an eye. All the time unaware of his ability to believe and therefore receive. He assigns systems and rules where there are no rules. “If I can just become good enough, surely I will get what I want!” “Maybe if I work hard, really, really, really hard, then can I finally get what I deserve!” Never once considering that what he will get is only what he believes he can get whether he’s good or bad, hardworking or lazy!

All of these great life realities; these fantastic opportunities, can only come about when you finally become honest with yourself. If you are unhappy, then you are unhappy, and you might as well say so. If you are struggling, you are struggling and no amount of fake smiling will make it any easier. If you aren’t getting what you want out of life, you may as well admit it instead of spending another moment pretending or reducing things down to “Well, at least I’m not sick” or “At least I woke up today!” Uggghhhh! How futile? You see, therein comes the great honesty of your soul. For some reason, you and I have been tricked into acting like things aren’t presently the way they are and as such, lying to ourselves. It’s a mental masturbation that satisfies no-one! (LOL forgive me) It’s mental assent that wishes and hopes but never truly believes. It’s a recipe for misery and it doesn’t have to be…

This isn’t criticism and fault-finding for everything I’m telling you, I’m also telling myself! If you can wrap your mind around the unchanging law that what you believe you will receive, then you can finally get honest about what you really want. How can you ever believe for things to get better if you cannot even be honest about how things are? This isn’t anyone’s business but your own. This isn’t a request to start complaining to everyone you meet but rather a request to complain to the management (God)! This is about honesty, great honesty in your own heart and soul.

What can you believe for, for the sky isn’t even the limit! There is no limitation, no lack, no poverty, no sickness where God lives and He lives where you boldly and confidently believe! So, believe my friends, believe!!!

Just some good thoughts…