Tag: Fear not

The Happiness Riddles…

On By Papa TonyIn ThoughtLeave a comment

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…

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Managing Your Expectations Part 2 (Fear Not)

On By Papa TonyIn ThoughtLeave a comment

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…

The Absence of Happiness

On By Papa TonyIn ThoughtLeave a comment

The word absence on missing puzzle piece. Business concept.

Every person living in one capacity or another is on a quest for happiness. Happiness is the hallmark of all human beings. Absent happiness man merely exists. Yet for all that a man seeks for he often fails to eliminate the one thing that hinders and stymies his happiness. He thinks that happiness is something to be pursued rather than something that appears once the obstacles to its attainment are removed. That which obscures and blocks happiness is always fear; fear lived and entertained in the hearts of men. Fear is an illusion and once the illusion has had its way, happiness is lost and will not return until the fear is overcome. Fear is the absence of happiness.

Life is to be lived in motion. As long as a man or a woman keep moving forward, their happiness will continue to appear encouraging them to continue. In contrast, fear works to slow one’s progress and brings men’s lives to a standstill. Fear removes the energy from life by stealing. It is always an illusion, a threat and impedance to the things people really want in their lives. Fear is a parasite leeching enthusiasm and joy from its host. Because it is not real it can only work when people give it energy. Thus entertained it feeds off the one indulging it. People are worn out by fears and worries more so than any hard work or effort. The emptiness and futility a man feels inside comes not because the pursuit of life is futile, but rather because fear causes it to appear so. Fear paints a despairing view of the future which further serves to steal away life. The reason a person feels they have nothing to look forward to in life is because they have believed the illusion. Otherwise what would stop a man or a woman from expecting good things? Fear is also an expectation, but an expectation of bad things instead of the good. The sure sign that fear is holding sway in your heart is the noticeable lack of energy and vitality in your life. Life and enthusiasm return when the fear has been excavated from your mind. There is not a need to do more, be more or pursue more, but instead a requirement to rid yourself of the impediment. Fear, your fear, is the cause for your absence of happiness. Fear is the cause for the absence of happiness in all people.

Fear, the enemy’s greatest weapon, works by deception. In order to overtake your free will, it has to deceive you into cooperating with it. Even a child knows the importance of dealing with various fears as soon as they show up. Children immediately seek an escape from it. Yet adults, presumably because they think they know better, find ways to work around it or dull themselves to its effects. People do all kinds of things to escape from fear except the one thing they need to do which is to eliminate it! People anesthetize themselves with alcohol, drugs, sex, food; anything that offers promise to take away the effects, if even only for a short while. Fear runs the systems of the world and controls the world by fear. These systems, these bulwarks of error, keep men slaves their entire lifetimes. If you want to force a man or a woman to do something, make them afraid. Promote the things that scare them then offer them an antidote which will never take away fear but rather encourage its existence and power over people. Fear is neither natural nor normal, but we act as if it is. There was a time when you were not afraid until you learned to think otherwise. Fear is always learned either by ignorance or by wrong teaching. Remember fear is an illusion, a lie, a falsehood being palmed-off as truth. As such it cannot exist on its own. The only way to counter fear is by learning the truth. The truth brings light and clarity into the situation. You would not fear walking off the edge of a cliff in the daytime, but in the darkness the odds increase greatly. In the same way, once you have light in your mind it becomes much easier to see the fear for what it really is; a groundless, empty threat. Fear is the absence of life; real life.

As you consider these words, you may feel as if they do not apply to you. You think this way because fear has such a stronghold on the way we think that we often can no longer even recognize its existence. Yet the acid test, the true barometer is found by how you live day by day. Are your days full of enthusiasm and energy with boundless possibilities or are your days filled with boredom and declining motivation and negative expectations? Do you wake in the morning excited for the day and what treasures it might bring or do you awaken the same way you always do with little to look forward to, tired of life and its apparently endless struggles? Boredom and listlessness have their roots in fear. Fear puts a cap on your happiness and your ability to find the things that excite you. Similarly, endless worry about things is never benign as worry slows your progress and brings your life to a standstill. Show me a person besieged with boredom for living, finding ways to pass the time and I’ll show you a person that has too much worry and fear in their heart. Absent the fear and worry they would see life for what it is, a precious commodity to be enjoyed and relished. Fear has many levels and a multitude of faces, but its results are always the same, less life, less possibility, less happiness to those in bondage to it. Fear is the absence of possibility.

As with many of the problems with which we encounter, fear being our number one problem, the solution is often found when we finally get honest with ourselves and with God. If your life is miserable for any reason at this present moment, fear is involved in some way. Just get honest and admit it. All of us have fear at one time or another and all of us have been held captive by its claims. There’s no shame in admitting we are afraid. The shame enters in when we allow fear to continue controlling us and defeating us when help is available. Once we finally get honest with ourselves and then with God (who knows anyway), we can find the solutions we need in every case. God would not tell us so many times to “fear not” if He did not also have the answers we need and the power to bring them to pass. With God there is nothing to fear in this life and once we finally escape its clutches we find life, our life and happiness quickly return. In your sincere quest for happiness and enjoyment in life, do the one thing you need to do to ensure its continuance. Abolish and eliminate fear whenever and wherever it appears. Remove it from your heart, that great citadel for your life and find again the life you once enjoyed as a child. Once the fear is gone there is no absence of happiness remaining.

Just some good thoughts…

Can You See It?

On By Papa TonyIn Thought7 Comments

believeI often reference the process of believing God when I write my blogs and I began to wonder if people really understood what it means to believe God. Believing is one of the most simple, natural things in the world. It is not some magical mind activity that we employ when we have a need, nor is it the power of the mind which some erroneously purport. Instead believing is a prerequisite to receiving anything from God. In fact, it is the necessary ingredient in order to bring any good things into our lives. People believe everyday and remain unaware of it. If believing is the key to receiving, then it behooves us all to learn how to believe. In this I ask, can you see it?

Believing is something that all humans do and the result of it can be found in the circumstances of our lives. People that expect to prosper, do prosper despite their upbringing, their education or social status. People that have escaped extreme poverty have done so because they believed they could. Believing is a principle that cannot be broken. Fear is also a form of believing, but it is believing in reverse. Instead of an expectation of blessings and goodness, fear is an expectation for negative things to happen. Fear only produces negative results. What you fear in your heart will manifest itself in your life. If you are afraid of a disease, not just wary of it or uncomfortable about it’s possibility, but truly afraid of it and you incubate those thoughts long enough, you will get that which you have greatly feared, not because God doesn’t love you, but because the principle of believing has already been set. The admonition to fear not is found on the pages of the Bible more than 5,000 times. That should arrest our attention! You and you alone set the limits of your believing. If you believe you can, you can and if you believe you can’t, you can’t. In both instances you are correct. Often in life people think they were born or predetermined to enjoy or not enjoy a certain station in life. They foolishly conclude that prosperity and good things are reserved for other people. Sadly, their expectation has been set by their own hearts; their own expectations. Believing is the reason some people are successful and some people are not. Believing is the reason certain folks live in relative safety while others suffer one calamity after another. God has not decided this for you, you have. God’s will is that you believe Him in order to receive His promises to you. Did you know there are over 900 promises in the Bible for you and for me? Despite our sincerity, God will not and cannot override our free will. Human beings have no power of the mind as I mentioned before, but they do have the power to decide what they will and will not believe. Can you see it?

The how of believing is really quite simple. Believing is a decision we make from our hearts, greatly influenced by the thoughts we choose to think about the most. The world and the great media machine and social media platforms work hard to shape our believing. All day long we are bombarded with images and ideals and are led to form the wrong conclusions. The world, a metaphor for evil at work in the world, informs us of what we can and cannot have. God’s Word also tells us what we can have and it will always be found to be in direct contradiction to what the world is reporting. Thus believing positively is our responsibility and our right as the rightful owners of our own free will. Believing is a verb and, grammar fans, always involves action. If we believe something is going to happen, good or bad, our corresponding actions will align themselves with whatever it is we are believing. If we believe God is going to do something to help us, we will naturally be looking for the help or the solution. If we say we believe God will help us, but do nothing to find that help, we are not believing. We are simply mentally assenting to the truth instead of living the truth. Living the truth means expecting God to do what He said He would do and not stopping until we get what we are believing to get. Again, believing is not difficult or requiring mental gymnastics. If you believe, you act! Expectation is a key you hold to every lock. Believing has no limits as God who honors it in every case has no limits. God is not deciding how much money you can have, your health status, where you can live or even what kind of car you can drive. You are! If God decided what people could have or how far they could go, He would be a respecter of persons and He is no respecter of persons. All of us can believe including the unbelievers and believing equals receiving including those unbelievers. When you observe some dastardly person prospering it is because they also believe and as such, receive. The principle has no respect for who someone is, but rather what they believe. Can’t you see it?

Finally, if you cannot even get your own mind to entertain the idea of getting something you need, you will not be able to receive it. Our minds come complete with imaginations which we control. The reason Jesus told us to have the heart of a child is because children have unlimited and unrestrained imaginations. They can picture what they want, believe and thus can receive it. You too can follow this same process. Our minds work in images. How easy it is for us to picture disasters and negatives, yet how infrequently do we take the time to picture good things? As easy as it is for us to conjure up images of defeat and loss, is as easy as it is for us to “imagine” good. You choose the pictures in your mind. Why not picture yourself having what you need and want? Can you see it? Can’t you picture yourself getting the good job, having plenty of money, enjoying health and having a loving relationship with those you hold most dear? You have to believe first before you see it which means you have to be able to see it in your heart and mind before it comes to pass in your life. Bryce Harper saw himself where he is today, playing in the World Series, (Go Phillies) long before it came to pass in his life. Yet now he gets to live it and enjoy it. Can you see it? The pictures you hold in your mind are a form of believing and there is no limit to what you can imagine. Determine now to begin seeing things you want in your life which serves to root out things you do not want in your life. It’s your mind. Can you see it?

As a great man once wrote, “How have you mentally pictured yourself for the past week, month, year, ten years? The picture that you carry of yourself with clearness and concern is what you are.” Can you see it? You are deciding how your life will turn out by the things you are believing in your heart. If you cannot get your mind to see good then you will have trouble receiving good as you determine what those things will be. Learn to believe positively. Rid yourself of fear whenever and wherever it shows up. Don’t keep waiting for your life to get better, believe (act) for it to get better. Give God something to work with. When you believe God you unleash His unlimited power into your situations. You can have everything you ever wanted if you will only believe. Can you see it?

Just some good thoughts…

Open Wide Your Heart…

On By Papa TonyIn ThoughtLeave a comment

heart openUs human beings have this uncanny approach to life whereby we tend to acclimatize ourselves to our surroundings and habituate a large portion of our existence. When we were young, everything was new and exciting. There was a whole world out there to explore and we looked forward with excited anticipation to where we might find our place in the world. Then life happened and we stopped looking. We traded in our thirst for adventure for the familiar and the well known. As the years passed, unbeknownst to us, we began to put limits on our options and settled in for the mundane. We became slaves to our habits and developed a fixed mindset; a mindset that has little space for the unfamiliar, leaving us with a little too much familiar. The days became longer and longer and our new activities became less and less. Our quest for learning slowed to a standstill and much less our capacity for spontaneity. We just go too old and too afraid of the unknown. In this we closed our hearts off to life and suffered as a result of it. Life was never meant to be endured or survived, but rather a place for endless learning and new adventures. The reason we lost track of that life is because we let our hearts get hard, closed off from the true experience of living. Life never changed, we did. Open wide your hearts!

Living life absent the truth of God’s Word subjects our hearts to a host of wrong ideas, fears and hurts. In defense, or in an attempt at defense or self preservation, we learned to close off our hearts. The world can be a scary place and an open heart feels vulnerable and subject to pain. That same world taught us to harden our hearts, to lessen risk wherever possible and to play it safe. We were told to content ourselves with the mediocre and be thankful simply to be alive as opposed to really living. We thought we were getting wiser, but in actuality were being talked out of life. One by one our happinesses and enjoyments were curtailed in favor of the responsible existence. The messages, “watch out now” “be careful” and “be safe” became our new mantra. Young folks rarely make such statements as the world has not yet convinced them of the danger in everything. And while being reckless has its own painful lessons, adhering to nothingness is even worse. How do you get to the place where you go to work for someone else’s dream, exert your energy for that dream, then come home, go to bed and wake up to do it all over again? You can’t do anything fun on a weeknight because it is a weeknight. God forbid you go to work a little sleepy. Any fun that there is, is reserved for a few hours on the weekend. There’s not a category of life that hasn’t been diminished by some expert or had its dangers extolled and repeated. In this people cease to live and end up enduring the hours of their remaining life. 

The culprit most famous for closing hearts is always fear. Fear closes off all the outlets until all that is left is you stuck inside alone. One by one, fear takes something from you until you have nothing left. Fear steals your fun, your thirst for life, your love of learning, your energy, your time, your enthusiasm and your health. Fear always limits your options. Fear makes you choose three things instead of a hundred things. Fear sets your prosperity limits and your means to enjoy your life. Fear makes you poor both metaphorically and literally. Fear is behind the boredom you endure because it talked you into what you can and cannot do, always emphasizing what you cannot do! In a life so full and rich, with so much infinite variety of experience, there is always, always so much more. You don’t see it nor can you experience it because of your fear. Open wide your heart by getting rid of fear. 

The only way to life is to seek out the Author of Life. Don’t waste your time with religion or any practice that always aims at you and your imperfections. Instead seek Him who is perfect. Seek the very source of life and experience. And in order to find Him, though He be not very far from any one of us, you have to open your heart. You have to be willing to learn something new. You have to be just as willing to unlearn that great edifice of error that has been built into your mind. You have to rid yourself of fear with all that you are. You have to learn a new and a living way. Every one of your lost pleasures and your lost treasures can be found in Him. He knows the person you really are and all that He put into your heart to do. You have a purpose and your life has meaning, deep rich, enduring meaning. There is vastly more life to live than you have days left to live. You just have not yet been able to see it. What questions have long plagued your heart? What things do you so desperately need? What needs His restoration and healing power? Riches and honor are in His left hand and in His right hand, pleasures forevermore. Open wide your heart. 

The path to the life you wish to live runs through your heart. Open it back up again and let it heal. Give out that love and kindness you have inside and don’t reserve it only for the little ones. Be a wave of warmth and goodness to the people you meet and let your light shine. Be lavish in your praise and hearty in your approbation. (Thanks Dale Carnegie). Be the goodness you want to see in the world. Be the person, hurting people need the most and be it with your whole heart. All that you could have ever wished for in your life will come through your open heart. Open wide your heart…

Just some good thoughts. 

Anxious for Nothing…

On By Papa TonyIn Thought4 Comments

There’s a thing going around in the world today called anxiety and almost everybody has it in one capacity or another. The question isn’t whether or not anxiety exists, but rather can you do anything about it. Feeling anxious and troubled is not just a normal part of life, but instead is a learned behavior. You may never find yourself completely free from anxiety’s assaults, but you can learn how to overcome it and its effects over your life. Be anxious for nothing!

It likely seems incredulous to you that you could live today without any anxiety about anything. Imagine getting to a place where feeling anxious was the exception rather than the rule. Anxiety in its lowest common denominator is fear. However, it’s not an overt fear that is in your face threatening you with some negative outcome. Instead it is a hidden, veiled fear. It is fear misplaced. It’s a foreboding feeling of doom based on nothing you can put your finger on. It is feeling unsettled or uncomfortable with something, somewhere, somehow. At best it is unpleasant and people do all kinds of things to minimize its effects. Anxiety leads to avoidance and procrastination. Anxiety, the child of fear, promotes inaction! Anxiety suggests it is better to do nothing about something that is troubling you rather than to take it on. Anxiety presumes defeat or hardship in advance and proclaims loss before the contest starts. Anxiety is not the negative result, it is the threat of a negative result. And sadly, for many it is debilitating.  Feeling anxious is “just” a feeling. It’s not a reality, it is a feeling. It is internal dread about something that has been cleverly designed to frighten you. But, like any feeling, it can be overcome similar to boredom, discouragement or any other feeling that we wish to avoid at all costs.

If you were to carefully and thoughtfully trace back your thoughts that led to anxiety, working though the layers and the subtle promptings; the pieced together misinformation; the false connections and associations, you would see it for what it really is – a lie. It doesn’t seem untrue because of how you feel when you experience it. It can be very, very convincing. But, it isn’t pointing to some pending reality heading your direction. It is highlighting something you have let go. Anxious feelings are always an indicator of something you have let go. The first step in overcoming anxiety isn’t to dig through the confused spaghetti bowl of feelings and sensations. It is to confront the negative possibility the first time it shows up! By the time you are experiencing anxiety, the seeds have long since been planted. It happened long before you started feeling anxious! In the midst of anxiety, you have to ride it out; changing your thinking with perseverance until your feelings catch up. We are so schooled to revere our feelings that we accept them as truth rather than as indicators. Anxious feelings communicate that you have let something go.

The cure for anxiety is action. Take action on whatever it is you are letting go! What’s the point of all of that thinking and analysis if you aren’t going to do anything about it? You can think yourself into a full on panic attack! What things in your life are you ignoring? What do you need to handle that you have been putting off? And, why the hell are you putting it off? It will not go away on its own… Take it on! Solve it. Try to solve it. Bring it up. Handle it. Be honest with yourself! Be honest with other people. Take the time to get “it” fixed. Resolve it in your own mind. Answer the damn question once and for all. Quit drifting. Stop putting up with it. Cease waiting around for something that isn’t going to happen. Put an end to endless prayers that have no action on your part involved. Get sick and tired of being sick and tired. Have the conversation you have been avoiding. Make a move. Pay the bill. Look for the job. Go to the doctor. Do something! Otherwise, you will find yourself living in a riddle that will never be solved on its own. You don’t have to know what to do already. But, you do have to do something!

It is not God’s will for you to be anxious all the time or for that matter anytime… God, His Word, His love is the only real lasting solution to your anxiety. Look, life is big and chock full of scary shit! There are a multitude of things that could go wrong. You and your human mind are no match for what you are really up against. You are not smart enough or strong enough to measure up to the fight! You will not be able to reason or logic your way out of the potential downfalls. You won’t be able to do it. As long as you think your victory is all on you, you are guaranteed to lose. God did not design life that way. You can’t pull up enough bootstraps to get the job done! The solution, the best solution for anxiety is to stop trying so hard to figure it all out and give all of that crap to God to figure out. Just hand it over. Tell him about your situation (that He already knows about) and leave it with him to solve. Then, get busy living and doing and taking actions. 90% of your defeat lies within your persistent consideration of the dreadful outcome. Read that sentence again! Your problem isn’t what is going to happen, your problem is what you think (fear) is going to happen! Hand it over and make some moves. What is the worst that could happen? Have you ever met anyone that worried themselves out of their problems? Be anxious for nothing (no thing), but in everything (every thing) let your requests be made known unto Him (God) and enjoy the wonderful peace that follows!

Be anxious for nothing. That is living your best life…

Just some good thoughts…

Spread a Little Sunshine…

On By Papa TonyIn ThoughtLeave a comment

The Corona Virus pandemic has certainly done a fine job of screwing with everyone’s minds in various proportions. Some folks have taken to buying one hundred toilet paper rolls guaranteeing unlimited wiping for the foreseeable future. Others have seen fit to hoard bread and soup and even the spices. Salt anyone? Oddly, bottled water has reached an epic peak as preparation for Armegeddon marches on! Some geographic locales have locked the populace down entirely for fear of an increased spread. Whatever the reactions, ranging from mild annoyance over lost conveniences to abject terror, ye old virus has done a dandy on the minds of Americans. So, what the hell can you do about it?

First, it is important to put things in their proper perspective. Things like this have been happening in the world almost since time began. There have been world wars and rumors of wars. There have been plagues and other health vexations for centuries. There have been catastrophes of unparalleled proportions. The threat of nuclear annihilation only just recently fell out of fashion. In short, there is always something going wrong, somewhere, to some people. It is all a million variations of the same threat, namely fear. Fear has no logical endpoint, because as soon as one fear is overcome, another pops up to take its place. Fear doubles down on bad circumstances and invites more and more disaster. Fear seeks to convince you there is nothing you can do about a situation; severely limits your options and boldly asserts that God is dead! But, God is not dead my friends and He is inifintely bigger than any dreadful thing that rises up against you. Fear is a liar from the father of lies. Remaining in fear you cannot hope to win. Fear is negative outcomes accepted and believed before they come to pass. Fear is truly your only enemy!

In the midst of trying circumstances, you really have only one responsibility. Stop being afraid. Fear not! Fear will have you engaged in all kinds of crazy shit! (toilet paper anyone? – pun intended) Decisions made in fear are not decisions at all, but rather forced behaviors you neither chose or agreed to. Fear is a bully taking advantage of your mind and your human tendency towards futility. I mean, how much control do you really think you have over world events? What could you possibly do in your little reasoning machine to effect any change over what is going on? You cannot wish away negative circumstances, but you can sure as hell refuse to participate any longer. Do you really think that you or a scientist or the medical profession can have any serious, lasting impact over things that are based in the spiritual realm? The only thing that defeats spiritual negativity is spiritual positivity! In other words, instead of furthering the spread of negativity and fear, you must learn how to spread a little sunshine instead. Literally, shed some light on the subject. Be part of the solution. Wake up, stand up and get out there expecting something good to happen. You may not change the world, but you can change how things are going to work out for you. You are the only thing you can control. Instead of falling in line with the other sheep heading towards the cliff, turn around. Go the other way. Decide, “not me boy” and get out there and live.

It has been my experience that God can turn anything around if enough people can get behind that notion. I’m quite sure God is very familiar with what is going on right now. I’m also sure He loves your loved ones at least as much as you do. If you got sick, I’m quite sure He could heal you. Nothing that ever happens comes as a surprise to God. He has foreknowledge which means He already knows. And because He knows, He also has a solution for you. Your job is not to try and wrangle with fear, but instead trust God and find the solution. The alternative is almost certain defeat. God is infinitely bigger than anything you will ever come up against! Trusting God means making a decision to stop being afraid. Then, in response to that, let that shit go Elsa! (Peloton reference) Walk away from it. Let it go! Don’t worry yourself over it for another second. If there is nothing God can do when faced with a world pandemic, He certainly wouldn’t be much of a God, would He? Well, there is something He can do, but you have to learn to trust Him and let Him do it! Start spreading a little sunshine…

This too will pass. One day you will look back on this time and wonder how you let it get you so shook up. But, you will have wasted a lot of time in churning and stressing over something you had no control over. If you think about; I mean really consider it, nothing you have ever feared was ever within your realm of control. At some point, hopefully, you decided to let it go. Trusting God is always about letting it go. Just as you have enjoyed a beautiful day basking in the sunshine, put that sunshine on in your mind today. Inject some light into your thinking. Stop reasoning with potential catastrophes and walk in the light. Walk in the sunshine feeling the warmth of the One that invented sunshine. There’s a reason sunny days make you feel so happy. It is God, don’t you see it? It is God enlightening and uplifting your life. Sure, we may have some hardships to endure, but just as there are rains and storms in life, the sun always comes back out. It has to…

I, like you, am not sure what lies ahead. I have also considered economic collapse, sickness and mass misery in the days ahead. But, I haven’t considered it for very long! I decided I am going to continue spreading the sunshine, no matter how dark it gets, because my life isn’t based on what things look like, but rather on the promises of God. You too, my friend, can spread the sunshine. Help somebody else out and get your mind off yourself. Bless people, love people and remember God is bigger, much, much bigger… There will always be a way out for us. Believe that and spread a little sunshine instead…

Just some good thoughts…

Thinking for a Change…

On By Papa TonyIn Thought2 Comments

Did you know that your experience of life takes place almost entirely in that thinking mechanism between your two ears. Oh sure you have your senses to help you, but even then those sensations translate into thoughts. Your thoughts literally color your existence. If your thoughts are positive and helpful, they can make your life joyous and blessed. But, if your thoughts are negative and fearful, they can distort your life into a living hell. But, here’s the catch, your thoughts are constantly filtering, highlighting and ignoring. They focus in on things you have previously identified as important and they blow past things you deem unimportant or in ignorance, chose not to see. How you think is how you live…

If you haven’t noticed by now, I can’t seem to get very far away from this topic. Your thoughts literally influence how your life turns out, yet it remains one of the greatest secrets in the world today. All of us think, all day every day and sometimes in the middle of the night, yet somehow still haven’t made the connection. We still drag along thinking poorly, whining and complaining, worrying and entertaining fearful considerations, without ever taking full ownership of our thoughts. It never seems to dawn on us, being the only creatures capable of thought, holding the ability to imagine the future, how unique we are in all of God’s creation! We never fully comprehended the idea that maybe in our unique position there is something we are responsible to do with our thoughts. And in not knowing, we let those babies run like a ship on the ocean during a storm. We believe that our own thoughts; yes our own thoughts, sort of tell us what is actually going on and that those thoughts are not to be questioned. Thus we live in perpetual confusion being blown about as the chance winds gust in our lives. But, we occupy and steer the helm…

The reason people say, “life sucks and then you die,” is because their thoughts suck (and then they die). They live in a negative world, run by a negative energy source, ever scheming and plotting to set up conditions that appear to be true, in order to negatively influence people’s thoughts. And, if you don’t mind me saying, they do a damn fine job! The whole world reels in a perpetual misery as captives and victims by a hidden, yet persistent enemy. They trust scientists and doctors and scholars and influencers more than they trust God. They have succumbed to the systems of the world and thus live in never-ending torture from it. They are literally scared of everything…everything! All day long they mope about only half engaged, besieged by the latest thing that is going to get them, end their life early, or take something away that they enjoy. And, that is all they can think about. While recognizing that they probably aren’t going to change the world (God will fix that up later), they can change something and that something is their life. You can change your life…

Learning to control and change your thinking is an absolute necessity. You already know the old let it run mentality doesn’t work. Recognizing and changing your thoughts isn’t about trying to make everything positive. It’s sort of obvious that everything in life isn’t positive. We all have to deal with negative realities in varying intensities, yet we don’t have to be controlled by these events. In fact, with God’s help, we can overcome everything that has ever assailed us…everything! Learning how to think properly involves first of all figuring out what is actually true. Maybe the biggest lie you will ever be confronted with in your life is that something is true because it looks true or seems true or feels true. Things in the world are manipulated and controlled to deceive humans (not by God of course). The reason your life isn’t working out how you wanted it to work out is because you are believing and acting upon those thoughts as if they were true. Then, in your mind those thoughts turn into beliefs and beliefs are powerful, good and bad. You were always in control of your own beliefs, but you just didn’t know it…

Controlling your thinking can be basically boiled down to thinking what God (who invented you) tells you to believe versus what something else is talking you into believing. “Fear not” is by far the number one admonition in the Bible. Fear has ruined more people’s lives than any other thing. Fear, which does not come from God, is believing or expecting something negative to happen. The more you engage in it, the more you persist in it, the more likely that terrible thing is going to manifest in your life! Look, the devil hates everybody, but he needs your cooperation in order to defeat you. You cooperate by entertaining fearful thoughts. Don’t you see it? It’s your fear that is holding you back and messing things up. Now logically, in order to beat fear you have to trust in something bigger than yourself. Without God’s help, we should all be damn afraid! But, with God’s help and only by God’s help, we can finally overcome every fear that ever challenged us and live out our lives in the beautiful way God imagined for us. You can experience joy and love. You can experience the peace that passes understanding. But, you have to learn how to control your thoughts, change your thoughts, challenge your thoughts…

Oh my friends, your life awaits you. Put your hands firmly on the helm of thought. Take your control back. Take your thoughts back. Think how God says to think and in your obedience see if all that He promised you is true. You experience your life through the filter of your thoughts and when those thoughts become beliefs and those beliefs are true, you will completely revolutionize your life. It can be done. It will be done. How you think is how you live. Think for a change…

Just some good thoughts…

 

Who is Driving Your Bus? (Revisited)

On By Papa TonyIn ThoughtLeave a comment

There are only two basic motivators in life, love and fear. The life you are experiencing at this very moment in time is built upon the driving force behind your life. Love motivation is incapable of failing. Fear motivation, though appearing to feel safe and responsible, leads only to failure. If things aren’t going well for you it’s time to answer the question, “Who is driving your bus?”

Fear has become so prevalent, so accepted by society that most people think it is normal. Or worse, many people find themselves completely oblivious to the reality that fear is lying hidden behind most of the decisions they make. The world is indeed a scary place. There are so many things that can go wrong, some with catastrophic results. Recognizing, on their own, their apparent inability to control their own lives, people resort to fear of those negative outcomes and then take actions to try and alleviate those fears. Those actions encompass a whole, delusional world of behaviors all offered in response to something that was a lie to begin with. Fear, on its own, is not real. However, once a fear is believed and strengthened by actions associated with that fear, it takes on a life of itself. Most of the failures and difficulties that assault mankind, could have been remedied by a refusal to fear. Fear is indeed man’s greatest enemy.

All that a man receives into his life comes as a result of what he believes in the core of his being. That doesn’t mean that a man is specifically expecting certain negative outcomes, but rather that his belief that those outcomes could happen to him, open the door to all kinds of disasters. Those people you see living well do so by the things they believe for themselves. It isn’t that they are more highly favored than you per se,’ but rather that they maintain an expectation for the good in life and act accordingly. Thinking you were predestined to some sad life of failure and disappointment, isn’t a fate assigned to you by God, but instead some serious errors in thinking that led eventually to a belief. And once negatively believed (fear), the cycle plays itself out in infinite reality. The solution is to stop sending that negative information to your mind. Change your mind. You aren’t being mature, realistic or responsible, you are being afraid!

Free-will to believe is one of the greatest gifts God could have ever given to man. It is God’s solution. It is God’s answer. It is your God-given ability to take back control of your life. It is the most basic tenet of life; believe and fear not. When you disobey and choose fear, either by ignorance or wrong teaching, you receive the consequences of your choice. You receive negative results. You are misusing what God gave you. You are not properly stewarding your mind. For, out of your heart come the issues of your life! You cannot co-exist with fear. It doesn’t matter if anyone knows or doesn’t know you are afraid of things. You can put on the greatest persona ever seen, but in the end, you know when you are afraid and if persisted in it will produce a bad outcome in your life.

Fear can only be overcome by love. Actions based on love never fail to yield positive results. God is love. Learning to believe God’s promises allows God to perform those promises in your life. The dread of something horrible happening to your child cannot be salved by your million-fold efforts to protect him or her. Life is just too big for you to accomplish your mission. In fact, you likely do your children a huge disservice by teaching them to be afraid as well. Instead of worrying yourself into anxiety, you learn to trust God and believe what He says about protecting your family. Then, you act on that belief. You give them to God and leave them in His hands. In so doing and so acting, you have chosen love over fear and reap the blessed result of safe, happy children. You may apply this principle to everything that ever shook you up or took away your sleep.

You may not believe it yet, but God never intended for you to “do life” on your own! You have likely already proven this to yourself. How much failure and disappointment can one person endure? How long can you go on living without any real purpose in life? When is the last time you felt truly peaceful without a care in the world? Your life, if it lacks contentment and joy, is so because you are making decisions based on fear. You, as the playwright, are continuing to write a story wherein you always end up the loser! Then you blame life or worse God for an existence you are producing. But, no matter what has happened to you; no matter where you are today; no matter how far down the rungs of life you have fallen, there is always a solution. The solution is love, God’s love and all that accompanies that love!

Now hear what I’m saying! If you feel like your boss doesn’t like you and that makes you afraid, instead of spending your days fawning and sucking up (fear), believe for a new boss or a new job! If you are worried about diseases, stop reading up on them, stop dwelling on them, stop accepting their possibility in your life (fear). Instead believe God’s promises for your health and don’t give them another thought. (You would be surprised how many fears go away simply by refusing to think about them). If you are scared of not having your needs met (fear), stop telling everyone how poor you are and how you can never get ahead. Instead, confess those positive promises of prosperity in your life and act accordingly.

You see, at the end of the day, you only have one bus to drive and you are the driver! Take back the wheel of the bus! When you live in fear, you give control of your bus over to someone or something else. Instead of negotiating and choosing behaviors based on fear, just get back in the bus and start driving again! Whose driving your bus? I hope it’s you and that you are doing it with love…

Just some good thoughts…

The Psychology of Fear…

On By Papa TonyIn belief, facebook, Fear, ThoughtLeave a comment

imagesIt’s ironic to me that fear, which exists only in the mind of man, has such a powerful influence over the American people of today. Good ol’ Murica is literally scared to death. When fear is introduced, logic leaves the building. There’s no more sound thinking, rational thought or anything that even resembles a normal cognitive process. And, during this woefully sad circus called election season, the only real threat to so-called “ruining” our country is fear.

Fear in its true essence is nothing more than false evidence appearing real. It’s false evidence because that which people fear has not happened yet. But, in order for false evidence to gain a foothold in people’s minds it must also appear real. Fear has not always been a part of man’s existence. It first entered the scene when the original man separated himself from God and in so doing allowed entrée to a manner of thinking which formerly didn’t exist. And, ever since that fateful day, fear has been hard at work ruining people’s lives. Fear demands you react to a problem which isn’t yet a problem. The choices you make in response to fear are always wrong! However, the illusion of fear, once believed, is on its way into becoming a reality. What a person believes, they will receive into their life, positive and negative alike and the false evidence then, frightfully, turns into real evidence.

Nothing lights a fire under the American people faster than fear. The message of fear threatens your existence, your happiness, your peace. So, if you want to garner votes, simply scare the hell out of the people. Tell them of dangers that don’t exist. Carefully craft your messages and add in unhealthy doses of pending doom and disaster. When someone questions your message, accuse them of lying and then get back to the business of fear. Sound familiar?

The tenuous threat of fear aside, the ultimate trouble comes from the illogic that naturally follows it. Absent logic, the only choice left is insanity. Insanity and illogic is exhausting. Every parent knows that reasoning with a child whose not yet capable of reasoning is a foolish endeavor. Yet, that’s exactly where we are today! What would be considered horrible or distasteful or just plain wrong, somehow becomes acceptable because fear and illogic are at the helm. Without sound reasoning in place, up becomes down, left becomes right and black morphs into white. And, in a world where things no longer have meaning, what would you expect?

What I’m setting before you today folks is much bigger than politics. This is about your life, your freedom, your ability to pursue happiness. The reason America became great is because of the collective beliefs of its citizens. Its forefathers had the holy boldness to pursue a new way. They weren’t afraid to break away from the regimes of fear and bondage. They envisioned a land that would be tolerant of all people and all beliefs and fought hard to obtain it. And now, this great empire is threatened, not from factions of terrorists or illegal aliens or even racism, but more directly from the individual fears of the citizens united together to become collective fear, which however false, will become reality if persisted in. The psychology of today’s America is fear!

The solution to this grand dilemma is not found in arguing, fighting and threatening. However much you want to slap the good sense back into people, it wouldn’t matter anyway. Once people are afraid and continue to feed on that fear, their minds have become unstable. Just look around you. It’s pretty obvious in’t it? Instead, your job, your only reasonable job is to refuse to be a part of their fear. Once fear exits the picture, sound thought returns. I certainly don’t purport to be the smartest person around, but one thing I’m not, is afraid! The only true solution to your own fear is a return to love; to compassion; to sound thinking. Stop being so damn worried about some segment of society that’s going to get you! Nothing is going to get you if you trust God. It really doesn’t matter if the whole damn thing goes to hell if God’s got your back! He’ll make a way for you, no matter what it looks like.

You sir, you madam, get out of the fear business! Put love back into your heart. Return yourself to kindness, to encouragement, to love. Quit letting the great societal fear make your decisions for you. Stop stockpiling your weapons and preparing for Armageddon. Cease in your doomsday preparations. The wheels haven’t fallen off the bus yet, they just want you to think they have. You, in your life, decide the wheels are still on the bus. Be honest with yourself. Is your life, the way you have been living, really so awful? Is your corner of the globe really a “disaster?” Is the America where you reside truly been ruined by a neighbor that wears a turban? Does someone’s different beliefs threaten your beliefs? Is the truth of God somehow negated by another person’s error? Illogic people, you must rid yourself of the insanity.

Our great God that made America great isn’t out of business. But, your fear will negate His ability to protect you and help you. Don’t allow false evidence to turn into real evidence. Stop looking over your shoulder for something that is going to get you. Instead, walk out boldly with your head held high knowing that it is God who watches over your life. Refuse the psychology of fear and return to the true essence of being an American. Be a badass!

It is election season, so get your butt out there and vote. But, more important than deciding on a candidate, decide on what it is you will and will not believe. The individual believing of one person can turn the whole world right-side up. Imagine the possibilities if the majority of us believe.

Replace the psychology of fear with the psychology of love. You won’t be sorry. You’ll be blessed!

Just some good thoughts…