Tag: healing

It Is What It Is…

On By Papa TonyIn Thought2 Comments

As a burgeoning human being, you have this wonderful capacity not only to experience your life as it is, but also to imagine what your life might become in the future. Being marvelously unique, your awareness comes from within with all of the associations and connections you can muster based almost exclusively from your own perspective. Things that are labeled good or bad to you, may represent an entirely different meaning to someone else. For this reason, it can be difficult at times to perceive things as they really are absent your own internal persuasions. Thus, in order to make any meaningful changes, it necessitates you first see things clearly and accurately minus all of the meanings you are likely assigning to those things. Truly, when it comes to improving, repairing, healing or restoring any good thing, you first have to see it and accept it for what it is. It is what it is…

Calling a thing a thing, as a famous lady once remarked, is at the foundation of problem solving any situation you may find yourself in. Said another way, you cannot fix what you refuse to acknowledge. Ignoring problems, glossing over bad situations, refusing to accept that something is not right, only leads towards difficulties and unpleasant times persisting. If we are honest, we already know when circumstances have gone south on us. We know when a good thing has lost its goodness. Deep down our hearts already know when there’s a disturbance; a misconnect; impediments and obstacles. The reason we fail to act on the obvious is because we desperately cleave to another narrative; one where things are still okay even though we know they are not okay. A narrative that assures us nothing has changed but instead has simply become familiar. And, onward we trudge, inching ahead, hoping something or someone will make it all right. Our failure is in being afraid to see things as they already are. It is what it is.

It does not require a PhD or some other form of higher learning to recognize that nothing in life is static. Everything is ever in a continual state of flux. Living things are either growing or they are dying, but they are not remaining the same. Change isn’t something to be afraid of as everything changes in one capacity or another. They key in successfully navigating the change is found in our willingness to observe what actually is and then seek to make improvements or repairs or whatever the situation calls for at the time. People change sometimes for the good, sometimes for the not so good. Circumstances change. Conditions change. You cannot apply the logic of ten years ago to the scenarios of today. Neither can you compare yourself of today to yourself of the past as the variables of today, though eerily similar, are not the same. Time and chance have happened to them all. For this reason, the only plausible way to endeavor is by addressing your life experiences now in the thousand eyed present, not in the single eyed view of the past. It doesn’t matter what you did before, what matters is what you do now. It doesn’t matter what used to work, it matters what works now. It doesn’t matter who you used to be, it matters who you are today. Your problem is what it is today and the only time to solve it is today. It is what it is…

If you would like God to heal your broken arm, you must first acknowledge that your arm is broken. If you want God to heal your broken heart, you have to admit to yourself that your heart is broken. It’s not so much that over time things break, but rather that you are honest enough to accept what is, not what used to be. It is not being positive or renewing your mind to lie to yourself about your reality. Renewing your mind, like being positive, is about applying God’s solutions to the things that plague you, those things that have become broken over time. How foolish it is to apply some cheery resolve to a problem rather than to see it and say it and determine within yourself to work it out. Insisting that you already know what to do or what you cannot do based on some tired, former assessment of a situation that has already changed a hundred times, leads only to a futile resolve to stay stuck, mired in some vague notion formed in the past. It is what it is…

Solving relationship problems, solving financial problems, solving achievement problems, solving health problems, indeed solving spiritual problems requires that you finally allow yourself to see it for what it is. It doesn’t matter if it is your fault or someone else’s fault, the world’s fault or the devil’s fault. What matters most is that you stop being afraid to admit something has gone wrong and then taking the steps to make it right. Why carry with you all of your former excuses and justifications, your rationales and myriad former failed attempts? Why insist on cleaving to a bad strategy that didn’t work before and isn’t working now? Why? Why not, while fully accepting and acknowledging the problem, try to see the situation through fresh eyes, with clarity, focused not on continuing to be right or begrudgingly absolving yourself of any responsibility and choose not rather to locate the remedy, no matter the cost. Sometimes the solutions are right there in front of you, patiently waiting for you to release what was in favor of what is. It is what it is…

At the end of the day, we all want to be happy, to be fulfilled, to be blessed. We all want deepening and enduring love. We all want to succeed and to prosper and to live life to the absolute full. This life is far too short to continue tripping over our own selves and our own stubborn refusal to see things for what they really are. With God’s help we can solve anything, heal anything or recover anything that has become broken or damaged over time.

It is what it is, but it doesn’t have to stay that way…

Just some good thoughts…

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2021 – It’s a New Year

On By Papa TonyIn ThoughtLeave a comment

2020 was a tough year by all reasonable accounts. The Covid pandemic lead to a lot of suffering for people and in some cases even death. Businesses struggled, some to never return. All manner of entertainment was curtailed, eating out became a luxury limited to certain restaurants appropriately spaced. The sports we all love to watch were shut down then brought back carefully with restrictions and little to no audience in attendance, played in bubbles and stadiums with cardboard cutouts. Work was conducted from home where possible and we all became adept at video meetings (You’re on mute!) Travel changed, shopping changed, and life changed as folks struggled to comply with mandates yet still participate in being a human. Yet, for all the damage done to people’s lives during this past year, the most sinister of all was the sense of hopelessness, fatigue and generalized anxiety about how this was all going to turn out. The promised vaccine became our only hope as every sniffle and every cough warned us that we may have somehow gotten infected. Will 2021 offer more of the same or is there something, anything we can do?

Ever since the beginning of time, mankind has been subjected to evil in its multifarious forms and disguises. Pandemics, like plagues are not new. People being afflicted with sickness and dying prematurely are not new. Add to that catastrophes, unthinkable accidents, so called, storms and floods and hurricanes and tornadoes, earthquakes and basically anything you can think of that succeeds in capturing and enslaving the minds of man. The reason man becomes enslaved by fear is because he has no avenue for safety, no answer of peace in the face of trouble, no help from anything outside of himself, or so he concludes. In the pandemic of 2020 the number one product for sale is fear. See it for yourself. If you wear a mask, a story comes along of a person who got it while wearing a mask. If you got past it somewhat, a story comes along about people with lasting symptoms that never go away. If you made it through with little or no symptoms, a story comes along of someone who got it again, this time only worse. Now, reportedly the vaccine is only partially effective and of course there’s no guarantee a new strain won’t get you as well! At some point it has to dawn on you that this shit has no logical end point that you can see, or so it appears.

Why do I recount all these things you are well aware of already? Because at some point you have got to get honest and recognize that you alone are virtually powerless against a carefully hidden spiritual opponent when you try to take him on with science, and human will-power, your sense knowledge reasoning and all of the smart ideas presented before you for your careful consideration. That’s not to say that you don’t do your best and follow recommendations etc., but at some point you have to break out of that fear hole and go visit your elderly parents! At some place you have to realize, without being foolish and cavalier, that the fear and worry become your problem. In some way, that only you can define, you have to finally admit that this life with all of its potential pitfalls and dangers is too large to tackle on your own. God bless you for trying, but it’s bigger than you and it’s bigger than me. The enemy of mankind has had thousands of years to hone his craft and he is damn good at it. How many people, do you imagine, are sitting at home right now, no longer living and experiencing life, scared to death to move, touch anything or go outside? Maybe you are one of those people. Don’t despair my brothers and my sisters, there is something you can do about it.

Since the beginning of time and eons before that, God has been well skilled in delivering, healing and rescuing His people. God knows how to solve every problem you have ever had because He sees what is behind your problem; the real cause. God has foreknowledge, which means He knows what is going to happen ahead of time; which also means He heard your prayer you just prayed, long, long ago and did something for you to prepare what you needed. God is all powerful and backs down to no-one or no thing! And, since time began, He has been endeavoring to get that message to you; a message of love. He has, through a variety of different means, including the exquisite, perfectly ordered natural world, been seeking to get your attention. The perfection of the creation alone points to something vast and incredibly intelligent. Add to that all the little clues that come your way when you need them including so called happenstance and coincidences. Not even to mention the perfection of His Word, the Bible, that all seem to know about, but few seek to really understand. Yet man, arrogantly and incredulously still endeavors to take life on, on his own. He reads and studies and researches solutions every where but the one place where the solutions exist. Again, God bless you if you are determined to go it alone. God bless you if you think you can, by your sincere efforts, crack the code and figure it out. But, as a humble human who knows his limitations, I’m here to say you aren’t going to figure it out, absent help from God.

Do you want to make 2021 something awesome and enjoyable and blessed? Get God involved in your life. I mean really involved not just adding rituals or agreeing to go to church. Reach out from your heart and get some help, the help you so desperately need. I don’t know about you, but I need something more than a mask and the hope of a vaccine to help me sleep at night. God will hear your prayers and He has been waiting for you to ask! He loves you more than you can comprehend and is more than willing to help you. Once you start on your own quest for answers, you will see that you no longer need to live in fear, and that God is living and real and intimately involved in your life, if you want Him to be. There’s no problem or malady that He cannot resolve for you; none. Then, collectively we can believe for this scourge to finally be resolved and get back to living how we want to live.

Get some help man. Get some assistance lady. You aint big enough to try and do this thing alone! God bless you, you just aren’t! But, God is…

I love you…

 

Taming Your Wild and Crazy Mind…

On By Papa TonyIn Thought, thoughts2 Comments

your-thoughtsI suppose it wouldn’t matter much what you thought about if your thoughts had no effect on your life. If your life wasn’t governed by what you believe and what you believe wasn’t determined by what you think about the most, there would be no point in trying to get that unruly beast (your mind) under control. But alas, your thoughts do form the basis of what you believe and what you believe deep in your heart is the wellspring from which your entire life flows out (or lack thereof).

Of all of the things in life you can control, nothing is more important or potentially life-giving than controlling your thoughts. It’s almost amusing to most folks, this insane notion that you can control your thoughts. In these frenetic times of visual, electronic images, overloaded and multiplied indefinitely, available in front of you, on your side and in your hand; calm, singular and controlled thought is highly discouraged or even considered boorish. Well, don’t you believe that for a second!

Many people today just sort of limp through life. They drag along day by day filled with anxiety, stress, depression, boredom and a general lack of zest for living. And sadly, they’ve done it for so long that they think that’s just the way life is. They fail, disastrously, to make the connection between what appears in their life and what they think about the most. Subsequently, your life may be summed up in one simple question. “What do you believe is going to happen in your life?” If life for you is one continuous stream of things going wrong, negative events occurring, and disasters looming over the horizon, you have to ask yourself what kind of thoughts have you been incubating in your mind. Fear and anxiety are not a natural part of life, they are aberrations that come about by entertaining and focusing on the wrong things. Then when the catastrophe strikes, you exclaim, “I knew it!” Well, you did know it because you cooperated with “it” by allowing it to remain in your thinking. Disaster, catastrophe, hardship, difficulty and pain are not random at all, though they appear to be. They are pointed and specific and come about by man’s cooperation with evil by failing to control what he will and will not think about or failure to properly believe what is true. Man absent the truth is an anxiety machine ever churning out products to his own suffering.

Life in its simplest form boils down to two distinct realities; light and darkness, love and fear, good and evil, right and wrong, truth and error; all an alternate way to say the same thing.  As you live your own life, you are making decisions and choices everyday. You don’t get what you want, you get what you choose. If you choose to persist in something you know is wrong, no matter how rebellious, apathetic or careless you feel about it, you will continue to get the wrong results in your life. Oh you can cling to it; get real damn angry about it, justify it infinitely, but it will still continue to bring to you what, at its core it is, whether you like it or not. Many times that inner turmoil you are experiencing doesn’t need to be resolved by medication, it needs to be resolved by your decision to stop doing that thing (or maybe do that thing less)! You decide what that thing is… This isn’t some religious call to dissect and pick apart your life. That sort of thinking is just as bad (as you probably have already experienced). This is a sober reality check, pointing out that only good can come from good and only bad can come from bad. It doesn’t matter what the world says, it matters what the truth is!

Worldly, so-called spiritual leaders always seem to shame and malign material prosperity, as if having an abundance is somehow not spiritual. Well, here’s a quick newsflash for you. Life is a helluva lot easier with some resources than it is without them. Don’t you kid yourself. If you car breaks down and costs $2,000 dollars to fix it, it’s hardly a flinch in your thought life if you’ve got plenty of money to fix it. If you don’t, it’s an emergency. Accordingly, God’s will for you is abundance! So, back to the core issue, namely what do you think about material prosperity? Does it elude you like a gazelle escaping clutches of a lion? If so, that is a choice you are making in your thoughts. It doesn’t matter that every previous generation in your family had very little. What matters is what do you think or believe will happen in your life. Can you see it? The limit, the dividing line isn’t the world, it’s you.

Nowadays disease is at an epidemic level. Almost everyone seems to have something. Sickness and disease are not God’s will. Our imperfect bodies (not intended by God) sometimes fall prey to sickness. Fearful, worried, anxious thinking weakens our immune system and opens the door for illness. You may wonder why you are always so sick, but fail to consider that your thoughts are sick. Your mind and your body engage in a delicate dance with one responding to the other. Often your body is trying to tell you that something is wrong with your thoughts. Occasionally your body forces you to escape the frenetic pace you’ve engaged in and lays you up for a few days. Naturally some diseases carry a larger price tag. The “C” word for most threatens pending doom. Yet, even in the midst of life threatening cancer, you still have a choice. For God, healing you of cancer is no different from healing you of a common cold. So even in that arduous, fear inducing condition, you can choose to believe what God says and control your thoughts to keep the invader out. It doesn’t matter how you feel. What matters is what is true.

You can control that unruly beast called your mind. You can also let it go, wherever it is being led. But beware, and know, that if you aren’t leading it, something else is and that “something” does not wish you well. Instead, learn what to think and what is true. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. You can turn your entire life around. You can change any aspect or part. You can acquire material abundance and be healed from everything that ever went wrong. You can, my friends, and you will if you’ll only learn one thing – how to control your thinking, for your thoughts form the basis of your heart; the wellspring from which your entire life flows out! Make a good choice..

Just some good thoughts…

Who Is Your God, Anyway?

On By Papa TonyIn belief, believing, God, ThoughtLeave a comment

th06-openpage-cart_1985044fAs I live this life, I’m consistently faced with many things that cause me to scratch my head, but nothing perplexes me more than the believers who don’t believe. I should add, I recognize there are more viewpoints concerning God than there is sand on the seashore, but one common grain sticks out every time. People just do not believe, it seems, in God’s capacity to actually help them in their lives. They pray prayers not to get a tangible answer, but instead to soothe some psychological need or something. They follow rules of conduct or practice morality not to enjoy a positive result, but in order to hopefully escape some negative possibility. They attend meetings not for encouragement or enlightenment, but to punch tickets during spiritual labor-day. It just seems so arduous and pointless. What good is your God if He lives a billion miles from you, unable and unwilling to help you with the smallest of details of your life? What’s the point of all of your hard works and sacrifices you do for your God, when at any moment He can pull the rug out on you for no apparent reason at all? Why even call Him your Father if He would do less for you than any earthly daddy would do? Why people, why?

If there is one thing that annoys the holy bejesus out of me it is going through the motions. It’s like hanging out with people you don’t enjoy. It’s like laughing at jokes that actually offend you. It’s saying bad food is tasty and asking for seconds. It’s all ritual and acting and hypocrisy. So, why would anyone participate in that foolishness? Usually it’s because of some fear or some rejection or some nebulous loss occurring. And, people do that very same thing with God. Instead of taking their shoes off and talking turkey with God, they reform their language to sound holy and dole out false platitudes before ever getting to anything real. And when they get to something real they add so many qualifiers that it’s probably hard for God to follow along 😉 (if it be thy will, if thou wilt have time, if you’re okay with me having that, etc…). I have to tell you folks, something is wrong with that picture. I aint being critical of your beliefs, because I know someone taught you that stuff, I’m just asking you to rethink your shenanigans. If God is who He says He is, then I’m pretty sure He can see through all of our crapola. If He could create an entire world and all the life forms, it seems He might be able to fix something for you once in a while. If He is everywhere present, seems you shouldn’t have to look up to find Him, nor assume any posture neither go to any location to speak with Him. If He’s your actual Father, seems like there wouldn’t be much He wouldn’t do to help you if He could and reportedly there’s nothing He cannot do! You see what I’m saying? Something is amiss…

Just by sheer logic, and I mean down to the guts of the matter, there ought to be some grand benefit to being God’s kid; in being a believer. If there is no benefit, why in God’s name should anyone choose it? Why would I spend time bestowing the virtues of God to you if God never did anything good for me? That’s not being sacrilegious, that’s being honest. Why would you tell someone you will pray for them while they’re sick if you don’t believe God will heal? Why should you teach your kids about God if they get nothing out of the relationship but maybe a promise of a one-way ticket to heaven someday? Sure heaven is most appealing, but what about today? Look, it has to be a helluva lot bigger than that, don’t you think? The way most people believe God and who they think God is, if it were me, I would have chucked Him in a long time ago!

Well good people, that is not who God is, at all… God is everything you ever hoped He would be and then some! He ardently desires a relationship with you, not for you to prove something to Him, but to allow Him to prove something to you. He doesn’t want your rituals and your rigmarole anymore than you would want that from your children. Your behavior before Him and whether or not you sin was never His issue. You were born into this world dead in trespasses and sins and there’s nothing you can do by your own works; your foolish, pointless works, to fix that! All your focus on sin and mistakes does nothing more than to talk you into doubting who He is and what He will do, for you…

The real reason you never see Him in action or get to enjoy His goodness is because of one thing and only one thing ~ you don’t believe Him. I don’t mean believe “in” Him, I mean literally believe Him. Believing, true believing, is the polar opposite of going through the motions. It is the north when play acting a role is south. It’s getting good and damn serious about getting your prayers answered! It’s about an intimate relationship with your Father who is closer than your very breath. It is a reliance on Him opposing a reliance on yourself. You can be a self-made man if you want, but how is that working out for you thus far? Life is big and serious and tricky folks and you were never designed to do it all alone. You never want your God to be yourself.

God in His unending grace and overflowing mercy doesn’t expect much from you at all really. But, one thing He does require is that you believe; as in flat-out, no questioning, no doubt; assured of a good outcome, peaceful, quiet believing. Your prayers are a conversation with Him, not a monologue or a speech. He knows the answer to your question and is most pleased to share it with you, if you believe He can and will. He, alone, made that body you inhabit and He can fix any part of it at any time without a doctor or a medication. There is no incurable with God! Sometimes your problems have developed over a long time, in much error, like gum deeply matted in the fur of your dog. And for you and your hair’s sake, it may take a little time to extricate you from your troubles. But, be assured, the repair was underway from the very first time you voiced your dilemma to Him.  God loves everything about you, both big and small and has something great for you no matter the size of your issue. That is who God is folks and why He is everything you could ever want Him to be!

Do yourself a huge favor in this short life and stop searching for some mysterious cause or some silly behavior you need to fix and learn rather how and what to believe. Your work; your real work is to convince your stubborn, human noggin to believe what God says over and above what it looks like. And when you learn how to do that, you will find that God is exactly who He said He is… Then, you will love Him with all that you are not because you are supposed to, but because it’s your only logical, thankful response to Him for all that He is doing for you!

Just believe baby, believe…

Just some good thoughts…

 

A Hard Heart is a Hard Life…

On By Papa TonyIn ThoughtLeave a comment

image11Every problem you’ve ever had has a root cause. The root cause is the number one contributor to the effects you are experiencing. Yet, so often the negative things we are trying to escape come from a cause we have yet to discover. We don’t find the true cause because it’s hidden from view and for that reason continues to control our lives. So we need to become serious about locating the cause to live the happy life we have imagined.

Your heart, the innermost part of your mind, is where your beliefs reside. Your beliefs, positive or negative, produce the circumstances and effects in your life. This is why God’s Word says, “Guard your heart with all diligence, for out of it come the issues of your life!” Your issues are your results. And if you’re like most people, you’ve got issues (smile)! Your heart, contrary to public opinion, is simply made up of your most predominant thoughts. Change your thoughts, change your heart, change your life. Can you see the futility involved with waiting for circumstance to change before you change your thoughts? You are producing an effect internally then waiting for an external event to change it.

Your heart, in addition to being the innermost part of your mind, is very sensitive. It can be damaged quite easily. When it gets damaged, the human reaction is to build a wall around it. You build a wall because you are trying to protect yourself. You have pain and you want the pain to stop. I get it. But, ironically, building a wall around it produces just the opposite effect to what you are seeking. That sensitivity is where true life is found. A sensitive heart is not a weak thing, it is a great treasure. A sensitive heart is able to feel even the most minute change and is thus able to accurately discern truth from error. A sensitive heart is God’s domain and where His abounding love can be found.

When you get caught up in error and wrong it has a deleterious effect on your heart. The most grand illusion ever played on mankind is the secret, surreptitious effect that wrong has on your heart. The adversary knows this very well and as such seeks to get you and I over into left field where the hidden damage can occur! Sometimes things that feel good can end up not feeling so good, if you know what I mean. Error, at its base, hardens your heart. You don’t feel it like you don’t know a thief has robbed you until it is too late. And to add insult to injury, in your hardened state you have less and less opportunity to recognize that something has gone wrong. You can tell that your heart has been hardened by how you feel about life. You’ll have less happiness, less fulfillment in the joy of living. Things won’t seem to matter anymore and your existence will become increasingly cloudy. How many people do you know that live this way? Maybe you have been living this way! You just cannot seem to find any love, any joy anymore. That is the tell-tale sign of a hardened heart. You didn’t start that way and you sure as hell don’t have to stay that way!

Fear is perhaps the number one source of error that causes your heart to become callous. Fear is painful and as such again, you want your pain to go away. So, you opt for numb over pain much like taking a percocet. In your numb haze you don’t feel any pain, but you don’t feel anything else either. And a life minus feelings is not a life. Hurt people tend to hurt other people and so the cycle continues. We need to get back to a sensitive heart, like the one we had when we were children. No wonder Jesus taught to believe with the heart of a child!

In order to successfully get back to a sensitive heart, you’re going to need God’s help. God looks on your heart and knows your heart. God sees what you and I cannot see! God knows exactly what ‘loony tunes’ thoughts you have been entertaining and how to repair the damage. There are things that God exhorts us not to do, not because He seeks to control our lives, but because He understands the negative effects on our hearts and lives. In love, He tells us to get rid of anger; to eliminate fear; to not allow bitterness to take root in our lives. He instructs us to be kind, loving and tender-hearted. Kindness, love and tenderheartedness start first in our thought lives before they are played out in our reality. So, in order to find your healing, you need to open your heart. Open your heart to God in complete, unabashed honesty. I can assure you that God isn’t freaked out by the insane things you’ve done because He sees through your sin and error for what it really is; a heart that’s been misguided and damaged and hurt. He will help you and heal you, with the only requirement being a willingness on your part. Open your heart!

You know deep down in your heart that you want to share your love and goodness with other people. You long to show them the real you without reservation or fear. You know there is a way you want to live and have been aching to live that way for many years. So make the decision to live that way! Get rid of your fear of rejection and ridicule and let your true heart out. Be sensitive and warm. Be honest with yourself and with others. Love in your words and in your deeds. Love even the unloveable knowing that the unloveable are only so because their hearts have been hardened. Be a beacon of light in a dark world full of many, many broken hearts.

The root cause of your misery is your hardened heart. Make the decision to have a tender heart for from it proceeds all of the issues of your life. A tender heart can only issue in happiness for which the whole world seeks ardently. You want your life to change? Soften your heart and see for yourself if this life is not worth the living!

Feel again the goodness for it is literally all around you…

Just some good thoughts…