Tag: real life

What’s the Point?

On By Papa TonyIn ThoughtLeave a comment

purpose-lifeHave you ever wondered what is the point of life? I think it is safe to say that we all enjoy being alive and experiencing many different things. But, is that the point of it all? Is life merely a race where you put forth your energy to acquire as many things as possible before you die, or is life something you must learn to endure and even survive in order to eke out as many days on earth as you can? What if there is so much more to life? What if our time on terra firma was originally designed to be an opportunity to learn about our Creator; to learn how to live life to the full in every conceivable way; to experience great love and joy and the peace that passeth understanding? What if the grand point of our life is God, learning about Him; learning who He really is; learning how to live life in the best way that cannot help but produce immeasurable results, unending joy and deep seated satisfaction in our souls? Indeed, what’s the point?

People have all kinds of ideas and viewpoints about who God actually is. Their views are as varied as people are varied. Many, if not most, have accepted this notion that God is always present observing everything they do or don’t do and as such is meting out rewards or punishments based upon acceptable and unacceptable behaviors. When bad things happen, as they necessarily must, they conclude those things happened due to errors, flaws or sins on the part of the individual involved. Similarly, when good things happen or appear, they conclude they must be living right. Both viewpoints surreptitiously drive the focus of a relationship with God to people and the things that people do. On the negative side, people learn to fear God and expect bad things to happen in accordance with the so called bad things they may have done. On the other side, which really isn’t positive, they learn that they must perform certain behaviors or abstain from certain behaviors in order for God to bless them. Instead of learning about who God is, people learn to focus on themselves and as such live in a perpetual state of either fear or obligation. From this misunderstanding, people choose to ignore God altogether rather than get wrapped up in a system from which they cannot prevail. Even the mention of God typically elicits self-reflection concerning where the person fits on the scale of good and bad. What a great dishonor to God, His love, His compassion, His goodness. God formed, made and created people for Himself. As the author of life, He knows precisely what will make you happy and precisely what will cause you unrest. He is aware of the life that is possible for you and the counterfeit life which is clamoring for supremacy. He sees through every deception and as you would expect from a loving Father, seeks only the best for you (not from you!). Does it really seem plausible to you that the greatest and most vast intelligence there is somehow remains focused on your missteps, your mistakes, your fallible human nature? That, my friends, is not the point!

God created the heavens and the earth for you. He designed it to be an unending and unparalleled place of learning and delight, filling it with infinite diversity and opportunity for exploration. The absolute perfection of nature cannot be ignored. The balance, the symmetry, the interdependency, the timing, the beauty, the accuracy, the wonder of it all speaks quietly in your heart that there is something more for you to learn. A flower, a beach, a tree in changing seasons, a bumblebee, a rainbow trout, the mountains, a billion unique snowflakes, the warm summer sun, the shadowy light of the mornings and the evenings, a pasture, the animal kingdom, the expanse, all point to someone, something more incredible than words can describe. And, incredulously, the point of the earth is you! Have you ever considered the wonder of your body and its millionfold possibilities? If there is something or someone so perfect, so intricate, so detailed (words fail me) to have even conceived of this delightful thing we call life, is it not possible that He is trying to communicate something to you? Can you begin to entertain the idea that He might be so far above human thought and understanding, so vast and immeasurable that you have not thus far been able to see Him for who He really is? His ways are above our ways and His thoughts are above our thoughts. And in His masterplan for creation, He made you. He wanted to be a Father to His children. (He invented the concept) He sought and seeks fellowship from His children. He is all powerful and all knowing and He desires to share that with you. He does not see your human foibles, your missteps, your absurdities (or mine), He sees you as His child upon which He wishes to shower untold blessings. He is love, the very essence and manifestation of it. He is life, your life and mine. He is the point!

Sometimes human beings are “too smart” for their own good. They wish to rationalize and explain away the obvious. They observe the perfection, but don’t expect perfection from the Maker of it all. They miss the point. They get all caught up in the rat race, toiling away, striving, trying to get something from nothing, applying superstitions, fables, and man-made principles to decipher a world that wasn’t made by man. They experience all of the misery, the futility, the despair because they are seeking life from everything but God. They are most sincere, honest, humble, and genuine, but looking for love in all the wrong places. They fear their only real source of help and rescue. They do not find Him because they have not yet sought Him, for He is not far from from any one of us. The Perfection that exists knows only goodness and kindness and love. He doesn’t want to condemn you, He wants to help you. He has already seen your whole life through and He still loves you. He desires that you might have life and that you might have it abundantly. His heart is open to all, to all of you. He has the power to completely revolutionize your life, to transform it, to restore it. He can bring you from death to life. He is God and He is the whole point!

Oh tempest tossed souls wherever you may find yourself in life, God is already there. He has heard your prayers and He knows exactly what you need. He does not exist to point out your imperfection, He desires instead to reveal His perfection to you. He wants to show you real life, not some imitation. He desires to give you true, complete and lasting freedom. He seeks not your religious obligation, He longs for your love. He wants you to experience a fantastic life now culminating with a life that will last forever with HIm. He is and always will be the point of it all. Find God, find life. He is the point!

Just some good thoughts…

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Your Thoughts to Energy Ratio

On By Papa TonyIn ThoughtLeave a comment

2d illustration Human Male Muscle BodyThoughts, like anything living and real, have energy behind them. They carry within them an inherent vigor and vitality or a pervasive lethargy and drag. One philosopher put it this way, positive thoughts and emotions emit a higher frequency while negative thoughts and emotions produce a lower and slower frequency. One manner of thinking adds liveliness and the capacity to do while the other thought form adds weariness and stagnation. People nowadays are so tired and worn out yet never equate their energy levels with their own thoughts, but instead blame lack of sleep and an inferior diet. While the former may be contributing factors, the true culprit may be more easily found in the thoughts we are choosing to think. The question then begs, what is your thought to energy ratio? 

If you find yourself struggling with a lack of energy or perpetually medicating yourself in order to get your work done or just to make it through the day, you have to ask yourself what it is you have been thinking about. The time you spend worrying about some future thing, be it what it may, not only is futile in terms of changing the outcome of the thing you are afraid of, but actually works against your best interests by using up your energy store thereby eliminating your energy to do something, the real remedy to your worries. Only action cures fear. Worry and fear serve only to steal away that precious energy. Surely you have noticed these effects in your own life. At one moment you are happily plugging along and in the next moment you feel exhausted and weary. What happened to you? Chances are you started considering some negative possibility and with it lost something along the way. You can trace this negative effect in every aspect of your life. All negative thinking, be it worries and fears or critical self judgment or rehearsing the mistakes from your past or anxiety about the future, leads quickly and easily to a lack of energy to do. Stress, the silent killer, functions along these same lines. Stress, an epidemic in the USA, is just another name for fear; fear of failure, fear of loss, fear of some negative outcome. These are in fact the reasons you feel so tired, indeed so worn out. 

Positive thinking, by contrast, produces an opposite effect. Positive thinking does not mean you try to turn bad things into good things. Positive thinking isn’t a pollyanna approach to life whereby you refuse to acknowledge challenges and trials. Positive thinking simply refuses to allow fear to define the narrative. We are always confronted with a choice in terms of what we are going to consider given a certain scenario, but positivity suggests we don’t have to consider the potential negative outcome. It is the consideration of evil that allows it entree into our lives and we greatly limit that entree by what we decide we will think about. Once evil, that which is always back of all worry and fear, is entertained, it steals away our valuable life source and enthusiasm for living. It closes our minds off to opportunities and possibilities and instead falsely predicts our hurt and loss. Being positive is often more about what we don’t do than it is about what we do, do. Positive thinking expects good things to happen and actively seeks out those good things. Positive thinking doesn’t dismiss good things as anomalies and as such doesn’t resort back to negative expectations. Man, what a job the enemy of God’s people has done on the collective group think of society. Negativity is running the place. Wrong thinking and thus wrong belief are the reason good things aren’t happening, not the wheels of fate or God or any similar superstition based more on guessing than sound reason. If you find yourself just sort of trudging along, it’s not because that’s how life is, but instead because of where you have allowed your thinking to go. You must learn how to think positively and continue to think positively to turn this thing around. Your energy for living, your enthusiasm, that pep in your step will all return once you stop the energy drain that goes on day by day by your refusal to give negatives anymore space. Your thoughts equal your energy ratio. 

If you think about it, the reason people struggle so much is because they are trying to do this thing alone. They have access to all the data, Google and a whole world of other people offering good sound advice about how life works. Yet, for all their good intentions, the world and its so called solutions are not going to get the job done. God never intended that people would have to figure out life on their own. Instead, God planned that people would learn how to rely on Him like a child relies on its parents. Children rarely worry and when they do it’s usually because a parent is failing to do their job. God never fails to do His job. The reason you can choose to keep your thoughts in a good place is because you can hand over all of the unknowns to God. Woe unto the man or woman carrying around all of the unknowns alone! You have gotten worn out by life by your reliance on self over reliance on God. The reason the fearful consideration has so much power of you is because you are trying to take it on alone. Your opponent, my friend, is much too wily and powerful for you to take him on alone. Absent God, you are no match for your enemy. He uses tactics that have worked on human beings for thousands of years and continue to work. With God you are assured success. His Word tells you how to think and what to believe and what not to believe. There is no need for guesswork or a Google search. He is the source of life and energy and enthusiasm for living. You want your life and energy back? Do you want to get off the treadmill of endless defeats and the subsequent exhaustion that follows? Do you want your energy to thought ratio raised to never before experienced levels? Then, get God involved with your life. 

It’s no criticism to you that you have been suffering in silence all these years. You have been worn out by “life” so called and have suffered the same deceptions and lies we have all experienced in one form or another. We compete with a common opponent. We are all subject to his bullshit at times and we have all suffered loss. How you used to live and what you used to do are not the matter here. What matters here is that you begin to recognize that there is another option available to you. That option does not guarantee you won’t still get defeated at times or find yourself trudging along aimlessly with the rest of the deceived world. What the other blessed option offers you is a relationship with the one true God who knows all, sees all and is powerful over all. No-one can answer your heart questions like God can and He withholds no good thing from His children. He will show you exactly where your enthusiasm has gone, why and how to get it back. He will show you what life can be with all of the blessings that go along with it. You have nothing to lose and literally everything to gain. 

You want to improve your thought to energy ratio? Get God involved…

Just some good thoughts… 

You and God, Are You Good?

On By Papa TonyIn Thought1 Comment

19_0130_DISCIPLESHIP_Remembering-Your-Confidence-in-Gods-Goodness_1021x640-696x436I often recall with great fondness that time in my life when I first began learning about God. It was in the Spring of 1982 and I had been attending a fellowship with the sweetest people I had ever met. In May, I took a class called, Power for Abundant Living, that literally changed my life for the better. In that 3 week long course, I learned so many things about God from the Bible that seemed to be the polar opposite of who I thought God was and who people said God was. Based on His Word, the Bible, I learned that God was good only and that He wanted the best things in life for me. I learned that He was tender and kind and always on my side. I followed His instructions from the book of Romans (Romans 10:9-10) and got born again, born from above. With my newly found spirit inside, I learned how God would work in me, never over stepping my free-will and teach me things I couldn’t even conceive of before. Best of all, I learned how He was now my Father and that I was His son for eternity. There’s really no comparison for the sweet fellowship I enjoyed with God as my Father during those warm times of learning and growth. God and I were good, really, really good and nothing stood in the way of our family relationship. So, when it comes to you and God, are you good?

Sadly, over the years, our relationship started to change. It wasn’t God who changed towards me, but I had changed towards Him. Some of the folks I was hanging around began to add conditions and rules that were not a part of my early experiences. What was once completely free and based entirely upon God’s grace, turned into behaviors I had to perform to be okay with God. The wrong teaching turned my focus inward and suddenly it was all about what I was and was not doing. Slowly and somewhat imperceptibly, I began to morph into one of those guys that everyone hates to be around, the religious guy. I was so overly focused on my own sin and shortcomings, that I was hard and critical with everyone else. For me, it was no longer about God’s undeserved and unearned goodness, but instead it was about me living for God in ways that others could approve of and endorse. What was once so intimately personal and perfect, became tainted with the commandments and doctrines of men. The odd thing about this, when it happens to you, is that you don’t really see it taking place. All you know, is that what once free was no longer free and the cost associated with the required new life was perpetual misery and a lack of confidence in the One I was supposed to trust the most. Heaven was brass, as the saying goes, and down the slippery slope I traveled. This experience happened for longer than I would care to acknowledge until I finally had the good sense to break away from the folks I once trusted with my life. Some of you perhaps know what I’m talking about. So, when it comes to you and God, are you still good?

Years later, much like a recovering alcoholic, I had to get honest with myself about how I had been living. Instead of relying solely on what men said, I got back to the true doctrine that had once set me free before the bondage set in. I saw again, on the pages of God’s Word, that Jesus Christ had lived a perfect life with God, so that I would not be required to try it myself. I learned again how God had solved the sin problem for me forever and that all that I had or ever enjoyed in my life was completely based upon God’s grace, given to me freely based upon the accomplished works of His son. I relearned that God was not angry with me for my shortcomings; that He wasn’t following me around accusing me concerning my every failure. Instead, like the best imaginable parent, He was lovingly guiding me back to His heart, back to His unconditional love. And, like a flower blooming in the springtime, I started to recover and grow and blossom. I had much unlearning to do and still do at times, but throughout it all I remembered again who my Daddy really was and that He wanted me to enjoy my life. I saw His hand of blessing realized in my life and in the lives of my family. I finally was able to see that it was never about me and what I was and was not doing in my life, but rather what my Father in heaven was and is doing for me; for the people He loves so deeply. It became so clear that what seemed to be good to be true, was so good because it was true. He lovingly and patiently taught me what was really behind my downfall and that the source of my difficulties was an opponent I could not see, working behind the scenes to drown me in religion and the principles and philosophies that man made up in one form or another. It became so strikingly obvious that the practices and teaching not based on the grace filled life He called me to, were error, the same error that makes people hide from God and His kindness; man made doctrines ever focusing on man’s acts and man’s experiences instead of the truth of God’s Word. Once you know, you know and life gets better in a hurry. So, when it comes to you and God, are you good my dear friend?

The truth of Power for Abundant Living still lives in my heart some almost 40 years later; the truth about God and who He is according to His own Word, the Bible. His clarion call to the heart of man is to learn of Him and who He truly is for us, to us and in us. It’s the promise of a life with indescribable peace and assurance. It’s a life filled with abundance in every category of life. It is the constant awareness of knowing you don’t have all the answers, but you know the One who does. It is healing and restoration and repair whenever needed and however needed. It is forgiveness and mercy that has no end point. It is just he greatest possible life there is and it’s there for anyone that wants to learn. You may be just starting out on your journey with God or you may have enjoyed your life with Him for many years now, but either way there’s no denying that life with God is the life He always intended for it be for His precious and beloved creations. So, when it comes to you and God, are you good? Is your relationship filled with happiness and joy and love that has no end? If not, it is always there for you if you still want it.

As for me and God, we are good, so so good…

Just some good thoughts…

The End Game

On By Papa TonyIn ThoughtLeave a comment

prayingWhen I first began writing, “Just Some Good Thoughts” my aim was only to provide a vehicle by which good thoughts of all kinds could be shared with people in order to uplift their spirits. But, the more I wrote, the more I recognized that I wasn’t just offering something nice to think about, but instead something true and reliable and sure from which any reader might recognize those areas of their lives that were not so good and thus seek something new, something different, something outside the established framework from which most people find themselves trapped. People unknowingly and often knowingly have accepted a life that is mediocre, defeated and sad. They wrestle with the same demons year after year, deflated and weary, privately begging for something better; something closer to the life they envisioned as a child when life was still pregnant with possibilities and hope for a bright future. Yet life and time and difficulty besieged them all perpetually and consistently until they finally gave in to the wheel of things, persuaded that the life they were experiencing was real life and that nothing better existed for them. It is for those poor souls I write and will continue to write, not as a chastisement but rather a remedy, indeed the solution to all that ever ailed them. To that end, life is so, so much more!

As someone vitally concerned for people’s happiness, which admittedly began as a quest for my own personal happiness, I find it a shame how far below par good hearted people have been forced to live. The world, with all of its advancements and progress offers no real help. All of the lightning fast technology and clever inventions and scientific research promising to answer the question, “why” still leave the heart answerless, afraid and unfulfilled. Bad things happen to good people and evil men appear to prosper and succeed. Life just doesn’t make sense. For every person there are at least a thousand opinions broadcasted and shared as truth leaving man confused and bewildered. Every answer given is not a real answer but a fabrication, a red herring, something from which an unthinking person might find temporary solitude. But, is it really solitude? If even one part breaks down, then aren’t all parts broken down? Is it possible that truth has holes in it or that perfection is also fraught with imperfection? If something is true then it must always be true in every circumstance and under every condition. All of the rest is error, error compounded upon error, lies upon lies, treachery on top of treachery. It is no wonder that people have given up on goodness and the possibility of a fulfilling and happy life. The life they live is not happy at least not with any lasting permanence. Instead it is fleeting and temporary and founded upon whether or not the sun is shining today or that circumstances have at last lined up to some good end. In this, I submit to you, dear reader, that the life you have imagined does exist, though it be deeply veiled from the mind of the casual observer. The real essence of life isn’t found on the surface, but exists deeper down where the gold and treasures are to be found. 

You certainly don’t need me to clarify this for you, as you have been living your own experience of life. You have been heretofore wading through the muck and mire on your own. Inside, in your private heart, you know that something is missing. You know life cannot consist of merely making the most money and gathering for yourself the most toys before you die. You know precisely where you struggle, but you don’t know exactly why. You know when and where you are unfulfilled. You know how your heart aches for unconditional love and a world where love and kindness hold first place. And on those rare occasions when you have dared to let that warming and consoling love out, the world has punished you for it. Quickly you have been forced back in line with the masses to a life of meager expectations and poor results. You count yourself happy because at least you don’t live the life of such and such. That is not to say that life is without struggles, as it must be for a time, but rather that every struggle may be won and every obstacle surmounted once you find the source, the real source of life. The trouble, which seems far too light a description, is that you are seeking life without engaging the Author of life. You don’t seek the Author because you are inherently evil, but instead because someone or something has deftly hidden Him from your view. The same thing that secretly fills your life with misery and impossible dilemmas is the same one that has deceived you. In his craftiness, he has convinced you of a lie, a thousand lies, whereby all he engenders is falsely attributed to God. The very notion of God causes your skin to bristle as you contemplate the painful, boring existence that supposedly encompasses life with Him. Instead of learning of Him, as Adam did, you hide yourself in the garden from the only One that could ever give you help. This is man’s only real dilemma, whether to reach upward or continue to seek within. Oh my friends, God exists and He is only good always.

The journey you are on is similar to the journey all of us are on. We all have been blessed with one very short and rapidly passing life. We have only one shot at this thing. There will be no great by and by until there is first a great here and now. This is our one life. This is our only opportunity to learn what we need to learn and ultimately win. No matter your present age, there is no plausible, rational reason for you to remain a fraction of your true self. It is not just how life is no matter how many times that has been drummed into your head. There exist real, solid, substantial, concrete solutions to your problems. I’m not talking about religious. pious platitudes whereby the exclaimers still suffer the same fate; the same defeats. I’m not promising answers and help merely as a psychological pacifier that assuages your mind for a moment, until the next hardships arrive. I’m talking real answers, real help, real and enduring solutions. I’m speaking of vast intelligence, unlimited power and ability all founded upon the basis of love. And, He exists for you…

My thoughts for you, my just some good thoughts are that you find the life you have been missing. That one day it dawns on you that you do not have to keep living the way you have been living. That you don’t have to go along with the status quo and relegate yourself to a meaningless existence. That the good life you dream of is a present tense reality and not the stuff of fiction and feel good novels. That you experience the fullness and blessedness from which life was created to be in every facet and phase of your existence. And, finally, that you find the God that made you, though He be not far from any one of us. You owe it to yourself to live your best life. You owe it to the people you love to be a vibrant, lively proponent of life. You owe it to all of those sad, poor souls you can help after you have found the way. That folks is the ultimate end game; a life that is not only wonderful now, but one that will last forever. This is your promised end game of which all humanity privately seeks. This it it…

Just some good thoughts…

The Revolution

On By Papa TonyIn Thought2 Comments

If people live in a difficult environment long enough they eventually band together and demand a revolution. Revolutions happen when the people become so wearied with a certain unfair order of things that they can no longer abide by its rules. It tends to occur in constructs that oppress people; systems that don’t have the same concerns for all individuals and seek rather to promote only the good of the few. And for all that a revolution promises to all the citizens, it typically begins with a handful of committed souls. Is it time for a revolution in your life?

The way that life was designed to be and the way life actually is are often miles apart. People, human beings have been sold a bill of goods and then, overpaid. Absent any information to the contrary, people collectively and perhaps experientially have formed an entire world of conclusions about how things work and have given themselves over to cooperate with the wheel of things, the system; how life reportedly functions. They accept inner turmoil and agitation as natural and even to be expected given all the concerns that accompany adulthood. People are chock full of anxiety on every front. We can’t relax, can’t sleep, can barely function outside mind dulling medications and the like. We’re afraid of disease and disaster and threats of every kind. We’re pessimistic and negative to the point where any good thing is to be closely questioned and carefully examined for its veracity. Happiness, true happiness is always fleeting and short lived. And, no-one seems to ask the question – why? Why is my life so difficult and unpredictable and downright scary? Why is it so hard to get the things I need and want? Why is there such a struggle all the time and even more, what is the reason for my struggles? Maybe it’s time for a revolution!

When things go wrong at work and the company is losing money, people invest their entire souls into figuring out the solution. If your car breaks down, you somehow work out how to get it fixed or replaced. If you have health concerns you go to the doctor. If your child is struggling, you spend untold resources to remedy the situation. If you are unhappy with your abode, you make moves to make it better or even purchase a new home that makes you feel more content. Yet, when it comes to your life, your every day existence, your one precious shot at this thing, you determine in your heart that you have to take it; that you have to find a way to survive. You settle for how things supposedly are and accept it as reality. But, are you sure it is reality or is just your reality? Are you really confident that you know what is going on or are you just guessing? Most people, sadly, are just guessing. They have this vague notion of what life is, usually passed down from their parents or teachers and they resign themselves to that form of life. After all, it’s just the way life is! But, is it? Is life supposed to be hard and then you die. Was it intended in the grand design of things that you as a human just needed to eat shit everyday and be happy or grateful, as some often quote, that you woke up? Everything living wakes up, but that doesn’t mean everything is really living. Maybe when it comes to your thoughts, it’s time for a revolution.

The Designer of this thing we call life certainly didn’t intend for life to be miserable with people barely averting this disaster for the next disaster. It wasn’t part of the plan for people to be pawns at the hands of wicked despot deceiving them at every turn. Man was not intended to live out his days with doubts and fears increasing, terrified of everything and powerless against it. But, this old world has certainly done an excellent job of promoting that existence. People, most people are simply, completely unaware of any viable alternative. They cringe at the thought of life lived with God having been convinced of the impossibility of such an existence. They imagine this frightfully awful life filled with rules for what you can and cannot do. They are convinced they will have to give up everything when all they really have to give up is the fear and the lack and the defeat. People don’t know because they don’t want to know. They are too afraid to even investigate another option, all the while living full of despair and disappointment. God never intended that your life should suck. God never willed upon you your defeats and your losses; your difficulties or your troubles. God’s will has always been the polar opposite for you. It’s high time for a revolution!

There is an alternative. There is a better way to live and in that way there is unparalleled freedom. Just because you haven’t experienced it yet does not mean it doesn’t exist. Haven’t you been wrong enough in your life to be able to accept that possibility? Haven’t you suffered enough in your own, private heart? Aren’t you weary by now of going it your own way? The life that God is offering you is almost unbelievable. Yet it is truth. God is not judging you or angry with you for your so called sinful ways! God loves you and wants you to know the score. God desires to heal you and help you and rescue you. God wants you to live your life in peace and enjoy your days on earth. God wants to answer your every question. God is love and earnestly desires that you experience His love. Yet, He has to wait for you. He will not overstep your freedom of will. He will not force Himself upon you. But know this, He heard every prayer you ever prayed. He knows what is wrong and knows how to fix it. He already knows you and exactly what you need. Won’t you let Him help you?

Do you need a revolution in your heart? Well, get committed and start today to find the answers you need for your life. It’s your one and only life on earth and you aren’t getting any younger. Start the revolution today. God is listening…

Just some good thoughts…

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…

 

When the Thrill of Living is Gone…

On By Papa TonyIn life, ThoughtLeave a comment

If you’ve walked around on terra-firma long enough you know that life isn’t always a thrill ride packed with exciting adventures and challenge. In fact, it seems the older you become, the more routine and mundane it can get. Life by its very definition would seem to belie that notion. So, why does life end for some people long before they are dead?

It seems the simplest, most profound example is found in our children. Sure, you could make the argument that children live on the left side of life with so many experiences still ahead of them. But, I don’t think that answers the question to our total satisfaction. To simplify the math and lessen the boggle, if life had 100 possible experiences and children only occupied 10 of those experiences, then life would have 90 experiences left for the child which would presumably run short at some point. But, life’s expression is unlimited and humans don’t live long enough to exhaust its supply. So, there must be another answer…

Let’s assume because of the vastness of the creation and the endless variable combinations for happiness, the real issue lies not in the experience of life but in the experience of the end-user. Or better maybe, the thrill of life isn’t found in the experience, it’s found in the expectation and mindset of the experiencer! Children in stark contrast to adults are completely wide open to learning new things. Their expectation for life is fully alive and thriving. Instead of wrongly concluding they can already see, they are still looking for something. They instinctively know there is more to learn, more to see, more to experience. Their joy is found in their expectation. They are blessed because of their humble hearts! Their excitement is discovered in what they don’t know. They are all of us minus the life experience and wrong teaching. They aren’t a young version of us, they are a pure version of us…

Children have another distinct advantage over us, not by intention, but by virtue of how they live. Children, the budding prototypes, live only in the moment. Taking them back in time to review some wrong done takes effort. They are eager to move on from there and once you are satisfied, move on again. They don’t carry wrongs around like some weighted anchor, allowing them to color and experience their present. Instead they choose to live now and experience now. That is natural. That is human design. Rehearsing wrongs done; reviewing all that isn’t good with life now; dwelling on everything that isn’t how it “should” be or how you “want” it to be is a sickness that people have learned. It’s a sickness because none of those aspects, though very common, aid in getting you to the life you might enjoy. They serve only to color your experience and help you conclude, “the thrill of living is gone.”

You see, the problem with adulthood isn’t your age, it’s all the stupid, wrong stuff you started toting around to no benefit. You learned some cool stuff also and then wrongly concluded that you knew all stuff. You formed a skeleton sketch of learning then attempted to hang every new concept somewhere on that skeleton. You thought you already knew and in knowing closed yourself off to life; real life! Now no-one can tell you anything. All of your cause and effects have already been caused and effected. You cannot find an answer to your suffering because you already know why you are suffering, but you also somehow know it cannot be remedied. You are smart and by God, you know stuff! And in your knowing, you know that an unfulfilled life or an unhappy life is to be expected and you should just be happy that you woke up today! So I ask, is being awake as opposed to being asleep enough or do you need someone or something to really wake you up?

Have you ever had someone die that you love or suffered some other catastrophic event that sort of snapped you back into reality? Did the negative event truly bring you back around or did the negative event cause you to reconsider or even rethink what you thought you already knew? I think it is the latter… But, I also think we don’t need tragedy or negativity to wake us up. It seems we need to find that humility and coach-ability we had when we didn’t know so much. Perhaps we need to view life through a different lens. One that isn’t so quick to conclude and categorize and judge. Maybe, just maybe all the things we think we know so well, we really don’t understand at all. Perhaps we are doing something in our own hearts that sours and tires our own experience? Maybe we have grown so accustomed to the boredom; to the lack of vitality that we consider it to be normal. Possibly someone has sold us all a lie…

So, how can you get your thrill back? You have to check back in with life. You’ve got to drop like a hot rock your endless presumptions and assumptions, predictions and analysis. You’ve got to come clean with life and quit pretending you know when you don’t know. You must return to asking questions; lots and lots of questions. Inquire about things you previously thought you knew about. Break out of your routines that no longer serve you. Break out of anything that no longer works for you. And above all else, like a child, return to your unchastened, unrestricted honesty. Get honest about how things are and how you feel and quit pretending because everyone else is pretending! Refuse to assume it is just the way life is as life by definition is everything but that!

Finally, come back to life’s Author and Creator, who can make known to you the path of life, in whom’s presence there is fullness of joy and at whose right hand there are pleasures forever more… That, my friends, is a thrilling, exciting and adventuresome life!

Just some good thoughts…

 

 

Understanding God’s Perfection…

On By Papa TonyIn God, knowledge, life, love, ThoughtLeave a comment

God-Is-LoveIn order for something to be perfect, it must be absolutely and completely free from all faults and errors. The smallest amount of defect renders a thing imperfect and though the shortcomings be minute and even imperceptible, if they exist, the thing in question cannot be considered perfect. God is perfect. He has no downside, no shadow of turning and no requirement for any give and take. Thus the things of God must also be perfect, free from any admixture, free from darkness, and free from any heartache and pain. We speak of a perfect day, but what we refer to is a day that went well, though imperfect in many respects. Being able to begin to comprehend God’s perfection, has the power to put us in touch with the right to every wrong; the elixir to any sickness; the solution to each and every problem.

There are more opinions concerning who God is than there are grains of sand on the seashore; than there are stars in the sky. Every group reports to know Him and are more than willing to share His will with you. Yet often that so-called will is fraught with illogic and puzzles pieces that can never fit. Truth cannot be one thing today and another thing tomorrow! God does not change His truth for the times or the circumstances. Truth is truth in every day. You can find it in a tulip and in a sparrow. It exists in and permeates the creation. It is complex, yet breathtakingly simple. It speaks to your heart in a poem. It soothes your soul in a song. It jolts and awakens your mind by both friends and your enemies. It has to, it must, because it is perfection. When you hear it, you already know it is true, though you don’t know why you know it’s true. It escapes your mind yet pre-exists in your heart.

Naturally, the whole system of God is also perfect. There is no whim, no injustice, no wrong in any form. The truth of God must then exist without contradiction, just as light has no darkness in it at all. Love works no ill to its neighbor because it cannot work ill. There is no fear in love because fear is the antithesis of love. Thus, the system of God, if it be of God, cannot work ill, make ill, or be ill. Nor can it promote fear, make fear or be fear. If fear exists, like it’s counterpart darkness, then it must be absence of truth or light in some capacity. Trying to reconcile perfection with imperfection is impossible. Yet how many good men declare God’s abounding love and with the same breath dole out His threatenings on unsuspecting mankind? Prayer to God for healing of a sickness He gave you is like begging the slave owner to stop whipping you. The question is rather, why the hell is he whipping me? What greater purpose could be found in such an act? An unjust beating is an unjust beating and ascribing something good to it is insane. Yet, men entertain this with God in every day. Hurt is hurt and pain is pain. Calling pain good and hurt necessary might send you to the crazy house, but apparently never in the name of God.

So, you may now be wondering what it is I’m trying to say! What I’m saying is that once you begin to discern who God really is, you will axiomatically begin to love Him with all that you are. He is only good always and seeks goodness and love in all that He does. He doesn’t punish people for their bad behaviors, evil takes care of that. He does not follow you around day by day waiting for you to slip up. He is not your conscience making you feel guilty for the mistakes you have made. Sure you’ve been taught that but it just isn’t true. God says, my people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. It’s what you don’t know or what you “think” you know that has been killing you. You don’t go to God for help or when you do by chance go, you enter in sheepishly with your mind chock full of all your sins and errors. So you ask without believing and in doing so ask amiss. I don’t blame you for this because this is what you have been taught! The church did it to you. The Sunday school did it to you.

You read the Old Testament and it scares you. You see a vengeful God wreaking havoc on mankind. What you don’t realize is that in the Old Testament, the snare of evil had not yet been revealed. God never wanted all of the laws and commandments. The laws and commandments came because of the people and preserved for people a future opportunity for redemption. Jesus Christ could have never completely set you free if there wasn’t something he could set you free from. The justice of God demanded it.

At the end of the day, there is only one True God, and He encompasses all that you could ever hope for and dream of in life. He is your sunny, perfect day. He is the love in the eyes of your grandchildren. He is the healing behind your doctor. He is the Miracle Gro for your flowers. He is the spring in your step and the smile on your face. He is indescribable joy and love and peace for a suffering and downtrodden world. He is who you thought He was when you were just a child!

If you can break yourself free from all the dogma and throw off the heavy shackles of religion,  you will find Him, though He be not far from any one of us. You will discover that this life is worth the living and that there is something fantastic behind this world waiting for you to tap in… Ladies and gentlemen, God is love!

Just some good thoughts…

 

 

Are You Getting Fat?

On By Papa TonyIn ThoughtLeave a comment

5094d6cced1e1fc4a99337a616fcbff0Remember when you were 18 and ate everything that passed your way and never gained an ounce? Yeah, me too, but those days are long gone. Like you maybe, I recognize that the struggle is real. So I started thinking, besides the cruelty of a snail’s pace metabolism, what else is different? In complete honesty I have to admit, I’m doing some things that contribute to the problem. I sit at a desk all day long (almost). I have the resources to eat whatever I choose to eat and it’s been said that I occasionally overindulge in the wine (smile). When it comes to eating and drinking and other enjoyable activities, my natural tendency is to let loose as I suspect many of you do as well. It’s so easy to just let go and seems so hard to control yourself. But control is where the good stuff lives and this blog has nothing to do with your physical body!

Your mind is equally capable of getting fat. And much like your body, the fat doesn’t show up from too many nutrients, but rather from too much junk. It comes from complacency and inactivity. It shows up in the form of uncontrolled thoughts and unchallenged ideas. It comes from letting go and just accepting whatever comes along. This may surprise you but your mind can get lazy. It was never designed to be that way. It was intended to be alive and vital, dynamic and energetic. It was pre-loaded to have a sincere love of learning; learning that never stops throughout a lifetime.

The popular notion of living an intentional life is the antidote to a chubby mind. Intentional means on purpose. An on purpose life is a life lived by decision rather than reaction. The world is entirely circumstance controlled. People decide they’re having a good day by a few positive events and a bad day is born from a couple of negative ones. A problem at work morphs into a potential lost job and a snow prediction for the morning commute spells disaster. Sunny days equal happiness and gloomy Mondays are the worst thing ever. A pain in your side signals cancer even though you forgot you moved furniture yesterday. This is no great surprise because we have been trained to think that way. Negativity is all around us. The news is negative. Facebook is negative. The people you interact with are negative. And sadly, negativity is considered the norm. If you are positive you are called naive. You just don’t get it. But, I submit that no matter how much negativity you experience, it’s not the way of truth. It’s a grand deception on a monumental scale. It gets to you when you give in to it, like a bacon double cheeseburger at midnight. Intentional living chooses to “just say no” to negativity.

How many people do you know who have lost that spark in their eye? How long has it been since you felt alive and that life was worth living? I’m not talking about choosing life over death, I’m talking about overflowing and abundant life. Yet, we acquiesce and think that’s just how life is… We traded in our value for something cheap. We’ve been riding the bike with the crooked handle bars for so long that we think they’re straight. We fail to see that we adjusted to the wrong instead of fighting for the right. Even more spurious is the lack of thought employed in our choices, most evident during an election season. The media propaganda makes our choices and social media directs our minds. We believe the last thing we read and accept as true whatever someone shouts the loudest. You know why? Because our minds have fallen into decay from fast food logic and pre-processed understanding. We don’t think anymore because we got fat!

So, how can you shed the pounds from your organ of mental perception? The simple answer is to learn again to think. The more arduous answer is to practice living in the moment and controlling yourself. Recognize what is going on in your head. What emotions are you experiencing? Which emotions do you no longer acknowledge? Have you worked around that broken door handle for so long that you fail to see it is broken? What aint right? Where have you settled for less than you deserve? Which illness or sickness are you living with because a doctor said you have to when God has no limitation on what He can heal? What words have you stopped voicing in your relationship that you used to speak without hesitation? What? This is your one life, my friends, and you owe yourself the custom package!

Sometimes you fail to see what you need to see because you are living in the darkness. Turn on the light. Find out what God (who actually invented life) says. Unearth that dust-covered Bible and discover something you can depend on. If you don’t know what to read, ask God for some help. That person will show up faster than a Jimmy John’s sandwich! Get your mind back. Get your vitality back. Get your life back!

Being fat only lasts as long as you let it last. And again, I aint talking about your body. Embrace your chubbiness and love yourself, but most of all take care of your heart, for from it proceeds all the issues of your life! (hcG for the soul!)

Just some good thoughts…

 

 

The Madness of the Mediocre Life…

On By Papa TonyIn fully persuaded, Thought, thoughtsLeave a comment

mediocremajorityLet me start by acknowledging that every person is completely unique in their personal desires and aspirations. What success is for me isn’t success for you. That being said, there’s a huge difference between success in life and the madness of mediocrity.

No-one ever grew up dreaming of being mediocre. Nobody foresaw a life of quiet desperation, feeling stunted, stymied and held back? You sure didn’t start out that way, did you? You began, as we all began, with stars in your eyes and grand thoughts of who you could be.  Then you grew up. The world didn’t change, you did.  You settled. You negotiated for average. You exchanged your A level life for a C level existence. You did it because it was safe. It wasn’t everything you ever wanted but it was some of the things you wanted. When it comes to your one and only run through, and because you have the exact same right to pursue your happiness as every other person, you can still choose the best! You can go for the Olympic gold instead of rejoicing in that you made the team!

Now, don’t get it twisted. I’m not claiming some type of superiority over you. I’ve spent my fair share of time in the misty flats… (Well, it’s not really fair, but that’s how clichés work.) Yet, I have a great advantage that I’m ever privileged to enjoy. Someone lovingly taught me about God a long time ago and I’ve never stopped learning about Him to this day. You see, this whole notion of living an abundant life came from Him. This aint self-help rama-lama, this is real life. God’s plan for you isn’t a litany of rules or pervasive condemnation from failure to follow them. The master plan goes back to the original plan – which is you (men) and some cute gal or you (women) and some hot guy living in paradise. You ever been to Hawaii? Well, that aint Eden! People started out in Paradise, spent many years in the misty flats (see I’m not alone) and then God made available the paradise experience anew. The paradise experience is life in all of its varied and splendid manifestations. It’s life without fear. It’s life with answered prayers. It’s life where Someone a lot smarter than you knows how to get you to live out your full potential. Nothing about God is ever mediocre. Religion is damn mediocre because it’s focused on not doing (living) more than doing!

Lest you conclude that life’s not fair, think about how people typically function. I’ve managed people for many years and am always amazed by an interesting phenomenon. It’s only a matter of time before the workers reduce their job down to the most minimal level possible to still get paid and not get fired. Except of course that one guy. This blog isn’t to him because his life isn’t going to be mediocre. But for the majority, that’s how it seems to go. Now you know, if you are honest, that you have a little something inside of you that says there is so much more. It whispers in your relationships. It beckons you at work. Its inspiration flashes across your mind oh so briefly with glimpses of how your life could be. It’s not only possible, it’s what your life is supposed to be.

How you get there is a whole different story. You don’t get there until you get there. You won’t arrive until you arrive. It’s not a ship coming in, it’s the ship you’re already steering. The cause must precede the effect. You have to first recognize that it is even possible, then (the hardest part), you have to convince your old obstinate; C grade getting; settling for less mind that you both can and will have it. It’s God will already, so you’d be sorta crazy not to make it your will!

Now here is the greatest irony of all ironies. It takes the exact same amount of believing to achieve greatly as it takes to achieve the mediocre. Not the same amount of work, but the same amount of believing expectation. If you expect more, you will do more. You’re not so much lazy as you are misguided. How many people do you know slaving away for some company accepting whatever they get and convincing themselves they’re still blessed? Abundance means abundance and mediocre means mediocre. I remember someone once telling me that I didn’t need a fancy car, just something that ran and got me to work. Now you can sell yourself that story for a while, but in the end you know you want more for yourself. And don’t you go telling me I’m greedy. Greedy people never consider that notion. The ones that think it are usually the ones not getting their needs met; the ones settling for the mediocre life.

There’s no need for me to tell you that life isn’t all about money and possessions. Life is about fulfillment and satisfaction and joy. Are you fulfilled, satisfied and joyful? Then you do the math and figure that one out. The abundant life God promises is available to you if you really want it. But, make no mistake, you’re going to need God’s help to find it. Oh it’s right in front of you, but you won’t see it without some help from the (good) spiritual side. Trust me on that one.

Look brothers!  Listen sisters! This thing is damn short, this run through on earth. Your time, my time is finite (for now). You already know what you want; what you dream of; what turns you on. So learn about our God and get it; do it; experience it. Your only limitation is what you can persuade your mind to believe.

Your success is not my success and my success is not your success. But, success is success and surely that beats the hell out of the madness of the mediocre life!

Just some good thoughts…