Tips for Better Living

Benjamin Franklin said: "Well done is better than well said."

Thomas Jefferson; "I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it. In other words, the harder I work, the luckier I get!"

Eleanor Roosevelt: "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."

Albert Einstein: "In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity."

Anonymous: "Leaders are like eagles; they don't flock … you find them one at a time."

Anonymous: "A religion that does nothing, gives nothing, costs nothing, suffers nothing, is worth nothing."

Jacob Riis: "When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it—but all that had gone before."

And such are the ways of God in helping to "shape" us into the person he sees we can become.

Resolution or Repetition

"If you have ever been to a circus, you've no doubt seen the huge bull elephants chained to a peg in the ground. Perhaps it has occurred to you that the elephant could easily pull the peg out of the ground and escape. However, he does not try. As a baby elephant he was tied to a huge stake that he could not pull out of the ground. Weeks of pulling and tugging only wore a trench around the stake, and finally he gave up. Now that he is full-grown, with great strength and the physical ability to pull the peg out of the ground, he remembers only the futility of past efforts and does not even attempt to escape. He is conditioned to failure."

He is conditioned to failure because he is conditioned by his past as, unfortunately, many of us are. We have had a bad experience (or bad experiences) in the past that have left us hurt, angry, and/ or afraid; and we allow those past experiences to control our life today even though these experiences happened years ago—perhaps even in childhood.

True, we need to forget the past so we can move forward to what is ahead. But until we resolve past hurts and forgive any and all who have ever hurt us, we are still conditioned and bound by the past and are destined to failure at some level—especially so in relationships. The reality is that what we fail to resolve we are destined to repeat … repeat … and repeat. So, if you ever find yourself repeating past failures, past mistakes, or past impaired relationship patterns, see if you can trace those patterns to some negative experience/s in the past. If so, those issues need to be faced, confronted, and resolved so we can break the chains of conditioning from the past, forget its hold on us, and move ahead triumphantly.

No matter what happened to us in the past it is either resolution or repetition. The choice is ours.

 

Overcoming Fear

Fear is unquestionably a problem common to all.

 

Healthy fear is a God-given emotion. Without it we would get into all sorts of dangerous situations. We rightly fear, or should fear, driving through a red light or walking alone at night (or in broad daylight) in a dangerous area. If we don't, we're out of touch with reality.

The fears that give us problems are those that cause anxiety, sleepless nights, give us ulcers, cause us to fail in our relationships and in our work, etc., etc.

On the surface these fears may seem to be irrational. Usually they're not in the sense that they have their roots in past frightening or traumatic experiences. Even a dog, if it has been abused by a human in the past, will be afraid of humans—so will people.

So how do we overcome our fears?

First, we need to trust in the God and seek his guidance to find the help we need to resolve our fears.

Second, if our fear is caused by a traumatic experience in childhood or in the past, very often skilled therapy is needed so the root cause can be resolved and trust restored.

Whether God heals us directly or through a counselor, doesn't matter. The important thing is that we choose to trust God and ask Him to give us the courage to face our fears-and lead us to the help we need to overcome them.

When I am afraid, I keep quoting, "The God is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do unto me?"

May our trust be stronger than our doubts and our love greater than our fears—for the God who brought us this far will not desert us now.

Dear God

please give me

the courage

to get in touch with

and face all my fears

so I don't set myself

up to fail

 

Thank you for hearing and answering my prayerz

Persistence Pays

Author John Toland who received the Pulitzer Prize for his book, The Rising Sun, is another person who knows the power of persistence. Even though he now has an imposing record of successes, he had an even more impressive record of failures as a writer.

From the time he started writing he wrote six novels and 25 plays—none of which were accepted by publishers!

Undeterred, he kept diligently writing for 20-some years before he tasted success. He went on to write such best-sellers as Adolph Hitler, The Last 100 Days, Battle: The Story of the Bulge, and But Not in Shame.

"If you wait for perfect conditions," advised King Solomon, "you will never get anything done. Keep on sowing your seed, for you never know which will grow—perhaps it all will."

 

Dear God

please give me

the insight

to know

what part

you want me

to play

in the work

that you are doing

in the world today

the courage—with your help—to do it

and the persistence to never give up doing it—no matter what.

 

Thank you for hearing and answering my prayerz

The Direction You Lean

As I've mentioned before, for many years I have ridden a mountain bike, and riding down the steep hill where we live is quite exhilarating—sure is a lot more fun than riding back up again—obviously, though, the benefit is only from the ride up. Unlike a car, however, on a bicycle you don't steer to turn. You lean to turn in the direction you want to go. If you lean towards the left, you go left. If towards the right, you go right. And if you lean too far either way, you'll fall. I know because I've leaned too far before—not on our steep hill fortunately.

Life's like that too. If you lean towards the left wing of liberalism that's the direction you will go. If towards the right wing of conservatism, that too is the direction you will go. And if you are an ultra-left-winger or an ultra-right-winger, chances are—in time—you will ultimately fall too.

Both of these extremes are the opposite side of the same coin. The culprits are not likely to admit it, but both are equally neurotic. For example, an ultra-right-winger is theologically rigid because he is emotionally rigid, repressed, and in denial. It has nothing to do with his self-perceived spirituality. He's this way because he is insecure. His defense against this is his rigidity. He always wants to be in control as this is the only way he feels safe. It's exactly the same for the ultra-left-winger. He's no different and is just as rigid in his stance as is the right-winger in his.

The healthiest and best direction to lean is towards God, trusting in Him and in His Word for the direction of your life. It is also essential to face one's emotional issues so we have our eyes open so we can see clearly the direction in which we are leaning—and heading, for where you look is where you will go.

Dear God

please help me

be emotionally honest

with myself and you

so I can see clearly and stay focused

on the direction I need to go

 

Thank you for hearing and answering my prayerz  

What We Project

A man was recently complaining to me about how most men rejected him. In his mind he was convinced that it was entirely their problem. As kindly as I could I tried to get him to see that fundamentally "what we project is what we get back." 

If one or two people reject me that's par for the course. Not everybody is going to like me. Expecting them to do so is unrealistic. 

However, if many people reject me, then I can be reasonably sure that the reason probably lies within me. In reality, "We tend to treat ourselves the way we were treated and then others treat us the way we treat ourselves." If, for example, I felt rejected as a child, I will tend to continue acting as if I am still being rejected, and imagine in my mind that others are still rejecting me also. While this is understandable it's self-deception. 

Furthermore, as long as we blame others for the reactions we have, we can never overcome our problems. It's far too easy to want others to change. The reality is that the only person I can ever change is me. And when I change, people's reaction to me will also change—because what I consistently project I will consistently get back! That's pretty much a law of life. What we sow is what we reap. 

The road to recovery begins with facing the truth and reality of what we are contributing to the problems we have. Only then can we help ourselves and only then can God help us. Denial of reality is the way to self-destruction. Only the truth can set us free.

Opportunity Comes to Pass ...

Once upon a time a city dweller moved to the country and bought a farm with a cow. In no time his cow went dry. When he told this to the neighboring farmer, the farmer was surprised as this cow had always given lots of milk.

The city man was surprised, too, and told the other farmer how considerate he had been of the cow. He said, "I never took more milk than I needed. If I only needed a quart, that's all I took. If I didn't need any milk, I didn't milk her that day!"

What the man didn't realize is that, to keep a cow producing milk, he needed to take what she had to give.

That's kind of like life, isn't it? If we don't use the gifts we have, we may lose them. And if we don't take the opportunities for service, for growth, for spiritual enrichment while we have them, we may lose these opportunities too.

Remember: "Opportunity comes to pass, not to pause!"

Dear God

please show me 

how to put to good use 

the gifts you have given me 

so I can have a part 

in what you are doing 

in the world in which I live today. 

May I never waste 

what you have given to me 

to give to others

Thank you for hearing and answering my prayerz ...