Question of the Week

It is so easy to let our first impression of someone be the only lasting impression we will have of them. Sometimes though this first impression isn't the best impression and we run the risk of losing out on a great person in our lives because we stop at the flash picture of them. Imagaine what we might be blessed with if we went beyond that first impressiona nd kept looking for somethign to like in everyone we met. Then imagine what our outlook on life would be if we not only applied this to the people we met but also to the situations we face in our lives. The question for the week is this: "What if you looked for the good in everyone and in every situation?"

Lets not just use this as the question for the week but lets choose it as a quest for challenge this week.

Be Blessed and Be a Blessing!
Mike

Quote of the Day

"Better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness."
- Chinese Proverb

Quote of the Day

"One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest."
- Maya Angelou

Quote of the Day

"The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails."
- John Maxwell

Quote of the Day

"There may be peace without joy, and joy without peace, but the two combined make happiness"
- John Buchan

Quote of the Day

"It's the friends that you can call up at 4 A.M. that matter."
--Marlene Dietrich

Quote of the Day

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more."--
Melody Beattie

Quote of the Day

"The idea is not to see through one another, but to see one another through."
--C.D. Jackson

Quote of the Day

"If love is truly a verb, if help is a verb, if forgiveness is a verb, if kindness is a verb then you can do something about it."
--Betty Eadie

Question of the Week

If you could determine the last thing you see before your own death, what would it be?

Quote of the Day

"If I have the heart that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it."
--Mahatma Ghandi

Quote of the Day

"What we'll remember when we are old are the things we did for others."
--Will Rogers

A Daily Dose of Inspiration

There are days when I need to start my day out with a good quote or a real positive thought to get me started in the right mindset. I read my Word in the morning and that takes me to a good place, but sometimes it leaves me with questions and I am left racking my brain for meaning or interpretation. So I set up some emails to post to the blog on a daily basis to deliver the quotes here. If you enjoy them let me know. If not them shoot me some quotes that have lifted you up when you needed that boost.

Be Blessed and Be a Blessing!
Mike

In Reference to the Bible...

"This Book will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from this Book."--D.L. Moody

Be Blessed and Be a Blessing
Mike

Perspective

I heard this quote the other day, I forgot who I heard say it, but it has stayed with me since I heard it and this morning it is really resonating with my heart.

"To the world I am one, but to One I am the world."

What an amazing thought.
Be Blessed and Be a Blessing!
Mike

God--The Show Off

"There is a pattern that I see repeated throughout the Scriptures: Sometimes God won't intervene until something is humanly impossible. And he usually does it just in the nick of time." --Mark Patterson, In a Pit With a Lion On a Snowy Day

Isn't that the truth. Doesn't it always seem like God doesn't move in a situation that is rough on you until it seems there is no possible way out. It is almost like being in the deep end of the pool and not knowing how to swim and feeling yourself going under. You have gasped your last breath of air and have just about resigned yourself to the fact that this might be the last breath you will take, and then from no where someone jumps in and saves you. The bible says in Jeremiah that at just the right time God hears our cries for help and reaches down to save us. That is the hard part of this thing called faith. We have to trust that God knows exactly when that right time is. It would seem like the situations that help form our faith are the ones that are the roughest on us; the ones that push us beyond our known limits of endurance without completely breaking us to the point of no return. We come out of those situations with a deeper faith and trust in God than we had before we entered our rough times--that is if we maintain our trust in God and don't give up before we have had the chance to let God be God in our situations. I think the best part of being God must be the ability to show off when ever you want to. He lets us get to the point we are almost at our breaking point and then intervenes and puts everything back in its right place and restores order in our lives. I am Glad I serve a God like that. He allows me to get pushed out of my comfort zone and into situations where I have rely on Him for bigger and bigger intervention so my faith is built up and my relationship and dependence on Him increase.

Be Blessed and Be a Blessing!
Mike

Not Why But Who

"The question we need to ask ourselves when God allows us to go through hard times is not why but who? In the mind of God, pain always has two intended recipients: us and someone else. If we choose not to take what we've experienced and find some way of using it to help other people, we miss a large part of why God allowed us to suffer in the first place." --Brian Jones, Second Guessing God

This switch in the mode of thinking can be powerful. It changes our situation from "poor me" to who can I help with my my learning through suffering. It puts us into the service oriented line of thinking that we are taught as disciples. It allows us to have some power in our suffering instead of us feeling completely worked over and powerless.

Be Blessed and Be a Blessing!
Mike

New Car Smell of Faith

I have always believed that there was more to being a follower of Christ than just saying a cute little prayer. It has been an annoying presence in my life to think that the church has failed new Christians in huge ways by not telling them of sacrifice and service. We promise them that their lives will be changed, but often times it is not the immediate change that they were expecting. They get through the honeymoon period of salvation where they tell all their friends and family that they are saved and how their lives are changed and then that feeling ends. The salvation buzz wears off and they realize that the changes they were expecting to see haven't happened yet and the miracles they were waiting on haven't manifested themselves yet. Brian Jones in his book Second Guessing God says that for him when he started having doubts it was like the new car smell wore off on his faith.

By the third page of his book I knew I had found a new favorite author. The first of the best passages in the book (and there are many) comes from a conversation between him and one of his mentors.

Brian: "My faith in God right now is like a walk on the beach. Ive taken off my shoes, and as i stand at the water's edge, the tide has started to roll across my feet. It feels wonderful. Up to this point my spiritual journey had been incredible, but in the last six months doubt has begun to paralyze me. It's like when the water goes back out to the ocean. It is washing away the sand underneath me, and my feet keep sinking lower and lower and lower. If this keeps up, there wont be anything left to stand on."

Mentor: "Brian, I have stood where you're standing. Ive felt the water cascade across my feet. I know how wonderful it feels. But Ive also had the water go back out to sea. I've felt the sand get washed out from underneath my feet...When the last grain of sand is finally gone, you're going to discover that you're standing on a rock."

That is awesome. First to know that we don't go through things that others around us haven't been through. Second to know that as deep as the sand around us might seem, we have a foundation that we have built our house and our faith on. When it seems like we are sinking and have no hope left we will hit our rock and that will keep us from sinking any further. Sometimes I think those rough times hit our lives because we need to get back to the basics of our faith and our walk with Christ. those times usually help us get closer to Him and reinforce the faith that helped us start our walk with Him to begin with.

Be Blessed and Be a Blessing

Quotable Quotes--Seth Godin , The Dip

"Persistent people are able to visualize the idea of light at the end of the tunnel when others can't see it. At the same time, the smartest people are realistic about not imagining light when there isn't any."--Seth Godin, The Dip

There have been times in my life when I wanted to make a name for myself and thought that I had the perfect idea or project that would help me do just that. I focused most of my time and my energy on the creation and implementation of that idea. Not only that I would invest the time and energies of the people that I had working for me on my pet project. When it became even possible that the idea wasn't going to be successful, I focused more of my energy and time and more of my resources (human and otherwise) on the success of my great idea. I had Wizard of Oz syndrome--Pay no mind to what's behind the curtain. I tried to force myself and those who were working on the project to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Putting a spin on a slowly or rapidly failing idea was a lot easier than admitting that it was a failure. In the process I wasted (squandered really) my time and energy, and that of the people I had working on the project, on a project that would have been better being sent out to pasture with the other well intentioned but unsuccessful ideas. It would have been better to accept the idea as a failure and move on to the next one. How can I apply this to the spiritual life?

Be Blessed and Be a Blessing!
Mike

Quotable Quotes--Seth Godin , The Dip

"Just about everything you learned in school about life is wrong, but the wrongest thing might very well be this: Being well rounded is the secret to success." --Seth Godin, The Dip

One of the biggest points that I have taken away from this book is mediocrity is not okay. Yet that is what most of us choose when we make the decision to know something about everything or at least a lot of things. We never perfect our knowledge in one area and become an expert on the subject. Experts are scarce. We need to focus on greatness and narrow our scope of knowledge and skill a little. Well roundedness is not as good when you have the opportunity to have expertise.

Be Blessed and Be a Blessing.
Mike