Is it yours?

I had to ask the question the other day, why is it that people don't achieve their dreams?

My mentor, the smart and wise human being that he is, gave me two main reasons....

#1. People are satisfied with what the status quo, and don't want to go for what is theirs....

#2. People don't know who they are....

We have had this conversation many times. Yet I still wonder about it. Why would people have a dream and not go after it?

People dream big. We all think that we can be astronauts as kids. We want to go "traipsing away through the constellations", yet as we get older, and life settles in, we settle. we settle for getting off the curb instead of the constellations. We forget how to dream big. We also forget that in order to get what we want, we fall down.... Think about it... As kids when we wanted to learn how to ride a bike, we fell. Some of us more than others, but nonetheless we fell. But we got up, and kept getting up until we got it right. As we get older, we tend to stay down a lot more, and a lot longer with things instead of falling and getting right back up. That's when we end up with shoulda, coulda, wouldas..... You talk to any businessman/woman, and they will tell you that they didn't succeed at what they were doing at first. Talk to any athlete, and they all have stories about the shot that didn't go in, or the missed catch, the missed free throw, the missed spare, that cost them the game and/or the championship. However, they continued to get back up and press forward. They worked on that shot, they worked on that spare, and got it right....

Micheal Jordan, arguably one of the best Basketball players, past or present, was cut from his High school team. Did that stop him from going after his dream? His work ethic consisted of being in the gym when his peers might have been out partying. His work ethic consisted of working on his game... One of my favorite posters of him says this "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." No matter how many times he failed, he got back up until he got it..... Instead of settling for the status quo, for being just like everyone else, he not only had to play in the NBA, but he had to be great at what he did...

We fall into this rut where we don't want to be great, because being great requires more from us. When people know you can do something they rely on you more instead of just leaving you be. They require and expect you to always deliver when they know you are capable of it... Knowing this, there are times when I haven't been great, where mediocre was cool. However, when your soul craves for greatness a piece of you diminishes until there is no fight left in you. when there is no fight in you, you accept any and everything. This is perfect for the life we live. A defeated people, is a people less likely to seek the truth. A defeated people is more likely to raise the next generation of defeated people until everyone is blindly following each other instead of creating their own. They are settling for unhealthy relationships cause they don't see themselves as being worthy of them... That brings me to the next point.

People don't know who they are. They don't know what they are capable of because they refuse to stop. Stop, Look, and Listen. Stop all of the distractions, go off into the dessert, have the quiet time without the distractions and pray. Pray, meditate, get closer to God. Our souls, because they come from him, strive to get back to him, but how do we know that unless we tap into our souls, and we can't tap into our souls until we're willing to stop and listen. Once we tap into our souls, if we listen close enough, we can find out what our purpose is and how to carry out the plan. Once we know what we are listening too, we know where to look... By knowing ourselves, we get closer to God......

So the question is are you willing to get closer to God? Are you willing to go after what is yours?

Faith

Hebrews 11:1 says "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for. The evidence of things not seen"

There are many people throughout the Bible that had unshakable, unmovable faith. I fell led to talk about the 3 Hebrew Boys.... Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

These guys have an interesting story. Their people were in captivity. They had been captured and and were being held in Babylon. A foreign land, away from everything that they know... How are you supposed to cope in a situation like that? How would you cope in situation like that?

These guys had immovable faith. They trusted when Daniel said that they weren't going to eat of the King's portion... (Something, I will definitely talk about at a later time). By trusting in this, which of course was a testament to their faith in God, they gained favor from the King. Not because of the fact that they gave up their faith to follow a corrupt government, but because they showed the better way. They not only caused trouble with their faith, they showed the people how to go about living a better life....

While Hebrews was written to a New Testament audience, it applies to no only many cases in the Old Testament, but it applied to this one specifically as well.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for... The evidence of things not seen....

The three Hebrews boys when presented with giving up their faith, their worship of the one true God, or saving their lives... They told Nebuchadnezzar that there was no way they would stop worshiping God. They told him that even when faced with the fiery furnace they weren't going to stop. The conversation went back and forth to the point where Nebuchadnezzar says "...Who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?" The boys answered the king "We are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God, whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and he will deliver us out of thine hand O king, but if not, but it known unto thee o king that we will not serve thy gods nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. (Daniel 3:16-18)

They hoped for God's deliverance, but they were not giving up if it turned out God didn't deliver them... It didn't matter to them if they were saved or not.....

That is faith... We should live our lives liked that. Live our lives so that anyone who comes into contact with us sees our faith. Sees our faith not only in our actions but sees our faith in the way we believe...

Faith, is the substance of things hope for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. (Hebrews 11:1-4)

Now or never

We wait for just the right time to do something. The right time to call, the right time to go out, the right time to go back to school... Just the right time...

There comes a time when what we think might be the right time, is not the right time at all.

We have to trust that God knows when the right time is. He will point us in the right direction. That is why we need to have a relationship with him in order to hear him.

In the bible there were many times when it was questioned if it was the right time..... Everyone from Abraham all the way down to John has questioned God's timing...

The most famous person we could think of was Mary. She was 14, not married, and pregnant. If anyone had reason to question God's timing. It was her. While she questioned God's timing, she accepted it. She said "Let's Go".... She was ostracized for her decision to say yes...

That will happen sometime. We will be ostracized for us saying yes, for relying on God's timing...

To honestly tell you, when God tells us to do something, we have to do it at that moment. There are so many people and other things relying on us saying we'll do it in God's time... When we feel it in every fiber of our being that it's time to do something... Say a prayer, and do it...For a lot of things, it is Now or never.

What level are you on?

Relationships are a funny thing...

When was about 15, maybe a bit younger, I was in the laundromat and I over heard this couple talking about relationships... The woman said relationships have three levels. This has always stuck with me because it applies not only to intimate relationships but to our everyday relationships.

When we think about relationships, we don't always think about how they affect us in the long run. We meet people, people meet us.... That's how life happens... But with every person we meet and choose to have a relationship with, there are three levels it can fit into.

Level 1: Everything stays the same. In this level no one grows. Everything is left exactly as it was when you first met. Nothing happens. It's just their. The person who we are in this type of relationship with, can come and go and we would never know it because they didn't have an impact on our life, which is hard to do because everyone in some way affects our life.

Level 2: One person stays on the same level, and the other person doesn't. This level is a bit rough because in this level anything can happen. We see this level in a lot of relationships though. One person grows while the other person stays where they are or one person moves backward in their growth while the other person keeps going. This happens because when one person grows they don't include them in the process. It even happens when they grow backwards. When a person is going through a rough patch they don't always included anyone else in it until it's two late.

Level 3: Both people grow. This is the ideal relationship. This means that both people are moving in one accord. This is a tough one to do because it would have meant that both people were on the same accord at the start of the relationship. Both people have to have the same foundation in order to build upon it so that no one's house is collapsing. So this means getting to know you and your partner before even jumping into a relationship. Same thing at work, why get into a conversation or develop a relationship with a co-worker who doesn't share your beliefs? You don't have to agree on everything, but the important things you should definitely agree on....

My challenge to you today is to evaluate your relationships. Are you a level 1, 2 or 3...... If it's not a level 3, examine why it's like that, and is it worth fixing.....

Praise him.

This one is a bit personal, but someone, not sure who, is going to benefit from this....

Sometimes we feel like a piece of us is missing. Sometimes, it's the best part of us. Sometimes, it's the part of us that reminds us that the world is a good place. Sometimes it's the thing that reminds us to always reach higher. Reach higher than just what it seems like we are reaching for.

When that piece is missing, we have a tendency to go inside ourselves. Ourselves during grief can be a dark place, and if we let it engulf us, it can take us into a really dark place. At this time, when it happens, we can retreat. Actually we need to retreat because we need time to handle our grief. In our retreat though, we are not to be alone. We are to take our bible with us, our praise and worship music, and just praise God. Praise him for everything that we are doing now. Praise him for everything that is going on in our life. Praise him for the good times, and praise him for being able to go through the grief that we are going through because it helps keep us humble, it helps to show us our mortality, it helps to keep us in the palm of his hands... For it is when we are at our lowest that he can show who he is in our life, and through us...

Wow! It's been a while... 2 1/2 years... In that time a lot has happened... My world has been turned upside down, flipped around, and just altered.... But through it all, I haven't lost sight of the most important thing. That I walk with a good God, a great God, and an awesome God....

I'm back to writing, and hopefully we'll keep this updated on a regular basis. So let's continue this walk together. Time to start walking.

We wonder sometimes why it is that when things are going on around us we are spared from it. Have you ever been in a situation where you know you should not have walked away from it, yet you did. You might have been bruised a little bit, but that bruise didn't kill you. There are many situations that have happened like that. I want to talk about a man named Moses.

Moses when he was born, was sentenced to death. At the time of his birth, a decree had gone out from Pharaoh to have all of the male Hebrew babies killed because the Hebrew slaves talked of a deliverer, for they were in bondage. Moses could have died, he could have been killed, but he was placed in a basket. The basket was placed in the river, and Pharaoh's daughter found him. He was bruised a bit, because he grew up not knowing who his family was or where he came from, but he was spared. As the rest of the story goes, he freed the Hebrews from Pharaoh's son, they wandered the dessert, and their children got to enter the promise land. Why their children.... That's a topic for another day.....

We are spared for a reason. It's always a reason... It's our goal to find out what that reason is, and as we find out what that reason is, we find out who we are. In finding out who we are we get closer to God. Until it hits a point where we are relying on him for everything... Who else but God answers when we call, is always there for us? He may not show up when we want him, but he is always there when you need him....

SO why have you been spared?

How we walk....

I was praying this morning, and with God's help came to the conclusion that Christians don't always walk the way they are supposed to. Let me explain, in my favorite version of footprints, it ends with Jesus dancing with the person in the story. It makes me wonder because I always thought that in order to dance you have to first walk. So how can we dance with Jesus if we don't walk with him? The other thing, have you ever seen dancers? They walk with this confidence amd with a gracefulness that makes people look twice. As Christians, we should have that walk. We should have ourselves so deep in Christ, that we know at the end of it all, we are God's children. We should be able to dance with the Lord at all times, even if its just a simple two step. That however only comes after we are so sure in our Walk with him that we feel comfortable enough to step out and be silly for a bit. I don't know about you but I want to dance....

Here's how you become more sure in your walk. You practice. Practice going to God with the little things, so it'll be easy when we need to go to him for the big things. Practice spending more time in study and reflection of the word.... Make it as much of an habit as getting dressed everyday, or even feeding ourselves when we are hungry. Remember Christ told us that man cannot live on bread alone. So if Christ had to say it, what makes you think that we in present day can survive without his word.... Also we have to surround ourselves with people who will help us spiritually, mentally and physically.......... This is how we walk.