Recalibrate – "…because you matter!"

Accurate Measuring, Attitude, Emotional Healthy, Forgiveness, Humility, Mess, Owning your stuff

Address The Mess: Sick! (Next)

Second: See the previous blog

The next thing that became a game changer was that I needed to be sensitive to the nudges and prompts that God gives out for those who are willing to be responsive.

I was prompted in my thoughts, “You were wrong in your dealings with Sam (not his real name) when you told him to get his act together regarding his marriage.”

Years earlier I had lost patience with a dear friend. He was struggling in his marriage, and I had coached and prayed and helped in all ways that I knew how. After many months of doing this I lost patience and just said one day, “Sam when are you going to get your act together?” I was only partway out of my legalistic tendencies. I was still learning how to live free and full of grace toward others.

Moments like this are pivotal, but I didn’t recognize it at the moment.

It was years later in a conversation with God when he brought this up. God had me. Guilty as charged.

I knew my next step was to contact Sam, own my stuff, and Seek forgiveness. I did and was able to grow from this ordeal. I hope he did as well.

It is so easy to fall from Grace. A nuance, a proud moment, a frustrated goal, all can take you into doing things your way and falling away from God’s ability and empowerment. It wasn’t my first encounter and probably not my last.

We need always to be walking humbly with God, Micah 6:8, but it is easy to morph to our own path.

I learned that to have and live a grace-filled life I needed to know how deep my mess went. It was deep.

I learned that we are no different. If left to my own devices, if my background, my family, my life and contextual circumstances were exactly like yours, I would make the exact same decisions that you have made. Every part, every dysfunction, that you experience would be mine and conversely mine would be yours. That is what addressing the mess looks like.

I am susceptible if I try to do life on my own.

I need Gods empowering every bit as much as you or anybody else because if left to myself, I would fall, I would do ‘human’ every time.

So, Grace is God’s empowering for us to do what we cannot do for ourselves. It is the outworking of who the Holy Spirit is in us. If I fall here all I need to do is address the mess, confess it to God, obey him, and once again recalibrate.

Then, only then, I can reach out and be helpful.

Book Offer

Attitude, Perspective

Thumbprint

Life can get extremely stressful. We can struggle with agendas, time restraints, expectations, shortfalls, and so much more.

It is so easy to get caught in the swirl of the immediate, the tyranny of the urgent, and the ‘have to’ of the moment. After all, everyone expects it now.

It’s true; things have to get done, budgets need to balance, deadlines have to be met, commitments need to be kept. Stack onto this loss, failure and missed moments and you have a volcano ready to blow! And that is just the workplace.

Now come home to what feels like a litany of expectations and family commitment. At times, it can be just overwhelming. It can be hard to hold or regain equilibrium.

This locomotion of this multi-car freight train seems impossible to control.

How do you stop this menace?

Years ago now, I managed to locate my house from a flight as we flew over our city. I measured it with my thumb as I looked out the window. My thumb covered my entire property. I said to myself, “I am spending my whole life working for something that I can cover with my thumb?”

Perspective.

How do I wrestle my life back into perspective? How do I regain balance and margin?

I guess I have to ask myself the hard, revealing and penetrating questions.

What am I really working for?

What, rather who, matters?

I want to spend my life for who and for what is most important.

How about we do that together?

You Don’t Have To Live; You Get To!

Attitude, Grief and Loss

Let’s Talk About Loss!

You can win by losing. Really.

I, and some others are doing it. It is going to be fantastic for all of us.

My friend has crafted a plan by which about 24 of us can actually benefit from loss.

Of course, you guessed it; I’m talking about weight.

We will benefit physically, and a couple, maybe more, financially. We will lose and win after a six-month challenge. What could be better than, for the next six months, learning to live healthier, eat better and work out regularly? From where I sit, soon to be working out, I think that is a win.

Now, what about life?

How can you win from losing?

I think that there is a trick to it. Here it is. If you have to go through some tough stuff, make it pay! Don’t go through with complaint; go through with getting a wider angle, a larger reference, a shifted paradigm.

That’s how it works. You either let it wreck you for the bad, or you let it wreck you for the good.

I think that Andy Stanley said it, “Wisdom is simply the widest angle of perspective possible.”

So, if you are going to go “through it” at least get the wisdom, that is readily available, from it.

Then, and only then, you will win by losing.

So, let’s talk about loss!

You Don’t Have To Live; You Get To!

Attitude, Don't Worry

I Did It Again

I did it again.

I tried to bring tomorrow’s worries onto today’s grid. That can even work sometimes, but not when you have a full load today; all that does is overload, blow circuits and cause the angst to skyrocket.

I know better.

I would coach you differently.

Without even thinking; actually that is the problem, I was not thinking.

Possibly like you I was just going along ‘handling’ my day. As more things presented, I just added them to the ‘handling’ stack. No thought, no challenge, just piling them higher, deeper, thicker.

All at once they hit, and I was feeling overwhelmed. I’m glad that I’m the only one who has ever done that. But then I started to think and filter but first I prayed, “Lord I am feeling overwhelmed right now.”

As I filtered, I thought:

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34, NIV)

“Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16, NIV) That grace to help interprets to me, “God’s enablement” to help in our time of need.

This one I kind of stole from Moses’ blessing to Asher, “The bolts of your gates will be iron and bronze, and your strength will equal your days.” (Deuteronomy 33:25)

These filters allowed me to equalize my tanks and recalibrate my pressure. Now you can do the same.

We have everything we need to cope and manage for today. We, however, overload the day when we borrow worry from tomorrow.

Come back to the moment. As often as you need to, come back to the present. Actually, come back to His Presence. He has Grace, Enablement, more than sufficient to meet you and to help you.

You Don’t Have To Live; You Get To!

About Pain, Attitude

How Can Pain Be Good?

Dr. Paul Brand, leading doctor in the breakthrough study of Leprosy in the 70’s and 80’s credited the absence of pain as one of the main contributing problems of this disease. A lack of sensation causes a leprous person to damage their body unwittingly.

It occurs to me that some of us may have removed pain from our emotional docket. Because of incredible, at the time insurmountable hurt we thought it best to not ‘pain’ anymore. For many, that would seem to be a logical decision. Close off to hurt, close off to pain. It’s the childhood vow. “I will never let anyone get close to me again!” After a rape or abuse or extreme humiliation, who would?

Leprosy has done this in the ravage of its disease. It has stopped the pain mechanisms in the body over time of those affected and thus enabled the damage that we have seen in the pictures. Medically it has been battled and has dropped from worldwide millions in the 80’s to hundreds of thousands today. But I wonder how many millions perhaps billions of people have emotionally stopped feeling. How many impenetrable walls erected? How many blockades placed?

At the time, these looked like protection but have proved to be tactics of isolation and loneliness. Eliminating pain can be so damaging and destructive, life altering and sometimes ending.

Today, just for the moment, would you be willing to feel again? Would you be open to taking the path out of your past to begin new?

You Don’t Have To Live; You Get To!