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Getting somewhere requires effort, it takes
faith to push on, it's easy to screw up,
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Friday, March 21, 2014
Incoming, incoming.. I’m getting overwhelmed with things I have to do…Help!Incoming,
incoming.. I’m getting overwhelmed with things I have to do…Help!
 “If we don't see a failure as a challenge to modify our approach, but rather as a problem with ourselves, as a personality
defect, we will immediately feel overwhelmed.” ~ Anthony Robbins
Okay so the situation is daunting to say the least.
Requests for help, guidance and decisions
are coming in thick and fast from numerous directions.
There are new requests replacing those coming in faster than the requests can be handled, and then
to crown it all indications are that the situation is getting more serious and less controllable every moment.
Anxiety builds
and with it comes sleepless nights, circulating thoughts and hard self-analysis.
Is this familiar?
God has the answer!
We who are Christians believe this, but we have to be careful or we end up in exactly the same situation just described.
Christian are not immune to incoming overwhelming influences. We care and love others who may be getting hurt or liable to
get hurt so we can actually get into a worse situation than people who decide to cope by simply being cold-hearted and selfish.
What
do we do?
DO we know God is to be trusted?
We do and
no matter what the circumstances we know this is the case so this is the best place to start…
“Dear Lord I trust you. I am overwhelmed,
don’t know where to start or what to do. Please take the muddle in my mind and life and make it yours so that I know
it is under your control. I trust you! You have not failed me! Thank-you Lord Jesus!”
Cool so God has picked up the burden. Do you believe that? Try
reading “Come to me, all of you who are tired and are carrying heavy loads. I will give
you rest. 29 Become my servants and learn from me. I am gentle and free of pride. You will find rest for your
souls. 30 Serving me is easy, and my load is light.” Matthew 28 as it is also very helpful. Memorise
this and have it ready to pull out and use when times get tough!
If you do this you have just done the first two steps to untangling the muddle.
Handing the situation to God is the first and praying is the second.
God cares about us, our circumstances and our lives.
Let us know our soul and situation with God is far more
important than the situation we find ourselves in.
By doing this we are basically doing one enormously important thing…We acknowledge God is first, not us or our situation.
Okay, now where do we
go?
Take a break! Step
out of the situation for a short while. Fresh air, a glass of water from the cooler, and short call to a loved one where we
don’t chat about our woes, and walk in a natural environment give us space to allow our soul to breath. During this
time each time a thought of the situation enters our mind, we need to switch to the though of what we are doing right NOW.
Is that water good, cold, pleasant? Hoe mush do we love the loved one, how about telling them? Isn’t that tree or the
sky, or the stream/rocks etc. beautiful?
Deliberately stop thoughts of the situation by switching them to something concrete
not connected with the situation.
This generates a little space between ourselves and the muddle we need to untangle. We
need to pray more and tell God how good he is and bring up all the good things he’s done for us in the past.
Okay, so perhaps now having
created a little space we need to take the next step.
Life is made of decisions and so to live we need to make them.
The problem is when we have too
many things to decide on we get locked,
thrashing from one to the next and not getting any decisions made.
The psychologists tell us we
can only think of 5 plus or minus 2 things at a time.
We need to get a decision made, so we need
to look at the muddle and break it up into 3 to 5 different areas of muddle.
Then we make our first decision. Which of these muddle pieces
is the most important?
Remember God is there as we make up the decision. If we can’t decide, we just pick one muddle piece.
13 “I am the Lord your God.
I
take hold of your right hand.
I say to you, ‘Do not be afraid.
I will help you.’”
Isaiah
41:13
Okay, so now
we repeat the process until we can make a decision and we make it.
Now we pick the next most important
piece and make that decision.
We need to not spend time reviewing the decision.
Just move onto the next chunk of muddle and repeat
the process. Do this
three times at least.
Now,
we need to stop and thank God before we congratulate ourselves on progress!
“Lord praise your name! You helped me make some decisions
and I give the outcome of these decisions to you and trust you to work with them as I move onwards. I accept your peace into
my life and again give you the loads I have been carrying. Guide me into breaking this muddle up into smaller bits that we
can handle together”
With this little bit of work done, let’s look for one small point of clarity we can identify
in this process.
With
the bits we have done we can probably start to see one point that could be a starting point,
a thread that we can find that could be something that links all the issues and which we can perhaps pick to start unravelling
the muddle.
“Lord,
I think I see something that could help me untangle this muddle, help me have the courage and to take decisions, one at a
time with you alongside me as I do my best to listen to you and follow your guidance in making decisions to undo this muddle,
resolving a small part of this big mess that you fully understand.”
We can now use the breaking up of the problem
into the 3 to 5 parts, and doing 3 decisions before looking for the next clarity point, to chunk up the muddle and slowly
break it down into manageable pieces.
The trick during this time is to focus on God and only the piece of the
muddle chunked out, rejecting thoughts of other chunks or of the whole problem.
The way to control thoughts is not to try
and stop thinking them
(men can sometimes stop thinking but women are not really wired to do this), it is to replace the thoughts
with directed thoughts that we can do something with.
God first, then a specific small piece we can deal with second and if we have dealt with that piece, then
on to the next small piece.
Now find a confidant!
Ladies generally
need someone to talk to about things, and guys sometimes do. Now it’s time to find a good Christian
friend who is NOT part of the situation who will be honest with us and ask them to listen to identify areas to pray
about, and not to give advice. (Yes, I said, NOT to give advice).
Talking can help us unload some of the stress and build subconscious
links that can help
us unravel the muddle. It also enables a second person to be able to pray. Asking them to pray with us about this is a powerful
tool to unravelling the situation.
“Again, here is what I tell you. Suppose two of you on earth agree about anything
you ask for. My Father in heaven will do it for you. 20 Where two or three people meet together in my name,
I am there with them.” Matthew 18
Now let’s do the chunking, the clarity identification, the praying and focus on just doing while
not being bugged about how the muddle will finally resolve.
Just doing continually what is needed in this way is the best we can
do.
Doing our best is all we can do so we are now performing where we can be
expected to perform.
If we are doing our best and handing everything to God, then we are not just doing, but we are doing optimally.
Now it’s
time to chat to God about it…
“Thanks Lord for helping make some decisions and for taking part in unloading me and helping
me make progress with the muddle. You are great and glorious and help so much. I trust you to help me find a clear way through
this muddle and know if you could help Moses part the red sea, you can help me with this simpler problem. I love you and trust
you to keep helping me until this muddle is undone or is no longer my responsibility”
This being done, we can now understand God is in control
and that we are just part of that. Knowing this we can fill our mind with how wonderful he is. (Putting on praise
and worship music will sure help). We know we cannot see the end of all things but know it is near.
“The end
of all things is near. So keep a clear mind. Control yourselves. Then you can pray. 8 Most of all, love one
another deeply. Love erases many sins by forgiving them.” 1 Peter 4
We simply need to build out our ability to let God
help us chunk our problems, get clarity on what to do next and have Him be part of our solutions.
In this way we learn to
love Him more and trust Him more and with that our mind clears and we find we have moved form a place where we lack control
to a place where we are now knowing God is helping us control ourselves.
Now we can love others more deeply because we have found a way to
enable God’s love for us through muddles in our life.
Isn’t that great?
Fri, March 21, 2014 | link
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Inspiration comes from God “The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all.” ~ Walt Disney Company, Mulan
There are times in our life when we feel empty of faith, all wrung out. Like a cloth that has lost all it’s liquid and is now only slightly damp.
We have nothing left to do anything with! We are drying out and
becoming hard and brittle. That’s the time we need to hear these words of God which Paul says after
explaining about the hope of future glory to which we are saved …
In the same way, the Holy Spirit helps us when we are weak.
We don’t know what we should pray for. But the Spirit himself prays for us. He prays with groans too deep for words.
27 God, who looks into our hearts, knows the mind of the Spirit. And the Spirit prays for God’s people
just as God wants him to pray. Rom
8:26-28
Prayer
can be difficult at times. We know we have failed, perhaps many times, there is a deep longing to get back to God but we are not really sure how.
It can be that our words fail and all that is left is a desire to have that relationship with God again in the sweet way we
once had it.
We
need to know that Holy Spirit is always with us helping us. Even when words fail us, Holy Spirit is translating the smallest wishes into requests to God. These requests
are communicated in ways we can never even understand. God sees our hearts through the filter of Holy Spirit in our lives.
The
hurts, the pains, the loss the gains are all seen by God.
Let’s turn our eyes onto Jesus and look to God to release us from our circumstances
if that is his will.
Yet, sometimes he wants us to endure. He is alongside and we gain as we long for that presence. He never really leaves us, it is rather we who
do the leaving. Yet, if we stick with God even when we cannot see his action in our lives, we grow in faith and strength.
We overcome and become
fragrant flowers joining with the prayers of the saints in providing incense to the altar of God.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Concerned about promotion…what type? Concerned about promotion…what type?
“Well more than two thirds of the press releases from Douglas
MacArthur's command reference only one person – himself.” ~ Stanley Weintraub, Pearl Harbor Christmas: A World
at War, December 1941
Those great looking highly accomplished people who promote themselves unceasingly normally
get what they promote…themselves.
The problem is that despite the hype and flagrant mistruths put out there, the truth is known by one person, the speaker.
This speaker
can even get to deluding themselves that they are little gods, but the reality is if they are honest, they are no more a god
than Caesar was in the roman empire a long time ago and like Caesar they will die, and face the true God.
What will God think of the inane arguments
they have flouted in life? Where is the true value of their life when subjected to the purifying glory of God and absolute
truth?
This will be a tough time for them will it not?
Remember these verses…1 Sam 16:7
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do
not consider how handsome or tall he is. I have not chosen him. I do not look at the things people look at. Man looks at how
someone appears on the outside. But I look at what is in the heart.”
David’s selection was to occur, but Samuel is warned he
will not look much, his appearance and social stature would be weak.
Yet this is a man of incredible properties. A good portion of the Old Testament
has his writings and he was a man after God’s heart.
This make me reflect on us and our situation.
How much self-promoting do we do?
Is our focus God unveiling or
self-promoting?
In rare occasions these align but more often one is a holy purpose and the other the opposite.
Remember that God pointed out the least shall
be greatest and we are here to serve rather than be served. God wants faithful men. Men who focus on God first, everything
else next.
If Jesus can become a servant of all, how much more should we? We are servant leaders in this world. Led by God to lead others.
Let’s never forget that.
James probably expresses this the best when
he says…
13 Are any of you wise and understanding? You should show it by living a good life. Wise people aren’t
proud when they do good works.
14 But suppose your hearts are jealous and bitter. Suppose you are concerned only about getting ahead.
Don’t brag about it. Don’t say no to the truth. 15 Wisdom like that doesn’t come down from
heaven. It belongs to the earth. It doesn’t come from the Holy Spirit. It comes from the devil.
That’s in James 3. Let’s be truly wise servants of God.
Have a blessed day!
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
How do we win over sin?How do we win
over sin?
"Our world is on fire and man without God cannot control the flames. The fires of greed, hate and
lust are sweeping uncontrollably around our globe. We live in the midst of crisis, danger, fear and death~Billy Graham
Everywhere we turn we see the evidence of sin.
A Malaysian Aircraft has gone missing with hundreds of people on board and it is
fairly conclusive that somebody did this deliberately.
Sin!
A sprinter without legs who was a world idol shot his girlfriend.
Sin!
Nations and world powers fight over a piece of land and millions of
people,
Sin!
We fail to tell
the truth.
Sin!
We hurt those
close to us.
Sin!
In this life we will never be far from sin, those selfish, nasty and ignorant things we do. In fact we will always be exposed to it and sometimes we will slip and fall into
it.
The bible says
“Suppose we claim we are without sin. Then we are fooling ourselves. The truth is not in
us.” 1 John 1:8
1 John 3:4-6 says however
“Everyone who sins breaks the law. In fact, breaking the law is sin. But you know
that Christ came to take our sins away. And there is no sin in him. No one who remains joined to him keeps on sinning. No
one who keeps on sinning has seen him or known him.”
These seem contradictory and yet they are written by the same man in the same letter
so they cannot be.
Basically we all screw up and sin at times. When
we do we break the perfect life God wants for us. We take ourselves out of his love and protection. Yet Jesus knew we would
do this and so has stepped in for us, taking the heat for our bad behaviour and enabling us to be free to step forward and
continue our walk with God as if we had never sinned.
There is no sin in Jesus, as he overcame sin. God cannot have sin and so once forgiven, the fact that we
can walk on through our lives with God is the gift Jesus gave us.
Through Jesus we stop sinning.
Our desire to sin goes away. Our desire to live Godly perfect
life increases every day.
Our ability to overcome sin is flawed, but Jesus ability to forgive and clean us up is perfect. In this way our momentary lapses are clean
as soon as we turn to Jesus and desire to move onto perfection.
Holy Spirit guides us and God’s word speaks life into us.
All the academic
knowledge in the world cannot save is, the worlds laws and rules only make things worse, psychology and sociology explain
instead or forgive.
Only Jesus is the answer!
Tue, March 18, 2014 | link
Monday, March 17, 2014
When we forgive we must not speak of it again, must we?When we forgive
we must not speak of it again, must we? Forgiving is not forgetting. It's letting go of the hurt ~ Kathy
We fail and hurt others sometimes...
normally intentionally, sometimes intentionally!
The hurt can go deep. In some cases the only way we seem to be
able to deal with it is to get away from the other. It’s hard and this is extreme. Yet, sometimes we come back together
again for reasons. Sometimes it’s loneliness, sometimes it’s hope, sometimes it’s a child, sometimes it’s
security, sometimes it’s fear. There are other reasons as well.
Not all of these reasons are good, “but who
other than God can judge” we tell ourselves. We are right!
We can’t truly judge another, can we?
We have made to many false judgements in our
lives to know our knowledge of the best judgement is a little inadequate at times. True?
Whether we are to return to the
relationship with another or not, there is one important aspect of returning, and that is forgiveness.
We have to push aside the past hurt and allow another the room to hurt us again.
That’s hard isn’t it? Proverbs says “Those who erase
a sin by forgiving it show love. But those who talk about it come between close friends.” And Jesus tells us
to love even our enemies.
Love is supreme and when it flows to others through us from God it is powerful as well.
Core to this is the second part of that proverb. If we forgive,
we should not talk about it. The worst case of this is a parent talking about it to their child. This is a way of damaging
the child’s relationship with the other parent. Forgiveness is something that is done and then we move on.
We sometimes sin unintentionally
and that is wrong as well!
Israel did that and this is what God had to say about it. Numbers 15:26 “The Lord
will forgive the whole community of Israel and the outsiders living among them. All of the people had a part in the sin, even
though they did not mean to do it.”
God forgives, so should we. God never brings up our sin and
talks to others about it again, and so should we.
The challenge of forgiveness is that we do not forget. There is a care not to repeat patterns,
yet as we take that care we need to not let emotions start to rise within us that have no place being there. True forgiveness
is not only for the other but for us as well. If we allow emotions to pull us into our past, we will simply open old wounds
and never heal.
True forgiveness is between two people. Let’s not bring a third into the situation if we can avoid it,
unless the third is God himself.
Have a great day!
Mon, March 17, 2014 | link
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If you want to see a short blog describing a perspective on what I believe click here
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Rift in Evil
By Ken
X Briggs - Published: September, 2010
- Format: Perfect Bound Softcover(B/W)
- Pages: 208
Size:
6x9 - ISBN: 9781450250894
Available from Barnes and Noble, Amazon, iUniverse. |
Credit cards are acceptable on sites having Ken's books: 
:)
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on XML Click here =>  to be told of new blogs
| Ken's book covers are displayed below. . . | |  This
suspense thriller centers on Kiara, a beautiful young woman pursued by a murderous group of people, who relentlessly and ruthlessly
hunt her and her sisters. Kiara has no idea why she is being targeted! When Kiara and her family turn to the law for help,
this fails. Her pursuers’ powers reach deeply into the political and law enforcement world. Family support for her dwindles
when they too have to flee her pursuers. Can Kiara escape the clutches of both the law and dishonest big business? With the
media broadcasting that Kiara and friends are dangerous and subversive, can Kiara clear her name and bring her pursuers to
justice?
| | | | | To purchase Kiara's Pursuer ebook
@ $1.99 kindle version click here, To contact the author contact Author@KenXBriggs.com | | | | | | | | The town of Zinaville is dropped into a spiral of evil causing a young man and a beautiful but abused woman
to launch into an investigation that unveils an evil conspiracy. A horrific mining accident results in Joshua
Robyn's father being killed. Joshua struggles both with himself and his townsfolk as he tries to make sense of an incomprehensible
situation. Is it an accident or a murder? Why is there a seeming link to evil? Why is his work environment suddenly threatening?
What is the conspiracy about and what are they trying to do? As action moves dramatically from exotic African grasslands to
the heart of North America's cities, the plot unfolds and the pace quickens. Will there be time? Why is a beautiful abused
young woman in the center of this plot? Evil tendrils tighten on their lives and the interplay between the visible
and invisible world shows opposing forces at work. Will there be a rift in evil? Will they be able to stop the
evil in time? | | - Published: September, 2010
- Format: Perfect
Bound Softcover(B/W)
- Pages: 208
Size: 6x9 - ISBN: 9781450250894
Available
from Barnes and Noble, Amazon, iUniverse. Chapters | | | | |
| Frugal Eating Advice |
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| Good advice for students living on limited $'s. Click on the image! |
May you be blessed today!
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