Dare to be Different - Mahl Kita

Used by Permission by www.GoodJobNotes.com

The biggest problem with being different is that you, just by being different, fly in the face of what everyone thinks is right and what they expect from you.  Most of the time, being different is considered being wrong, and causes overt and direct attacks as well word of mouth and rumor attacks.  It almost never causes success in the world, unless it answers the question, "What's in it for Me."

In the west, what's in it for me means $$$ most of the time.  Nothing wrong with $$$, but if that is not your goal, your mission, your calling from God, then whatever your calling is, is not going to go over so well with the population at large most of the time.

This is my story about being different.

In the early 80's, which you might know already if you have read Dark Well of Despair - Light of Hope, I fell off a bicycle and sustained a Traumatic Brain Injury.  Up unto that point, I was 3 credit hours from getting my Masters in Physics, though I had temporarily abandoned that path, I was a fairly successful life insurance sales person in a team with my wife, and I had a 2 year old daughter.  Life was good, and I was rolling in money.


That stopped when I hit my head.  I nearly lost my house, with one of those can't get if from anyone else emergency mortgages.  If just so happened that the bank I had originally borrowed from was being bought out, and the loan officer was attending the same church we were attending.  I knew there was a God, and that it was important to be seen going to Church in our community, but I had not idea who God was.  Seems he knew who I was though. The load officer called my wife, and said my credit rating was horrible, since I had not paid any bills since my injury, at least 6 months earlier.  He was going to rewrite the loan anyway, and pay for the second mortgage, the water pump that just blew up, and the unpaid mortgage, because "it was going to be the last good thing the bank would do, before it went under."  At the time, I had no idea that was God.  I was so drugged out on pain pills, and well over 100lbs heavier than I was 6 months earlier, I was only aware of my own pain.  I did not really know we were losing our house.  My wife was dealing with that.  Seems God was helping her.

I was told that I could sue the state, since they mis-aligned the sewer grate that flipped me over, but I was also told that I was possibly partially responsible.  I was on the bike.  So I would only get $200,000.  Never entered our minds after that though.  Why?  Because my wife was different.  If I was responsible, then I would pay for it.  So we did.

We owed over a 1/4 of a million in debt, not counting the house, which a year earlier was not an issue, but now that I was messed up, could not think, was in pain, and was never going to come out the other end, all that debt was oppressive.

My house was falling apart.

My income had fallen apart.

I was going down, and I was not born for failure.  I tried to kill myself. That was a call out to God, though I would have denied that at the time. I was reaching out of my despair and he reached out and grabbed ..... no, not my hand.  That would have been too freaking easy.

My daughter was found by God when she was 8ish, and by the time she was 15ish, God had found me too.  Turns out he had found my wife decades before. Anyway, that changed everything.  Everything.

Now, getting rid of the debt, anyway we could, was not the priority.   Paying the debt was.  I borrowed it, so I was going to pay it back.  Different.  But that is what the spirit told us to do.  So we did it.  It took us until my daughter graduated from college.

Eventually my Disability Insurance agreed to pay.  My doctor told me to learn karate.  I broke every window in my house in anger.  Life was just getting weird.  The neurologist was right though, but for a reason he never would have predicted.  Turns out I am a gifted teacher.  Since we were now following the Spirit when ever we knew what was being asked of us, we discovered I could give back to the community by helping others defeat their issues.  After all, I was never going to work again, but I could teach karate.  We tried to pay me, but every time we even talked about it, I got ill, so the doctor, my wife decided they were right.  I would never work again, yet I could give back.

We were different.  We teach karate not to make money, but to help others.  We always have, since we started.

What was the reward from the world?  My insurance company stole my insurance payments from me, and two years of my life, as they tied to steal much more.

Some students, though a small percentage, can't understand what's in it for me, so they vocally accuse us for all sorts of strange stuff.  Why?  Because we are different.  I have never been paid, and never will be.  I don't do it for the money.  I could not do it for the money if I wanted to.  I do it for the students, because that is what I do for God.  I use his gifts to give to his people.

The worldly reward have not yet arrived.  Only more difficulty, but God's rewards have been outstanding.  Let me list a few.

1)  I am not supposed to be married anymore.  No one with my injury is.  I am.  God 1 Point. (Well, ok, 1,000,000 points, but no one would understand that scoring.)

2) I get to teach karate and at the same time, all the values that God has taught me.  The Bible is a living book, and I get to pass it on, to everyone.  God gets another point.

3) I get to teach Sunday School, when crowds in stores, outside, or anywhere near me make me ill, but he has again surrounded me with people, like at karate, that understand, and help me help others.  God gets another point.

4) I Lost all my physics.  I can't even add 2 digit numbers.  I gained teaching.  God gets another point.

5) I have had financial set back after financial set back, and the people around me and my family for the most part have stepped in and helped us help others.  God gets another point.

6) I got to go on a mission trip with my family and a few close friends.  We taught karate and God in the Philippians.  God gets another point.

7) As dumb as it sounds, I have 5 cats.  They love me.

6) I have the best adult daughter in the world.  Period.  I will fight you over that.

My wife, my daughter and I dare to be different.  Why, because it takes different this day and age to follow the Lord, but Love is Love.  We have it. We share it.

So, I beg you, Be like the apple at the front of this blog.  Be Different for the Lord.

Mahal kita.

I Didn't Do It, or the 12 Points to Fight off Rumors and Accusations

Psalm 26 - A Psalm of David (NLT)

Old Faithful 
Credit: Free images from acobox.com

1 "Declare me innocent, O Lord, for I have acted with integrity; I have trusted in the Lord without wavering."

Point 1: If you are being accused or hounded by people (or a victim of rumors), and you didn't do it, Tell God.  If you can't,  then your heart probably thinks you are guilty.

If you believe that the Bible is accurate, inerrant, and the Word of God, you can trust it.  If you do not believe that, then reading this probably will only make you more confused.  Let me put it this way; if you trust the bible, then this will be awesome.  If you think the bible lies, then go play angry birds, cause this will make you angry.


So we start with David, who is innocent.  That is what the Bible says, but of what is he innocent?  


According to Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible, it is likely that David wrote this psalm when he was being chased by Saul. If you remember, Saul was the Supreme Judge or King of Israel at the time. So David could submit himself to Saul for judgement or to God. But what was he being Judged for? 

It can not be for his sinless behavior toward God, since David knew he sinned and we know that no one is righteous before God. For example, Psalm 51:3:(NKJV) "For I acknowledge my transgressions, And my sin is always before me."

So that only leaves the "sins" against Saul, for which he was being pursued, harassed, and killed if he were caught. Even when his men suggested he kill Saul, he would not kill God's anointed. 1 Samuel 24:6-7 "And he said to his men, “The LORD forbid that I should do this thing to my master, the LORD’s anointed, to stretch out my hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the LORD.” So David restrained his servants with these words, and did not allow them to rise against Saul. And Saul got up from the cave and went on his way."

I don't know about you, but I have been pursued by friends and companies alike who accused me of doing all sorts of things from lying through stealing.  They were wrong, did not understand what was really going on, looked at things through their own perspective without asking enough questions, and launched to verbal, emotional and at time legal redress.  I have felt like this many times, and in the last 5 years, during the worst of it, I have begun to behave like David.  I try not to attack them with word or deed.  In fact, I try to honor their vision, rather than my own, under the verse above - that they, like me, are God's.  Not easy.  Especially since my injury magnifies stress to the point of illness, but David was looking at death, not illness, and yet he followed the Lord.  So will I.

Credit: Free photos from acobox.com

2 Put me on trial, Lord, and cross-examine me. Test my motives and
my heart.

Point 2: If you believe in your cause strongly enough to appeal to the Lord. Ask him to judge you NOW. If you are right, he is the most powerful advocate against whom no one can stand.  If you are wrong, fixing it now will help your life immeasurably. 

There is no Jury with God.  He knows everything.  Everything.  This is how strong David felt about his actions toward Saul and God.  There is only one penalty for transgressing against the Lord, and he just asked for it to be invoked for sins against Saul, if he had committed any. Wow. That's faith.

3 For I am always aware of your unfailing love, and I have lived according to your truth.

Point 3: If you defense is "I have not sinned against God," you have already lost.  If your defense is "I didn't do it, and I am following you Truth and Love," you are right! 

What's his defense?  Not, "I never harmed Saul," though that is true. Rather, he says, I know you love me and I live my your word.  Try me on my behavior and my faith.  No wonder God says he is close to the heart of God.  Again, Wow!


I have learned in the last 6 weeks that I must live in the world, so I will be judged by the people in it.  That hurts.  I am hard to understand, and very few really care.  Their lives are hard too, and they are trying to pay their bills, climb their mountains, enjoy their lives and what I am doing really does not matter all that much to them.  They don't care that my Mother in Law almost died from Lyme disease 8 weeks ago, and we have spent the whole of the summer helping her.  They don't know that I don't get paid at all, since I am as messed up mentally as you can be and not be in a hospital.  Not their concern.  So some of them judge me harshly.  Can't change that.  But I have learned to appeal to the Lord. At the end of the day, it is in his court, not the worlds, and David did it too.

Credit: Free images from acobox.com

4 I do not spend time with liars or go along with hypocrites.

Point 4:  It really does matter who you call friend.

It really does matter who you hang out with.  I spend time with hypocrites and liars all the time.  I live in the world.  I am one of them.  Yet, I go to those who Love the Lord for advice and friendship.  The others are the mission field we walk in.  Jesus showed us how.  He commanded us to go. Mark 16:15 (NLT) "And then He told them, "Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone."

So, hang with those who belong to Christ, but go into the world. 

The Heart of Darkness
Credit: Free images from acobox.com

5 I hate the gatherings of those who do evil, and I refuse to join in with the wicked.

Point 5:  Evil Feels Wrong.  If you do not Feel the wrongness, you need to get closer to God.

I have begun to feel evil now.  Scares me.  I can tell if I am in the wrong place with the wrong people.  It is not always their language, their activity or even their attitude.  It is more like something is missing.  You can feel the absence of the Lord.  I leave when I feel that.  It scares me.


When we visited China, we went to an active Buddhist Temple. Painted wooden statues everywhere.  I though it would not bother me, but when we say people prostrate before wood, it made me ill.  Evil is real.

Credit: Free images from acobox.com

6 I wash my hands to declare my innocence. I come to your altar, O Lord,

Point 6:  Before you come before the Lord with your grievance, make sure you are clean of sin.

He washes his hands to remove sin before he comes before the Lord.  This is not arrogance, like saying, "hey, you.  You know I am clean."  Rather, he knows he is NOT CLEAN before the Lord, only before Saul.  He never forgets he is a sinner, even when pleading the unjust treatment he is getting from God's own king.

Credit: Free images from acobox.com

7 singing a song of thanksgiving and telling of all your wonders.

Point 7:  Be Thankful, and tell people about it.  God is NOT private.

Oddly, that is what I am doing with this article right now.  I feel I am being unjustly treated.  My wife is being harrased for doing what normal people could never do.  Our mistakes are being viewed as either stupidity or immorality. I am tired of the weight that I have to see her carry. It has always been so. 


I don't know when I turned the corner, but Anne has always been around the other side.  She can't wait to go to church, to pray before we eat, to pray just because she can.  That is new to me.  I have learned to see the wonders of the Lord within the darkness of the world.  Praise the Lord.

Credit: Free images from acobox.com

8 I love your sanctuary, Lord, the place where your glorious presence dwells.

Point 8:  Remember whose you are!

Think about this for a second.  Where is the Lord's sanctuary NOW?
.....

.....

Your Body.  Love yourself and take care of your body, because it is where the glorious presence of the the Lord dwells.

Credit: Free images from acobox.com

9 Don’t let me suffer the fate of sinners. Don’t condemn me along with murderers.

Point 9:  Be Sure of Yourself!

David is being bold.  He is telling the Lord not to equate what is happening with Saul with Sin. Two things strike me about this, that I have never noticed before.  First, he must believe in himself quite a lot if he makes a statement that bold to the God of everything.  Second, he is talking like that to God, and God says it is Good. ... 

Credit: Free photos from acobox.com

10 Their hands are dirty with evil schemes, and they constantly take bribes.

Point 10:  Express your outrage at you, a follower of Christ, being treated like those who do not follow.

He draws a line in the sand about his moral behavior with people.  He points out that God's anointed is not playing fair, and is not treating him or others as he should.  David is outraged that Saul can get away with it, when he, David, follows the Lord.

He is proving Point 9.

11 But I am not like that; I live with integrity. So redeem me and show me mercy.

Point 11:  Ask for Mercy.

He states, with certainty, he is not like that.  So he asks for the Grace of God to sustain him, and rescue him.  

Point 12 Now I stand on solid ground, and I will publicly praise the Lord.

Point 12: Again, Tell People about how Awesome the Lord is!

And when he is done, does he wait for something to change, like Saul to die or send a message?  NO.  He gets us, stand up, and not only praises the Lord, but does it in front of others.  That takes faith. He dives right into the rest of his life with the faith that God will not let him falter.  Click Diving In, for more on how I have dived into my life since I have learned the truth of God's word.

So, How Sweet is It?

Credit: Free images from acobox.com

I was out running today, or I should say jogging, just faster than a walk, listening to my MP3 player built into my Blackberry phone.  In the background I was running a GPS tracking program called Runtastic, so I know if I improve, and I can tell my wife where to pick me up when I get lost. (smile here)

Anyway, at about 40 minutes into my run I was listening to a version of Amazing Grace by Bill Anderson, and half way through the song, he had a message. (Click the Play Button below if you want to hear the version I was listening to.

 Amazing Grace by Bill Anderson

Before I explain the BGO, (Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious), that hit me like when Pythagoras exclaimed "Eureka" upon discovering Pythagoras' Theorem on the right triangle.

I run listening to up to 30 versions of Amazing Grace playing in my ears.  This is direct result of a suggestion that one of my friends made to me 20 years or more ago.  He said he ran with his dog, and listened for God.  I tried that.  I never heard God. Some would say I needed to listen longer, but I always turned my listening, at about 5 minutes, into talking to God, rather than listening, since ADHD is not an affliction with me, but rather a life style.  So, rather than spending 60 minutes telling God how bad my day is, or what I want or need, I decided to tell him how awesome he is.

What is the most awesome thing that God has done or me?  Amazing Grace. So, since I need to keep on track or get lost on the way, I decided to sing along with the many versions of Amazing Grace I have on my player.  It takes between 12 and 18 versions for me to run about 60 minutes.  So that is what I do.  I run and give praise and thanks while I do it.

Now that really is Amazing
Credit: Free images from acobox.com

Generally speaking, my life is pretty amazing. (See Diving In, if you want to know what I mean by amazing.)  Though, amazing as it is, we have our moments, and this week is all about the moments.

The back end of our vehicle blows up, and we don't have the money to repair it. We need to be somewhere else helping other people, but we are stuck away from home waiting for the repair to finish.  My daughter comes home from Washington state, after visiting my sister and climbing Mt Rainier, and we can not pick her up at the air port. Her car is parked at our house, not hers, and we have the keys. There is more, but that is enough, if you get my drift.

The phrase we threw at each other was,  "we can't catch a break."  That is what was in my mind as I started running.  Not very amazing, but based on yesterday, the broken vehicle, and tomorrow, all that other stuff, I was pretty stressed and regretful.

Blinding Light
Credit: Free images from acobox.com

Back to the BGO.  Bill Anderson broke down a way to look at grace that had not occurred to me in his context.  It took my breath away.  He quoted Matthew 6:34 (AMP) "So do not worry or be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have worries and anxieties of its own. Sufficient for each day is its own trouble."

He went on to say that God provides us with enough grace to live this day.  "He does not provide enough for yesterday or for tomorrow.  That is why, if we live in the past we live with regrets and if we live in tomorrow, we live with stress."

I had always looked at grace as referring to Salvation alone, a spiritual thing only, not connected with the world.  Yet, the Bible is a whole, not disconnected verses.  Grace itself means unmerited favor. It had never occurred to me that living through today's problems was a benefit of Grace, and even in my daily life, unmerited favor was a promise of God. Wow.

I fall victim to this issue, sin if you will, nearly everyday.  I live for tomorrow tempered by yesterday.  It is a function of the way I was trained to solve problems in physics.  I don't know how to do it any other way.

But the BGO was this. It requires effort to live in the moment.  I know that there is enough grace for right now. I need to remind myself to live in the right now.

Amazing.  Grace.  How sweet it is.

The Sword of Damocles

Dionysius II was the "king" of Syracuse who ruled in the 4th Century B.C. There is a story that a famous Roman orator, Cicero,
(during the times of Sulla and Julius Caesar) told to convince people that living a virtuous life was the path to happiness rather than being a powerful man. (This is important, because Cicero was one of the main proponents of returning to the Roman Republic after Sulla and Caesar were voted dictators, and he was eventually killed because of this.)

This is a basic retelling of the the story.  

One of Dionysis' sycophants, Damocles, was telling the king how awesome it must be to have so much power, money and ability to do what you want.  He meant it as a complement to the ruler.  Dionysus, however, saw the flaw in this particular retainer's attitude, and suggested that they switch positions in life for a day.  Dionysus, seeing an opportunity to be rich and powerful, leapt into the role happily.  However, Dionysus rigged the experience, to teach his follower a lesson.  He suspended an over-sized sword over the throne where Damocles had to sit.  This gave Damocles sufficient fear to ask to be relieved of the position.  Thus, the ruler had shown the constant fear that a powerful person always lives with. 

Cicero sums up the meaning of the story, in Tusculan Disputations 5, by saying, "Does not Dionysus, then, seem to have declared there can be no happiness for one who is under constant apprehensions?"

This is a very good point to remember.  The phrase, the grass is always green on the other side of the fence, is only a small part of the understanding that Cicero was trying to convey.  Certainly, if your motivation is to improve your life by taking the role of someone else's life, you are doomed to failure, but the real point is, FEAR is bad for you.  FEAR of death is REALLY BAD for you.

Most of the time humanism and the Gospel of Jesus Christ do not agree, as one is about the power of human nature and the other is about the fallen nature of the human.  But in this case, they agree.

In an article I read on Bible.org, they state, "There is one great fear common to all men, which is greater than all other fears. It is a fear which paralyzes men all of their lives. It is the fear of death."

Thanatophobia is a psychological condition which is the fear of death. What makes it tricky is determining if the fear of death is out of proportion with your life, making it a phobia.  In other words, everybody is afraid of dying.

So, in order to deal with Fear, you have to deal with fear of death first, since fear of death is the Primo fear.

John 14:1-6 The Message (MSG)  John 14:1-7 "Don't let this throw you. You trust God, don't you? Trust me. There is plenty of room for you in my Father's home. If that weren't so, would I have told you that I'm on my way to get a room ready for you? And if I'm on my way to get your room ready, I'll come back and get you so you can live where I live. And you already know the road I'm taking."

Thomas said, "Master, we have no idea where you're going. How do you expect us to know the road?"

Jesus said, "I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me."

Credit: Free images from acobox.com

Jesus said this before his own death, and it is pretty clear that we go to him when we die.  He is speaking here as though the people he was talking to were children, so he gives us many direct pictures of his promise to prepare a place for us.  This is made all the stronger by his Resurrection.  Certainly anyone, even I, could tell you when we die we will go and prepare a place for you.  That would be a waste of breath however, for you have no reason to believe that I will survive death.  You have every reason to suppose I will not.  Jesus, however, was different.  He rose from the dead, and was seen in one place by hundreds of people after his Resurrection.  That proves that we can trust his word.

What was his word again?  First, he will be in heaven to prepare a place for YOU.  He will come and get you.  He is the Way, just in case you forget how to get there.  Tada.

Recently, everything I have read and heard by pastors, bloggers and gurus has all taken parts of the word of God out of context, using that to comfort us.  The implication from their words was that God would get involved in your finances, you illnesses and your relationships.  The problem was, every one of their verses was about spiritual issues, as in fear of death.  It was beginning to seem like the entire bible is all about spiritual growth, and heaven.

Credit: Free photos from acobox.com

And then I remembered one of our friends, who is a Baptist Pastor in Worcester, once told us of the horrible condition of his church, ministry and the people he has chosen to serve.  His church had been hit by lightning.  It was a 200 year old church in a section of town that was waiting for urban renewal.  The church was condemned because of the damage.  At the same time, a place next door where the homeless people stayed was partially destroyed. These are the people in his ministry.  When we saw him, he was happy.  After we heard the story, he also told us that the town had lost some property too, and they were not using it either now or before the storm.  So I asked.  Why are you happy?  He said, "you have not because you ask not."  I nodded my head up and down, and moved on.  He got his land.  God got his Glory.

Turns out, that is James 4:2.  In Context, the verse becomes a promise for help from the Father.  James 4:2-7 "You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.  Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?

 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: 

      “ God resists the proud,
      But gives grace to the humble.”

So, if you want something, ask for it.  If you ask for it the right way, which is with humility and NOT for your pleasures (read that sin), Jesus gives you "more" grace.  He gives.  So ask.

But is that too simple.  Is there some more scripture that encourages us to rely on God for earthly or worldly issues?

How about John 14:13-14  " And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.   If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it."

Anything, that may glorify the Son.  In other words, if it is about your sin, don't ask.  If it is about the Lord, ask.

More ?  Ok.

Matthew 7:7-11 "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:  For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.  Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?  Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?  If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"

Read good things as spiritual things, that God sees as good.

Credit: Free images from acobox.com

Enough.  Time for the good news, from the Good News.  The Key that I learned in church 3 weeks ago, but it took me all this time to find the scripture to explain it.  The answer.  The way.  What you need to do to make it work for God, so you do not have to worry about the world or death.  So your fear can be released.  (There is more than one verse saying this - I have just picked the one that is the easiest for me to understand.  Are you ready?

1 Corinthians 10:31 "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God."

If you go to work for the money, than you have already gotten your reward, in your pay.  If you go to work for God, than you can expect even more Grace.  You glorify God, then good things happen to you.  In my case, giving it to the Lord means that the results in within his hands.  I am told to ask, but ask that he do these thing for his business, his people, his bills.  Then whatever happens is in his hands, as long as I, in whatever I do, do it for the glory of God.

Pick up the key, and open the door.

God Says, "When YOU Fall, Pick Yourself Up," and other Self Help Concepts

This is another adventure.  I start with the assumption that God is NOT a self help guru as many day modern speakers are.  I am fairly sure of my grounding on this concept, though the surety is mostly if not entirely anecdotal.  So, even though I have an opinion, I am going to avoid any stories until the end, if they still seem appropriate.

I will instead us a form of research I learned in elementary school. I call it T Problem Solving, because I use a grid in the shape of T to help me organize my thoughts, but evidently it is commonly called "Pros and Cons Decisions Making Method."


This is how I learned it.  If you have a problem you want solved, you:

1) State it as clearly as you can,

under the assumption that if you "Know" and can "Name" the problem then the problem is more than half solved.

Once you have named the problem, you

2) "Brainstorm" as many solutions or examples that you can that address the problem, 

and you do not do this with any prejudice involved, and you do it as quickly as you can.  You can and should involve others as well.  Make NO judgement as you accumulate ideas, solutions, illustrations or examples.  Just record them. You really do not care if the ideas are pros or cons.  Just record them.

Finally, once you have the data collected,

 


3) You organize it with pros on one side and cons on the other.



4) Than you decide if you have enough data to draw a conclusion.

_________________________________________________________________________



So, without knowing where this will end, I will apply the T-method to the Problem of


1)  "Is God a Self Help Advocate," or, "Are Self Help Sayings Biblical."


2) A stream of conscientiousness listing of 10 Self Help phrase I can, and my friends can, think of follows, with who they are accredited to, though I can not vouch for the accuracy of the accreditation or the accuracy of the quote.  These are things we have been taught or heard in or lives, and the are the first 10 that come to mind. (The one in red is the one this article deals with.  The others will follow later.)

• “If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it.” -- William Arthur Ward
• If it is going to be, it is up to me, -- Robert Schuller
•  Be like a NIKE and just do it -- Common Saying 
•  "Be at war with your vices; at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man." -- Benjamin Franklin 
•  When you fall, pick yourself up. -- Common Saying 
• "Motivation alone is not enough. If you have an idiot and you motivate him, now you have a motivated idiot." -- Jim Rohn
• Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission. --Eleanor Roosevelt
• "What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
• "Happiness, wealth, and success are by-products of goal setting, they cannot be the goal themselves. " - Denis Waitley
• "You have within you right now, everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you." -- Brian Tracy

3) Pros and Cons


(check out the shadow man behind the door)

a) “If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it.” 

From a purely human point of view, can you remember the sliding doors in Star Trek - the original?  When they made that show, they had people opening and closing the doors (and you can see one of them opening the door in the above clip), since the technology was not even conceived of yet.  It was just imagined.  Now, every time you enter a super market, the doors open.  That, I believe, is the moral of this quote.  First you conceive it, then you become it. Star Trek did it over and over again, as is common for science fiction.  

Heady stuff, but is it Biblical? 

The first and most powerful attachment for this saying might be Proverbs 29:18 "Where there is no vision, the people perish:" Q.E.D. (proved)


But wait a second.  Firstly, what does the Bible mean by "vision?" According to Strong's Hebrew Dictionary, the word means "specifically a vision from God."  So we are not talking about our own vision here.  Say, I Dream or See that we can be a 2,000,000 person business in 1 year.  Since I can dream it, we can do it.  Nope.  

If God puts the vision in your head, you can do it.

But there is more. The verse show above is only 1/2 of the verse in the bible. It is bad to quote out of context to prove a point. It is worse to leave part of the word off, so that the meaning skews to your own end. The full verse is: "Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he." We are talking about following God's vision. In our dreams, as in sent by God, and in the Bible, as in sent by God. Not as in OUR OWN GOALS.

Think about that for a moment.  God is wearing a business suit on a stage, and you, plus 10,000 other people, are at the Boston TD Garden after having paid $1,000 to listen to him speak. He says, "I got this neat trick.  If you don't like the plan I have for you, just sit down, write you goals down, and concentrate on the picture your goals make in your head.  Once you see the picture, you invoke my authority, and I have to do your bidding.  (See God is a Genie if that does not freak you out a bit.)

Pros or Cons Time for Quote 1

Is the first quote, about dreaming, biblical?

Pro's Side: Dreaming, if the source of the Dream is God, can cause you to "become" the dream.

Con Side: Most people who hear and pass this quote along, mean self created vision, not vision from God.

Photo Credit: www.freefoto.com

Decide:  Looks like it can be considered Biblical, if you are living in the word.  If you are living in the world, it was based on Biblical Truth, but it was twisted to worldly truth.  Since there are only 2 sided, and the twisted one does not come from God, that only leaves the smoking section.  Smoking is bad.

Conclusion for “If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it.” -- William Arthur Ward  - If you pay attention to the source, the bible or law, just as the verse says, you will have the wisdom of the Lord.  If not, you have the wrong type of fire.

So Yes, God is a Self Help Guru, if you mean He helps You see his plan by telling you what to do.  You do it, and help him and yourself.

Stay tuned for part 2 ... 

If it is Going to Be, It is Up to Me, and other ways to use God's Sovereignty

Writing this scares me a little bit.  One of our black belts once said to me that watching a TV show that had a spiritualist that talked to dead spirits, gave her hope, since it proved that people survived beyond the grave.  I was a young Christian then, as in I had only just recently accepted Christ, yet I was still over 30 years old.  It is easy to confuse the result with the method when you are first a Christian, and it only gets harder, until you accept God's Sovereignty. So, I struggled.  I knew that talking to the dead was bad (1 Samuel 28), but I also knew hope was good (Rom 15:13), so I said nothing.  I did not want to remove her hope, so I said nothing.  Now, of course, I know you can not take a single line of verse and use it to prove a point. That would be bending the word of God to my needs, to justify my actions, and I would point out that using a medium to speak to the dead is VERY bad, and God has said so many times throughout the entire text of both old and new testament.

Why do I bring this up?  Because sometimes our hearts, when combined with logic, produces a form of philosophy that is called humanism. Humanism by it's very nature puts human needs and abilities outside the range of the supernatural, or outside the range of God's Sovereignty.  That means, if you follow a humanist creed, you do not follow God, by definition. With this black belt student, I put her needs and my heart before the truth, and said nothing.  I still do not know if that was my only opportunity to give her true hope, or if someone else stepped up and did it for me, or if she lives without hope, because I followed the human side.

Since the first day in the business world, I have heard about goals, goal setting and other awesome lessons, that if learned, would change my life.  The leading belief was expressed in the powerful phrase, “If it is going to be, it’s up to me.”   As it turns out, this is a phrase made popular by a Motivational Speaker, a Pastor, and a world renowned prosperity minister, in his book If it is Going to Be, It's Up to Me, and it is actually a good book.

The bible actually encourages us to use the methods of the world to make ourselves better too, so learning from the world how to get rich may not always be a bad thing. In Luke 16:8 (NLT) we read "And it is true that the children of this world are more shrewd in dealing with the world around them than are the children of the light."  I have heard that this is the bible's way of telling us to use the world's knowledge - that even Jesus said it was true that the world could be more shrewd. Yet, in the next verse, Jesus says, "Here’s the lesson: Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your earthly possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home."  Even here, it is about helping others, not ourselves.  It is about heaven, not earth.

So here is the way of Hope, the way of Truth, and the way of God, hopefully without me trying to bend the word to my life.  I got this from a sermon we just heard entitled "You're a Piece of Work," at Solid Rock Church in New Windsor NY.

Jeremiah 18:2 (NKJV) “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear My words.” Here is our opportunity to make it up to us.  God, with his sovereign will, Calls On You, and as we see here in verse 18:2, YOU DO WHAT HE SAYS.  You don't decide what your life (pot) will look like, because you did not make it.  God did.  He made you.  He calls you, and you get up and go.  If you don't, you have decided you are in charge, and that God is not.  

Jeremiah 18:4 (NKJV) gets really scary if you are a humanist or a control freak.  You have spent your whole life doing it YOUR way, because you are responsible for the results.  You set the goal, you plan the work, you are responsible for the outcome.  If you believe that, this verse will hurt.  If you believe in the Love and Sovereignty of God, then you not only trust him, but you count on him to make his promise the truth.  You know who is in charge. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make."

That's right.  He crushes the pot, that would be your plans, and starts again.  If you believe it is up to you, then God is now your enemy.  If you believe that it is up to God, he just made you better.  You get to decide which is better.  If you choose to follow God, then you can read about how by clicking here. 

If you have already decided to follow God, and you want to know what to do next, so that you are living for the Potter, admit you are the broken pot.

Isaiah 45:9 (NKJV) “ Woe to him who strives with his Maker!   Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth! Shall the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ Or shall your handiwork say, ‘He has no hands’?"

Once you have done that, you realize that all you are, has been MADE by God.  All you have is OWNED by God.  All your problems are in GOD'S HANDS.  Tell him that, everyday.  Let him know what is scaring you, and that it is in his hands, not yours.  The way the pastor at Solid Rock said it was something like this.  "Father God, these taxes are your taxes. Help me know what to do."  "These Bills are your Bills, tell me how to deal with it."  Then let it go.  God is in fact Sovereign, not us.

Yet, you are still responsible for your actions. If you spend all your money on beer, and then ask for help, God might decide what is best for you is loss of your car.  You still have to do what you have to do, but when you have done your best, you back up and wait. Wait on the Lord.  Because he not only has your back, he made your back.

If its Going to Be (For God), Its up to Me (to obey and accept).  If you don't know the sound of the Shepherd's voice (John 10:27 NKJV -  "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.), you either are not of his flock, or you have spent to much time doing it your way.  I, for one, know I am his.  I also know I have been doing it my way.  I need to shut up, listen, and wait. Then do what the potter asks.

Click Here to Hear All About the Pot & Potter in Song