Category: +Energy

“Everything in moderation; nothing in excess.”

– Ancient Greek adage

People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. When you know which one it is, you will know what to do for that person. When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually. They may seem like a godsend and they are. They are there for the reason you need them to be. Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand. What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled, their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on.

Some people come into your life for a SEASON, because your turn has come to share, grow or learn. They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it, it is real. But only for a season!

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons, things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life. It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.
Thank you for being a part of my life, whether you were a reason, a season or a lifetime.

– Unknown

“You feel quiet and overcome by the emotions withheld from in, forget the morel obligation to which you stand for… Nonetheless stand for what you believe. Dream the dream and achieve THE what you deserve. You are one with one so I know the feelings you deal with. I love you, you’re a friend for life, and you’re the bomb!”

– Andy Fields, Principal (Lifelong Friend)

“A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.”

– Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (1893-1986), Hungarian Nobel Prize Winner in Physiology or Medicine

“As many of you know, I believe one has to think “outside the box” and to be different.  Not solely to be different, but to be different with purpose.  Success is not for the majority, if it were, everyone would be successful.” Noel Rahn, Businessman

• “Wherever I see people doing something the way it’s always been done, the way its ‘supposed’ to be done…that’s just a big red flag to me to go look somewhere else.”  Mark Cuban, executive
•  “Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.”  Cecil Beaton, photographer

I too thought this little article was worth the read.

You will enjoy the new insights that Rick Warren has, with his wife now having cancer and him having “wealth” from the book sales. This is an absolutely incredible short interview with Rick Warren, “Purpose Driven Life ” author and pastor of Saddleback Church in California. In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said:  People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven. 

One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body- but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act – the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.

We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn’t going to make sense. Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you’re just coming out of one, or you’re getting ready to go into another one. The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort. God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.  We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that’s not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.

This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer. I used to think that life was hills and valleys – you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don’t believe that anymore.  Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it’s kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something  good and something bad in your life.

No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for. You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems. If you focus on your problems, you’re going into self-centeredness,” which is my problem, my issues, my pain.” But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.

We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her.  It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.

You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life. Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy. It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don’t think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.

So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.

First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases. Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church. Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor , care for the sick, and educate the next generation. Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.

We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God’s purposes (for my life)?

When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don’t get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn’t put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He’s more interested in what I am than what I do. That’s why we’re called human beings, not human doings.

Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.
Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.
Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.
Painful moments, TRUST GOD.
Every moment, THANK GOD.

Thanks Jimmy for forwarding this to me…

be4neXt is NOW,
and now is the time
for change, and
to love, to live and to laugh.
-Justin Pickar

“Hang in there. Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

– Thomas Edison

“Obstacles are challenges for winners and excuses for losers.”
-Gentlehands by M.E. Kerr

“It is a matter of spirit, not strength. It is a matter of doing your best each little moment. There’s never a break. You must have desire, a very intense desire to keep going.”
-Janet Guthrie

Thanks Rob A.

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done. But he with a chuckle replied that “maybe it couldn’t”, but he would be one who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried. So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin on his face. If he worried he hit it. He started to sing as he tackled the thing that couldn’t be done, and he did it.

Somebody scoffed: “Oh you’ll never do that; at least no one ever has done it”; but he took off his coat and he took off his hat, and the firt thing we knew he’d begun it. With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin, without any doubting or quiddit, he started to sing as he tackled the thing that couldn’t be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done. There are thousands to prophesy failure. There are thousands to point out to you, one by one, the dangers that wait to assail you. But just buckle in with a bit of a grin. Just take off your coat and go to it. Just start to sing as you tackle the thing that “Cannot be done”, and you’ll do it.

– Edgar A. Guest