May 26, 2009

The Desire to Change

No choice will determine the success of your attitude change more than desiring to change. When all else fails, desire alone can keep you heading in the right direction. The geratest motivation fo all is when we realize we can change.

Life is changing process. With all of its transitions come new opportunities for growth. What is a limiting factor yesterday may not be one today. Accept the following statement for your life: " The days ahead are filled with changes which are my challenges. I will response to these opportunities with the confidence that my life will be better because of them. With God all things are possible."

No one but you can determine what you will think and how you will act. That is good! Now, take control and begin the exciting journey of attitude improvement.

IT'S UP TO YOU

         If you think you're a winner you'll win,
If you dare to step out you'll succeed.
Believe in your heart, have a purpose to start.
Aim to help fellow man in need.

Thoughts of faith must replace every doubt
Use words of courage and you cannot fail.
If you stumble and fall, rise and stand ren feet tall,
You determine the course that you sail.

You've been given the power to see
What it takes to be a real man.
Let your thinking be pure, it will make you secure.
If you want to, you know that you can.




May 25, 2009

No more Mr. Nice Guy

Where did the idea originate that Christianity is all about being “nice”? It is an irrational progression from Jesus, whose very arrival on Earth threatened to overturn everything: the Roman Empire, the Jewish religious powers, and most significantly, the lives of every human on earth.

Essayist Annie Dillard noted the dissonance between “American Christianity” and that of its Founder, describing contemporary Christians as “cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute.” She said. “Does anybody have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it?”

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not just about comforting the afflicted; it is also about afflicting the comfortable. Being Christian is not just about being nice.

(Commentary:) Jesus was a revolutionary, who didn’t come to bring “niceness” and peace (Matthew 10:34–36), but rebirth and revolution—and He made available the full power of God so that His disciples could do the same!

“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.” [Matthew 10:34-36]

May 18, 2009

Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus

" Commit your work to the Lord, and then your plans will succeed." Proverbs 16:3

Psychologist John Gray, who's been a marriage counselor and lecturer for the past 20 years, has summed up his findings about human relationships in a wildly popular bestseller. His book has been translated into 29 languages. Mr. Gray says that men and women in contemporary society, where most women work outside the home, face greater emotional stresses than ever before. He says women no longer spend as much time in the company of other nurturing women and men have less time to relax with other males. So, the two sexes expect more from each other. John Gray says that because men and women have very different needs, they have enormous difficulty first in understanding and then in meeting one another's needs:
"When a woman's talking about problems, what a man will do is to think that she needs solutions because, when a man's upset and he's talking about what's bothering him, he's generally looking for a solution. So, when a woman is sharing and talking about her feelings, a man mistakenly assumes that she's like him, and he starts offering her solutions. Generally solutions are not what she's looking for. And she ends up feeling like he doesn't care, he doesn't want to listen to her, her feelings aren't important to him.

"So, a woman will tend to feel like her husband is really ignoring her when he's under stress, whereas a man will feel like his partner is a bottomless pit of problems when she's under stress. He doesn't understand that she doesn't need all those problems solved in order to feel better. She just needs to talk about them and have someone listen and empathetically understand. Another woman will intuitively do this for a woman. And a man doesn't instinctively understand that, because talking about all his problems will many times just overwhelm him and cause him to feel worse."
"Women will tend to use many parts of the brain at a time, whereas a man will tend to use one part of the brain at a time. And again, that's that tendency that men have to focus. And the greater stress a man is under, the more focused he becomes. To cope with stress, a woman needs loving, nurturing relationships where she can share freely with people who care about her, whereas for a man to cope most effectively with stress, he needs to have free-time activity to do things he enjoys doing, and he needs a nurturing relationship. And this is a difference between men and women. Whereas the man will tend to extend himself, reach out to his partner, open up to his partner once he's recovered from stress, a woman goes to the relationship in order to recover from stress."

So when we start understanding how completely different we are, then we can make very small adjustments in our approach, and we see dramatic benefits. … Instead of assuming, ‘well, we can't get our needs met,’ we learn new skills. We learn how to get our needs met by studying what those differences are.

May 15, 2009

TOP TEN FAILURES OF ALL TIME

" We never give up. Our bodies are gradually dying, but we ourselves are being made stronger each day."

- 2 Corinthians 4:16

1. The engineer who neglected to design a reverse gear in the first car he manufactured. ( Henry Ford)
2. The group turned down by by Decca Records because "guitrs are on their way out." ( The Beatles)
3. The illustrator told by his newspaper editor to pursue another line of work. ( Walt Disney)
4. The skinny kid who hated the way he looked and was always being beat up by bullies. (Charles Atlas)
5. The seriously ill, deeply in debt composer who in desperation wrote an oratorio in a few hours. ( George Frederick)
6. The obese, bald, deformed eccentric who became a reclusive thinker. ( Socrates)
7. The orchestra conductor-composer who made his greatest contribution after becoming deaf.
( Ludwig von Beethoven)
8. The politician who lost his first seven elections. ( Abraham Lincoln)
9. The boy everyone thought was mute because his stutter was so bad he never spoke until he was teenager. ( James Earl Jones)
10. The woman born deaf and blind who became a great writer and philanthropist, and once said, " I thank God for my handicaps." ( Helen Keller)

May 10, 2009

The Difference Between Men and Women : Cell pone and Computer

“Cast all your anxiety on [God], because He cares for you”

1Peter 5:7

This interesting article contains important information! I consider the lack of understanding of natural God-created differences between men and women to be one of the major reasons for marriage problems or failures.

You can’t have a very happy marriage unless you understand and accept that God made men and women different, and that this is a good thing. We shouldn’t try to get rid of the God-given differences between men and women, but instead learn to understand them, accept them, and even grow to truly appreciate them.

(By Rhonda Rhea, Marriage Partnership:) “I don’t know how we’re going to sort out tonight’s schedule,” I gushed, as my husband, Richie, came through the door. “You’re late—and Andrew has a game an hour away. One of us has to get him there by 7:00. Jordan has a game here. Kaley is cheering at Jordan’s game, but she also has a game right before his. And it’s the same time as Andrew’s away game. That’s also the time Allie and Daniel are supposed to have practice at ….”

I hadn’t even gotten to the dinner dilemma part of my list, when I knew by Richie’s wide-eyed, zombie stare that he’d shut down somewhere just after “You’re late.”

I’ve seen the look before.

How many other wives have seen their husbands processing information when suddenly their “screen saver” kicks on? My husband is able to process a lot of information. I know—I can dish it out in hefty chunks. There are times, however, when something seems to happen to his internal processor. Everything locks up and I feel as if I need to, well, reboot. It’s as if I’m living with a computer!

Funny thing is, Richie tells me he’s living with a cell phone.

The night he arrived home late, he’d had a long, problem-filled day at work. He’d been looking forward to coming home to his refuge where he could simply veg out and not have to think.

As he opened the front door, his peace bubble exploded into an outline of the evening’s agenda. I’d been poised at the door, ready for the attack. Every word about every game and every place the kids had to be came at him nonstop.

Richie told me later that my actions were akin to settling into a comfy seat at a movie theater only to have his cell phone blast.

I’m a “cell phone”? I thought. And I realized I can go off unexpectedly and sometimes at the most inopportune moments. I’m also faithful to keep “calling” until I’m answered. Oh no! I thought. I am a cell phone!

I don’t know about that whole Mars/Venus thing, but I think I can safely say men and women certainly operate on different hardware. We’re wired differently. To me, it seems as if men are computers and women are, well, cell phones. The computer’s communication is most often a one-way communiqué. Cell phones, on the other hand, require two-party participation. They’re all about communication.

Dr. James Dobson hits on the wiring problem in his book, Love for a Lifetime. He writes: “Research makes it clear that little girls are blessed with greater linguistic ability than little boys, and it remains a lifelong talent. Simply stated, she talks more than he does.” Dobson suggests that God may have given Mrs. Cell Phone 50,000 words per day while Mr. Computer may average 25,000. By the time he’s walking up the driveway to his relaxing safe place, he’s most likely used 98 percent of his daily word store—he’s practically in “sleep mode” already—that mode that’s used after the screen saver’s been on for a while. She, on the other hand, is ready to give him most of her 50,000—and she wants a similar number from him. But all she gets is a busy signal. How can we find common ground?

Cell phones and computers do have something in common. They both need a connection, just as husbands and wives need a connection. And isn’t it interesting that techno-smart people are finding more and more ways computers and cell phones can work together to make life better? I was stuck at an airport recently and occupied myself by watching the lady next to me check her e-mail and send out a message or two—all on her cell phone!

Powerful connection can result in a powerful, productive, and satisfying marriage. Try these six couple-tested ideas to find your own techno-compromise. You can get connected—even in a technically-challenged relationship.

1. Season your speech with grace. Sarah was at her wits’ end. She tried talking to her husband, Jeff, but found him clamming up during almost every conversation. After hearing a sermon about kindness and the art of listening, Sarah did a communication evaluation on herself. She discovered she was dominating most of their conversations. She also noticed she was spending a big percentage of their talks crabbing at Jeff.

The sermon that impacted Sarah’s speech included Colossians 4:6: “Let your conversation be always full of grace.” She realized that to promote healthy communication in her marriage, she needed to get rid of the static—any unkind, graceless speech. She’s working on incorporating more grace in her conversations and becoming a good listener as she works toward encouraging Jeff to share with her more openly.

2. Be open and honest. Angie’s communication struggle was different. She couldn’t figure out why her husband, Bill, didn’t clue in to her signals. She thought he should be sensitive enough to pick up on hints for attention. When he didn’t, her “silent treatment” response only complicated the communication glitches.

After Angie shared her disappointment with a mentor, she learned that computers can’t process information they haven’t been given. Instead of giving Bill the “well, if you really understood me, you’d automatically know I need you to listen now” speech, she’s working more on her ability to lovingly level with him.

3. Let your computer be a computer. Lynn spent the first three years of her marriage trying to remake her husband, Doug. Doug resented her motherly corrections and they argued at almost every encounter. When they decided to talk to a counselor, Lynn was sure he could whip Doug into shape. Was she surprised when the counselor hinted that she was a big part of the problem! The counselor encouraged her to let her husband be himself. She had essentially been trying to make a computer into a cell phone.

Lynn is learning instead to accept their differences, including what she once thought were Doug’s “weaknesses.” She’s finding that some of the characteristics she’d been harping on as his weaknesses are actually some of the same ones she considered his strengths when they were dating. Lynn turned over a new leaf in her marriage when she decided to enjoy Doug “as is.”

4. Make God your source of fulfillment. Sue had become a smotherer. If her husband, Mike, didn’t hang on her every word and dote on her when they were together, she interpreted his inattention as indifference. So she pouted their time away. And Mike was wearing out.

After yet another evening of pouting, Sue finally called her mom for advice. Sue’s mother said, “Husbands aren’t meant to supply every emotional need. Only God can do that.” Sue’s mom told her she was putting a heavier load on Mike than a mate can handle. It was just too much for his mainframe to manage. Sue’s mom reminded her that the Bible tells us to “Cast all your anxiety on [God], because He cares for you” (1Peter 5:7).

Sue has seen her marriage become stronger and less frustrating as she has deepened her prayer life and her Bible study time, and strengthened her dependence on God. And she’s finding great blessing in living in a virtually pout-free household!

5. Make room for friendships. Sue also discovered she’d neglected her need for friendships with other women. She was thrilled when she discovered she could unload several thousand words on her mom or another interested friend (and let her friend unload a significant percentage of her 50,000 word store too). Sue found it was great not only to get another woman’s take, but to give Mike a break. Since women have a greater need for conversation, Sue and her friends help each other out in the dialogue area—person to person and phone to phone.

6. Grow in Christ together. As Sarah and Jeff have worked on better techno-compromise, they’ve found that spending time praying and studying God’s Word together builds conversation that really counts. They find they’re both more ready to compromise and give to meet the needs of the other as they’re aiming at becoming more like Christ.

What a great target for each of us—computers and cell phones alike. As we continually ask God to impact our marriages, we can become better talkers and better listeners, hearing Him through His Word and prayer.

Trusting God

"Trust the Lord with all your heart never rely on what you think you know remember Him, in everything you do and He will show you the right way"

Proverbs 3:5

In order to trust in God, you must totally surrender your will, your ideas, your desires, and your future in to God's hands. Many of us are "control freaks." We don't want to give the control of any part of our lives over to another. If you don't believe that God loves you fully and really does have your best interests at heart and desires the very best for you, trusting Him is going to be extremely difficult. It takes a very special relationship to allow that measure of surrender. Most of us have a tendency to claim trust in God. However, at the first sign of any difficulty or trial, we think that God must not love us because He is allowing this difficulty to happen. The trial is exactly what God is using to test the level of trust that we have in Him
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