CHECK YOURSELF!

The month of January is thirty days plus one from being over and now is a good time to check yourself on the New Year’s same old resolution that you made in 2009 and again in 2010 to see just how far you have gotten on fulfilling it in 2011. It just might be a good idea to find a way to put yourself in check each month to make sure you stay on the right track to completing your goals for 2011.
Pick a day, same day with the same number of the day for the remaining eleven months and ask yourself the following questions each month.

1. Have I accomplished what I set out to do?
2. If I’m not at the finish line, then what do I need to do to continue or change to get there?
3. Are there obstacles that need to be eliminated, and what resources do I need to refer too, to make it happen?
4. Have I spent enough time planning so that my journey progressives forward?
5. Did I redeem the time that I had to move toward completion?
6. Is it time to make a mid-course correction and go to plan ‘B’ or ‘C’?
7. Did I stop and pray and ask God for His guidance?

I find that if I keep myself in check, it doesn’t leave me much room for others to find fault. I further believe that if I follow God’s plan I’ll get to complete every resolution penned on paper and in my heart. I plan to consistently check myself by His Word so that when 2012 ushers itself in with the Auld Layne Sine tune again, I will be able to set new resolutions that will continue to line-up with the Word of God and when the next year is birthed so will new horizons rise towards planning for a brighter and more prosperous future.

Check yourself!

What's Your Score?

If you are one of the many people who take surveys from time to time then you know about the assigned numbers from 0-10 that you are asked to tabulate at the end of the survey. Zeros tend to be the lowest you can give and ten shows the excellence of your highest regarded thoughts. We use this system to let others know what we think about a given subject, theme or person. I think of it as giving my learned opinion.

Picture yourself as one who the survey is about. Some of the questions might read like this: Please give a value from 0-10 according to how this person influenced your life in a positive way.
1. Showed kindness to you regardless of your response.________
2. Gave hugs and kisses whether you deserved them or not._______
3. Offered forgiveness for all the wrong done to them.________
4. Gave grace and mercy when you deserved condemnation.______
5. Affirmed your self worth even when you couldn’t look up.______
6. Said to you too many times, I love you when you didn’t love yourself.________
7. Remained by your side and carried you when you couldn’t carry yourself______

These are just a few questions that could be asked by those who you deem important in your life’s cycle. How do you think you’d score if someone you knew was taking the survey? If you think you will or would score less than satisfactorily then you may want to make a change in how you interact with people in general and perhaps to be more intentional with those you love the most.

Your final score should get as close to 100% as you can. If you are seeking to leave a positive score I suggest you ‘beef up’ your score by following a tried and true plan that helps you to score big. You may want to go to the Bible and find your way to Proverbs. Read all 31 chapters one a day to start you on the way to wisdom and scoring highly on life itself. Just to get you started: Proverbs 2:6-15 (New International Version, ©2010)

6 For the LORD gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
7 He holds success in store for the upright;
he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,
8 for he guards the course of the just
and protects the way of his faithful ones.
9 Then you will understand what is right and just
and fair—every good path.
10 For wisdom will enter your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.
11 Discretion will protect you,
and understanding will guard you.
12 Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men,
from men whose words are perverse,
13 who have left the straight paths
to walk in dark ways,
14 who delight in doing wrong
and rejoice in the perverseness of evil,
15 whose paths are crooked
and who are devious in their ways.

Fellowship

As the holiday comes to a close and a new year has started out briskly. I sat in church and wondered yet again where is my peace? While I was at home I enjoyed blessed quietness and uninterrupted fellowship with my God. I found that He was a great conversationalist and the things He revealed to me in 2010 literally blew my mind. He told me” I still love you, probably more than the minute before. Each second of the day I compound my love for you __for you are truly my blessed one.” He said to me. “I know that the times are a little hard right now, but I shall continue to be with you as I have before. I won’t leave you nor forsake you. I am your God and you are still my child.
I’m always there when you call on me and I know that I have not failed you yet. I enjoy the sweet communion that we share when you take the time to fellowship with me. Oh Sheila, how I love you. I have so much more that I want to share and give to you. Are you willing to stay with me so that you can be a blessing to me and others?

I hope that your answer is a firm yes for I know the plans I have for you. Intentional plans never to harm you, but plans to give you a hope and a future. That my child is what I have planned for you. Trust me more fully this year for I want to take you on a new journey. A journey that will open new doors of godly opportunities to glorify me as you become more of a blessing to others.

To receive these blessings, all that I require is that you follow me and continue to fellowship and sup with me. Oh! and one more thing. Forsake not the fellowshipping with my people. Show thyself a worthy servant so that when you come to your final destination I can say “well done my good and faithful servant, enter now into the joy of the Lord.”

I received what God said to me during that time of fellowship. And now I look forward to another year where I can increase my time with Him. I love you too Lord and may the time of fellowship I have with you be a blessing I can pass on to others.

I Ask Questions

I use to not ask the question of the answers I needed to know. I pondered many things inside of my mind and almost always held them within. It looked as though others already knew the answers so I never questioned why, what, when, or whom. I just kept it to myself and lived without the answers. If I couldn’t ask the question then, then I would read or research or just ask another privately when it was all said and done.

For all the years I was in school. That was how I functioned. I never asked questions, I just observed in my silence. As I became an adult I still maintained that silence. When I had my children who are the jewels of my life I began to question out loud. There were questions I no longer could go without the answers. I needed to know why I was the way I am and if this is the answer God wanted me to live. If I was living the answer then surely I could leave more answered questions to my children that could be placed down from generation to generation.

I have now gone “over the hill” past the fortieth line of life. I’ve been sliding down the hill for twenty years and hope to keep on sliding. I now ask the questions how, why, what, whom when and how. I need to know now for I don’t have enough time to wait and research it later. When I ask I try to ask the right questions to obtain the right answer. I no longer stand by question-less.

I ask, and I receive the answers. The one question that everyone should ask before you leave this earth is how can I be saved? The immediate answer to this is to accept the Lord as your personal Savior. Ask Jesus to cleanse you from your sin by saying this prayer. O Lord please forgive me for every sin I have sinned against you. Come into my life and make me the person you want me to be. Thank you Lord for saving me I am now your child. Now Lord I ask that you will help me live according to your Word. Amen.

Now that you have the answer, go to a church of your choice and get involved with serving Christ. As you grow go out and help others to find the answer to the most important question that needs to be answered.

Order My Steps

Confusion, confusion, there’s lots of confusion in the world today. There are a lot of people who seem to live in a constant state of disarray, confusion and no boundaries. Structure is not a part of their daily routine. “Fly by the seat of their pants” is how they live in that they don’t use progressive well thought out plans to govern their life’s choices.
As you look back to different situations in your life did you encounter people who hadn’t seemed to work with a plan in mind? Organization didn’t show up most of the time and order totally lost its way. The steps taken often landed on shaky ground and the foot could slip at any given monument. There were times when there were holes you fell into because others failed to build a bridge or provide a covering to avoid the pitfall. Many times this took place because things were done out of order.
How do we get back to ordering our lives? If we look at order biblically it tells us in I Corinthians 14:33 (NASB) “33 for God is not a God of confusion but peace, as in all the churches of the saints.” Peace is a result or product of living with ordered steps. Confusion makes your steps unsure and hazardly. Looking for peace? Order your steps! I Corinthians 14:40 says” 40 But all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner.”
Order allows you to come and go properly in sequential order. When you take life out of order, it doesn’t give you much to look for when you’ve done things before their time. A classic example of misguided order is teen pregrnancy. They skip marriage, relationships, youth and developmental processes, needed to give them a semblance of clarity for a full life. They propel themselves into adult responsibilities before they are mature enough to know the vastness of life itself. If they would have done life properly and in an orderly manner, then life would not have become so overwhelming. Their out of order sequence caused them to function in an off -beat rhythm. That’s how their life became unbalanced.
To restore your balance you will need to order your steps by living in a proper manner. Living the stages of life the way they were intended to be lived according to the Word of God. Find ways to live among people with the least amount of friction establishing a good reputation, character, honesty and integrity. Do what is right for you and others so that when you lay your head down at night you will rest in peace. Put your business affairs in order and keep them current. Owe as little as possible to man but owe your life and how you live it to God.
Ordering your steps requires intentional effort and lots of energy. Once you have spent that energy you will find that you will be renewed again and again to walk in God’s ordered steps.
“We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.” Proverbs 16:9

The Healing

It was spring cleaning time and I set out to do some deep cleaning. I came across a stack of cards that had been sitting for a while and decided to take a look at the stack to determine where their final destination might be. As I sat and began to read I noticed my feelings began to come forth. I guess I didn’t realize how far I had come in the way I looked at life. A few years ago I had made up my mind that I would not let people and the havoc they could bring in my life and others get to me anymore.
I decided to care with only a minimum affect on where I was. I would not let people hurt me anymore nor would I spend a large amount of time trying to figure them out. If someone hurt, let them hurt. If someone had trauma in their life I would not enter in their emotional stress. I built a wall that was a safer way for me to exist. I had so much mess going on in my life that I needed a way to escape. This was the easiest way for me for I felt that God had turned His back on me and He would get to me when He did. Since I had no hope that God would acknowledge my pain anytime soon, I needed to have some relief from my strife.
Now don’t get me wrong, I prayed and went to church continued in my ministry, and I looked as though I was living a victorious Christian life. People in general do not take special note of each other unless they are doing something way out of the ordinary. Since I looked normal and was not causing people to look at me with concern on their face, they naturally assumed that I was doing just fine. Nothing was further from the truth. I was in a holding pattern self-inflicted. I could not move forward or backward.
For a while I felt that I had made the right decision. I would not cry or feel or re-act to adversity. It happened; I looked, observed but did not respond to whatever the situation. I just went on through my daily life on automatic pilot. This was what I did for several years as I felt if I had any more pain it would surely cause me to consider ending my life as it was. If I was going to make it, something had to change. I suppose that was not the best decision but at the time there was no one whom I felt I could go to too hear me and understand what I was feeling. At the time I talked to God only. I wasn’t sure if He was listening but I went with what I knew to do.
As I got to my middle fifties I began to cry again. I could feel pain and joy just by watching a program on TV or a movie that I may or may not had seen before. This happen several times before I realized that I was responding that way. I’d asked myself when I took note why are you crying, or why do you let that bother you. Perhaps I was beginning to heal from some of my deep seeded pain. Maybe by keeping in touch with God through reading His word and praying helped me to stay grounded although that was not my primary focus. I just wanted relief from all the pain.
I am into the fourth month of being sixty. Just as I entered being sixty, I once again encountered physical sickness. I received many cards with prayers and thoughts for a swift recovery. I was given love and care. As I read the cards again with better appreciation for the thoughts penned to me I felt love as my eyes began to tear. Good I said to myself you’re allowing God to bring you out of the highly built wall of I don’t care. Its okay to feel and respond healthily to what’s going on inside of you. The cards read that people wanted for me what I wanted for them in the every day.
I was in the hearts and prayers that they were sending my way. One card summed it all up for me and made me thankful that I could feel God’s love shown to me through others. The card read: “To celebrate your birthday means to celebrate your life. I celebrate your faith that reaches out to him, Your love that reaches out to others, your character that the Lord’s hands have shaped to be an expression of His grace, and your heart that is fixed upon Him and is tender to His ways.” Another card said “Because you listen, because you understand, times spent with you are special to me- They’re times I will treasure, as I treasure you. These words went straight to my heart as I knew that God feels the same way about me as I strive to do His will.
My wall has begun to crumble not as fast as the walls of Jericho, but nevertheless they will fall. God will receive the glory. I have the sweet assurance of His constant love and care. I now know that He will give me encouragement to refresh me, and strength to renew me and healing to restore me.
“Heal me, O Lord, and I will be healed… for you are the one I praise.”
JEREMIAH 17:14 NIV

The World Goes On

I was watching a movie star today on TV when I heard her say the world goes on even when I want to get off for a while. She had just lost her father not to long ago and wanted to stop what she was doing and spend some time grieving her lost, but her lifestyle did not give her the opportunity to do so.
No matter what goes on in your life, the world does not pause and wait for you to catch up. When trials come upon you such as death, heartache, betrayals, sickness and any other hardships we tend to look at others and not comprehend why they are so lively. Can't they see that I'm hurting? Stop, look at me I need to be comforted! When we see people from day to day we may never know what is going on inside of them and we very seldom stop to ask what it is. We don't know how many of them are ready to jump off this twirling world.

The lost of a loved one often propels us to this state of mind. The sorrow of everyday living is personified to us through the death of a significant person in our lives. It causes us to stop and take inventory of our own life. Sorrow and grief take on a new life and we begin to look at the decisions we have made that have a significant impact on us and those who live in our world. We look at the "what ifs."
We begin to weave a cocoon around our grief and feel as though no one understands where we are. This is when we want the world to stop so that we can get off for just a little while.

Day to day happenings still go on such as you have a job to go to, they only give you so many days off to grieve and then you must return and perform as if you never had a lost of any kind. You received the cards and flowers and the comforting phrases, but life had to go on. After a couple of weeks everyone expects life to return to normalcy. The world goes on in spite of what you are feeling or going through.

The world goes on whether you are happy or sad. We all have days that we wish we could stop the rotation. When we are happy, we want to stop the world on its axis so that the feeling will never go away. We want to bask in the goodness of the moment. When we are sad we want to stop get off, feel better, stop being responsible for a short time, then hop back on. But, we know that this is not going to happen as the world still goes on either way.

Because the world goes on no matter which way things happen, we must learn to cope with the different situations that may crop up in our lives. One way to cope is to have a grounding factor in your life that never changes. Now you say to yourself that there is nothing in this life that never changes. There is only this one thing that never changes and that is the love of Jesus and how He'll always love you. This love will always be available to you if you choose to accept it and even if this world goes on without you the love of Jesus never stops for you get to live with Him forever once you have left this world.

Seek Him now while He may be found. The world only offers temporary solutions to life's ups and downs. Yes the world goes on with or without us. Make your time here count by becoming a child of God. Accept Jesus as your personal savior and become a part of His kingdom which transcends this world as it goes on.