An Awesome Life

 . . . the fruit of the Spirit is
love
joy
peace
patience
kindness
goodness
faithfulness
gentleness
and self-control.
There is no law (Jewish Law) against such things.

. . .

Therefore, I say to you, take no thought about your life, what you will eat, or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body than clothing? 

Look at the birds of the air, for they do not sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns. Yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they? 

Who among you by taking thought can add a cubit to his stature?

Why take thought about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: They neither work, nor do they spin. 

Yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of these. 

Therefore, if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is here and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

. . .

. . . .

Not that I have already attained or have already been perfected, but I follow after it so that I may lay hold of that for which I was seized by Christ Jesus. 

I do not count myself to have attained, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 

I press toward the goal to the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

living water

I am made in the image of God, not your image of God.

No matter where we are or where we find ourselves people are looking for Jesus. They are looking for those values that we have shared over these last four weeks.

They are looking for liberation.

They are looking for hope.

They are looking for inclusion.

They are looking for everything that we say we represent Jesus.

And just because I walk up the center isle, there is a whole other group of people over here who think they are hiding when they are over here on Sunday Mornings. But when I look at Joan and I see all that Joan represents and the love that you have for Mark and the work and the life that you have both shared and the struggle sometimes that could be (Mark's now in a wheelchair) but not only do I see that Jesus in you, but I see the gift of a Jesus who will surrender to love that you recieve from Joan on a daily basis. It is that compassion that transforms us. And changes us.

That's what this thing is all about. It is about lives that have changed, lives that have moved, lives that make a difference, and lives that then compell us to find our better self seven days of the week, and in that better self, people might give God a second chance. People might get this notion of what it means to be a person of faith.

A second chance!

That is a cool thing our Senior Pastor shared.

PROGRAM LISTINGS & PROGRAM SCHEDULES

An Extraordinary Adventure

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Living at the mercy of one's past, living at the mercy of circumstance, living at the mercy of people's opinions, living at the mercy of toxic beliefs & limiting beliefs, living at the mercy of broke & in-pieces, living at the mercy of missed opportunities, living at the mercy of misplaced prioriities, these strangle the living daylight out of a good life and joy out of a Blessed Life and comfort out of a liberated life and peace out from Everlasting Mercy. On the other hand, lives being lived under grace, whose gratitude is everpresent, whose appetite for growth is ever-longing, whose passion and love remain exciting, have their sturdy feet set on the swinging planks of that wide bridge to Beautiful, christened Challenge!

Welcome to phenomenal life-thriving strategies delivered from the lean side of the mountain and embraced by many on this wondrous journey of life and learning - the continuation of our Extraordinary Adventure series.

"How do we cultivate young people who have the idealism, and the ambition, and the drive, and the passion to start their own journey to bring about meaningful and positive social change?"

You are altogether beautiful, my love;
    there is no flaw in you.

King Solomon

Once you've made a smart DECISION to take the next NECESSARY step
it's not feelings that count; ACTION makes the valued difference

"I am the door. If anyone enters through Me, that one will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.   The thief does not come, except to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." Jesus, Son of Man, Prince of Glory, Redeemer.

Who made the mountains? Who made the trees? Who made the rivers flow to the sea? Who sends the rain when the earth is dry? Who made the flowers to bloom in the spring? Who made the song for the robins to sing? Who hung the moon in the starry sky? Yes, all that and way much more! Our mind. Our body. Our spirit. Our soul.

Never let anyone put limits on what you can do! Don't allow it!

Phenomenal Life Strategies

Life Strategy # 10: "Listen To Understand"

Phenomenal life-affirming, life-thriving, life-uplifting strategies are being delivered by Our Lord Jesus on the lean side of the mountain. It's a new life.

Action Plan: Step into your next necessary action with confidence and courage or obtain the required skillset necessary to effectively do so. Jesus gets personal with me again, whispering how I can replace my snooze button with a skillset button, such that I can rise each and every morning ready to create a brighter better day. (What about you?) How does your morning routine set you ready for the day?

Rejoice! Be Glad!
We are accompanied.
Many have gone before us.

Welcome to my 'inter-personal' share!

"If there is a 'snooze' on your app it is overdue for a level-ten upgrade. The Stretch."

A reasonable question to pose ourselves at this juncture is this: is our morning routine suitably designed for who we are, where we're at and what we are about, or is it designed for who we're becoming, where we are going and how we will get there? Are we following either or some other religiously, occasionally or not at all?

What if we rename and restate that? Do we have a wake-up routine: a reliable get-into-action gong with a never-fail ready-set-go button reliably attuned to our mind-body-spirit conversation? We might reasonably conclude that If the button is well-worn something grand is in the works. It is highly possible we are onto something. We are probably on The High Achiever's Journey. (To confirm: Click & Check).

Times are a-changing.

Were anyone to get in touch with my college room-mates all the way on up through to welcomed overnight house guests, they're likely to discover my mates and guests usually recieved this announcement from me before retiring to bed. "DON'T SET YOUR ALARM, TELL ME WHEN YOU WANT TO GET UP, I'LL WAKE YOU IN TIME. MY CLOCK ISN'T EQUIPPED." In other words, let me be your coo-coo clock. I'd insist.

ALARMS were never really a thing on my bedstand.

I never understood why anyone needed some annoying accoutrement to jerk them out of sleep on a regular basis, and for the life of me I never understood why anyone would slap a snooze-button, worse, again-then-again-then-again-then-again. Made no sense to me, except as a person's suffer-me-for-being-alive routine. But to each his or her own! Duly respected.

It used to be that if someone set their alarm while I was within that person's territorial borders, so to speak, I'd awake in time to thwart that alarm's rudest intention: to give me a plodding headache. But things have changed. Today, were such an alarm to be set, my mind-body-spirit connection is conditioned not to recognize its existence. The coo-coo bird has flown.

Well! Kind of!

I'll admit, as would others of like mind, we have a headstart on awake, since we have never had a love affair with the SNOOZE button, therefore, we are not near the best advisors on the matter of curbing the snooze addiction. It is probably safe to say I've never tapped one in my life.

This very moment one of my sisters and her kids are holidaying with me, and she is asking me how I do it, or to put it precisely, she said, "How do you do it, man? You up already?"

Mhm! I need the head-start.

My sister: "But how do you do it?"

Yours truly: "We had the same mother."

(She laughs!) "She can't disown you ever! For real, my brother."

Of course, most everyone has an APP today and my alarming announcement is obsolete. And there is another more dangerous kind of SNOOZE button to which I cannot claim a lack of relationship. But times are a-changing. There is a grand discovery - Balance, Focus, Rhythm - well-tested, and the verdict is in. AWESOME!

How about you?

I am employing these real scenarios as one metaphor, inciting myself to get into action when my actionable alarm sounds, for it does, provided it is appropriately reset for current stages of my journey, give us adequate wake-up warnings and will snooze at the slightest slap.

Here is how I school myself to get on the swinging bridge before the cock crows and how I work my way steadily across:

Hear the alarm. Don't snooze. Arise. Accept the challenge. Obstacles are muscle builders, opportunity creation bricks, mental strength trainers, puzzle-busting keys: energizing elements of a lover's play garden.

Code for "Do what you love; love what you do!' You're bound for Beautiful.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. _ Robert Frost

Take time (if need be) to discover, hone, and use your gifts. You'll find useful steps (discovery process, action plans) in Riding Moby Dick. Just Click!

Do your body, mind and spirit communicate with each other & you.
Listen - first and foremost - to understand.

GLO-REY!

"I give them eternal life. They shall never perish, nor shall anyone snatch them from My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them from My Father’s hand. My Father and I are one." All things are possible. Start with what is just outside your comfort zone. Believe. Act upon it. Step outside and breathe.

WORD TO THE WISE: We've been reliably misinformed. Stress is not good, stress is not bad, stress is not indifferent. Stress is good or bad in relation to where it is applied, when it is applied, how it is applied, and by whom.

Indeed, stress is a vital element of growth and upliftment. Now, every time I see a baby or a child stretching out of sleep, I remind myself to stretch. It is a growth stimulator. Stretch to reach out. Stretch to reach up. Stretch to reach farther.

I make it a requirement for my athletes. It is necessary and it is beneficial. We have static stretches and we have dynamic stretches. These have different kinds of benefits - all the better for us, the better each of us understands our body, our mind, and our spirit.

We've heard it time and again: we fall in the bad habit of listening to respond when we ought to be listening to understand. In that manner if there is a need for response that response is then likely to be more intelligent or appropriate. I find it awesome practicing this on myself, listening to my body, mind and spirt, that is. They reveal their needs. Ooops! The verdict is in: I am lousy at paying them adequate attention. And they rebel.

Work in progress!

But when they are in flow - ooooh-wee-wee - Awesome! I see Beautiful. And I could hardly contain myself.

How about you?

"Knowledge that takes you not beyond yourself is far worse than ignorance." Elif Shafak.

Something To Consider

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You are

What POWER!