HONOR

What is honor? The Bible tells us to honor God, also to honor our mother and father. It also tells me to teach my kids to honor and obey God.

I read somewhere that honor is a combination of three things. 1) Doing more than what is expected, 2) treating people as special, and 3) having a good attitude. The combination of doing those three things, and making them a daily habit, is a good habit to get into.

I've been teaching this to my kids, but, before I could teach them, I had to do some learning myself. It's hard to do more than what's expected if I have a bad attitude. It's also hard to treat people as special when you have a bad attitude. I have found that if I do it anyway (treat people as special and do more than what's expected), regardless of how I feel, that doing those things can and often does change my attitude. This is once again one of those weird paradoxes that I have found to be most helpful. It also helps me drop worry, anxiety and frustration and allows me to have peace and joy in my life.

Sometimes you have to go through the motion and the emotion will follow.

Have you ever tried this?

Pressing on with Excellence,

Keith

Balance

It really amazes me how much all areas of my life affect one another. For instance, if I don't get enough sleep throughout the week then my relationships suffer. My attitude starts going downhill and I don't feel like giving my all. If I'm not spiritually on track, meaning I don't invest enough time in prayer, meditation, and reading the Bible or other devotional material, that also will have an affect on my relationships, my attitude towards work, or even my physical life. Is there such a thing as balance in one's life?

I know that I need 6 or 7 hours of sleep each night or I get cranky. So, that's 49 hours per week of sleep that I need. I also believe that I need to invest time with my work. I've been averaging about 53 hours per week, so that leaves me 66 hours per week out of 168 to divide up between physical activity, family, relational, and spiritual. I tithe with my money, so why not tithe with my time? Give God 2.4 hours of every day and that still leaves me 49.2 hours to invest into working out, family, and getting my to-do list done. 49.2 hours seems like a lot of time, but my kids are still begging for time with me. And do I really invest 2.4 hours every day with God?

Where is my time really going? Do you know? Do you have balance?

Pressing on with Excellence,

Keith

Break Down the Walls

Do you have walls up in your life? For a long time in my life I did have walls up. I did not even see them as walls. What I mean by that is, I had a lot of fear, worry, anxiety, and bitterness in my life. These were my walls. They kept me from really accomplishing anything. They kept me down and produced a cycle of gloom and impending doom. That, in itself, is a wall that blocks me from becoming what God wants me to be. I think that distractions like this are what Satan fed me to keep me from being effective. My pastor talked about the power of the Holy Spirit inside us, and how the Holy Spirit has the power to change us. But I believe that I get distracted by emotions or circumstances. These walls render me ineffective. This is what Satan wants. There's nothing better for Satan than a Christian that is tossed about like a sailor at sea in a big storm of emotions and circumstances, rendering him useless. How can I break through these walls?

The Holy Spirit has the power to do all good and great things. For me the wall that probably blocked me the most was the wall of unbelief. I didn't really believe that God would give me the power of the Holy Spirit. I thought I had to do these things on my own.

It takes time and a decision that I can't live this way anymore, and it takes mental discipline and a new way of thinking to break down the walls. Are you on this road yet? What are you waiting for? Are you making a difference in this world? Does the way you think and the way you act bring glory to God? Are you ready to break down some walls?

Pressing on with Excellence,

Keith

Share Abundance

What do you need to succeed? This is going to sound weird, but I believe that in some situations a person needs to give himself permission to succeed.

If I have a scarcity mindset, then I may think that someone won't be able to succeed if I do, or that if someone succeeds, then I won't. This is also a self-centered or self-focused mindset. I'll give you an example...say that there's a nice pond that I know of and I see someone bowfishing on that pond. I watch him for a while and realize that he's not seeing any fish. With bowfishing you have to be able to see them. He doesn't know where they hang out, but I do and I don't tell him. Let's go one step further. Say I don't even have the fishing equipment to go bowfishing, so there's no way that I can be successful anyway, but I still don't tell him where the fish are. How selfish is that? How do I even know that if I help him, maybe he's got some extra equipment and can help me get set up? How will I ever succeed at anything if I'm not willing to give a helping hand or share some things I know? If I'm
willing to help someone out, I can share in their success. I also believe that everything you do comes back to you sooner or later, good or bad. You can't succeed with a scarcity mindset.

Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.

Tell him where the fish are, have a friend for life.

Pressing On with Excellence,

Keith

Captive Thoughts

Sorry I didn't get a blog out last week. I went on a little family vacation and I also went to a 2-day seminar on Coaching and how to build a coaching business.

This got me to thinking about what I am really good at or what would I be able to coach others on. What is the one thing that I know really well? If you have been following my blogs, it is all about changing the way you think. I've heard it said in AA that I didn't have a drinking problem, I had a thinking problem. This is true.

I've written blogs about fear and worry and such, but I believe it all comes back to my thought life. I have spent a lot of time
worrying about stupid things that never happened. That was wasted time that I will never get back, but over the last 19 years I have learned some good lessons. Probably one of the biggest is how to control what I think about. It's a stewardship thing. I've heard it said that you are what you eat. I don't believe that. I eat salad, but I'm not a rabbit! I believe that you are what you think. That is maybe the only thing that God gives us complete control of. I did not have control over my thought life for a long time. I was washed here and there by feelings and circumstances. The Bible talks about a double-minded man being tossed to and fro like a sailor. Also it talks about taking counsel from the wicked. The way that I talked to myself, I was taking counsel from the wicked.

I have learned how to talk to myself differently and have learned to think differently and it has revolutionized my life. So I think that I will focus on helping others to change their thinking and to have good stewardship practice on what you allow into your head. Paul talks about taking every thought captive to Christ and Proverbs says "as a man thinks so he is." I believe that this should be the foundation that I have been working on for so long.

It's time to launch.

Pushing towards Excellence,

Keith

Where'd your "want to" go to?

I haven't received very much feedback on blogs, but if you read this and have any ideas on this, I would appreciate your feedback.

Why are people apathetic to change? Most people, if you ask them if there's anything in their life that they would like to change, they would say, yes, and then give you a list. They might even give you 20 reasons why they should change. Such as, I would like to change my eating habits because I have or am close to being diabetic and I know that if I don't get this under control, I'm going to die. They might change their ways for a while, but sooner or later, they give in and go back to not eating right. It's even more subtle in behaviors like gossip, negative talk, or talking to yourself negatively.

What keeps people doing this? I believe one of the things is desire, a "want to." How do you keep that "want to" going? How do you develop a steadfastness that will not fail? Is it just "mental laziness?" I know I get that way about exercise once in a while, but then I see the effects and get motivated again. I need to make a decision, then follow through. I have been given self-control through the Holy Spirit and, when I practice it, the self control gets stronger and stronger until I develop a habit that I refuse to give up.

Also, I would like to add, if I'm out of balance in one area of my life, it seems to have an effect on other areas of my life. Such as, if I'm not getting enough sleep, then I tend to get cranky or I don't feel like exercising. I don't want to exercise self-control and I let my guard down on other behaviors I'm trying to change.

Pushing with Excellence,

Keith

What About Worry?

Why do you worry? I think about this. Why do I worry? Is it because I'm selfish or self-centered or greedy? Maybe it's the fear of losing something that I have or fear of not getting something that I want. (I think it goes beyond these character defects.) Maybe it's a lack of faith. Could that be the answer? I have heard it said and have said it myself; If you pray, why worry; if you worry, why pray. I think that it goes deeper than that. I think it has to do with two things; belief and acceptance.

Now, maybe I'm splitting hairs when I separate belief and faith, but, for me, belief is: I know that I know that I know that something is true. What if I believe God loves me? How would that make me feel? Would I really have to worry about anything? If I knew for sure that something was going or not going to happen, or that I was going to get something or have it taken away; if I truly believed that all things good or bad come through the Father's hands before it gets to me, would that change my mind about worry?

If I accept that all things that come to me through the Father's hands are his perfect will for me, then I need to trust him for the outcome. All things work for good for those who love the Lord. He is doing a work in me and I don't have to worry.

To me worry is a waste of time and energy. If I used the same amount of time and energy and devoted that toward something else, I would be much better off .

What do you worry about? Why?