Archive for the ‘overcoming obstacles’ Category

Best quotes of the week

Posted: December 22, 2012 in advice/how to, change, focus, life hack, overcoming obstacles, personal development, quotes
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I love quotes. Quotes are a treasure to be mined and the nectar of a well thought life. Quotes can change your perspective, turn the lights on, and affirm what you already knew but couldn’t quite put into words. In other words quotes can change your life.
As a discipline I file away quotes and illustrations that I find add value to my life and the goals that I am reaching. Here are five that made the cut for this week:

“The thing is, that everything was impossible until somebody did it.” – Scott Dinsmore

“It is no easy thing to rest while millions still bear the burden of poverty & insecurity”-Nelson Mandela

“You already know more about good than you currently practice…don’t try to gain more knowledge before you practice what you already see”-Fenelon

“We dishonor the image of God in diverse people when we require them to assimilate to the dominant culture in our church.”-Christena Cleveland

“We do know that no person can be saved except through Christ. We do not know that only those who know him can be saved by him”-C.S. Lewis

So those are my top 5 for the week. What are your favorite quotes?

Naming my Addictions Pt 5 1/2: Social media continued

Posted: December 4, 2012 in change, culture, faith, Jesus, overcoming obstacles, personal, spirituality
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20121203-201310.jpgMy precious

Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me a sinner. That’s all I got to say….

Five lessons I learned writing the first draft of His Story, Our Story

Posted: November 29, 2012 in art, focus, goals, inspiration, life hack, overcoming obstacles, personal
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It has been a very exciting journey to go from a random thought in my mind to actually pursuing writing an ebook called His Story, Our Story I am on a very steep learning curve and still am learning about marketing and all the business/technical aspects of writing. In the process of going from idea to reality and writing my first draft I have learned many lessons here are five of them:

All it takes is a page a day

Writing a book of any size can be daunting. I have always put it off because I was afraid I wouldn’t finish or I would end up writing until I was an AARP member. I intentionally started with a small ebook because of this challenge but I learned a secret. You can do a lot if you just write a page a day. If you write a page a day you can at least have 30 pages in a month, 90 pages in 3 months, and 180 pages in six months. On and on it goes until…Voila you have something to publish. Just start with one page a day and usually you actually write more than that. There’s something about that bare minimum that leave no room for failure and unlimited potential to write your heart out.

Write and then revise

Not only is one page a day doable but one crappy page a day is doable. I think these words should be posted on every author’s walls: Write and then revise. I got so much momentum going by just sitting in front of the computer and typing away. Some of it was horrible. Well guess what? Now in the editing stages what was considered horrible has now been revised into something readable.

Make this your life

You have to focus. This is where the rubber hits the road and separates the men from the boys and the dreamers from the doers. Throughout the time writing my first draft I was distracted by numerous things. Some of them good. Some of them not so good. All of them keeping me from my best. So here’s how I eliminated the distractions. I woke up not to go to work or to take care of all the other things that I had to do. I woke up to do what I wanted to do: write. I had my laptop set up so before I left the house I wrote. I made it my life.

Involve others in the early stages

The one thing that changed the game for me was letting people know what I was doing. Good old fashioned pride took care of the rest. It started with my wife. Then a couple of close friends. Then I let social media do its thing and then I had an obligation. Not only to myself but to the people who wanted to see me succeed. That’s some powerful motivation

Save your work

Here is the big lesson that I am learning now as I am putting the finishing touches on everything. While revising chapters I realized that some pages and paragraphs were missing. I was sure that I wrote them. What happened? I forgot to press save. Save your work is my next most important mantra. If I would have saved my work I wouldn’t have to go and remember what I actually wrote or come up with something new. Wasted time.

So those are my five lessons. What are some lessons you have learned in the writing process? Do you have any mantras or guidelines that keep you focused and creatively pursuing your art?

Naming my addictions pt 2: Knowledge

Posted: October 4, 2012 in bible, change, faith, Jesus, life hack, overcoming obstacles, personal, spirituality
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Addiction #1 Knowledge

One of my earliest memories and probably some of the earliest memories extended family have of me as a kid is of me opening up encyclopedias in my grandparents den while all the other kids are playing outside. While they were first hand experiencing the world around them I was on a pursuit to unlock the secrets of the universe. That has always been my natural bent. Although I would have to say it wasn’t that natural.

It was the result of a wound. When I was four my Mom and Dad separated (thank God and his grace that they came back together when I was ten). Because of the separation I felt extremely powerless. If I couldn’t stop this from happening then what else was I vulnerable to. How come I didn’t know how to stop it? So the quest for knowledge began. And it only got deeper when I encountered R rated movies, puberty, and wouldn’t you know it…Christianity.

The result was that I became addicted to collecting useless facts and avoiding testing them out in real life. I read about different things but wouldn’t do them. I would watch a movie about something that I was interested in but think of all the reasons why I couldn’t do it. Then later I would buy a book about the same thing-like that would get me to actually do something about it. My thinking went something like this: “If I learn more about it then I will be competent enough to do it.” The only problem is I was always in a deficit when it came to competence. Competence=self worth. This addiction led me to collect useless info and trivial knowledge in order to fill the emptiness I had inside because of my lack of taking action.

The remedy. Slowly but surely I began to experience life and whenever I felt like I needed to learn something instead of turning to a book I turned to a friend or mentor and got hands on experience. This was a direct result of discovering a profound truth: Just because I know facts about God doesn’t mean I know God. The apostle John refers to Jesus in 1 John 2:3 and says that “by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments”. This same principle can be applied to just about everything else in life. Just because I know facts about something doesn’t mean I know it. So I still read books and surf the net but nowadays experiencing truth is more of a priority than collecting useless knowledge.

WHY I’M STILL FOLLOWING JESUS

Posted: July 17, 2012 in faith, overcoming obstacles, personal, spirituality
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Over the years I have faced many down times and rough patches concerning my faith. No time has been as rough as the last few years. Closing a church to move across country away from family and friends and taking a job where I make less than half of my previous salary has not been easy. Then there are existential questions that linger regarding the future and whether I made the right choice as far as ministry. Why I am I here? Does what I am doing really matter? What’s the point of it all?On top of all that the numbing fatigue of working in ministry for eight years plus going to seminary at the same time wears your mind down enough to start asking questions and doubting your faith. In the last few months I have wrestled with these questions and come out on the other side with a very slimmed down understanding of following Jesus and the reasons why I personally will continue to follow him through whatever difficulty or hardship that comes my way. It can be summed up in the definition of what following Jesus is and isn’t. Ready? Here we go…..

Following him does not mean that I have to vote republican. It doesn’t mean that I hate gay people. It also doesn’t mean that I put my brain on the shelf and avoid reason. Following Jesus does not mean that I ignore scientific evidence or picket abortion clinics. Expectations of health, wealth, and prosperity have nothing to do with me following Jesus. It doesn’t mean that I will be safe or comfortable or that I will finally have all the answers. Following Jesus is not a ritual reserved for one day while the rest of my life goes unaffected. Following Jesus is not a bumper sticker or an obnoxious Facebook post.

Following Jesus is a life that I have chosen that surpasses all other lives in its humility, love, and service to the poor. It is a journey filled with mystery. Following Jesus is using my brain and everything else God gave me to make wise decisions and engage science, art, and culture. It is sitting at a table with friends feasting or solitude at a retreat fasting. Following Jesus means that many people will hate me and others will love me as the brother and son they never had. It means that I don’t jump through hoops to earn favors from God or the world’s Scooby snacks of power, money, and sex. It means that I can give my life to him even when I don’t get everything I want because he died and rose again to give me everything I will ever need. Following Jesus is tapping into the greatest power in the universe because I am connected to the greatest person in the universe: Jesus Christ

Why do you choose follow or not follow Jesus?

What is your understanding of following Jesus?

Grace and peace,

How I found freedom from pornography

Posted: March 15, 2012 in advice/how to, culture, faith, gender, justice, overcoming obstacles, personal, personal development, sex, spirituality
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This post is dedicated to all the beautiful women who have helped me to be the man I am today; who loved me beyond what their natural eyes could see. Celebrating Women’s History Month.

It started in grade school. Just a peek through supposedly closed eyes into the lurid details of a Hollywood sex scene. No harm right (Wrong!)Boys will be boys. But wait…after several more peeks and several years later friends are bringing magazines to school and I am shocked and seduced into looking at men and women reveal something intended to be private for the public. Not just once but multiple times. My curiosity drove me to look again and again but it provoked no appetite to know the reasons a young woman would bare her body in a magazine for a gawking lust filled strangers to see.

Years after I would struggle with the enticement to view not only women’s bodies but women’s bodies performing as objects for men’s twisted fantasies. And this is the saddest part about porn and what makes it essentially vile and wrong is that it turns a woman into an object. Never in all of those times that pornography lured and enthralled me did I think: this woman on this page…on this screen…is a person. A person with emotions and intellect; joys and fears. And ultimately not only did I dehumanize her but I dehumanized myself. By seeing her as an object I limited my capacity to love. I began to see not just women but all people in terms of what they could give me. In short my ability to connect relationally was seriously short circuited.

Objectifying women is not limited to only the sexual. I realized how much this thought pattern had invaded my mind even more so once I got married. To see my wife as an object-sexual, emotional, domestic-and not as a person is a result of years of emotional detachment and wallowing in a pit of selfishness.

Many times I tried to quit cold turkey and through sheer willpower to resist the temptations to look at porn but there was no breakthrough until one night while reading my bible I realized this: it’s not about resisting temptation as much as it’s about loving your neighbor. Basic stuff right but most of the time this teaching-this mandate from Christ is often excluded from our sexuality. This is how it works in my own life. Every woman I come in contact with (whether offline, on screen, or online) is my neighbor for whom Christ died. Do to others what you want to be done to you. Every woman who is involved in pornography is somebody’s daughter. I know I don’t want people to treat my daughter as a sexual object.

It’s not just about the practice of viewing pornography. It’s about the objectification of women. Both sins of commission because one huge sin of omission: not loving. Basic but it really is about love and love can free you from anything.

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:36-40 ESV)

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-8 ESV)

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:7, 8 ESV)

My Incredible Year of Transformation!

Posted: January 13, 2012 in change, goals, inspiration, overcoming obstacles, personal, personal development
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There are certain years that we mark off as milestones. What immediately comes to mind are the years we turn sixteen or twenty one or forty come to mind. They all mark a transition point. One phase of life is ending and another is beginning. They are the thresholds we walk through to start living life in a different way. I remember my first year out of high school. It was a time of being on a steep learning curve. It was the time where I encountered the real world and the real world almost ate me alive. I experienced my first real love and my first real brush with the law and it sobered me up. It gave my life a little weight and transformed me.

Sometimes we experience these milestones and transitions along the same time table as everyone else but sometimes it’s not about being on a certain chronological time table with the rest of our peers or what society expects i.e. twenty first or fortieth birthday. Sometimes it’s just about what God is doing in us and with us at this moment; in this season. Right now I am experiencing one of those seasons; one of those moments. I am thirty four and my life is changing right before my eyes. Some of these changes include:

I just lost 12 lbs

Gaining a whole new perspective on relating to God (writing about that soon)

Taking actual steps toward writing a book (one chapter down :)

This is turning out to be a year of transformation and it has not all been meticulously planned. I just took advantage of what God gave me: a church that closed, a move to another city, and a need for rest. What has been a moment of fatigue, disappointment, and frustration has also turned out to be one of the best seasons of my life. No it didn’t start on January 1st but sometime around October. I am not on anyone’s timetable but my own. This is my incredible year of transformation.

5 Lessons for the New Year I learned while shaving my head…

Posted: December 31, 2011 in advice/how to, change, goals, overcoming obstacles, personal development, Uncategorized
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For the last 3 weeks I have been shaving my head in order to save money. It makes no sense to pay $10 for somebody to do something so simple. What I didn’t realize is how much doing this simple task would teach me lessons about myself and life. I want to offer the thoughts to take with you into the New Year.

Believe in Yourself

For the longest time I have been contemplating shaving my head instead of going to a barber. I just didn’t get around to it because I am not the most dexterous person on the planet and imagined myself really doing a crummy job. This is something that has been a barrier to reaching other goals as well and it was only until a few weeks ago that I decided to believe that I could do it. This was such a breakthrough because I had been stuck thinking that I could not accomplish such a simple task. It was a revelation because it revealed how much I didn’t believe in myself for some of the other larger goals and tasks that I wanted to complete in life. I mean if shaving my own head created so much fear in me then what other things were being postponed through fear. I want to do a lot of big things and I never realized how much those were so far away from being done because I could not even believe in myself to do a lot of small things. Thousands of people do it every day but in this simple act I received the knowledge that allows us as humans to live out our best and brightest potential: Believe in yourself!

Take action and fear disappears

As soon as I ran the clippers across the top of my head I realized there was no turning back. The deed was done. You know what else was done. My fear. It vanished the moment I began shaving my head. The reason: Once you take action then you do not have time to be afraid. There is no space to allow fear to grip you. You have already begun executing the task and taking steps toward the goal. The fear that once held you back is now behind you. This means that the best thing we can do when it comes to seeing our goals and dreams reached is take that first step. Whatever it is. Get on the treadmill. It doesn’t matter how fast you go just get on it! Start typing. It doesn’t matter if you have 300 more pages to go and none of it makes sense. Just do it! Go without cigarettes for one day. Just take that first step and watch the fear disappear.

Always get another perspective

As I was cutting I could not see the whole of my head. There was a point where I needed to get the hair from behind my ears and on the back of my head and I had no help. I tried my hardest to just go with it and shave blindly hoping that if I went over it enough times then I would have done a pristine job. After a while I thought I should just go to bed I’m sure I shaved it off and made it even with the other parts (laziness!). Then I stopped and said what is making you not just ask Yvette for help. So I thought about it and I realized that underneath it all: I wanted to live in denial. I wanted to choose to believe in something that I did not have any evidence for when I could have received the necessary feedback from someone right near me. Sometimes this can happen with larger goals. We can choose to believe we are doing a great job but never get feedback from those closest to us. It is always good to get another perspective. So go see a trainer, a counselor, a respected friend or mentor and get the necessary feedback you need to reach your goals.

Some mistakes are easy to fix and some aren’t

As with all of life some mistakes are easy to fix and some aren’t. The first few times I shaved my head I did an excellent job. I always had to go to Yvette to figure out if I missed some spots or if it was even. These mistakes were easy to fix and I just needed to go over them with the clippers a few more times. On the other hand the third time I shaved my head I actually shaved my skin off and had a sore in the front of my head. It is still there right now and I have had to endure looking like  I have a patch of hair in the front of my head. This is a mistake that is not easy to fix. I have to wait until my skin heals and it has been painful just looking at it every morning :(

Sometimes in life there are easy course corrections we can make: I have been eating a few too many sweets. Cut back. I spent a little more than I should have this Christmas. Ok save up in January. Work a second job for a few months. There are other mistakes that cannot be easily fixed: I have been eating a few too many sweets for years and now I have diabetes. I have loads of credit card debt and school debt. I have been smoking for years and I have to get checked out for lung cancer. These aren’t easy fixes. That’s not to say that these things can’t be fixed it just means that it will take a longer and a greater amount of money and labor to fix them if they can be fixed at all. Right now is the best time to concentrate on doing the easy fixes so you don’t have to deal with the bigger problems down the road. That’s why I’m eating better and exercising-not as a New Year’s resolution but as a life decision-so I don’t have to fix a difficult mistake later.

You always get another chance

As I look at my hair grow back and my skin heal I am realizing that life is so generous to us. No matter how many mistakes you make you have numerous opportunities to course correct. I realize these days how much I was blinded by envy and ambition when I was younger and I squandered the early years of my marriage. But I have another chance and I am taking advantage of it by loving and enjoying my wife. I could have been more disciplined in my eating habits and avoided a growing gut and a few trips to the doctor. But I still have the chance to be healthy. Wherever you are right now in pursuit of your goals be grateful that you have the opportunity to pursue them. You may think it’s too late but you always have another chance. As long as there is breath in your lungs you can make decisions that lead to wholeness and success. 2012 is going to be a great year for taking advantage of the opportunities that life has given you.

Happy New Year!

No resolutions for 2012

Posted: December 28, 2011 in advice/how to, focus, goals, life hack, overcoming obstacles, personal development
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It’s funny how comments from strangers can make you think. You know the random comments. The comments that stick with you even days later because underneath what is so random is a kernel of truth. The other day just before leaving the gym one of the regulars asked me if I was “puttin in work.” I immediately answered that I just did. I felt good about my workout and the fact that I was following through with my goal of getting in better shape (soon I will post on what that looks like). What really stood out to me was his reply: Make sure it lasts after Christmas. When he said it I was struck with the fact that this goal of getting in shape was not made for the New Year. It was made in October during our time at the Vineyard Pastor’s Sabbatical Retreat. It was made not just for the New Year but for a new life.

I think sometimes talk of new year’s resolutions gets old because it is based on the year and not based on our lives. It is a resolution that ultimately fails because it is time bound and not life bound. Think about it. We resolve to lose weight and eat healthier every year. We buy bran muffins and asparagus. We get gym memberships and new workout clothes but by February and sometimes the second week of January we are back to supersizin it on a regular basis. Why? It is because our desired change is based on New Year’s resolutions and not New Life decisions.

I do not have any resolutions for 2012. I am already full speed ahead with my goals for life:

  • I have started my workout plan
  • I have already begun to write my book and am about to finish the first chapter in a few days.

I am making progress because these things come from a place deep inside of me and not from an external clock or ritualized calendar. They are simply what I want and I have decided to go after them. So no resolutions for me in 2012. Just a continuing of putting my hand to the plow and not looking back.

Instead of focusing on resolutions this year Here’s a better way to see change happen in your life:

  • Sit down with a paper and pen
  • Take some space and time to let some of your deepest desires surface.
  • Write down the one that is most important right now
  • Whatever that thing is pursue it with all your might.

That’s what is driving me and motivating me to go to the gym in rain and snow. I love this method because it makes the change about you and what you really want and not some moralistic guilt ridden promise that you made to yourself simply because the earth moved around the sun one more time! So no resolutions in 2012 for me. Just some awesome life decisions.

3 things to do when u have a bad day

Posted: November 25, 2011 in life hack, overcoming obstacles, personal development, Uncategorized
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A bad day. Have you ever had one of those? It could be summed up in spilling coffee on your blouse the day you have a presentation at work. It could be getting a bill that you thought you paid months ago and realizing you currently don’t have enough money to pay it. It could be a day of telling kids “don’t” over and over and over again and they still do it anyway.

For me recently my bad day consisted of being late for work. You might say that’s nothing. Who hasn’t been late for work? Well it seems trivial but I was late for work in the worst way….two hours late. It turns out that I had written my schedule down incorrectly. So I walk in unaware and ignorant that my manager had called me two hours before wondering where I was. Oh I forgot to add: My phone is not functioning properly so it only has power when I plug it up to the charger. On top of that something is wrong with the receiver so I cannot hear calls. Needless to say everything kind of snowballed from there. It wasn’t my worst bad day but it definitely was a bad day. I managed to get through the night and thankfully I still have my job but I began thinking about what it takes to cope with a bad day, month, year, or even a decade (Yes those exist. Think about puberty or the 70′s). So here are my steps to getting over a bad day:

Discover the “at least” or rock bottom principle.

One of the ways that I get over bad days is by using the “at least” or rock bottom principle. If you are not dead then you have not hit rock bottom! I repeat: IF YOU ARE NOT DEAD THEN YOU HAVE NOT HIT ROCK BOTTOM! To put it simply things could be worse. I use this principle all the time. At work if I drop something I feel like a klutz but it is all smoothed out with the at least principle: “At least what I dropped wasn’t glass”. Or take coming in to work two hours late: “At least I didn’t get fired”. It works for just about anything except death and even that is not entirely off limits if you believe in a hereafter. Can u imagine it now? Well at least I’m here and not being tortured over there…

Get a Do over mentality

If it’s a bad day, week, month, year or decade then trust that you will get the opportunity to have a better one and don’t squander it. All the mistakes I made in my high school years I got to correct in my twenties. All the mistakes I made in my twenties I am getting a chance to correct now in my thirties. If you still have breath in your lungs then you have an opportunity for a do over. Golfers have a word for this. It’s called a mulligan!

Have grace for yourself

Lastly have grace for yourself. If you are having a bad day do not make it worse by judging and devaluing yourself. A bad day does not mean a bad you. After arriving to work late all I could think about was how much of a screw up I was. At the same time that was mental energy I could have been using to do a good job and make what seemed to be a bad day better. I tried hard to make up for it and prove to everyone that I wasn’t a spaced out lazy jerk. The thing is I don’t think anybody was thinking that but me. It was the Sunday before Thanksgiving and the place was a madhouse. No time to be thinking about how bad somebody else screwed up. Sometimes we can be so self centered that a bad day becomes worse because of all the negative thoughts going on in our heads.

So those are my three healthy ways of coping with a bad day. What are yours?