Tag: faith

faith, Family

Living with Expectancy

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sunrise expectanncy1

Expectancy is a new word for me. Never really thought of it before. It has a powerful and encouraging meaning for me that I hope will encourage you.

I often write about mindset how powerful and necessary mindset is to goal achievement or behavior change. I’ve said that the first step to personal change or reaching a goal is to set you mind to it; to discover the real reason WHY you want to change.

Real change in ourselves does not happen by chance or by some menial effort. Often there is a “crisis of belief” – something happens to remove the blinders from our eyes, knock some sense into us,  and wake us up to the reality that what we are doing (how we are living) and what we think or believe about something important is either not working or not true.

I’ve experienced this often in my life and I’m sure you can relate. For example, I can remember a fundamental mindset shift I had several years ago about the pursuit of material wealth. I thought that if I just worked harder and longer I would be the Jones’s that everyone would try to keep up with. I even acquired significant debt to make it seem like I was keeping up with the Jones’s, even though I wasn’t. Not even close. One day I looked myself in the mirror and said, “Dude, you are killing yourself and for what? What joy and peace do I have with all this stuff? Stop it. You need less. Less is more.”

Then and there began my journey to reduce my stuff, get rid of debt, and live more simply. It took a few years, and I’m still on the journey to eliminating debt, but we made a big move across the state into a house and mortgage about half of what we had before. I call this a ‘mid-life reset’ or ‘purposeful downsizing.’ Living with less is liberating. More time, energy, and resources to do what is most important to me rather than just trying to ‘pay the man’ and keep up with the Jones’s. BTW – no offense if your name is Jones. 🙂

Another example is in my health journey. In my mid 30’s I realized that if I didn’t make more effort to take care of myself, I risked not being able to keep up with my son as he grows up and becomes more active himself. I realized that to be the best husband, dad, employee, friend, etc. that I can be, I needed to be personally healthy in body, mind and spirit first. I also feared ending up like so many middle aged men who more or less give up on their health and suffer all kinds of ailments for the rest of their life. I didn’t want to be like that. So I made some changes to my nutrition and exercise plan and am now enjoying the benefits of being fit and feeling great into my 40’s. All because I first changed my mind and realized that what I was doing and how I was living was not working.

The most life altering example of changing my mindset pertains to my spiritual journey. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that I had a spiritual crisis of belief in my last year of high school. Once I got to college at Michigan State University and away from everything I knew and experienced growing up, I made a dramatic 180 degree turn in the way I thought about my soul and relationship with God. Instead of literally killing myself trying to live a life that I thought would make me happy and always finding an emptiness in the results, I turned my life over to Jesus and began to let him guide me through life. To this day I’ve found so much more peace and joy knowing that not only is the ultimate creator of all the world a personal friend of mine, but Jesus is always with me and for me. I know for sure that when he reveals to me a mindset or attitude that needs to be addressed, he will be with me to help me and the results of the change will be worth it. I believe that my spiritual transformation would not have happened without me changing my mindset about how I was living and realizing that it wasn’t working for me.

So what does all this have to do with expectancy? For me, expectancy has become a term to capture what I believe about the result of making a mindset change. I have seen through the mindset changes in my life that the results are worth it. So when I see the need for a new mindset change about some attitude or belief I have now, I am even more motivated and encouraged to do the hard work required to make the change real and permanent because I have already seen the great benefits to my life for choosing so.

Expectancy. The state of thinking or hoping that something, especially something pleasant, will happen or be the case.

Be encouraged friend. Think about that thing in your life that you are afraid to do, that attitude or belief you know is holding you back from being your very best, that change you want to make but are afraid you will fail – maybe again for the hundredth time. Remember the things you have already changed along your life journey and how much better you are today because of it. Or think about your future self and compare what your life will be like without the change versus doing the hard work now to make your future better. Choose your hard. Do you want to do the hard work to change now and enjoy the benefits for the rest of your life, or keep your status quo today and inherit a future with pain and regret? Don’t wait any longer. Go boldly with expectancy.

faith, Family

The Genius of Pain

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Pain Concept.

Our bodies are incredible. Consider for a moment what your body does that you don’t even think about. Breathing, digestion, circulation, healing, etc. I don’t have to get all sciency to prove it. We are incredible machines. One part about our body that doesn’t seem awesome, however, is pain. No one likes pain.

Pain is a pain.

But pain serves an invaluable service. Pain tells us that something is wrong. We should pay attention.

There are lots of different kinds of pain. Obviously there is physical pain. There is also emotional/ mental pain. Pain in our mind or heart can lead to physical ailments. Think stress. Mental stress from work, strained relationships, finances, and life can do painful things to our body. Headaches, muscle tension/ soreness, digestive issues, skin irritations, and compromised immunity to name a few. These symptoms are cues to alert us that something is wrong and it needs to be addressed. This is the genius of pain.

I injured my shoulder many years ago in a mountain biking crash. Even though doctors said they couldn’t find anything really wrong with my shoulder, I had intense pain every time I tried to throw. Over the years I saw different doctors and chiropractors who could not identify what was wrong except that I should get more expensive tests and likely have surgery. Instead of pursuing surgery and relief to my pain and the limitations to my life because of the injury, I decided to put up with it. I didn’t really NEED to throw stuff, and besides, many people have far worse problems than a bum shoulder so I shouldn’t fuss over it.

I gave up. I chose to live with the pain and the limitations that came with it instead of dealing with the issue directly. We do this all the time whether we have a physical pain like my shoulder or an emotional/ mental pain of some kind. We assume, “It is what it is;” and suffer through life carrying our bags of pain and burden we were not meant to carry. The emotional burdens of stress, low-grade depression, pent up anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, etc. keep us from reaching our full potential. It doesn’t have to be like that. I want to encourage you that there is a way to relieve your pain. You are not alone.

There is hope.

If you know me at all, you will not be surprised to hear me share that my hope (and the only real solution for pain) is in Jesus. Jesus is the antidote to pain. Whether you believe it or not, God is in control of everything. We are not. Yes, there is pain in this world and in our life. Some pain lasts our entire life and it really stinks. However, since I have entrusted my life to Jesus*, I know that all pain is temporary. My life on earth is just a blink compared to eternity. Knowing with full confidence that my future will be awesome – free from all pain forever, I can endure the pain and trouble of today. And I know that Jesus is always with me and for me to help me get through whatever I’m facing.

If I didn’t believe God is in control and that he has given me all these amazing blessings as gifts for today and all eternity then my pain would be exceedingly horrible. I can have no hope. Or my hope would be foolishly misplaced in something else that could never satisfy the pain.

So here is the bottom line: Pain leads us to Jesus. Pain drives us to find relief and hope for relief of pain and true hope is Jesus. This is the genius of pain. When hope is sought in anything other than Jesus, it will leave us disappointed. The wanting and searching for hope is where addiction comes in. Chasing relief in something we can do, or take, or think, eventually gets us into big trouble. The empty “solution” provides temporary relief at best, so more and more must be done to get more temporary relief and round and round we go. Addiction. Not just drug addiction though. Addiction could be to gambling, porn, high risk activities, hoarding, work, etc. Nothing will really satisfy except Jesus.

I don’t know the pain you live with, but I do know the Great Physician. If you don’t know Jesus, I would love to chat with you about how you can know Jesus today. If you do know Jesus, I encourage you to trust him with your pain. Surrender your pain to Jesus and let him help you. Jesus is near and he knows your pain. He is for you and he is with you always and forever. I had never really thought about pain in this way before. Pretty cool, huh? You’re welcome. Press on!

*Entrusting my life to Jesus means I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I acknowledged to Jesus in prayer that I am a dreadful sinner in need of salvation to bring me into right relationship with the only holy and perfect God to whom I will give account of my life when I die. Without salvation I am condemned to eternity separated from God. Thankfully “For God so loved the world, (you and me) that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him (Jesus) shall not perish, but have eternal life.” – John 3:16 Salvation is the best gift we could ever receive, but Jesus gives us so much more. You’ll have to receive him to experience it for yourself, but I can assure you that life is way better with Jesus!

Family

A Husband Has 1 of 3 Choices

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Here’s a little food for thought from Dr. Raymond Force, Christian marriage speaker and coach. I hope it encourages and convicts you as it does me.

A Husband is a Gardener

A husband is a gardener and his wife is a garden. If he fails to take care of his garden, weeds of sarcasm, anger, bitterness, boredom, and resentment will start to grow. It is at that point that every man has one of three choices:

The husband can choose to change gardens by way of leaving his spouse.

Although it is an unscriptural choice, if a man wants to, he can choose to leave his wife. It is not what he signed up for, nor would this choice correlate with the covenant of marriage. But, if providence chooses to leave him to his own devices, he can walk away from his marriage.

The husband can keep his garden, yet grow bitter about the weeds.

I feel that most men in a less than perfect marriage, fall underneath this present category. Instead of making the appropriate changes in their lives, they will stay in the marriage, yet get bitter about the negativite aspects of their wife and the relationship in general. Once this occurs, the man has started down the path of becoming a grumpy, negative husband.

Colossians 3:19 says: “Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.”

The Lord gives this command because he is more than aware that a man’s temptation is to live selfishly, yet complain about the bi-product of living in such a manner. His primary weakness is to become disgusted with the very weeds that his lack of love has helped to grow. In my view, this is why many a husband grows into a negative husband.

The husband can start doing what it takes to prevent the weeds from growing in his garden.

Option number three is not only best, but scriptural, and it involves the husband serving his wife as he would his own interests and desires (Ephesians 5:28). Of course, as mentioned in the last point, he can choose to complain about the weeds, but that will do little to further the cause of happiness in his marriage. He will do more to endear success by taking sole responsibility for the state of his garden and serve his wife as he agreed to do when he made a covenant before God and others.

 

I find that many men are short sighted in that they fail to see that their actions have exposed their wives to their emotional vulnerabilities.  When they should have been focusing on the cause, they seem to become embittered about the effect. A failure to reverse this order will be the source of little or no progress in a man’s marriage. It will only serve as an impetus for a lukewarm relationship at best, and it will lead to the man coming across as simply a negative husband.

I have also seen that men will do more to fast-forward the problem solving process if they will ask themselves questions as such: If I had been sacrificially loving my wife from day one of our marriage, would she have ever felt so tempted to act in a negative manner to my behavior? Or, if I had been properly taking care of my garden in the first place, would these weeds of anger, sarcasm, unforgiveness, and resentment even be growing?