Category: Character

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What Path are you on?

I was reading in Proverbs today Chapter 7. What an amazing story. There is a wise man looking out his window. He sees a young man walking down the street, and can immediately see he lacked judgement. Mostly because when you are young, you do not have the life experience to have good judgement.

He immediately sees which direction the young man is headed. He is walking in the direction of of her corner, the house that she lives in. It also is toward evening, the dark of night is near. As the young man continues on the woman the wise man spoke of appears. She is dressed in a way that draws attention to her, and shows off her body. She speaks her mind and is very aggressive. She grabs the young man and kisses him. She persuades him with smooth talk and traps him. She convinces him this is a good idea, that no one will find out. Her husband is gone for a long time. Whats wrong with a little fun and pleasure.

Then in verse 22 it says “All at once he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose, till an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life.

Here are my thoughts on this story:

  • It all started with this young man walking on the wrong path, in the wrong direction. It is easy to be drawn into temptation. It often starts very innocent, but you keep walking closer and closer to it. Then all of a sudden you fall.
  • We need to make sure we are walking in the right direction and on the right path. Don’t entertain temptations thinking you have enough will power to stop at any time. When your hanging out on the corner where she lives, all at once you will follow her or whatever temptation is enticing you.
  • We need to guard our minds. Don’t fill your mind with images, words or anything that stimulates wrong desires.
  • Don’t dance around the edges, if we play with fire we will get burned.
  • We need to keep away from settings and friends that tempt us to sin.
  • When you are close to following the temptation, don’t think of just that moment, focus on the future and what the consequences of this action might be.
  • We need to put safeguards in place to keep us from straying off on the wrong path. Seeking wise counsel, being accountable to someone, making sure we are dealing with our hurts and hangups in a healthy way.
  • If you have already fallen, stop and get onto the path God wants you on and start walking in the right direction. This happens one good decision at a time.
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Short Story

Today a friend shared a story with me. He said a lady he was talking to had been in a car wreck on Saturday(My friend runs a body shop). She was still very upset and stressed about the accident. My friend tried to let her know that the car is just a possession and that the good thing is she was not injured in the wreck. The next day she called back to talk about her car. She said that her daughter had called her on Monday and in their conversation, her daughter asked her why they have not had her funeral yet. Her daughter gave her a CD from NewPointe Church. The topic was Purpose is Essential. She loved the message and now knows why they have not had her funeral yet.

Do you know why we haven’t had your funeral yet? Why are you still here? If you want to find out check it out for yourself. Purpose is Essential

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Jump Start

Jump Start Your Life

Recognize the power of quitting:

Jim Allen said “to be a real winner, you have to stop doing the stuff that’s not good for you.”

This principle is very powerful, because it can free up a lot of time. We need to quit things for the right reasons.

  • You quit something you don’t do well to start something you do well.
  • You quit something you’re not passionate about, to do something that fills you with passion.
  • You quit something that doesn’t make a difference to do something that does.
  • You quit something that’s not your dream to do something that is.

So what do you need to quit doing tomorrow?

Learn to say No:

This has been very difficult for me over the years, because I am a people person. Think about great Olympic athletes and all they had to say no to in order to train to become world class.

  • Stop being a people pleaser.
  • If you always say yes when you’d rather say no, you’ll find yourself unhappy, and going through the motions.
  • Saying no allows you to direct where you put your energy and spirit.
  • Saying no brings more freedom to your life
  • Saying no allows you more time for the important relationships in your life.

Track what you are doing:

  • If you want to change your financial situation, you need to know how you are currently spending your money.
  • If you want to lose weight you need to start keeping track of everything you eat and how often you exercise.
  • If you want to change your workplace habits, you must find out how you are spending your time at work.

Once you know where your money is going, where your time is going and what your putting into your mouth, you can begin to make changes. Look at your life as a series of choices instead of obligations.


Nourish Yourself:

We all get tired, we all have stress, we all have problems. We need to find ways to fill our tanks and recharge our batteries on a regular basis.

Here are ten nourishment center that I have found to be helpful in my life:

  1. Music – What songs lift me?
  2. Thoughts – What thoughts or quotes inspire me?
  3. Experiences – What experiences rejuvenate me?
  4. Friends – What people encourage me?
  5. Recreation – What activities re-charge me?
  6. Spiritual – What spiritual disciplines strengthen me?
  7. Hopes – What dreams inspire me?
  8. Home – What family members care for me?
  9. Giftedness – Which of my gifts activate me?
  10. Memories – What memories make me smile?

So what do you need to quit doing? What or who do you need to say no to? What do you need to start tracking? What do you need to do to nourish yourself?

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Top 5 Keys to Strong Relationships

Someone asked me my opinion about what identifies a person that is good at building strong relationships. I made the comment that great leaders are great at building relationships. If you want to improve as a leader and improve any relationship in your life try my top five thoughts.

Here are my top 5 keys in building lasting relationships:

  1. Be Present – Give people your full attention when you are with them. Focus on them, look them in the eye. Make them feel like the most important person in the room.
  2. Listen well – Ask questions to make sure you understand what they are saying. Repeat back what you heard them saying. Use your body language to let them know you are listening.
  3. Take the initiative – Be intentional about meeting with them and spending time with them. Keep track of how long it has been since you spent quality time with the person you are friends with.
  4. Don’t try to fix them – Don’t judge them either. Instead empathize with them and just love them. Friends are not projects, that you need to improve or fix.
  5. Pray for them – When you are regularly praying for someone your attitude and perspective change. Find out how to pray for them by asking them.

Relationships matter!

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Stretch & Grow

Change creates fear of the unknown, fear of failure and feelings of insecurity. If you want to create positive change in your world you will need to be aware of the fears that will come your way. If you are not doing something that makes you uncomfortable or afraid, then you are not stretching yourself. If you do not stretch yourself you will not grow.

Think back over the past year. What have you done that has really stretched you and taken you out of your comfort zone? What challenge did you take on that gave you a knot in your stomach? If you can’t think of anything, you probably didn’t grow much last year.

Leadership guru John Maxwell said “People change when they hurt enough that they have to change, learn enough that they want to change, or receive enough that they are able to change.”

Things are changing around us every day, that’s a given. How you respond to those changes determines your success in life. Whether it is your marriage, your job, your financial situation, your church, your social network, your children, your friends, your health. Everything changes.

Change represents possible opportunity and potential loss. Change can mean growth or grief. It all comes down to your attitude toward change, do you view it as an opportunity to learn and grow or do you view it as an intrusion into your world?

Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “Man’s mind, stretched to a new idea, never goes back to it’s original dimensions.” How are you stretching your mind?

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House of Cards

I was watching a news report called House of cards the other night. It was reporting on how the mortgage crisis happened. The lenders were making it easy to borrow money and the people were happy to take it. I was amazed to hear about families that borrowed large amounts of money by tapping into their “equity”. Many did it by inflating or exaggerating their income. This was sometimes encouraged by the mortgage brokers. Some of the families did not understand the terms of the loan. They assumed that they could always refinance later if they needed to. All of this was building toward a certain crash. Borrowing and spending money on the hope that your income will always go up and that your home value will never go down. Overextending yourself through credit is always a dangerous game.

Yesterday I had breakfast with a friend of mine and he made the comment that made me think of the House of Cards, “what are you investing in that could bankrupt you?” He wasn’t talking about mortgages, he was talking about spiritually and relationally. Is your faith a house of cards? Are your relationships a house of cards? Does it feel like things could fall apart at any time?

What are the things you are spending your time on that may be distracting you from your relationship with God? Or what are you investing in that is hurting your important relationships? What are you reading? What are you watching? Who are you spending time with? Who are you listening too? Who are you unwilling to forgive? Where are you spending your money? What are you putting in your body? What are you doing with your body? How are you treating the people around you?

We all need to take a serious look at where we are investing our time, talent, thoughts, attention, money and energy. There may be some things you need to eliminate, change or get out of in order to avoid a bankruptcy, whether that is emotional, relational, financial, physical or spiritual.

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Better Together

Life doesn’t happen in church. Church should be a great place for people to prepare for life, and it can help provide us shelter when the heat and storms of life come at us. But life happens at home, in your workplace, while your traveling, in your neighborhood, at the ball games, on vacation, at school, at the hospital and all the places we find ourselves during the week.

It’s in those times away from church that tell the most about us. It’s how we live from Monday to Saturday that define our faith. Those are the times our true character is revealed. It’s how you treat your wife during the week. It’s how you respond to your children when they let you down. It’s how you handle those conflicts at work. It’s how you handle your finances and your time.

Our challenge every week is to live out what we hear and learn about on Sunday mornings. That can be a difficult thing when things don’t go your way. When you get bad news, when you get great news. It’s in those hard times and good times that community is so important. Having some other people to share those times with you is an incredible help.

When life happens who do you have that will be there? Is there someone in your life that you can turn to for advice, for comfort, for support? Are you providing that for someone else?

Life change happens best when you are doing life with other people. When you open your life to others and let them into your world you take a risk, but the rewards can be incredible. When you are part of small group of people that you can share your life with, it helps you live out your faith during the week. You can build on what you heard at church and help each other live it out. You can encourage each other, pray for each other, challenge each other, support each other and have fun together.

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Loving Well

We all want to have close loving relationships. Whether it is your family or friends we want those relationships to be healthy and last a long time. It’s the same in our marriage relationships. Our desire is to have a long, happy, healthy marriage. I’ve studying about love and relationships for a while now and thought I would write about how to make love last.

The Bible has a lot to say about this topic. Relationships are highly valued by God. He told us to love Him with all we have and to love other people. 1 Corinthians chapter thirteen is the most famous teaching about love. It is used in most weddings and many vows. The Apostle Paul is teaching about the way of love, kind of a reminder about how to love other people, especially your spouse. I want to focus on verses 4-7. In verses 4, 5 & 6 he talks about things most of us would agree are very important in loving another person.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.” I think we all agree those are hugely important in any love relationship. Then he says something that has always bothered me. He uses a word I don’t like to use much, he says always, not once but four times. “It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” The Message version says this: “Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, never looks back, but keeps going to the end.”

Always, really, how is that possible? The more I thought about it the more I am convinced that this is the key to a long, happy love relationship. Let me explain.

In every relationship there are expectations. When those expectations are not met there is a gap. It is in that gap that we have a choice to make. Do we choose to assume the worse about the other person or do we believe the best. When someone you love lets you down and does not do what he said do you always look for the best or do you go negative.

In a business book called “The One Thing You Need To Know” by Marcus Buckingham he talks about a study that was done on happily married couples. They were looking for the one thing that was common with happily married couples. They thought the answer would be that they knew each other well and had clear expectations about each other. That was based on studying couples that were struggling in their marriages. What they found was just the opposite. They found that happily married couples had an unrealistic view of their spouse. In questions about their spouse they always rated them higher than the person rated themselves. The study discovered that couples that choose to believe the best about their spouse until proven otherwise were much more happy in their relationship.

Another way of saying it is that they make charitable judgements about each other. When he is late from work again, she thinks and believes that he is working hard on some important things and is grateful that he provides for the family. When she forgets to pay a bill again, he thinks and believes that she has been busy and things have been a little crazy lately.

When one of your expectations is not met, what do you choose to do? Do you choose to believe the best and spiral upward in love or do you assume the worst and spiral downward in love? Think back to when you were falling in love with this person. You did not notice the negative things, because you were so focused on the good things. The happiest couples were the ones that have maintained that in their marriage.

When you choose to believe the best, you draw the other person closer to you. You cause the other person to want to be with you. When you go negative, even if you are right, you push the other person further away from you. No one wants to disappoint someone they love. When you assume the worst and say those negative words you are contributing to the damage of your relationship.

This principle works for any relationship. How do you respond to your children when they don’t meet your expectations? How about your parents, your friends, your brother or sister?

Read it again: “It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

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Belief and Actions

What do you believe? That’s a pretty broad question, but an important question. Dallas Willard made this statement “We don’t believe something by merely saying we believe it, or even when we believe that we believe it. We believe something when we act as if it were true.”

Our actions really determine what we believe. That is why we should examine our actions from time to time. Here is an example in my life: my wife and I have been eating healthy foods and eating all the food groups in the right servings for over a year now. We also have been getting regular exercise. Those actions are a result of our belief that eating healthy and getting exercise will bring good health, which will help us have more energy, have fewer health problems, and just feel better physically.

James talked about this in his short letter in the Bible. “Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don’t act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like. But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God – the free life! – even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action. That person will find delight and affirmation in the action. Anyone who sets himself up as “religious” by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from a godless world.”

If we really believe what the Bible says, then we will live it out. Our actions will line up with what Jesus said and what his followers said. We won’t just talk about helping other people, we will back it up by giving money, giving time and giving resources to help the hurting, troubled and loveless people around us.

The old saying that actions speak louder than words is so true. Our actions in our marriage mean more than the words we use. Saying you love someone means nothing if your actions don’t back that up. Saying you care about lost hurting people means nothing if you never act on that. So examine your actions to see if they are lining up with what you are saying you believe.

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Teams Make a Difference

A friend of mine just gave me a DVD he put together with video clips from sports movies. I love sports, so it really connected with me. It shows the coaches motivational speeches, the players playing in games and how the hard work and team work pay off by winning big games. I loved to watch the clips and felt myself being pulled into the moment.

The theme throughout these clips was teamwork, determination and heart. Often times on our own we can lose heart and determination. However with teamwork, determination and heart happen. Team mates will push each other and challenge one another. Coaches push the players to the limit and try to get all they can from each person. If each player is playing all out and doing their part the team can do things that no one thought possible.

These clips also were a great example of leadership. Certain players would step up and lead the team. Some by their example of hard work and dedication. Some by challenging and pushing other players. Leadership and teamwork go hand in hand. All teams need leaders, and sometimes the leaders change based on the circumstances.

We all are on teams. It may be the people you work with or the people you serve with at church. It might be your small group. It definitely is your family. It could be your classmates at your school or the committee you are serving on.

Whatever team you are on, you have a role to play. When you understand your role and you work hard at it, you are helping your team succeed. Sometimes you need to change roles in order to contribute in the best way. That takes humility and character to accept the role that best fits your talent. You also need to continually grow, by improving your skills, your leadership, your character.

How is your determination? How is your heart? Are you a team player? If you have a dream of a great marriage, a great workplace, a great church, a great school, a great neighborhood then you need great teamwork. Are you a great team mate or are you working on your own? Teamwork makes the dream work.