Bible Study

Bible study is important, it allows us to listen to God, align our mind with his, fill our hearts with him, and bring our lives in line with his will. Bible study can be a tough thing as it requires discipline, taking time out away from our lives, and a full focus on God rather than on ourselves. Ways to make study easier.

Make it a Routine

Pick a time every day when you are focusing on your study. This time will be different depending on you, what you prefer and you’re routine. You can try fitting it into existing routine like studying in the bathroom as part of morning hygiene, reading a bible verse in addition to your nightly reading, reading from the Bible to your kids, adding bible study blogs to your daily RSS reading list. The key isn’t using one of these tips, the key is analyzing your routine and seeing how you can fit the Word into it.

Make it Easy

Bible study may seem intimidating but something is better than nothing and something tends to lead to more. One verse a day, one daily bible verse from a web site, or devotion from a small devotional is all you need. It never matters how little it just matters that you are going into the word.

Find a Buddy

Reading with a spouse, friend, or group can make it easier. Through a periodic reading buddy mutual accountability is kept and it will help both of you. Your church will have bible studies either at the church or listed, ask your minister.  And remember, if time is a problem it can be over the phone,  or a shared verse through e-mail or chat, just because it isn’t in person doesn’t make it diminished.

Daily bible study is a heck of a commitment but it will change your life, when the lord fills your heart, nothing bad is strong enough to break through. 

Colossians 3: 1-2,16

 ¹ Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ² Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.

¹⁶ Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.

My Prayer

Father God,

I praise you and I invite you into my heart. Please help me to practice my own word, please help me to continue to focus on your word and to align your will with mine. Father God I love you and I love the paths you guide me upon, please fill my heart and help me to continue this wonderful path you have led me upon.

Amen

Can't do Good on my Own

Ephesians 4:29
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

This is a tough one for me because when I read something like this I try to do it myself. I continually put my foot in my mouth and cause harm and realized I was thinking more of myself then the others around me. Sin makes it so I can't do good on my own, I can try all I want but as a sinner I can't. Only through God can I do good and I remember that in prayer.

Father God,
On my own I try to do good and always I fail. I do and say the things that cause pain and hurt and don't do good where I should. Dear Lord please help me to remember that you are with me at all times and are even in me. Please help me to be loving and kind and to be like you. Please help me to be helpful, supportive, and to contribute to building up others. Help me to let go of my selfishness and to walk in your ways. Amen.

Affirming my life in Funemployment

Thursday was the last day I left my place of work of 7 years. It was definitely a strange feeling to know I wouldn't be walking in those doors again. Was this bad news? No, just a change. I am stepping into my new life as a full time student, getting by on part time work and slowly but surely working my way towards seminary so I can become a pastor. What is my plan to do it?

My Affirmation -

"My job is to spend my time improving my mind, body, and spirit through regular, organized work. I am professional, relaxed, balanced, and flexible and will serve God through my actions and choices".

Guidelines:

1. I will fill my time with regular study first, if I have large deadlines for class I will spend 1 hour a day being extraordinary, working on the things that garner the most resistance.
2. Each day will include Bible study, daily devotions, and proactive study of Concordia Theological studies curriculum.
3. My free time will be spent at the gym my fitness goals are to attend Yoga 3 times a week and to work daily towards being able to do 1 pullup.

My Prayer:

Dear Lord,
Thank you for all the events in my life this year. Thank you for providing the resources of family and friend support and bringing events together at this right time in my life to make a commitment to becoming a full time student possible. Please help me to be responsible, and focused, help me to be the man you want me to be. Dear Lord, I have many doubts and flaws and I feel like you are wrong about my calling sometimes. Please help me to trust you and to follow my path and to remember that the path is where you are calling me to, help me to remember that I am still on the path even if you are carrying me. I love you my Father and I thank you for calling me to this journey.
Amen.

A few thoughts on taking notes

I have seen people take notes, at work, and in their personal lives; people take notes. When someone is trained on a new procedure at work they will write it down in a notebook, when someone wants to get in touch with a new contact they write the phone number down; notes cover our desks, cork boards, and fridges. But what do you do with note? What good does having the note on that piece of paper do for you?

A couple of habits can come in handy:

• Drop all your notes into one place at the end of the day, go through them every day or two and either do them if they or short, save or file them if they are reference, or through them away if you don't need them.
• Add phone numbers into your phone the second you get them
• If you don't have paper to write with e-mail yourself or leave yourself a voicemail, process the notes when in a place you can add them to a todo list.  

The best tip I ever got related to notes - Read Getting Things Done, the Art of Stress Free Productivity by David Allen and put it into practice, if you put the methods in the book into practice you can free up a lot of clutter in your life. 

My Hair is pink! How to Keep it Pink through November

Every year, in October I dye my hair pink for Breast Cancer awareness. This year is very special. My good friend Tara is attempting to raise $3000 to walk in the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer 3 day in November in San Diego. If she reaches her goal I will not only keep my hair pink throughout October, it will be pink all through November and I will meet her at the finish line of her race ready to cheer her on!
Tara has already raised $1,242.15. This leaves $1757.85 to go. If you would like to help please visit this link: http://tinyurl.com/tarapink.
Also I am walking in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5k in Temecula, CA on October 17th. If you would like to walk with me please register at http://komenie.org and send me an e-mail at darnellster@gmail.com to let me know so we can meet up.

Do not worry about Tomorrow

I was reading Matthew 6 today. That's the one with the Lords Prayer and a lot of stuff about being humble and not making a big deal about good deeds to man. The end of the chapter struck me today to the point where I believe it is God speaking to me.

²⁵"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? ²⁶Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life

I am losing my job at the end of the month and these are definitely things I have been worrying about. I have read this before and read it now, the thoughts that come creeping up are "Who is God to tell me not to worry!? I am losing my job!?"

I quickly realize how foolish a statement this is when I think about it. The Bible is God's word for me and this is God flat out telling me not to worry, because I don't have to worry because he is with me. I may suffer trials in this world but I can take comfort in his promise to me.

Here is a little more from Matthew just because I love it so much.

28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Dear Lord,

I thank you for being my Lord and King who takes care of me. I am a weak sinner who let's sinful thoughts get into his head. I know that I do not have to worry and I have faith in you yet I still continue to worry. Thank you Lord for forgiving this sin. Please help me to be strong, to be faithful and to cast thoughts of worry from my mind no matter how bad it gets! Please Lord fill me with your spirit, help me to surrender my will and follow yours.

In your Holy name.
Amen

Finding Peace in Imaginary Chaos

I am grateful I made it to work early this morning, at 5am the building was empty and the silence was golden, it is amazing how quick I forget what true peace is like, my body gets jittery and moves around and tries to respond as if everything is chaotic; like I am so accustomed to it that when experiencing the opposite I crave the chaos and even try to create it. Peace is a worthy pursuit and is easily attainable though hard to quantify when my mind works so hard to break that peace in total silence.

Dear Lord,

Please help me to remember to stop to slow down, to breath and to enjoy the peace that I have in my heart knowing that I will spend eternity with you.

Amen

Planned Spontaneity

If you plan on being spontaneous does it still count as spontaneity? Webster defines being spontaneous as arising from a momentary impulse. So if I block out a few days on my calendar saying I will step out the door and do the first impulse that comes to mind am I still being spontaneous?

I think so; I won't only be being spontaneous but I will be improving my ability to be spontaneous.

I don’t believe that spontaneity has to be spontaneous itself but it definitely can be. Like any desired behavior, spontaneity can be formed with practice.

Ways to practice spontaneity:

• Set a block on your calendar to do the first thing that comes to mind
• When driving, pick a route never taken, put a note on your dash that says something like “Take a new route” or “go the long way” or “try an unknown road - if you don’t know where it goes, the better” the worst that can happen when taking an unknown route is you have to turn back.
• Go through the phone book and pick a local store, restaurant, park, etc that you have never been to. Either go then or make a note on a free block on your calendar.
• When you pray make a point of praying for random people, places and things that come to mind.
• Write the first thing that comes to mind
• And my favorite, spontaneously plan, pick the first free weekend on your calendar and commit to doing the first interesting thing that comes to mind by writing down that you will do it on your calendar, make it fun, make it daring and don’t think just plan. For example I see Saturday is free on my calendar and the first thing that comes to mind is hiking so I typed go hiking.

There are lots of other ways to be spontaneous but when it comes down to it, do it, beat resistance and do something daring, the key to being more spur of the moment is to fight resistance. Fuel your inner explorer and hit the unknown at any moment and importantly don’t think, do. As you do this more, planned or not, this will come more naturally so planned spontaneity will spawn spontaneous spontaneity.

My challenge to you, plan something spontaneous and commit to it in a comment here.

Obedience Prayer

My devotion today (http://www.lhm.org/dailydevotions.asp?date=20100806) talked about entering the narrow door (Christ) and asking God for help to remove temptations.

Here is the prayer it ended with:

Heavenly Father, remove us from the temptations and bad influences going on around us. Help us to lead others on the right path, walking with You. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

My Prayer:

Dear Lord in Heaven please fill my heart with your holy spirit so full that nothing is left, overflow through my every pore so that no sin can be left within in, break me down Lord no matter how much it hurts and take that sin away and whenever I need it please help me to be willing to be torn down again because you are worth more then any temptation to me. Dear Lord, please give me the strength to pray this prayer and ask you to take my will away whenever I stray, dear lord please fill me up and allow me to honor your holy sacrifice by spreading your word, and loving you by doing your will in complete obedience.

Please Give me the will to fill my life with your word and your love.

In Jesus name,

Amen

Love

I promised myself I would write today but as I start I have no real idea what I am going to write about.

A good topic is love

Love to me is the surrender of self to a person, place, concept, or God himself. By surrender of self I mean that through love we give ourselves to something, delving into a project with enthusiasm is a way of expressed love as are doing something nice for a friend for no reason, thinking of a friend, going to a favorite coffee shop, etc.

How do I show love for God?

If love is surrender of self then loving God is done through obedience to his word. It may not be evident what that means being how complex the Bible is and you may feel resistant to trying to understand what it dictates you do. A great way to simplify it is found in Matthew 22:36-40

Matthew 22:36-40 (New International Version)

³⁶"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" ³⁷Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' ³⁸This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' ⁴⁰All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

There you have it! According to Jesus, the best way to follow him is to love him and other people! So through love we surrender ourselves to God and those around us thus we are loving people through God! I love how easy he makes it!

My prayer:

Father God,

help me to surrender myself to you and those around me. Help me to be truly loving no matter how hard it gets. Please stand with me and hold my hand, remove the sin from my heart and help me to be truly loving as you were loving to send your Son to die for our sins. Thank you my Father.

Amen

In your comments please share your thoughts on the best ways to express love and creative ways to express love to people, places, and experiences.

Finding Adventure

A couple of nights ago I was trying to go for a bike ride in the late-afternoon/early evening and got caught up in preparation; wearing the right clothes, having the right amount of water, getting the right music, etc. I decided downloading a new album for the ride would be a good idea but by the time I made the purchase on iTunes I didn’t realize that the album was 40 tracks long. By the time the download completed it was 10:30PM! I thought, “This is way too late to ride.”

I was very disappointed because I was already ready to go and really looking forward to this ride but because it was “too late” I wasn’t going to be able to do it. I sat down exasperated and opened my e-mail and thought about turning on the TV and the thought occurred to me, “If it is too late to ride, why is it not too late to watch TV or check my e-mail. Why am I not going to bed?” I realized that I could easily stay up late doing other things, “wasting time” when really the “too late” concept was just an illusion.

I got on my bike and left with the cool air on my face and the moonlight on my back. I picked a low traffic, well lit side road and started riding. About half way through I came to the end of the lighted paved road and thought about turning around but since I was already breaking rules by being out “too late” I figured “what the heck?” and hit the dirt road with nothing but the moonlight guiding my way.

Throughout my ride I experienced some amazing things; for one, it was beautiful out there! The moonlight made everything a gorgeous blue color and throughout my ride through previously unfamiliar terrain I saw beautiful things like the moon reflected in the water in a drainage pit, the yellow street lights exemplifying the leaves on trees and even the color of cars and it’s contrast with the blue that the moon made everything not under it’s cone of yellow illumination. I rode and rode and rode through the crisp, cool air getting faster and faster seemingly fueled by the exhilaration of being out in such unknown territory.

At one point I was racing along at the side of the road, the street lights ended and the road on the side fell away into a gravel driveway which I wasn’t able to see under the shade of a tree. I hit the gravel at high speed, my adrenalin kicked in, I lowered my gear peddled and turned, and took my feet off the petals too stop. I nearly crashed… but I didn’t.

After the near miss I rode the rest of the way even faster as the rush had yet to wear off and cruised home. I looked at the clock and realized; I was only gone for 30 minutes! It was 11 o’clock, I showered, then hit the bed dreaming of racing through moonlight.

The point I am trying to make here is I had an adventure; an accessible thing that anyone can do in any amount of time. What makes an adventure?

• Risk – The risk can be of any kind of consequence not just physical danger. For me it was the actual risk of danger.
• Leaving one’s comfort zone – Going somewhere you don’t know or doing something in different environment. For me it was doing a daytime activity late at night.
• Stepping into the Unknown – A willingness to explore is required. Riding on to that dirt road into the literal dark was the example of this for me.
• Mindfulness – A true attention to self and one’s surroundings is required. It is not an adventure unless you are continually looking for the adventure in everything you do. If I hadn’t have noticed the beauty and the thrills I was experiencing it would have just been a bike ride.

The Memory of my 30 minute bike ride will last with me for a very long time. It is an example I see over and over again in my life, if I look at everything I am resistant to doing with a perspective of “What if I just did this thing regardless of all these excuses?” many more adventures are open to me. My challenge to you; do something outside of your comfort zone, step into the unknown and have your own adventure. If you have experienced this feeling before or have your own ideas of what makes an adventure please comment here, I would love to discuss.

How to Stop Hitting the Worry Wall

A lot of times we worry about things and we don't feel like we have a choice. We can't stop worrying. To worry is to empty oneself, emptying it of God, Joy, Love, everything positive. We wonder "what if?" And "what if?" is always something negative.
* What if I don't get the job?
* What if everyone hates me?
* What if I get sick?
* What if I don't have enough money?
When I am worrying about something I often think I shouldn't be worrying and I want to stop and I don't know how. I hit the worry wall over and over again while trying to get the feelings to stop.
Worrying empties us out and the key to fixing something empty is to fill it. Replace the worry with wonder. Wonder at the awe and majesty of what God has in store for us. We can do this through prayer, journaling about what could be, writing, activity, just replacing what if something bad could happen with what if something wonderful could happen.
Replace emptying action with a filling action, replace despair with joy, trade worry for wonder.
The next time you are what ifing yourself into a worry wall start what ifing the wonder.
* What if I succeed?
* What if it is wonderful?
* What if everyone loves me?
* What if we end up having enough money?

God is always good so by doing this you are speaking truth. Fill yourself with so much God there is no room left to worry.

Gratitude for a big thing that seems small

The other day I realized that my breathe has gotten much shallower, I surmise that it come came from my Iaido practice and keeping my breath silent for meditation but I also found that I was tense, my lungs were not taking in the air, my breath was long but it was like the air was just going down and coming right back out, I tried supplementing with additional DEEP Breathing exercises and I felt much better. I believe that the inspiration to do this came from God, at one point shallow breathing felt good and it helped but the time for shallow breathing has passed and it is time to breathe deep.

Dear Lord, thank you for the help and inspiring me to breath deep, I am grateful to you for the gift of breath. I have prayed about this before and I will pray about it again. Thank you for such an important gift that I constantly take for granted. I thank you Lord, I praise you, and I am forever grateful. Please help me to pray from your Holy spirit and make your will my will.

Amen.

Prayer for the Lord's Will

Dear Lord in Heaven,

I praise your ever present holy name and hold you up as God most high. Jesus you came down to the earth to save me and being God, you became man, died for me and were resurrected. I love you with all my heart and praise you. I am a sinner and have fallen short of your glory in all I do. As far as sinners, I am the worst. Please fill me up with your holy spirit and cleanse me of my anger, my pain, and my sin. Fill me up with you and leave nothing left of me Lord; help me to do your will.

Amen.

How do you choose which thing to do when you have a choice between priorities?

Throughout life we have commitments big and small. From small chores, to obligations, and promises we have commitments we make to people, organizations, and ourselves. Systems like GTD are great because they help us to gather all of our commitments into a trusted system so we don’t stress over what we have to do, but what about priority? If I have two things on my list with equal priority how do I choose?

Some would say, it doesn’t matter; you pick one, make it your priority, then work on the other. I disagree; just as open loops and uncaptured commitments can take our attention, so can a secondary priority. How do I put all my attention on one item when another one is equally important? Somewhere in my mind it is being worked on and taking my focus. Unless I can remove that other commitment from the equation, full focus will not be available to me. What thinking has to take place before I can fully focus on one of my priorities?

The technique that works for me is creating a project that plans my time. With two or more priorities that hold equal importance to me to the point that one is stealing focus I have to spend time planning how am going to split my time. If I commit to a certain amount of time working on completing next actions that bring me closer to one priority outcome knowing that in a certain amount of time I will stop and work on next actions bringing me to another priority outcome I can focus because I have time committed in a trusted system.

I use the calendar for this. Once I have identified that I am having trouble focusing because of shared priority I take time to plan. I use my available time to split my time between my priorities. Once this schedule is in place I can focus. It is the same premise of GTD as capturing open commitments, I am simply capturing and processing conflicting priority into a trusted system; in the place my blackberry calendar which triggers alarms.

Pay close attention to your focus as you work; if your focus is interrupted in any way as you work towards outcomes, capture that into your system. A note that says “my focus is interrupted on project x” works just fine, this can help you identify ways you can improve your workflow and create projects for setting your time in order to focus your whole mind creating better work.

Breath

I am grateful for the power of breath, I am grateful that when I breath in I am breathing in the essence of my very life - how do I know this? If I were to stop breathing I would pass out or die which tells me that I am breathing in life when I breathe in. I am grateful for the life I breathe in. But what about what I breathe out? If I don't breath out I will also die so when I breathe in I breath in life but when I breathe out I take life as well through expelling death.  I am grateful for the good that comes into my life through each breath and the bad that goes out when I exhale that same breath, I am grateful that my body can take in the good and expel the bad. Doesn't the Holy Spirit work in a similar way? Through the Holy Spirit I can discern what is bad or sinful in my life. As I pass through life I take everything I experience in which is good but the Holy Spirit is able to help me take in the good from the bad and expel the bad like the air expelled as I breathe.

Dear Lord,

 

As I breath please remind me that your spirit is within me at all times filtering out the bad from the good and helping me to focus on the good in everything because Father everything you give me is good because not matter how I can take in the experiences that happen on and along my path they are all from you and you are always good. Thank you for all the gifts I have and will receive no matter how I perceive them at the time I have received them.

 

Amen


Brian Darnell
darnellster@gmail.com
http://12hourhalfday.blogspot.com
Follow me on twitter - http://www.twitter.com/12hourhalfday

How to stay positive in an ever changing environment

The way to stay positive in an ever changing environment is to accept that we can’t control our environment, we can control ourselves, and that we can never know what is going to happen. If we relax and ground ourselves in what is real, we will be able to smile and move through life no matter what is going on around us.

How do we let go?

1. Take a breath – by remembering to breathe we can bring ourselves into the moment. Worrying about the future and the past is useless; all it will do is stress you out, but by focusing on your breath you can relax and bring yourself into the right now.
2. Smile – Smiling is one of the greatest gifts we have. It is linked to positive thoughts in the brain and by smiling we can make ourselves feel good no matter what.
3. Don’t take anything personally – Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is their choice not yours. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others you don’t suffer needlessly. Assume that no matter what happens it isn’t about you, this will make your life so much easier.
4. Always do your best and accept that your best changes – Because of physical conditions and environment your best changes, it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best and there is nothing to be self critical about.

Life is a good thing, and no matter what remember that everything is a gift. The only thing we can control in this world is ourselves and since we can choose to relax, do our best, think good of others and act with love and respect, shouldn’t we? This will make the world easier and better for us and free of needless suffering. You have a choice, take it.

Some Work on Balance

It is monthly review time and it is time to start working on reviewing 20,000 feet. I am working on life balance
Here are a few categories that I am working on balancing:

Work (Work projects, responsibilities, perception of self by staff)
Personal (Home projects, fun, time with friends)
School (class assignments, extracurricular)
Piety (Prayer, behavior, repentance, meditation)
Study (Organized, Self)
Action (Laity, Witness)
Community (Susan G. Komen, participate in friends' and coworkers' charities)

Some of my best photos I took in 2009

If you know me, you know that I love photography and I tend to have my camera riveted to my hand at all times. My old venue for sharing my photos was unvoicedvisions.com; unfortunately do to forces out of my control I took down the site leaving me without a really good place for me to share my work and right now I really feel like sharing some photos!
Below are some of my favorite photos I took in 2009. I hope you enjoy.

How do I do my best?

How do I do my best? What does that mean?

The first thing that comes to mind is working hard. If I work as hard as I possibly can is that my best? That doesn't take balance, health, and wellness into mind. So how do I really do my best?

It is a question of values. I can only do my best if I know what my values are and I am working towards them, if I am truly being myself and am working hard towards my core values I am doing my best.

In my case one of my values is keeping a balanced and healthy lifestyle so if I work calmly and focused it is much closer to my best then working hard and frantic.

I can only do my best

Failure is a big fear for me and fear of it can cripple me productively when I tackle more challenging tasks.

My affirmation: I look failure head on and do my best accepting that sometimes I will fail but trying my best succeed in the face of disaster acknowledging that doing my best guarantees success no matter what the outcome.

What an amazing day!

"What an amazing day!"
What would it take for you to be able to say those words at the end of your day. Think of this every morning. what are the steps I can take to be able to be enthusiastic, excited, and overwhelmed with joy over how phenomenal the day was. You have the power through choice to take one step closer to make each day amazing.
What can you do today to be able to exclaim your exuberance at the end of the day?
Brian Darnell
darnellster@gmail.com
http://12hourhalfday.blogspot.com
http://www.unvoicedvisions.com
follow me on twitter - http://www.twitter.com/12hourhalfday

What is God's Will

The question is how do I find God’s will? How do I find something that I am not even sure how to put into words what it is? Whenever I think about this, here are the questions that come to mind:

· Is God’s will the same for everyone?

· Where and how do I find it?

· Does God’s will apply to all the choices in my life (What color of socks do I wear today?. Do I use butter or Margarine?) Or is it just the big ones (life changing and morel decisions).

I did some thinking about this and realized I can’t interpret this subject, I am hardly near an expert and it would require much more Biblically well-read person then me to give an adequate interpretation.

Go to this link to read an excerpt from Let the Reader Understand: Scripture and Guidance, by Dan McCartney and Charles Clayton. Let the Reader Understand is a guide to Biblical hermeneutics, the correct interpretation of scripture. I believe this excerpt very clearly clarifies God’s will for us.

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Finished reading? Good. Now this is what I got out of that article; according to the excerpt there are two ways God’s will is presented in the Bible.

1. Boule – God’s planned out set apart will for us. It is exempt from inquiry, change, or budging. This is the perfect plan for our lives that only God could come up with.

2. Thelema – God’s desire for us that is spelled out in HIS WORD!

So how do we find God’s will? Read his Word. How do we follow God’s Will? Surrender, Faith, The Holy spirit; to sum it up, the grace of God. How do we get that grace? He gives it freely.

My Prayer:

Dear Lord,

You are my one and only God and I love you with my whole heart, I want to obey your decrees and follow your will. I am a complete and total failure and a sinner in my own attempts to follow your will. Please break me down, fill me up, motivate me to read your Word, help me to interpret it, and please Lord give me the strength to be obedient to you.

If it be your will, in Jesus name,

Amen.

How I Pray

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”- 1 John 1:9

I love this verse and I know a lot of other people love it too but have you ever tried? Right now or the absolutely next chance you get find a private place and out loud (yes out loud, whisper if you have to) start a prayer to the Lord God Almighty.

First. Start with Praise, ackowledge who he is and that you worship him. Do this in your own words.

Second. Thank him for what you have and what you will have. Either use those words or give a list, he already knows so either will suffice, it is your relationship with God so thank him for what you want to thank him for.

Third. Acknowledge yourself as a sinner and confess. Say your sins to God. Try to get them all out.

Fourth. Ask for help. Pray to God about what you need and what the people you are close to need. Pray for the leaders of your work and country as well (this is one of my favorite parts, it is how I can be involved in my work in country in a very power way.)

Fifth. Declare whose will you honor. "Your will be done" will suffice and you can ask God for help in accepting his will.

Sixth. Declare your prayer in Jesus name.

Amen.

I love this prayer, it is my prayer of liberation because it allows me to let go of my sins, needs and wants and lay them and God and you know what? That is what he wants!

Praise God! Hallelujah!

Taking the world personally is an arrogant concept

If something bad happens, if someone treats me bad, if I am a victim of anything in my life and I get my feelings hurt with a "why me?" attitude I am being arrogant.

The world is not about me. If I get my feelings hurt when I am treated bad I am making it about me and that is an arrogant attitude. What about the events and circumstance that led that person who treated me badly to be the way they are? It is time to be sensitive about the things that happen in this world and to me and not take it personally.
Lets assume that it is never about us and that there is always more in play. By choosing to not take it personally we choose to live happier more peaceful lives. We also put is in a place seperate from the event and we are able to share love rather then hurt. By choosing to make the world about us we are being arrogant.

My prayer:
Dear Lord please help me to make my life about you and not about me. Help me to fill my life with your spirit and show your love to those that hurt me.

In your holy name.

Amen

My prayer tonight

I pray tonight for the Lord to fill my mind with Godly thoughts in my sleep and my heart with his spirit. I pray that my night carries me through the day tomorrow in his will.

In Jesus name,

Amen.

G.R.A.C.E.

G.R.A.C.E:
Grounded - push from center through legs to ground
Relaxed - assess all tension, tense and let it go
Aware - Focus on breathing, you are here, right now and moving forward.
Centered - My center 2 fingers below my belly button, this is where I am , this is who I am, this is where all movement starts.
Energy - I am aware of energy throughout my body, is it balanced, how do I feel moving around being aware of this energy.

My Purpose - Updated

I live my life prayerfully, mindfully, thankfully, and joyfully, trying my best not to make mistakes, but accepting that I am human and God is the one that is truly in control and he is always good.

I work to document the beauty and meaning in the world around me.

I help to lead to a world where diseases are cured and people work to help their fellow man.

I honor those that have given me love and remember those that I have loved that are gone.

I live a balanced and healthy life style.

Every day I thank God for what I have, what I have done, who I have, and what will happen good and bad.

I am grateful for the air in my lungs

This may seem kind of obvious because without out it I wouldn't be alive but I am stating it to bring awareness of how amazing breath is. By being aware of my breath I calm and regulate my system, warm or cool it as needed and pull myself more into the moment. It is truly a way to embrace life and I am grateful to God who created this complex mechanism which nourishes, refreshes, sustains, centers, calms, energizes, warms, cools, and frees us.

My Prayer:
Dear Lord,
Thank you for the wonderful and amazing gift of breath. Thank you for your divine wisdom in this unfathomable thing called life that you have given us.
Amen.

I am grateful for Resistance

I have found myself resistant to my journals, my Iaido practice, bicycling, journaling, and blogging. I have been unfocused, undisciplined, and not wanting to enter my practice. This has lasted a few months and has been tough, but you know what? Right now I am grateful for it. I am grateful for being off kilter at times; if I didn't get this way I wouldn't push myself to do better, to be better, and to learn more. I am actually grateful for resistance. That is a weird one; what makes me say it. Well if I got my daily practice done perfectly all the time I would stagnate, I wouldn't improve, it would just be the same posts every day; by mixing resistance in I push harder and want to do better.
This is weird logic and I can imagine it being hard to read so I will use an analogy:
Resistance in life is like a sharpening stone, it grinds away dullness, nicks, scratches, and hones the blade to a straight line. Likewise as I push on resistance, lean in to it, relax into it, it hones me, straightening me in the direction where I will be most effective. So, know that I have resistance in my life I can to use it as a tool to straighten my path, polish my skills, and focus my resources towards God's will.

My Prayer:
Thank you Lord for putting the sharpening stone of resistance into my life, please help me to recognize it and all other tools you give me to put them to use to align my path towards your will, please fill me with your holy spirit and take me in the right direction.
Amen.

My GTD practice for 2010

I have been practicing GTD since 2004 and my system has evolved much over the ears. I have decided that my GTD practice for 2010 is all about attention - paying attention to what has my attention and responding appropriately.

I have spent a lot of time in discussion with my GTD practicing friends in person and on the boards about the right way to do GTD; when and how often to do weekly reviews, when and how often to look at higher levels, what contexts to have, which lists to process first, should due dates be tracked, how do you use a tickler?, how do you prioritize?, how to capture? and many more statements and questions about the right way to practice.

I find myself brought back to David Allen's statement, "If you don’t pay attention to what has your attention, it will take more of your attention than it deserves".

I have been finding more and more that GTD is about responding appropriately to what has your attention, not keeping everything perfectly orderly all the time (unless clutter is what has your attention), not reviewing lists on a strict schedule (which I have found can be counterproductive if there are things on the mind distracting focus), not doing it the right way because there is no right way since everyone's attention is attracted to do different things.

What is going to change in my system? not much, I am still going to use Outlook for list management at work and Remember the milk at home, I am still going to be capturing on paper and using an inbox for processing, and I am still going to be using my calendar and someday/maybe list as a tickler; so what am I changing? I am changing the way I think about GTD.

My big change for 2010 is taking it back to basics. I will be paying more attention to what has my attention, this will determine how often I review the different aspects of my system and what I am looking at when I review them.