Thursday, November 27, 2008

thankful

I'm thankful for...
my family
my friends
my community
the love I have from those around me
our home
my life
God's love
Hubby's meat cooking skills
my job
my coworkers
saving lives everyday
making a difference where I can
reading
listening to audiobooks
listening to my kids play, laugh, ANYTHING they do
talking and laughing with Hubby and drinking coffee
eating, cooking, drinking, tasting, spending time in the kitchen with Hubby
baking with the kids
our health
our church
our Life Group
freedom
living in the USA
our skills and talents to share
my truck
the kids' school
playing Wii with the fam
writing
Heroes, 24, football, Netflix
being able to be thankful

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sunday, November 23, 2008

romans 12:2

So, Romans 12:2 came up again. It was in large print on two of the three screens at church today.

It says...Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

"Renewing of your mind" is the part that captivates me. Or, better put, God is laying out for me to chew on.

So, pastor uno was talking about the only real change happening when we change how we think, our paradigms, because that affects how we act and the results with which we end up. Our hearts dictate our mouths.

As John Eldredge puts it--in a good book I'm reading (Walking With God)--he found himself at a point in his twenties (or thirties?) where a 17 year old was giving him advice. He had to reexamine a belief about God he'd formed at 17. He need to reanalyze it as an adult. How many times do we do that? Come up with a philosophy at a point in our lives where we're ill prepared to make it, and yet then still have it dictate our lives?

I need to work on renewing my mind. There are concrete philosophies I hold as truth, yet I know I've come to those conclusions at times in my life when I wasn't on point. What beliefs do you hold true that were formed when you were less apt to make good decisions? Or, have you always been perfect?

Sunday, November 9, 2008

to succeed you must first fail

We watched "Meet the Robinsons" and one scene really stuck out. The main character, a boy inventor, tried to fix one of his inventions and failed. The group of people around him cheered, "You failed!" as if he'd won the pennant.

Their thinking: failure is a step toward success.

We can't be so afraid of failing that we don't try lest we fail. If we fail to fail we fail to learn, grow and finally, succeed.

How many times did Lance Armstrong finish last? How many intercepted passes did Brett Farve throw? How many goals did Wayne Gretzky miss? How many elections did Abraham Lincoln lose? We don't remember the failures, we remember the successes. But there is never success without failure.

One character in the movie said, "You learn from failure, from success, not so much."

How true.