I Am Powerful!

I am very powerful!
Whatever I set my mind on having, I will have.
Whatever I decide to be, I will be.
The evidence is all around me.
The power of my will has brought me precisely to where I am right now.
I have made the choices. I have held the thoughts.
I have taken the actions to create my current reality.
And I have the power to change it into whatever I want it to be.
With the choices I make, I am constantly fulfilling the vision I have for my life.
If that does not seem to be the case --
then I am deceiving myself about what I really want.
Because what I really, truly want, I will get!
What I truly wanted in the past, I already have.
If I want to build a billion-dollar business, I will take the actions necessary to do it.
If I want to sit comfortably watching TV night after night --
I will take the actions necessary for that.
Don’t be disappointed in my results --
they’re just the outward manifestation of my priorities.
I will be sure of what I truly want,
because I am sure to get it!

by Author Unknown

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary,and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Isaiah 40:28-31

The Round Tuit

This is a round tuit.
Guard it with your life, as Tuits are hard to come by-
especially round ones.
This is an indispensible item.
It will help you become a more efficient worker.
For years we have heard people say,
"I'll do it as soon as I get a Round Tuit."

Now that you have one,
you can accomplish all those things,
you put aside until you got a Round Tuit!

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.     

James 4:13-17   


Thanks For Your Time



During this busy holiday season, I wanted to share with you one of my favorite short stories.  You may have read it before, but it's an excellent reminder to us all.

It had been some time since Jack had seen the old man. College, girls, career, and life itself got in the way. In fact, Jack moved clear across the country in pursuit of his dreams. There, in the rush of his busy life, Jack had little time to think about the past and often no time to spend with his wife and son. He was working on his future, and nothing could stop him.

Over the phone, his mother told him, "Mr. Belser died last night. The funeral is Wednesday."

Memories flashed through his mind like an old newsreel as he sat quietly remembering his childhood days.

"Jack, did you hear me?"

"Oh sorry, Mom. Yes, I heard you. It's been so long since I thought of him. I'm sorry, but I honestly thought he died years ago," Jack said.

"Well, he didn't forget you. Every time I saw him he'd ask how you were doing. He'd reminisce about the many days you spent over 'his side of the fence' as he put it," Mom told him.

"I loved that old house he lived in," Jack said.

"You know, Jack, after your father died, Mr. Belser stepped in to make sure you had a man's influence in your life," she said.

"He's the one who taught me carpentry," he said. "I wouldn't be in this business if it weren't for him. He spent a lot of time teaching me things he thought were important... Mom, I'll be there for the funeral," Jack said.

As busy as he was, he kept his word. Jack caught the next flight to his hometown. Mr. Belser's funeral was small and uneventful. He had no children of his own, and most of his relatives had passed away.

The night before he had to return home, Jack and his Mom stopped by to see the old house next door one more time.

Standing in the doorway, Jack paused for a moment. It was like crossing over into another dimension, a leap through space and time.

The house was exactly as he remembered. Every step held memories. Every picture, every piece of furniture... Jack stopped suddenly.

"What's wrong, Jack?" his Mom asked.

"The box is gone," he said.

"What box?" Mom asked.

"There was a small gold box that he kept locked on top of his desk. I must have asked him a thousand times what was inside. All he'd ever tell me was 'the thing I value most," Jack said.

It was gone. Everything about the house was exactly how Jack remembered it, except for the box. He figured someone from the Belser family had taken it.

"Now I'll never know what was so valuable to him," Jack said. "I better get some sleep. I have an early flight home, Mom."

It had been about two weeks since Mr. Belser died. Returning home from work one day Jack discovered a note in his mailbox. "Signature required on a package. No one at home. Please stop by the main post office within the next three days," the note read.

Early the next day Jack retrieved the package. The small box was old and looked like it had been mailed a hundred years ago. The handwriting was difficult to read, but the return address caught his attention.

"Mr. Harold Belser" it read.

Jack took the box out to his car and ripped open the package. There inside was the gold box and an envelope. Jack's hands shook as he read the note inside.

"Upon my death, please forward this box and its contents to Jack Bennett. It's the thing I valued most in my life." A small key was taped to the letter. His heart racing, as tears filled his eyes, Jack carefully unlocked the box. There inside he found a beautiful gold pocket watch.

Running his fingers slowly over the finely etched casing, he unlatched the cover. Inside he found these words engraved:

"Jack, Thanks for your time! -Harold Belser."

"The thing he valued most...was...my time."

Jack held the watch for a few minutes, then called his office and cleared his appointments for the next two days. "Why?" Janet, his assistant asked.

"I need some time to spend with my son," he said. "Oh, by the way, Janet... thanks for your time!"
                                                                                                                    Author Unknown

So teach us to number our days, that we may get us a heart of wisdom.

Psalm: 90:12

Charging the Human Battery

by Mac Anderson The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday morning. Perhaps it's the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it's the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable. A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the garage with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it: I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap net. Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice. You know the kind; he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business. He was telling whomever he was talking with something about "a thousand marbles." I was intrigued and stopped to listen to what he had to say. "Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. I'm sure they pay you well but it's a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. It's too bad you missed your daughter's dance recital," he continued; "Let me tell you something that has helped me keep my own priorities." And that's when he began to explain his theory of a "thousand marbles." "You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years. Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3,900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime. Now, stick with me, Tom, I'm getting to the important part. It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail," he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round up 1,000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my gear. Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There's nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight. Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure that if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time. It was nice to meet you Tom. I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band. This is a 75 year old man, K9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good morning!" You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter. Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. "C'mon honey, I'm taking you and the kids to breakfast." "What brought this on?" she asked with a smile. "Oh, nothing special, it's just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. And hey, can we stop at a toy store while we're out? I need to buy some marbles."

The Seven Powers for Self Control

Lesson 4:  The Power of Free Will

The only person you can make change is you.

I once worked with a person who spent the greatest part of her life trying to change everyone around her.  No one could do things the way she thought they should be done.  When anyone tried to help her, they were greeted with all the reasons they couldn’t do it and she shoved them aside.  It didn’t matter whether we were talking about her personal life or her professional life, if someone wanted to work with her or to help her, they had to change to meet her specifications and those specs were unattainable.  I think we all have someone in our lives that is like this.  They complain and complain that no one ever helps them and there is a reason for that.  No one wants to be in the line of fire.  No one wants to feel inadequate or unable. 

“One key to successful leadership is continuous personal change. Personal change is a reflection of our inner growth and empowerment."

Robert E. Quinn

 I would like to suggest here that if you want other people to change, you should look at yourself first.  Whether they are children or adults, you can never force someone to change.  You can try, but you will fail.  Children may attempt to do what you want, for a time, but there will come a point when you are no longer the center of their universe and pleasing you will not be a priority.  They will become what they choose, regardless of what you think.  If you have spent years trying to make them be what you want, they will just rebel and you won’t understand why they’re different.  The change was never really about them, it was about you.

 When you change yourself, when you change your behaviors, others around you will change theirs as well.  This won’t happen overnight.  They will test you to see if the changes you are making are permanent, if they’re for real, but in time, if you hold true to yourself and the changes you have made in yourself, they will want to change to be better, like you.  Instead of changing to make you happy, they will change because you are happier, and they want to be happier too.

 You will lead by example.  In lesson two, we talked about my friend who told me that we always see in others what we don’t like in ourselves.  Take a look at those things that bother you about your child or your spouse or your co-worker.  Really look at them.  What is it that really bothers you?  Instead of thinking about what the other person should do to make it better, what can you do to change it?  What do you need to change about yourself to make it different, to make it better?  There is something that you need to do better than you are.  What is it?

"Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change."

Confucius

Karen Kaiser Clark, in her book Grow Deep Not Just Tall, says, “If April showers bring May flowers, they also bring the worms.  Those wiggling, slithering creatures are the tillers of the soil.  Perhaps to us not pretty, but their mothers claim they are….Not all that we face can be changed or accepted.  But few fears are released…until we change them.”  The task of looking inward, instead of outward to everyone else is not an easy one, but remember, what you see when you do this  is what your children, your spouse, or your co-workers see whenever they look at you.  It may not be pretty, it may surprise you, but it is well worth taking a look at.  I assure you that you will find things there that you do like, that you’re proud of.  Hang on to those!  But keep looking into the darker places, the places that make you feel uncomfortable.  You will be surprised what is hidden in there!  We all have them, those places that we think are just better left alone, in the dark.  The problem is, they don’t stay in the dark.  They will always come out and they’ll do it when you least expect it. 

 I recently had this happen to me.  I had some old family business that I thought was long over.  I thought that I had cared for it and had moved beyond it.  Then I moved closer to my family, closer than I have lived in years, and I was surprised one day to find that this old, familiar, not-so-great ‘friend’ had come back.  I was allowing my old feelings and hurts to determine my current path.  I have no idea what my family really thought or thinks, I only know my feelings about what I thought they were thinking.  See the fallacy in this?  First of all, it was all in my head, my own thoughts.  I convinced myself, no one convinced me.  No one even talked to me about it.  It was a conversation I had all by myself.  And I believed every word of it!  Until a friend not so mildly reminded me of who I really was, and what I had spent years changing in myself.  When I examined what she said, I was shocked to see the person in the mirror.  It wasn’t the world around me that needed to change, it was me! 

 Ms. Clark says, “Growth never completes itself.  Nor does love.  Nor do we.  In our reaching toward completeness we affirm our imperfection.  Time pushes us to grow beyond momentary arrivals.  Life presses toward greater meanings.”  We are never fully grown.  We are never perfect.   If we think that we are, we will be sadly reminded of this fact over and over again.  Life is about change.  It’s about facing who we have been, who we are now, and who we want to be.  It is about loving ourselves first, not in a selfish way, but in a way that accepts us and cherishes us for who we are and understands that who we are is not what we could be.  We can be better.  We will be better and when we are, the world will be better with us.