Just Continue That Thought...

A thought by Mark Batterson, (2015-10-06) from his book, If: Trading Your If Only Regrets for God's What If Possibilities (Kindle Locations 1304-1305). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) In other words, we think the same thing over and over each day and that is why we do the same thing over and over each day. That is why we live in a rut.   As Mark puts it, “If you want to anchor yourself to what if, that won’t cut it. Your mind must be renewed day by day. You can’t keep thinking the same things and expect a different outcome, a different outlook. One simple way of overcoming habitual thinking is taking on a learning mindset. Make it your goal to learn something new every day. It can come from a book or a TED talk. It can come from a conversation or a class. It can come from a walk down the street. One of the purposes for me personally in writing this particular blog is that I must always be reading a n...

A thought by Mark Batterson, (2015-10-06) from his book, If: Trading Your If Only Regrets for God's What If Possibilities (Kindle Locations 1146-1147). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) This is so true. Mark says, “The split second after someone insults you, offends you, or cuts you off in traffic, what’s your reaction? What’s your reaction time?” Margaret and I spend a lot of time on the LA freeways, the 101, the 60, the 10, the 710, the 5, and the 134.   And that is just one day.   And there are a lot of people, different kinds of people on those freeways and there are a lot of opportunities to test my quick-twitch reactions.   God has brought me to the LA freeways to help me grow spiritually and he is doing a great job in my maturity even at 68.   My reaction time is getting better. He then says, “Or how about the promptings of the Holy Spirit? What’s your reaction time? Your reaction ...

A thought by Mark Batterson, (2015-10-06) from his book, If: Trading Your If Only Regrets for God's What If Possibilities (Kindle Location 916). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) That is so true, isn’t it?   Those mistakes seem to haunt us, don’t they? Mark says, “That’s why it’s harder to forgive ourselves than it is to receive God’s forgiveness. We tend to remember what we should forget and forget what we should remember.” He goes on, “That inability to forget the sin we’ve confessed is part of our sin nature itself. The fall fractured the image of God in us, including in the amygdala. That’s the part of the brain responsible for storing emotional memories. The strength of the memory is dictated by the strength of the emotion. We quickly forget the moments that don’t make a blip on our emotional radar. But strong emotions, like shame, take sinful snapshots and poster-size them. They get blown out of p...