Just Continue That Thought...

A thought by John C. Maxwell (2012-10-02) from his book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential (p. 111). Center Street. Kindle Edition. We are heading into the holiday season.  A lot of people are going to run to overcrowded stores frantically getting things that nobody really wants.  But it was such a good deal but it really wasn’t what they wanted.  After getting it and still spending too much we’re too tired to really enjoy the season. How about your day today?  I understand the importance of the meal and of how it doesn’t just appear but maybe it isn’t what really makes this day a happy day.  Maybe it’s just being with each other.  Oh don’t stop cooking but just add that part to the celebration not the stress.  I was reading today in Luke 11 (The Message) of the first time Jesus met Mary and Martha.  Mary loved the relationship and spending time with Jesus but Martha felt the stress of all she had to do i...

A thought by John C. Maxwell (2012-10-02) from his book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live them and Reach Your Potential (p. 164). Center Street. Kindle Edition. I listen to people almost every day tell me why they are in the situation they are in and a big part of it is because of something else not them.  They play the blame game. . Now if I am young and still at home and I don’t have a lot of control over my life then I am not totally responsible for where I am but if I am 65+ which I am, I can’t blame anyone else but me.  I am responsible for my life.  You see for the most part in my life I am where I am because of the choices I have made. Someone said, “It’s my wife’s fault” but you chose to marry her.  “But it’s my boss, it’s his fault.  He’s holding me back.”  But you were not forced to work for him or to continue to work for him. Now granted there are some things that are beyond our control but our attitude toward them is our choice a...

A thought by John C. Maxwell (2012-10-02) from his book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: LiveThem and Reach Your Potential (p. 243). Center Street. Kindle Editio n. That is so true.   My life isn’t over even if I am retired if I am striving each day to do something that will make a difference in someone’s life.   There is always a thought to be dug out and shared that can be a defining moment in someone’s life.   There is always a person that I will touch that needs to be encouraged to hold on.   Even when a person is flat on their back they still have the potential to make a difference through their fight, through their attitude, through their words.   No matter what circumstance you are in there is someone watching, waiting to see how you handle it.   We all have so much potential that God built into us that hasn’t been realized yet.   We can’t stop growing, doing, living out our purpose each day.   Oh, it is so easy to wall...

A thought by John C. Maxwell (2012-10-02) from his book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential (p. 232). Center Street. Kindle Edition. I want to, though, don’t you?   I mean, I am 65+ and I really want to control my future.   I want to feel that I am secure and that everything is going to be great.   That would be great but it is impossible.   I can’t control my future and I can’t even know what it is going to be like. But John goes on and says that “Knowing today is essential; controlling today is possible.”   Today is all I have to work with, tomorrow I give to God.   But to emphasize, I do have today.   I have the potential to still make choices of how I am going to live each day. I am also reading a book by Bill Hybels called, The Power of a Whisper: Hearing God,Having the Guts to Respond.   And on page 79 he says, “Many of God’s whispers are offered to save us from difficulties and pain that we do...

A thought by John C. Maxwell (2012-10-02) from his book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Themand Reach Your Potential (pp. 203-204). Center Street. Kindle Edition. Do you enjoy your life?   On my other blog, Bill’s Front Porch , I’m de aling with the subject of happiness.  Today I said, “ The accepted idea of happiness is having the right circumstances. But God’s way to happiness is having the right attitude.”   So I ask again, “Do you enjoy your life?” Now John says here that if you do, then the lines between your work and your play begin to blur.   You see, it is an attitude thing.   I chose to enjoy my life.   It is a choice.   I love reading the Psalms in the Old Testament.   Usually the writer starts with a lament, a bad attitude but as he changes his focus it becomes a praise.   His focus changes his attitude.   He has control over his attitude and so do you. Yes, life can be tough.   Yes there may be...

A thought by John C. Maxwell (2012-10-02) from his book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential (p. 203). Center Street. Kindle Edition. I did that today.   I was dealing with not only a sluggish mind but a sluggish metabolism.    Instead of a coffee and a banana for breakfast I had a bowl of oatmeal with nuts and fruit and then I went on a longer walk.   I had brought my computer to Starbucks and instead of walking home to do some work I came down to Peet’s Coffee and Tea. I am outside in a great spot doing my work.   Then I will take a longer walk back home.   I disturbed my routine. How about you?   Are you in a rut in your routine and you are sluggish in your mind?   Change it up a little bit.   You might be surprised at what happens. Why not try it today?

A thought by John C. Maxwell (2012-10-02) from his book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential (pp. 202-203). Center Street. Kindle Edition. So many times it is in a crisis that we come up with a good idea.   Now we may be able to avert the crisis by stopping and looking outside the box before we have to b ut we don't. It is also important to see that the only way many problems can be solved is by looking outside the box.   That is where frustration comes when one won’t look outside and thus can’t solve their problem. What problem are you in the midst of right now?   How are you striving to solve it?    Are you frustrated, really frustrated because you can’t solve it?   Maybe you have never looked outside the box before and you need help.   One thing I have done is to set down with a note pad and put 1-10 on the side and come up with 10 different options.   Some that make since and some that don’t....

A thought by John C. Maxwell (2012-10-02) from his book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential (p. 189). Center Street. Kindle Edition. I love all sports but I really love baseball.   On every bat there is this sweet spot. The goal of the batter to hit the ball thrown by the pitcher on the bat’s sweet spot and if he does the ball will go far. The same is true in golf.   If the golfer hits the golf ball on his golf club’s sweet spot then the ball will go far. The same is true of each one of us.   We have a sweet spot in which we will give maximum effort in our work.   Now, many people work hard and at the end of their day, they are worn out, they are de-energized.   But if they work in their sweet spot then they are energized by what they are doing.   You’ve seen people like that haven’t you?   They love doing what they are doing.   Now your sweet spot is doing something that you love to do, you have a p...

A thought by John C. Maxwell (2012-10-02) from his book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential (p. 184). Center Street. Kindle Edition. Wow, have I ever found that to be true. What skills I need now as a writer and a retiree are totally different from when I was a church planter/pastor.   All the skills I need to be Margaret’s husband change all the time and the fact that I am a parent of adults and also a grandparent to three awesome young ladies means it is imperative that I keep growing, i need new skills. The fact that I am retired is totally different to when I was working 50 – 60 hours a week with people needing me on a daily basis.   I need to constantly keep growing. What about you?   Are you one of those who believe that you know all that you need to know? That you have all the answers because there are no more questions you have to have answered.   Are y ou one of those who have never picked up a book since you g...

A thought by John C. Maxwell, (2012-10-02) from his book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential (p. 179). Center Street. Kindle Edition. Margaret and I and our son, Brett and his family go to a very exciting church.   We have in a way been connected to Mosaic for almost 15 years.   Brett and his wife met at Mosaic over ten years ago when they were meeting in downtown LA in the singer Prince’s nightclub.   Those were exciting days for Mosaic.   We were living in Las Vegas at the time and we would take Sunday breaks from our church and if we came to LA we would go to Mosaic for at least one of our multiple churches we visited.   We met with them in multiple settings.   It is now exciting to be a part of this great church every weekend. A year ago they made a major change.   Instead of meeting in multiple sites they started meeting in an existing church building on the corner of Hollywood and La Brea and they have...

A thought by John C. Maxwell (2012-10-02) from his book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential (p. 179). Center Street. Kindle Edition. So many people are so very afraid to change.   They just can’t handle change so they live with whatever life gives them.   That can be a very frustrating, unfulfilling life. What are you accepting as a way of life because you are afraid to change?   Maybe you are working under an unpleaseable boss and you are miserable.   Maybe it is a dysfunctional environment but you are afraid to quit and look for something better.   Maybe you need to confront your boss.   Maybe he doesn’t realize what he is doing and there needs to be some changes.   Of course that is a risk but it just might be worth the risk.     Maybe it’s your marriage.   You see that you both are growing a part.   There is no life, no romance, no involvement and maybe no love. But you are afraid ...

A thought by John C Maxwell (2012-10-02) from his book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential (p. 168). Center Street. Kindle Edition. A year ago Brett, my son, Margaret, my wife and I were on the road, between Seminole, Florida and Pasadena, California with two cars and a U-Haul truck.   We left Florida on Wednesday and arrived in California on Sunday.   Now did our life stop because we finally made it to California?   No it kept on going just in a new location. It is so easy to set out before us a goal and when we get it we start settling in and thinking that because we have arrived then we are all set to just live.   For some that is retirement.   They are so looking forward to that day that they no longer have to go work not realizing that there is still more to be done even in retirement.   Life is to be lived all the way to death and then there is more to be done even in eternity.   Even though I have ...

A thought by John C Maxwell,. (2012-10-02) from his book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential (p. 157). Center Street. Kindle Edition. F or many that is hard to understand.   The last time they stretched was when they got married.   That was a great enough risk for them.   But the truth is that stretch was one of the best things I ever did in life.    It will be 39 years of marriage on November 9th.    And life truly did begin when Margaret said, “I do”. Another stretch happened when we had our kids.   It has been thirty plus years with Brett and Stef in our lives.   A lot of ups and downs but without a doubt it has been well worth the stretch.   I have counted it a great privilege to be a parent and now a grandparent.      Another stretch happened when I accepted the call to full time ministry.   It was a stretch for me to be a staff minister and then to be a church pla...

A thought by John C. Maxwell, (2012-10-02) from his book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential (p. 149). Center Street. Kindle Edition. Now I understand the age in which we live.   We don’t want to show up people, to make them feel bad.   I understand that also from a Christian’s point of view but I also understand this matter of living with principles and passion. Margaret and I live in a great apartment on the Rose Bowl Parade Street, Colorado Bl. in Pasadena, California.   Well, Pasadena has a new No Smoking Law that says that smoking is not allowed in or outside any of our apartments.   So we had to sign and turn in a paper that said that we understood the new law.   Somewhere some person had a desire to live a healthy life so they set out to make a law that would protect them from getting cancer from cigarette smoke and they had the passion and the principle to make it happen and I signed the paper.    Yes ...

A thought by John C. Maxwell (2012-10-02) from his book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential (p. 148). Center Street. Kindle Edition. There seems to be a choice in there, doesn’t there?   I have the choice of building up or tearing down and it starts inside of me. Think of your relationships, how are you doing?   Think of your family, are you building them up, feeding into their lives, making them better people or are you constantly tearing them down?    Is there any person out there who is a better person because of you?   I sure hope so.   I really do. Now the key is what is inside of you.   Are you a person of moral character?   Does who you really are matter to you?   If it does then you have the potential to make a real difference in this world.   You see people are what really matters.   Nothing else lasts, just people.   Everything else you work toward building will one day ...

A thought by John C. Maxwell (2012-10-02) from his book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential (p. 134). Center Street. Kindle Edition. Do you know those places where you can’t go but temptation draws you to?   One of mine is Dunkin Donuts.   I love donuts.   The truth of the connectedness of people to each other is realized in my families love for donuts.   I take the blame, it is my fault. But the “why me” approach to life is another area that I can’t visit.   I can’t let that thought stay in my mind for a moment because of what it will lead to in my emotional and spiritual life.   I had to come to grips at a period of my life that the “why me” leads to depression and kills my faith and ability to grow.   It leads me to a dark place inside of me instead of hope. Now that is me.   Some of you have no temptation of donuts and maybe you are a naturally positive person but I also know that this area is a ...