Just Continue That Thought...

A thought by Touré Roberts in his book,  Balance ,  (p. 9). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon to buy the book.) He continues the thought, "it’s the place where the sun always shines!" He says, "I share my fascination with the midnight sun in order to illustrate the concept of balance. While I explored various other analogies to help describe my understanding of balance, none of them captivated my attention as did the vivid particulars of what it would be like to enjoy sunshine 24-7. Although I’ve experienced balance in the way that I want to share with you, it can be challenging to explain. Once you get it, your own internal light begins to shine, but getting it requires insight, revelation, and practice. "As we begin our journey to balance, we must first realize that balance is not a discipline, an activity, or an exercise. Balance is a place. That’s right, Balance has a location, and going forward, when I refer to Balance—the plac

A thought by Touré Roberts in his book, Balance ,  (p. 4). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon to buy the book.) Toure earlier said, "Balance will teach you how to align with the highest version of yourself in any given moment. A version of you that, among many other things, replaces anxiety with peace, dysfunction with progress, and stagnation with unlimited creativity." He continues, "That’s what this book is all about. You will discover throughout these pages that life uses every moment in our existence—especially the chaotic ones—to nudge us toward a greater version of ourselves, which in turn produces extraordinary experiences. My belief is that the message in these pages will unlock that ability within you to discover a new method of balancing all the areas of your life. "We will explore in detail that idea that Balance is actually a spiritual location and requires spiritual means and spiritual insights to get there. We’ll get i

A thought by Ann Voskamp in her book,  WayMaker ,   (p. 34). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon to buy the book.) And that is a good thing, yes it is. Ann says, "Expect nothing but expect hesed . Expect God to knock at your door, expect God to rise on your horizon, expect hope and mercy and miracles and a glass of cold water, but just don’t expect God to come looking any way you expect. Expect nothing but hesed , the lovingkindness of God—just not in the kinds of ways you’d ever dreamed. Pain will come, but name it a mystery, and find manna in it, and taste bits of miracle even in what you can hardly stand and don’t understand." She continues her story, " 'You okay?' Farm Boy had turned around that snow-globe December night, laughed a bit nervously, making another U-turn at the end of the street. 'I know we’re now kinda late—or actually really late.' "But maybe, if we’ve already connected, we’ve already arrived. W

A thought by Ann Voskamp in her book, WayMaker ,   (p. 30). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon to buy the book.) That's not exactly what we usually want, is it? Ann continues, "I think I’ve always expected . . . more ." She says, "I mean, maybe that’s always been the story, right from our collective beginning. The whole of the rest of the garden of Eden wasn’t enough; we wanted—expected—more. Though we were chosen to bask in the bliss, we weren’t satisfied until we could choose our own way, pick our own dreams, take a bite out of our own choosing, and have all of it. But to be dangerously frank, the way God chose for us in the garden can seem misguided at best, and foolishly illogical at worst: Don’t eat this fruit. Why in the name of all things holy does He choose to forbid . . . fruit ? What in the world is immoral about savoring a bit of the proverbial apple? Why obey a commandment not to sink your teeth into the sweet, an edic

A thought by Bob Goff in his book,  Undistracted   (p. 40). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon to buy the book.) Now that is good to know. Bob continues, "It’s true, and the only ones who can’t see this are usually the unhappy ones." He goes on, "If you choose happiness and joy, then kindness and empathy and engagement are the outcomes. If joy is going on inside of us, everyone will know because it will be expressed outwardly as kindness and caring and action in your life. You’ll be nicer, and trust me when I say this is what the earth needs more of. Why am I telling you to be nice in a book about distraction? The primary reason is because people who aren’t nice distract everyone around them. You know it’s true, and if you are one of the not-nice people, you are in fact banking on this cause and effect. We are not going to get to the important, courageous, purposeful work of being the most priceless versions of ourselves if we aren’t

A thought by Bob Goff in his book,  Undistracted   (p. 38). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon to buy the book.) Now, that is a great way to put it. Bob continues, "If you fill your days with trivial stuff, you will look up one day and a year or a decade or a half-century will have passed. Don’t wait until you are old to ask yourself: What have I done with all that time? Why not ask yourself right now? What am I going to do with all the time ahead of me? What do you want your answer to be? Once you decide what you want the future to look like, make a couple of moves like your life is actually yours to live—because it is. Quit the job, call the friend, make the apology, launch the dream, take the shot . . . heaven is just hoping we will." He says, "I’ve spent some time exploring the branches on my family tree, and it turns out that most Goff men come from the factory like a windup toy with only a certain number of turns. We’re Energi

A thought by Bob Goff in his book,  Undistracted   (p. 36). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon to buy the book.) Now that is interesting but maybe not surprising. Bob continues, "I bet most of us think 'happy' is a result of other choices, but that’s not all of it. Sure, circumstances can be truly awful, but feeling happy is a choice just like any other. It’s not that we don’t want to be happy; we just get distracted by so many unhappy things that we never get back around to happiness. Perhaps we think we need an invitation or permission to be happy. And what if we want happy feelings to transition into a deep and abiding joy with a longer shelf life? He says, "Consider this. In stark contrast to our complicated decision tree, a child makes less than 10 percent of the decisions adults make each day. Maybe one of the benefits of the childlike faith Jesus said we need is that there are fewer decisions to make, and hence, fewer distra