Shhh. . . Can you hear your heart speak what can’t be said, friend?
I have some permanent lines on my face as I’ve gotten (a bit!) older. I like the horizontal “smile lines” on the edges of my face. I also have vertical lines between my eyebrows.
I got those because I have been confused most of my life.
It’s NOT that I ever get angry! I’m mad that you think that! Anyway, the article below shows one of the ways I felt (a bit!) confused at times.
And oh!
This article is one of the crowd favorites, so I’m sure there MUST BE some wisdom in the confusion! May you gain more insight as you read, even if you feel a bit more confused at first, too! I hope this helps you!
Come here and sit by ME to get your life transformed, friend!
Tony Robbins1 is larger than life, both in terms of stature (6’7” – 1.98 m) and influence.
I have considered myself larger than life as well. For example, that time when I gained some weight! So, I point out, however humbly, that there are some slight similarities in the impact of my life, Tony Robbins’ life, and God!
Join people in over fifty countries who read this to gain valuable life wisdom! (Or maybe they’re just laughing at me? . . . Whatever!)
The context of today’s article is that I was part of the energetic, jumping crowd that listened to some of Tony Robbins’ free Time-To-Rise teaching series on YouTube this week.
When Tony Robbins’ talk began this week, I thought he said there were two billion people at his online meeting. At that level, he would be helping almost as many people as Jesus in that moment! However, I got order of magnitude confused, and it was ONLY two million people that he was helping!
It’s easy to mix up how many zeros there are after a number when we consider how many people we have helped!
As for me, I don’t have quite as many zeros after my two people that I have helped,2 but, as Tony Robbins helpfully points out, it’s not the order of magnitude that matters so much as how much value you provide!
Jesus feeds every person on the planet every moment, if our eyes are open enough to see. For example, check out this YouTube channel. He is helping lots of people!
And there are tons of other people with boring4 lives like mine that Jesus also helped!
For now, we have firmly established that Tony Robbins and Jesus5 help people! A future article will compare the details of how Tony Robbins helps people (He helps a lot of people!) and how God helps people (God also helps a lot of people!). We hope that, after delving into this theme in more detail, you, too, can find someone (awesome) to help you transform your life!
You’re welcome!
Good luck!
Thanks for liking me! I like you too! – Proven HERE, HERE, and HERE! Let’s journey together!
2 For example, I helped two people in my church a few years ago! Once, I helped a child in our church find her toy after I gave her toy to my daughter because I liked my daughter more! I also helped one other person way before that, but I can’t remember the details now.
3 It should be noted, just as an aside, that I feed my family almost every night, which is also impressive because I’ve cooked even when I didn’t want to!
4 And by boring, I mean exciting because I write online, so of course I have a fascinating life under the boring bits!
In the last article, we discussed the hints of a spiritual revival breaking out, especially among youth. Here’s another example of a quiet revival that occurred among some youth several years ago. And when I say ‘quiet revival,’ it wasn’t so quiet.
Join people in over fifty countries who read this to gain valuable life wisdom! (Or maybe they’re just laughing at me? . . . Whatever!)
A few Christian youths who lingered after church to pray made international news headlines.
Many of us have experienced something similar to what happened at these events.
For example, several years ago, I was sitting beside a lake one morning, minding my own business, when God’s spirit ushered into my life and gently woke me.
What happened at Asbury reminded me of this experience. A bunch of regular kids attended a church service. It was an uneventful day.
But God‘s spirit rushed in and grabbed them, gently shaking them with a deeper awareness of His love.
The kids stayed and worshiped.
We know someone who attended that event. This person said that the sense of God‘s love was palpable as soon as you entered the building. Many others felt it too. In the sermon that Zach Meerkreebs preached just before this outbreak, he said, “Make sure you experience God‘s love. Don’t graduate until you have experienced God‘s love. Don’t leave this building until you have experienced God’s love.”
How deeply intimate and far-reaching is his love! How enduring and inclusive it is! Endless love beyond measurement that transcends our understanding – this extravagant love pours into you until you are filled to overflowing with the fullness of God!
And, coincidentally perhaps, I was asked this question this morning: How would this (day, month, or) year look different if you really understood that you are deeply loved? A good question. (Who wouldn’t fly around the world to experience a bit more of the felt presence of God’s love?)
But we can also experience this type of powerful felt presence of God’s love in our own homes.
The time when God touched me, powerfully, precisely as happened in Asbury, I also experienced a deeper understanding of God’s love just before it. I had listened to a sermon by Rolland Baker. He said that many of us are seeking outpouring, seeking even what happened in places like Asbury, but what we need to seek is simply God.
And so this touch of God at Asbury that shook the world, that is waking us up to say,there is more, is possible within each of our hearts and in our homes and in our churches in every moment.
These startling truths came from a story I was telling about when I made some doggy pants HERE and HERE.
Here is the last part of that story:
Join people in over fifty countries who read this to gain valuable life wisdom! (Or maybe they’re just laughing at me? . . . Whatever!)
As I was about to leave the coffee shop, I thought Holy Spirit was nudging me to buy another coffee. But I didn’t want another coffee! “Maybe my life is not entirely about what I want,” I reminded myself.
I stood in line.
Clerks were running everywhere, and many different people were taking orders. Again, I wasn’t surprised when I got the same clerk, because this felt like a God-appointment.
Ask him about his church, Holy Spirit seemed to prompt my heart as I ordered coffee.
“Hey, you said you are a Christian. Have you found a good group of people at a church around here to belong to?”
I wasn’t surprised when he said no. Theology that revolved around the type and frequency of product he smoked, the topic of our earlier conversation, didn’t seem completely orthodox. “Even though my mom is an atheist, I used to go to church. But I don’t have a ride right now,” he said as he gave me my change.
Again, a nudge from the Lord.
Do you have a car? Holy Spirit seemed to ask me, tongue in cheek. I offered him a ride to our thriving church. He declined, and I presumed there were deeper reasons why He wasn’t part of a church community.
I walked away, carrying a bagel I was too full to eat.
Lord, there is so much spiritual food here at Your table. May many young men truly know they are forgiven and loved and thus seek their next steps in a relationship with You and other believers. May these young men find another who can lead them to the feast.
Update to this article: This story is perhaps an UNSUCCESSFUL example of spiritual renewal. However, this event happened a couple of years ago, and since then, God has been answering my prayer (I state, however humbly). For example, check out this report from Britain1.
News of a growing number of young people – and in particular young men – turning back to Christian faith has grabbed the attention of even the secular media in recent months.
To be clear, I am NOT talking about a rise in Christian Nationalism, which is weird, but I am talking about young men nudged by Holy Spirit to show up at church. Then they get touched by God, and their lives are transformed, which is not weird (In the traditional sense of the word – wait – maybe that is weird, but weird in a good way!)
I hope everything is much clearer for you now!
You’re welcome!
Good luck!
Thanks for liking me! I like you too! – Proven HERE, HERE, and HERE! Let’s journey together!
1 We are excitedly noticing a similar trend of a quiet revival among youth in our area of Canada.
Make some for yourself, too, God seemed to whisper to me that day several years ago. God had been nudging me to make fleece pants with my kids and their friends. Now, He seemed to be nudging to make fleece pants for me, too.
So, I was online ordering fleece fabric.
A particular type of fabric stood out to me, as joy bubbled from within. I bought the fabric with golden retrievers stamped all over it (True story, but why would I lie about that?). I made my pants.
And now, I will convey something challenging to articulate.
Join people in over fifty countries who read this to gain valuable life wisdom! (Or maybe they’re just laughing at me? . . . Whatever!)
Shockingly, these doggy fleece pants are like a key opening a door between another culture and me.
People who would never even bother looking down their nose at me suddenly become my best friends. I am accepted by a whole new world of people when I wear these pants. These pants melt their hearts, and they pour their love on me, after asking me where they, too, can buy the same pants.
Note: I say this HUMBLY, but in THIS article, I deferentially mention the name brands of the clothes I am wearing, because I am THAT kind of a person. Just saying. Read more HERE.
But a couple of stories to illustrate the surprising allure of these doggy pants: Once, someone exclaimed jubilantly that she loved my pants and then recounted a surprising amount of her life story as I stood, listening, stunned and speechless, my to-go coffee cup waiting in my hand, mid-air, for her to finish. This kind of thing happens often.
It happened today.
The teenage guy working at Tim Hortons spent five minutes before taking my order telling me he loved my pants, telling me a story about his dog, and then speaking with the lady next to him about whether she liked dogs or cats better.
I listened mutely and smiled.
When I finally pulled away from him to sit at a table to drink my coffee, I noticed the table was covered with crumbs. I returned to that young man to quickly ask for a napkin to clean it. He leaned in to confide that they are understaffed, “But I will clean the table for you.” Stunned, I watched him wipe my table.
Then he said, “People really surprise me sometimes.”
“How do you mean?” I asked.
He was quiet.
I offered, pointing to the messy table, “You mean how people are always making messes?”
He nodded.
He seemed to need a crumb to eat, as he lingered a bit longer at my table. I wondered what I could say in the several seconds left of our interaction that could feed him just a little. “Well, it’s a good thing that God forgives us after we create our messes.”
I looked innocently away, waiting for the metaphor to nourish his soul.
The crumb nourished him, and his hunger pangs made him sputter forcefully, “I can’t believe people don’t know I’m a Christian! I don’t even smoke!” He then felt the need for some reason to confess to speaking a partial truth to me, a perfect stranger, by quickly adding, “Well, I do smoke weed.”
My brain was overheating. “Did he say that smoking weed made him a Christian?” I wondered.
Or that smoking cigarettes made a person not a Christian? It’s hard to keep all that theology straight – I can empathize!
“And so, where do we go from here, God?” I prayed. What do I say in the twelve nanoseconds before he departs to resume his job? Clearly, he was being nourished, somehow, by the crumbs of this measly conversation.
But Jesus said, “There is no need to dismiss them. You give them supper.”
“All we have are five loaves of bread and two fish,” they said.
Jesus said, “Bring them here.” . . . They all ate their fill.
“Well, if we can truly understand that God loves us after we mess up our tables, that’s the important part, right?” I offered him, like a crumb. Would he take and eat?
He stared at me, fumbled, and then dropped his cleaning cloth.
His hat fell off as he bent over to pick up the fabric. He stared at me a moment before picking that up, too. He was deep in thought.
Eye contact one more time before he walked away.
Was there a glimpse of light lit for a moment, so that Your light broke through this ordinary day for a clerk at Tim Hortons, God?
May this generation find messy tables wherever they go, we pray.
And may the crumbs somehow, by your grace, be multiplied to nourish the soul. There is more, there is more, there is more, He is saying to the teenage boy working at Tim Hortons. There is more to this story, too. I’ll continue it another time.
For now, how can our lives spiritually feed others?
We get thirsty.
Jesus said, “. . . Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst—not ever.”
It’s only taken me seven months to arrive, so now I can tell others what to do! I sized them up as newbies and immediately joined their group. I looked forward to showing off my knowledge, to “encourage” them, of course.
Join people in over fifty countries who read this to gain valuable life wisdom! (Or maybe they’re just laughing at me? . . . Whatever!)
This is not even a lie, but in the first set of exercises, I somehow got confused and started doing exercises from the other set.
The two newbies patiently explained to me how to rotate through the three exercises that were listed on the board right in front of me.
“Well, everyone makes a mistake at some point!” I thought to myself.
I sulked while doing the triceps extension exercise, and then the new lady had the audacity to lean over and tell ME to pull my lats down before extending my arms.
I felt like throttling her because I’VE been going to the gym for a while – not YOU! I’M the one who’s supposed to know what’s going on here – not YOU! I’M the one who’s getting stronger – not YOU!
During the break, the irritating newbie who knew what was going on all the time revealed that she used to be an exercise instructor.
“Bad luck!” I thought, waiting for my next victim, a new person at the gym.
Sooner or later, I’ve got to be able to “help” someone else so I can feel1 superior to someone!
The instructors asked us to set a fitness goal for the new year in that class that day. The only one I could think of was the one the instructor had told me. One day, when she was shocked at my (relative) improvement, she blurted out that she thought I could do one (yes, that’s ONE) pull-up next year (yes, that’s next YEAR) if I keep coming to the gym every day and keep working hard!
Still, she thinks I will get stronger because I KEEP COMING BACK to the gym, even though everyone else (show-offs!) always seems to know what’s going on all the time, and even though I might not (always!) be impressive to look at when I’m at the gym.
AND you WILL get fitter, too, if you are S.T.U.P.I.D., not S.M.A.R.T.
“What do you mean,” you ask, scratching your head.
Last time, we discussed how the best types of goals are S.T.U.P.I.D., not S.M.A.R.T. A S.M.A.R.T. goal is (See the Footnote2 – They are boring to read about!), but S.T.U.P.I.D. goals are based (however loosely) on the high-powered acronym full of immense wisdom, “K.I.S.S. = Keep It Simple, STUPID.” (See full explanation of the details of S.T.U.P.I.D. Goal Setting HERE.)
So setting a S.T.U.P.I.D. goal means that you keep it simple and choose TO KEEP GOING.
For example, if you KEEP GOING to the gym, even if you’re not very strong and you still don’t know what’s going on after seven months, you will actually get fitter because you’ve set a S.T.U.P.I.D. goal.
“I’m going to KEEP GOING” to the gym is my S.T.U.P.I.D. goal. It’s simple. I keep going, S.T.U.P.I.D.!
So set a S.T.U.P.I.D. fitness goal and then keep going!
We are getting stronger, even if we’re not really much “help” to anyone else practically, and we still get confused (sometimes!).
So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit.
Setting S.T.U.P.I.D. goals is similarly immensely important for other areas of life, including emotional and spiritual growth. However, you can’t expect me to share ALL my manifest wisdom at once! Stay tuned for next time, and I’ll continue to draw on the insights gained from my time at the gym and in life, in general, so that I can continue to “help” you, too!
Even for the most hardened of hearts, a brush with hope in an unopened present makes the soil of our hearts ready for the seed.
And what happens when we open the box and find nothing inside? We turn it over and examine it from another angle. Did we miss something? We take the box apart before finally setting it aside.
I was spinning in circles, putting up a decoration on the tree with one revolution, beating back my dog in the daily effort of chaos management, who was sneaking licks of the Christmas pudding, again, trying to find my worst, ugliest Christmas sweater in time for the curling party, while still spinning the plates that keep our lives circling round and round – food prep, clean up, laundry, and then the alarm rang in the early hours of the winter dark to do it all again.
You can learn that from me! You’re welcome! Good luck!
The worst, most terrible, awful part about parenting and homeschooling, is that God will want to transform your attitude, heart and motives and that STINKS!
I mean, think about it – you have always wanted to boss someone around, and now you have your little people to line up army style and pull rank on. YOU know what’s going on and YOU call the shots. You’ve been alive longer than they have, and so the world is in perfect order, thank you very much!
Then God steps in and messes everything up for you.
Thank you for liking me! I like you too! Let’s journey together!
At least that’s what happened to me every SINGLE DAY. Yeah, it stinks. For example, consider entitlement.
One day, I was looking down my nose in condemnation at my five-year-old because – WOW!- she wasn’t thankful!1
“How did she end up as such an unthankful little human?” I wondered with fear and trepidation. Would she be an unthankful little brat her entire life? THIS has got to be fixed!
I lectured her for half an hour on the benefits and joy of noticing the little things.
She looked at me blankly and continued to blame me for not buying her a third ice cream cone, stamping her little feet and yelling insults at me.
Yikes!
“What do I do now?” I wondered, finally looking up at God. “Can2 you please help me?”
And He did whisper to my heart that day as a gentle wind passed us.
And what He said was THE most annoying, infuriating and upsetting thing He could have mentioned to me right at that exact moment.
He seemed to whisper to my heart:
And how is your level of thankfulness, child?
His words were not harsh or condemning, but gentle, patient and full of the same kind of love I had for my daughter – I WANT her to find joy, and this is the path to it!
So it is for you, he seemed to remind me, turning the parent-child relationship on its head again.
How had I become the child again?
I wanted to be the parent, carefully explaining truths to my little mirrors of me.
And THAT was precisely the problem.
She WAS a mini-mirror of me on this issue.
Time for me to change.
Jesus held out his hand to me, and asked me to walk with him on this path towards a having a bit less gunk in my heart.
Would I follow?
Will you? He holds out his hand to you, too. Will you follow?
Yeah. I know. It STINKS to follow God sometimes because instead of changing THEM, He ends up changing US! I HATE THAT!
The song below is too humble for my taste. However, it contains some excellent thoughts about gratitude that are worth considering. As the song below plays, consider asking God how He may be a Shepherd to you, increasing joy through gratitude.
God, help us to figure out the (one or two places) where your plans for us are better than our ideas for how to run our lives, we pray.
Thank you for liking me! I like you too! Let’s journey together!
Photo Credit – Someone ELSE (NOT me!) Being Annoyed At God by Icons8 Team on Unsplash
1 It is worth noting that whenever my children demonstrate excellence in virtue, they naturally reflect the excellent teaching, values, and confidence that I instill as a homeschooling parent. But whenever they do something naughty (WHAT?!), of course, that is because they didn’t sleep well or their stomachs were upset, as explained perfectly clearly HERE. (Yes. That article is about my dog, but the SAME THING is true about my kids, OF COURSE!)
2 Notice the verb “Can” which of course makes Jesus laugh and slap his knee, wiping the tears a tear from his eye because he is laughing so hard. The answer “Yes. He CAN help!” A valuable truth to remember, one I often seem to forget. Jesus IS helpful!
I was initially hopeful that my body would figure itself out, my back would crack in the right direction, and I would be up and running in no time. I opened an office on my bed, barking orders at my homeschooled kid, and attending meetings online. I forgot to tell one male teacher why I was in bed during the online homeschooling call, which was embarrassing in retrospect.
Restoring Life 