Every now and then I like to share about one of the tools that I have found very helpful to me in my day-to-day journey of serving our Creator!  Tools make life easier, more enjoyable and often entertaining!  I have been blessed with some great tools that enable me to be more effective at what I do and today’s tool is another one of my favorites, which I use everyday!

John Maxwell and Zig Ziglar are two of the mentors that I have had as a part of my life for a long time.  Both of these gentleman through the years have stressed the importance of reading and how it impacts and influences our leading.  This is why many years ago, I dedicated myself to being a reader.  I read everyday and one of the tools that helps me to read better is my Amazon Kindle!

The Amazon Kindle is a book reader.  You can purchase books online or even through the reader and they are downloaded automatically to your device.  As you read you can type in notes about thoughts you have as you are reading, you can highlight passages that you want to remember and you can share through social media with others about what you are reading.

Kindle also allows me to download apps for my phone, iPad and computer that allow me to also read the very same books on those devices.  Wherever I leave off reading is saved and when I open the book on any of my devices, it takes me right back to where I left off.

Books generally run around $9.99, and there is a continuously changing library of free books available for download.  You could literally read for the rest of your life on this device and it would not have to cost you a dime!

If you are interested in a Kindle, they have come down in price and start at around $79 and go up to around $199 for a full-blown color tablet type!  You don’t have to have a Kindle if you already have a digital tablet of some kind, because you can download the Kindle Reading Application and read on pretty much any device for free!  I personally like the Kindle at times, because the screen on the basic Kindle is very friendly to outside lighting without a glare, which I sometimes have to fight on my other devices.

I really appreciate you taking the time to read my blog and wanted to share a free book that you can get your hands on.  I noticed the other day that a book I received for free and read last year is free once again.  It’s a great book, fun to read and will make you think.  I encourage you to check this out:  “Imaginary Jesus!”

I hope this post is helpful and a blessing and remember:  If there is anything that I can do to serve you and help make life better, then I sure would love to give it a try – just holla!  Blessings!

What can I do?  Four very simple words come together to form a very powerful question.  A question that can change our life and enable our life to change the lives of others, if we will simply ask, answer and obey it!

The tragedy is that most of us live our entire lives in the other direction asking the question:  What can you do for me? or some variation of it.  The best life is not a life that is focused inward, but a life that is focused outward.  A life that is lived on purpose for the glory of our Creator and the blessing of others.  A life that is lived intentionally not for self, but for others is a life that is truly lived!

The funny thing about this kind of life and living, is that it generates fulfillment, happiness, purpose and all the other positive things we are often looking for in our lives.  Stop today and take the time to ask yourself:  What can I do?  Now do it, you will be glad you did!

The first part of this week was absolutely incredible.  It seemed that every step I took was Divinely orchestrated!  I seemed to be in the right place at the right time to be used by God to touch people’s lives and make just the righ difference.  It was not just a handful of occurences, it was one after another for more than I could count!  By the time I hit the bed on Wednesday night, I was thinking:  “I believe we have turned a corner and are heading in another amazing direction.”

Then came Thursday morning and what looked like it was going to be good, took one wrong turn after another for more than I could count.  By the afternoon, all I wanted to do was find an escape hatch, a Yoo-Hoo and a Slim Jim!

When I finally began to ride away from it all, I started to hear the voice of the Spirit!  The Spirit was telling me – “This is the enemy!”  “Pay attention to how he works and you will learn something!”  “Fight the devil’s fire with God’s fire!”

The thing that makes the mountain tops of life so grand is the vallies you have to travel through to get there.  You could not have the mountain top without the vallies!  Mountain tops are great times of encouragement, growth, excitement and celebration, but for every mountain there are several vallies.  Vallies are tough times of learning, challenge, struggle, building or re-building and preparation.

The enemy often appears in your life, right after the mountain top experience, when you find yourself heading off the mountian and into and through the valley!  We need to realize this is how he works and we need to be prepared, so that he does not mess us up and cause us to miss what we need to make sure we get from our valley experience!

There will be ups and downs in life, but you are never alone.  And in whatever situation you find yourself, you can rest assured that God is using that situation to grow you for His glory.  So do not let it get you down, let it pick you up, because all it means is that God is not finished with you on this earth just yet!