Category Archives: Spititual Development

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What We Feed Grows!

We have been given an amazing gift – the gift of choice. Each one of us get to choose what will be the focus of our life and living. We have the power of choice and make no mistake about it, the choices we make have the power to determine the life we will live.

I love stories and one of my favorite stories is: The Story Of The Two Wolves!

The story goes that there was an old Cherokee Indian chief, who was was teaching his grandson about life. The old Chief told his young Grandson: “A fight is going on inside me, a fight between two wolves – a dark wolf and a light wolf.”

The Dark one is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The Light Wolf is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The old Chief told his young Grandson: “The same fight is going on inside you grandson…and inside of every other person on the face of this earth.”

The young Grandson ponders this for a moment and then asked, “Grandfather, which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee Chief smiled and simply said, “The one you feed”.

This is true in our lives as well. The attitude, emotion or feeling that we feed will grow and take up leadership in our life and help determine it’s direction. Feed the positive and the positive will grow. Feed the negative and the negative will grow. The choice is yours and you do have the power. The real question is: Will you use it wisely?

4 Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. 6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. -Philippians 4:4-7

Another way to think about it is like growing a muscle. My Grandmother used to say: “If you don’t use it, you will lose it!” If we don’t exercise our muscles, they will atrophy and die, but if we use them, they will grow and become stronger. To grow a muscle, we have to exercise it!

To overcome anxiousness and worry, we have to exercise our faith muscle by trusting that God loves us and has an amazing plan for our life. We have to believe that God uses even the bad for the good of those who love Him and who are called according to His purposes.

Make sure that you are feeding the right wolf and growing the right attitudes, actions, thoughts and responses in your life. You will be amazed at the difference it makes in your everyday living and the blessings that flow to you and through you!

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It’s A Battle Worth Fighting!

What do you see when you look in the mirror? HaHa, slow down a minute, this question is not supposed to get you depressed, frustrated and outraged. I ask the question, because most of us would say that we see ourself, but what does that really mean?

What we really see is the flesh that we live in, the physical space that we occupy. The aging and wind torn tent that we live in as the Scripture puts it in 2 Corinthians 5. We see the part of us that we usually think of when we think of ourselves, but we are so much more than what we see and that is what I want to remind us to think about today and everyday.

We are so much more than a physical body. One of my favorite teachers used to put it this way: “We live our lives as human beings looking to have a spiritual experience, when in reality we are spiritual beings getting to have a human experience.”

When our human experience is over in seventy to a hundred plus years, our spirit will live on. The sad reality is that most of us do not ever give a lot of thought to our spirit, which is the major/real/lasting part of who we really are.

16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. 18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. -Galatians 5:16-18

I have known this incredible truth for a lot of years, but as I get older it becomes more and more real to me and I wish that I had truly “gotten it” sooner in my life, because it really is a game changer. Understanding that I am a spiritual being living in a human body helps me better understand the battle that I am fighting everyday and why I have missed and messed up so many things.

To put it simply: When we truly begin to grasp the reality of our spirituality, our focus shifts from the temporary to the eternal and God helps our life and universe to align, so that the things that really matter begin to get the attention they deserve and our life and living start to experience the blessing they were created for.

It really isn’t complicated, but it is a battle and it is a battle that is worth fighting…

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The Lost Art Of Nobility!

I love watching movies about Kings, Queens, Knights and Explorers. The grand castles, elaborate feasts and adventure of running a kingdom has always been fascinating to me. Another reason that I love these movies is because they paint such a clear picture of good versus evil. A good and noble King or Queen know that they are serving God by serving people and do not take their special position of nobility lightly.

William Shakespeare has King Richard IV Part 2 in act 3, scene 1 speak the following words: “And in the visitation of the winds, who take the ruffian billows by the top, curling their monstrous heads and hanging them with deafening clamour in the slippery clouds, that, with the hurly, death itself awakes? Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude, And in the calmest and most stillest night,
with all appliances and means to boot, deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down! Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”

The sad reality is that most of us have lost this idea of nobility, of being grateful for our blessings and using our blessings to be a blessing to others. We have allowed ourselves to get caught up in a “dog eat dog” world, where we believe that the ends justify the means, even if the means goes against everything we believe in. And the greatest tragedy in all of this is that people are not happier or more fulfilled and certainly not satisfied.

We have become so full of ourselves that we have become empty of anything meaningful. We have allowed the enemy to convince us that we are competing against one another for blessing and this is simply just not true. There is plenty of blessing for everyone of us and the way to blessing is not to get it all for yourself, but to take what you have been blessed with and be a blessing to others.

Jesus put it this way in Matthew 5:1-12 “And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: 2 And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, 3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. 10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. 12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

These “Beatitudes” are the attitudes that will help us to live the life we were created for, so that we might experience the flow of blessing into and through our life and living. The only person that you need to try and be better than is the person you were yesterday! Put this into practice and you will discover that life is a gift that keeps on giving and begin to understand that not all who wander are lost…