Author: watchstandpray

338 – I Didn’t Notice

You are only as big as the problems you ignore. Anything that rents free space in your mind is only bigger and stronger than you because you allow it to be.

Our problems don’t have power over us because they dominate and overwhelm us, but because it bothers us when they do. There will always be a bigger fish who eats what it wants, but you can choose whether to allow the bigger fish to get under your skin and irritate you while you should be sleeping or whether to just not notice. Sometimes it helps to remember that God’s Sovereignty means that God decides which fish are bigger and smaller. God might have sent a big, evil fish your way just so you can practice not caring.

No matter how big, strong, resourceful, or vast your obstacle may be, never give anything else the power to control your will. You are always and always will ever be responsible for your own choices. This includes your choice to be angry, regretful, or grateful. Don’t give your foes the power to select your level of happiness, they don’t deserve that much credit. This means you must also reject the lie that you must dominate foes in return before you can be happy.

Even while a larger force harasses and disturbs you, even before you bring “justice” or “hit back” or otherwise stop it from doing bad things—before you take any action at all, you can and must choose happiness in your heart. Until you do, you will never have the mental, psychological, emotional, and spiritual clarity to confront the heart of the problem. Jesus explained this by saying, “First remove the plank from your own eye, then you will see clearly to remove the speck in your brother’s eye.”

I was driving my motorcycle down a street just after a ten minute rain. Puddles lined the road when a semi-truck-sized flatbed pulled in front of me and charged at top speed. While I passed him, I think he splashed a puddle on my shirt because it seemed a little damp when I arrived. But, I’m not sure if he did because I just didn’t notice.

337 – Routines

Know life’s routines—food, exercise, sleep, study, work, whatever. Know them in yourself, know them in others, keep them, change them, always respect them in others. If changing your routine proves a difficult necessity, tell yourself that changing your routine might be part of the routine. Still, changing and managing routine remains an individual task. The most important thing in having a routine is to know that one has a routine and to then respect it.

If you get fat, miss your exercise, lose needed nutrition, skip a Sabbath rest, lose sleep, oversleep, don’t read your daily Bible, fail in your commitment to positive entertainment, or don’t add the daily brick to your road—you will have many more problems than you thought you saved yourself. Staying true to necessary steps of your routine is one part in keeping your personal integrity and staying true to your values.

You can’t always keep normal routines. In travel and holidays, routines can get upset, which will test your resolve. So, you must be prepared to return to your routines after those disturbances. Moreover, you must structure your routines in such a way that you can keep them going to some extent, even during irregular times. Itinerant speakers and highly productive people have very sporadic schedules, but their routines must stay maintained to some extent in their travels. The key is to be low-budget and scalable.

Resourceful routines endure. You do not need to buy super expensive food to eat healthily or to get minimum nutrition supplements. Convert some junk food money to Calcium or change “beer to sleep” time into exercise time. Learn to do push-ups on your bed, and include multiple skills in your exercise repertoire, including street dance and martial arts. Buy the cheaper, smaller computer first, if computing is part of your routine, then you can take it with you. Sometimes your only place to work or exercise is at the airport and your only place to buy food is a gas station. Some shoulder freezes at the train station will draw YouTube likes and a chili dog with sour kraut, extra ketchup, and double mustard might compensate for a day without vitamin tablets.

336 – Law of Generational Sin

The Law of Generational Sin causes the sins of a father—a male with Y chromosomes—to embed his own sinful behavior into the genetic makeup of his children for three to four generations; the mother—who has only X chromosomes and no Y—cannot. This genetic design from our Creator is one of His greatest gifts to humanity by making sin easy to track while limiting sin’s ability to spread.

Generational Sin explains why “personality disorders” are “enduring” and can neither “adapt” to truth nor circumstances. Whatever sin a father fails to expunge before fathering children will be seen in those children. This is a warning that fathers must take their responsibility seriously and will surely face consequences of seeing their own neglect oppress the children they love. In this manner, fathers who do not lead themselves early in life become tyrants toward children. The only way to break these seemingly unbreakable “personality disorder” patterns is for children to forgive their fathers of the sin passed down to them. This insight helps solve problems only solvable by recognizing morals and guidance that can only come from above.

Generational Sin proves every father an inescapable failure, defining every human “in need of forgiveness”. But, sin doesn’t win.

God’s grace through women is their exemption from participating in this power of sin. Mothers are not allowed to genetically pass on their sin—it’s the Law. Because of this, mothers have grace to err and the objective viewpoint to love their children in hope, nurturing younger generations to walk in love and forgiveness. Forgiveness not only looses Heaven into action on Earth, it looses the sinful circumstances into which we were born.

Mothers have this new power by lacking the power to destroy. This explains a morsel of God’s beautiful mind. Jesus himself had no sin because he was born only of a mother with no human father. Because of Jesus’s sinlessness, all humanity can be saved, forgiving previous generations by repaying debt from the infinite riches generated by Jesus’s crucifixion.

No stronger force exists in the created order to hold us accountable to live and breathe and swim in forgiveness as the Law of Generational Sin.

Exodus 34:6

335 – The Middle Demotivation Trap

Poverty and affluenza are two extreme demotivators, but the most common is in the middle: averageness. Medium-sized success can be the biggest obstacle to success. Stay on your guard so that success never gets in the way of your success.

Routines sneak up on us. Ruts attract rivers and rats. Graduate, then find yourself driving on the road during the same two 30 minute rat races as everyone else, morning and night. Once rat-race fever sets in, many buy their dreams on borrowed money, locking themselves in even more. They didn’t plan to get there because “not planning” is exactly what got them there. They don’t lead their own lives, so their families don’t respect them either.

By the time they see it, it’s seems impossible to get out. The only way out of a rat race requires sacrifice. Once you recognize that “average normalness” has its noose around your neck, the next step is to recognize what holds you there. Getting out may not be as difficult as it seems.

Consider the monkey trap in which the monkey won’t let go of the peanut, even to save his own life. The monkey can never get the peanut, but opening its hand will allow it to slip away.

Let go of whatever keeps you stuck in whatever rut finds you. The most common rut is impatience. If you’re willing to learn a little from personal study every day and add a few doses of delayed gratification, you’re more likely to break your cycle. But, that will involve pausing, stopping, reassessing, taking a deep breath, releasing frantic feelings, and, of course, praying.

Few people get themselves trapped in any vicious rut because they prayed for it. Prayerlessness helps get us into ruts and prayer helps get us out.

Ruts find us more easily when we over-extend ourselves until our ships are too bulky to steer. Over-spending is only one subcategory of over-extending. Over-working oneself is another, the cause behind prayerlessness and too many resources squandered on unprofitable hobbies.

Determination keeps us out of ruts. Breaking out of ruts requires enormous determination—the same amount of determination that will prevent the next rut from pulling you in.

334 – Be Ridiculous with the Persistent

Everyone has limits, so everyone should expect everyone to have limits, but since everyone’s limits are different no one can expect anyone else to know their own.

Unfortunately, many people often presume what other people’s limits are. Don’t assume what is good for others. When other people do that with you, some diplomacy may be in order so you don’t spoil the moment.

Generally, being pushy with the small things is rude. When people tell you no, you need to accept their answer, unless you’re in sales or dealing with a bureaucracy that doesn’t know how much it bumbles. Either case is the same, whether you must say no or someone else gives you a no that you can’t accept.

Gandalf was excellent at politely “misunderstanding” the message when kings and their courts told him no. He dealt with those matters as you should deal with any situation: tact, wit, and charm. Use humor; exaggerate if necessary.

A man sat next me on the airplane. Just after takeoff he asked to use the restroom, the crew told him no. Another man used the restroom and he protested to a member of the crew, who just told him to stay seated before dashing away. Frustrated, he crossed his arms. “Sometimes, it’s easier to get forgiveness than to get permission,” I told him. “Just go. If they object, humbly apologize and say, ‘I didn’t want my seat to get wet.’ They’ll leave you alone.” He laughed, stood, and went to the restroom without incident.

I have suggested ginger ale to many an Asian friend with the flu. They never accepted it, unless I buy it and poured them a glass. Then, they ask where I learned about ginger ale.

If your limits are ridiculous, accept them and act in kind, diplomatically of course. Confront the matter with humorous melodrama so others save face and you save yourself a mess. When your overly accommodating hosts aggressively serve you food that you know will ruin your week, no need to ruin dinner also; just look at them with a twinkle in you eye, love in your heart, two teaspoons of sass, and say, “Are you trying to start WWIII?”

Proverbs 15:1; 25:15, Ephesians 4:15

333 – Happiness Is Contagious

It should be no secret that happiness are a sheer choice. The reason that so few people know this is because so few families teach this at the dinner table and in the car. If you understand that happiness is a choice, you must teach everyone around you actively and often. Even at work and among peers, encourage and counsel everyone with the undeniable truth of life that happiness is a choice. If you don’t teach an idea to others, then you will forget it yourself.

Uncontrolled anger is easy to recognize in children, while adults mask their emotions by “acting mature”, but the untame emotions remain the same. For the child, hold him and let him cry on your shoulder; after a few minutes, poke his cheek and provoke a smile. Help him see that happiness is still a choice. For the adults around you, even yourself, find whatever way this truth applies to the situation. Proactively seek out opportunities to inject the small, subtle presupposition that happiness is a choice. Do it everywhere you can.

This does not mean silencing people with “negative energy”. Happiness being a choice means being happy when other people are not. “Getting rid of the negative people” may be necessary for family and organizations. But, in brief times like staff meetings and dinner out, the ability to choose happiness means overcoming negativity with your own joy. If you can’t, then you are the one who needs to learn.

One example was Brad Pitt’s character in “Fury” when he wouldn’t let his fellow soldiers ruin his dinner. People who reject the truth that happiness is a choice label it “propaganda”. Whether they doubt the choice or they try to be happy by “negating all the negative people”, such people did not grow up knowing about the choice. At one time, they wanted to be happy too, but it’s not easy. When we try and fail, we want to give up.

Happiness must be contagious. Once you stop sharing your happiness with others, you’ll stop being happy. There are plenty of sad people who need cheering up. But, happy people can become happier still. Choose happiness by spreading it everywhere.

332 – Law of Foundations

Every structure shadows the base on which it is built, whether area, manner, or strength.

A foundation determines the size and specific location of its building. It thus keeps the building in place, preventing it from wandering or sliding. A castle build on sand will collapse because it is not suited for the ground on which it is built. If you live on a sand dune, don’t build a castle, build a grass hut. That way, when—not if—it falls down, it won’t be that big of a deal. If you can afford a castle, however, buy appropriate real estate.

This Law of Foundations governs other Laws themselves. Every Law in Earth exists as it is because it was made in Heaven first. To pray for God’s will to be done in Earth as in Heaven is to pray for Earth to be aligned with the foundation of its existence: Heaven. Evil sprouts from the attempt to contend with the Laws written in Heaven, hoping to rewrite them. But, Laws can neither be rewritten nor invented by those whose very existence is governed by them.

The American concept of “government of the people” founds the government upon the consent of the people so governed. Government, therefore, rebelling against its people is as much an absurd self-degradation as the evil attempt to change the Laws written in Heaven.

Foundations affect learning. Strong elementary skills will speed up education that follows. Likewise, friendship is built on trust, not excuses and loopholes. Companies, countries, institutions, and families without moral direction always implode. Morals are a foundation.

Bigger, taller buildings need foundations complex, agile, and strong enough to withstand earthquakes and sway from wind. Strength is not brittle; it must be elastic enough to adapt to stress, yet maintain its identity to prove that its original form does not change once that stress is released. Justice must be blind so as to be impartial, but not deaf to the needs of the needy. In this, mercy and grace provide the agility needed to keep justice unbreakable.

Nothing is stronger than its foundation. Structures built atop shaky foundations cannot be re-founded, only condemned, demolished, and rebuilt—it’s the Law.

Matthew 7:24-27, Romans 15:20, Ephesians 2:19-22