365 – Page 45 – Watch. Stand. Pray.

309 – Great Human Potential

What things God created us for is unimaginable. Eternity is a long time and it’s no stretch to suppose that if we don’t eventually cooperate with God to create our own galaxies that we will be doing something much more splendid. And, that still won’t even be the beginning.

Jesus’s appearance to John in his Patmos vision showed us that Jesus wasn’t only being figurative in his time on Earth; the eye is the literal lamp of the body. His eyes were like fire, his feet glowed, and his face was the brightest part of his body. The eye is the lamp in a glowing, luminescent body.

That’s what most of our future time will be like, in a glowing body just like Jesus had when John saw him on Patmos.

The more in touch we are with the future God planned for us, the more we understand our potential right now. It wouldn’t seem like it to look at what’s around us, but that’s the same with everyone as we grow up. We start as babes unable to even feed ourselves, then we grow up, able to do anything we set our minds to. Don’t think for one moment that we stop increasing our abilities once we cross over into the next lifetime. It only gets better.

Your life isn’t wasted. You’re not useless. God sees your entire future Eternity, even now. We don’t have glowing bodies yet, but this is not from any lack of potential; it’s because God is preparing the virtue in our hearts first. Before our bodies glow, our hearts will grow first.

In this potential, there is no limit to the skills we can acquire. You can do anything. Reject the limited lie that we have “a passion” in the singular sense. Once we decide that life has given us the excuse we need, we can learn almost anything that we put our minds to. Most trades and skills are not inborn talents, but abilities and knowledge learned through time. Our DNA doesn’t so much limit what things we can learn as much as it empowers us to learn many more things than we may give ourselves credit for.

310 – Chase Thy Grabbable Tiger

Beware the two snares of propaganda for knowing your direction in life: Chase whatever head-in-the-clouds, childish whim you feel like or be “realistic” and get a boring job doing what you hate because “that’s the way to make money”. There are options other than these, though it wouldn’t seem like it, given the free advice in plenty. Don’t chase your dreams; chase your skills and follow whatever doable path you are most passionate about.

A thirteen year old stood out at the skate park. He would coach and coax rookies into quickly reaching higher levels and attaining new skills. He asked me the probability of being sponsored. I told him, with his skill level, fifty percent. But, why would he want to be sponsored? “So I can skate all day,” he said. He can get rich and do that, but what about after he retires? What will he do then? “Teach skating.”

I answered, “You’re already doing that. Don’t look for a sponsor to boss you around. Do what you love now, then sponsorship won’t matter, then companies are more likely to line up to sponsor you.”

Another friend asked me if he should quit his stable job for a risky job as a teacher—his dream. “No,” I said. “Teachers love learning; your job is still teaching you. That’s your answer.”

There are different types of dreaming: worthy and silly. Following one’s childhood, passionate dream is different from following one’s childish fantasy. As long as a dream is doable and has a non-artificial time table, go for it. Jeremy Lin and Will Smith had that “see how it goes” conversation with their dads, but they didn’t spin their wheels, practicing for hours without good coaching.

Hotly pursue whatever you can do that makes you come alive, and learn effectively.

Maybe you have a knack for a craft, art, science, or sport from an early age. Do it, whether for money or hobby. Maybe you love your family or know that you need to pay old bills, so a special grace falls on you, empowering you to work in a factory you otherwise hate. Whatever tigers you can grab by the tail, go git ’em!

311 – We Each Matter

Each person matters to other people, if for no other reason than the space we each occupy. Walking down the street involves other people. They wait for you, they let you go first, or they wonder if you will let them go first. Each one of us makes a difference to other people because each of us matters.

Having a low view of yourself harms others. Self-esteem is founded on the sense of “self”, that oneself is a real, active person among other people. Having a strong self-esteem is really about knowing that one affects other people—loving oneself is about loving others. Knowing that you are valuable is about knowing that you are already very valuable to others.

Knowing your own value—not value attained, but value that you already have as God’s Image—will help your heart to shine. By being happy, your happiness will spill over to others without effort—because you truly do matter to others. It doesn’t matter if you are skinny, fat, short, tall, ugly, or ridiculously gorgeous; self-esteem is a contagion that spreads to others. The more you value yourself and others, the more others will value themselves.

The deeper value people place on themselves—recognizing how every individual can make an impact on others for better or worse—the better off the world will be because the world relies on people who know that we each, individually matter to everyone else.

If we don’t know how much we matter to others, we will neglect whatever choices affect others the most. Someone who doesn’t matter will speed through a red light, thinking at most, “I don’t affect other people, after all.” But, the belief that one doesn’t matter isn’t really a well thought-through belief, it’s more of a non-conclusion.

People who devalue themselves haven’t made up their minds about themselves or others. They simply move moment to moment, presuming that nothing really matters. When a criminal who doesn’t care about himself gets caught, he acts indifferent in court because he is indifferent about life because he thinks life is indifferent about him. So, the next time people are rude or inconsiderate, you might just demonstrate that they matter.

312 – Law of Wealth and Currents

Like any subject of learning, one secret to understanding wealth requires working for it. This is similar to how some people only learn by working with mass. Just how digging a space with a shovel or multiplying with blocks or sprinting up and down a giant piano keyboard painted on the ground to identify notes can help a student remember the notes—just as with learning through physical, hands-on exercises, money is only understood by working too hard for too little.

This is neither excuse to stay in poverty nor to dismiss those who are. This is only encouragement to those who just can’t seem to make a break with money and a warning to those who have too much money: Working too hard for too little causes an understanding of wealth—money, income, employment, business, finances, clients, whathaveyou—beyond any PhD’s comprehension.

The early Rockefellers lived in rich houses, but required their children to work extremely hard around the estate if they wanted anything. Loving parents entitle their children to the estate and inheritance, but rightly require “too much” hard work for personal possessions. To do otherwise deprives a child of elementary financial education, leads to affluenza, and eventually poverty. This happens often in family and nation.

Later we learn, wealth flows in “currents” and “undercurrents” of opportunity. Young Christians just learning to follow God’s subtle leading, take small steps of faith as God guides them into these currents. God tells the young Christian to walk into a store, someone is waiting for him, and a new opportunity is found. The immature Christian misunderstands and attributes the entire event to “God’s providence”, but the undercurrent of opportunity was there all along. God simply guided the Christian into it.

Provisional currents were designed into Creation by God; they bring money, opportunity, and food with them. The homeless live in these currents. Even ungodly men understand these “lucky” currents and exploit them. They see Christians flow in the currents, yet still do not believe in God because Laws of Wealth apply universally. But, Christian trust follows God’s leading to find and flow in currents of wealth, which only “too much” hard work can prepare us for.

313 – Calm Societal Discipline

Everyone needs calm, strict enforcement of rules. If we don’t get punished to a point of pain, we become self-royal brats who think the world has appointed us the new ruling bloodline. Punishment is different from rage and anger.

Some people refused to give calm, sober, plain punishment to quickly deter children from destructive behavior later in life. These people have no mercy, no matter how much they claim to. They neither have mercy on the society, which criminals destroy, nor on those criminals who live unhappy lives. The main reason most criminals are criminals is because they weren’t disciplined to be good and happy early in life.

In the very early years, good parents swat with the hand on their child’s bear bottom, leaving no mark or injury, only some redness that passes after thirty minutes and a sting to teach the child about controlling personal choices. That’s it. There is no need for rage or hateful words, leather whips or beating with a belt. Swift punishment, enforced with a rigorous work ethic, in the very earliest years of disobedience will raise a child to become an adult who is safe and sober. Don’t wait or argue. Spanking through clothing is either too light and becomes a joke or must cause bruising to have any pain, so don’t do that either. If disciplined correctly once a child can walk and understand “obedience”, psychological punishments—like “time out”, writing sentences, or lost privileges—will be effective in the later years of childhood.

Having Asperger or ADD is not misbehavior, but it isn’t an excuse either. Everyone has a different psychology and no parent becomes an expert merely by having a baby. Understanding our different frames of mind and learning styles takes time and experience. Talk to someone who works with children and volunteer in a nursery during junior high and high school.

Whether you are a parent or not is beside the point. Society at wide derives its discipline from childhood. Discipline merely instills self-discipline. The key is to remain calm and happy, forgetting the punishment the instant it has been served. “Abuse” comes from rage and forced love. Love and discipline use open hands.

314 – Navigating a Lifetime of Careers

No job needs to be your dream job. Any work will do as long as you can do it. Don’t think about choosing work too much, just ask if you can make money at it and get better at making more money at it every day.

Of course, one’s work must be ethical, but that’s about all. Work is for money. If you can change the world at the same time, that’s a plus. But, you can also change the world through your profit-potential hobby. Don’t buy the lie that you must have puppy love for your cash cow every day.

Income sources can change over time. There is a skill all in itself to recognizing any source of income as a source of income—that might be the best and most important skill to learn. Income streams are all around us, slightly camouflaged, but easy to find once you break off the codependent, dysfunctional relationship with your delusion of that “one and only dream job”. The skill of income itself can take over, then you will be better at staying focused, staying on task, and you will be better at being much happier while you are doing work that you may care little for, but that other people need so badly that they’ll help you pay your bills if you do that job for them.

Part of the fluidity of business means that college textbooks are out of date by definition, but so are any job skills or craftsmanship. Business changing the economy means that your job can also change. Tsunamis affect everyone near the coast. Your best chance is to learn multiple skill sets.

Learn skills in a classroom that are best learned in in a classroom. Chase after a career and curriculum that you are likely to finish—regardless of whether you “like” it. Whether you need a challenge or an interest—chase whatever cat you can grab by the tail!. Most importantly, never learn only one skill!

Most businesses and marketable craftsmanship combine multiple skills, creating “third skills”. The more skills you combine, the more “third skills” you create, the more marketable you will remain in the fluid world of money.

315 – Stand on Truth, Let Others Climb Up

Don’t compromise on essential values just because other people might not understand you. Humans are highly capable creatures. We can do the most outrageous things if we want to. If someone doesn’t understand why you hold to your values then it is because that person is working hard at trying to not understand.

A competent teacher does not stop teaching a subject if the students do not understand; a competent teacher will teach the subject all the more!

Hopefully, you have already set out on some noble task—it could simply be your attempt to do something that has never been done before—it could be to do what no one from your neighborhood has never done before—it could be to shake your entire nation’s culture to end a dishonest routine. But, whatever noble thing you attempt, people whom you thought would never make a positive change in the world will soar with newfound powers to tell you that you’re wrong.

One of humanity’s great hidden strengths is our ability to wake from the deepest sleep just to tell someone to stop doing what is right.

People will drive miles, pay for expensive meals, use words they didn’t know they knew, step out into courageous situations that they have never stepped into before—all to convince you that you are so very, very selfish, unethical, and outright immoral—especially if you are trying to do something that they agree with.

“That can’t be done!” they will say. “We want to do it, but I always failed. It is therefore a crime against others to do this good thing that others reject.”

Society continues bad, dangerous, cruel practices because no one retraces the lines—no one stands for the right standard.

Every culture is made and every culture is remade by the troublemakers, the misfits, the malcontents, the discontents, the “unteachables”. Be that person. If you can get a thousand people to say you can’t, you might actually be on the right track. If ten thousand people say you shouldn’t, you’re surely dead on the money.

They’ll learn. Stand at your post. Show how it’s done. Make sure the culture has an example to watch.