Go and Discover

Forgive and Live Free

Envy that boils over unchecked will find a way to crucify an innocent person.  Envy burns bright when comfortable people are challenged by someone demonstrating change and having success.  Those comfortable people will condemn the new way.  They will discredit and shame the momentum and movement.

If you are discovering the life God has for you then you have a 100% chance of people shaming, ridiculing, and discrediting you. It will happen. For sure.

When these people lash out at you - smile and forgive them.  Realize they are proof you are really living in freedom.

Envy's Decay

If prosperity's first step is humility, then calamity begins with envy. Humility places others in higher regard than ourselves and  opposes selfish ambition.

Envy pushes us to elevate ourselves above others.  Envious hearts direct actions that will absolutely result in disaster for you and anyone depending on you.  Envy drives us to achieve things we were never intended to achieve.  Envy drains our peace, energy, and happiness.

You were not designed to rule over people, to run someone else's race, or to have someone else's life. You were designed to put your gifts and talents to work helping others. You were built for a challenge only you can overcome. You're built for a life far better than any you could copy.  Fulfilling your own purpose refreshes, energizes, and increases joy in your life.

If your decisions are hurting you more than helping, stop what you're doing and ask God for help. Read James Chapter 3, and ask God to show you the steps to get on track fulfilling the purpose He designed in you.

Your Dream is Real

You were created for a purpose and those things you are exceptional at are evidence your dream is real.

The purpose you were born with is inside of you and the talents you have are evidence of this purpose.  The lie people believe is they aren't good enough, or they need to manipulate to achieve their dream.  Another lie is you need to work hard and sacrifice all other aspects of life to achieve your dream.

The dream you have was deposited inside of you to help you and to make you prosper.  It's already in motion, you don't need to earn it, and the sacrifice has already been made.

If you're struggling to achieve your dreams and the people you look towards for inspiration are only causing frustration - turn to Jesus.  Sit still for a few moments and surrender all your work and craftiness to Him.  It's already yours.  The life everyone is searching for is in Him and ready for you.

Team Character

Organizations create incentives to attract new talent and urge their employees to work harder.  Each generation has their favorite incentives from health care and pensions to gourmet coffee and elective medical procedures.  Incentives push people to do more and extend beyond their comfort zone.  The carrot at the end of the stick.

Incentives may help you to bring in top talent, for sure.  But using incentives to push your organization may not be that helpful in dynamic environments.  

The figure below illustrates how the leadership culture and motivators impact organizational character.  In today's dynamic environment our organizations should be agile and adaptive, and incentives as a motivator will fall short of creating the right character on your team.

People who work towards an inner purpose are an incredible source of strength, energy, and prosperity in an organization.  These are superstars who set the bar and don't need incentives to work harder.  These people are rewarded, not incentivized.  

You can choose to be this type of person.  Their is no special ability to becoming a purpose-driven person.  You just need to decide to not be led along by incentives and other peoples agendas and lists, but instead be led by your heart.

If you do want to take this step, read Proverbs 20:5.  It reads, "The purposes of a person's heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out."  God is the one with insight to draw out the deep purposes in your heart.  He placed them there.  Read this verse again and ask God to help you sort out the purposes in your heart.  I promise you will not regret this decision.

How to Get Rich

The key to getting rich is hard work.  

I'm so glad the key to becoming rich isn't good luck, expert talent, or a family inheritance. 

"Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth." -Proverbs 10:4

But it's tough to work hard doing things you don't like and frustrating to chase elusive riches.  

If your struggling and frustrated with your work and success, stop doing things and start listening.  Listen during the quiet times of your day for things you should be working hard on and forget about the wealth.  The wealth will come when you're obedient to that quiet voice each day.

 

 

Teams

My career in the military and corporate cultures has placed me in many, many teams.  Some function better than others and some were more productive than others.  Our society is struggling with teams today and it isn't because a lack of talent.  We are the most educated and well resourced group of people to ever walk the Earth.  God is still giving gifts to people just as he did to our founding fathers.  So what's the problem?  With all our well educated, well read, and trained professionals why can't we function on teams?

Our independent culture opposes team culture.  Independent people navigate the terrain of life using a different compass.  If the compass on a team points North, the compass for personal ambition points South.  

People on great teams, either willingly or coerced, share their gifts and talents with the rest of the team.  Everyone contributes their points to the bucket with their teams' name.  What a great sacrifice to share a rare gift with others.  But this is what great teams have - talented people sharing their gifts with others working towards a goal, as a team.  Is there a more humble act than to share your very best with others?

Here is what a culture of personal ambition looks like:

• Hostilities.  Hostility characterizes the culture and attitude of the organization as unpleasant, unfriendly, and containing unresolved disagreements.
• Strife.  Strife can include violence, bullying, and deep running disagreements.
• Jealousy.  Jealousy is a type of anger someone has towards another because of their success.
• Selfish Rivalries.  Rivalry moves inside the organization to defeat the successes of others.
• Dissensions.  Dissensions occur when people place greater value on their personal opinion over others' viewpoints and team goals.
• Factions.  Factions attract people with similar opinions into inwardly focused groups.  

It should be fairly obvious to anyone reading this that our American culture has created a real mess in our organizations.  From our Churches to our Capitol, personal ambition has mucked up our lives and is impacting our prosperity.  Does anyone share their gifts with others to meet a common goal anymore?

We cannot view the patterns of this world as a roadmap for success.  Remember, the world is seeking personal ambition and their maps are oriented on the South Pole.  To break this cycle, we must renew our minds and consider God's will for us.  God didn't create us to claw our way to the top.  He gave us gifts and talents to share with other to fulfill His will.  

If you're interested in truly changing your life and the lives of those around you, carefully consider asking God to renew your mind and to offer the special gifts and talents He has given you to help others meet a team goal.  

You can read more about your purpose, gifts, and talents in Galatians 5 and Romans 12.

 

 

Eye of the Tiger

When I was a kid we would sing Eye of the Tiger over, and over, and over.  It was an anthem for many young men in my generation.  The problem was that once the song ended, we lost the Eye.  It was only when the song was playing that we could relate to the dedication, hard work and focus of Rocky Balboa.

Like many other young men in my generation and in my town, we had no desire.  No fire in our belly.  Nothing was for us so we were for nothing.  My grandfather told me to get a trade and talked about his days in the Navy.  Then one weekend a friend of mine came back from the Marines with a new Ford Mustang.  So I thought, "Hey, join the Marines, learn a trade, and get a Mustang."  Except the Marine recruiter was at lunch so I joined the Navy.  

I meandered into the Navy at age 18 and had never experienced the Eye of the Tiger in any meaningful way until I hit boot camp.  During an introductory in-brief to the jobs available in the Navy, a Sailor gave a brief about Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal.  I thought I had heard all the jobs in the world until this brief.  The first time I heard the acronym "EOD" I received the Eye of the Tiger.  It was all I could think about and I spent the next 6 months skipping lunches to work out and excelling at every inspection to get my orders to EOD School.  But a Master Chief noticed my dedication and cancelled my order to send me to Submarine School.  I succeeded in getting picked up for the most elite Navy in the world, but that wasn't my target.  I spent the next 4 years, 6 months and 26 days onboard two different submarines before I was released to EOD School.  

During this time I did whatever it took to get into EOD School.  There were times I waivered but my resolve never broke.  Through opposition and a lot of hard work I graduated EOD School and spent 20 years in the Navy EOD Community.  I deployed to several conflicts and wars and gave it all I had to be successful.  It was never work.

I am not telling this story to brag - not at all.  I'm sharing this because I believe every young man and woman on earth has something inside them right now that once awakened will produce the Eye of the Tiger, a relentless focus and source of energy.  

It's easy to get lost in our heart about what we want to do in our life.  Then, our head gets involved with logic and rational approaches to success.  We look for patterns and "career paths" to help us navigate with our heads something that was never intended for our brains to sort out.

The Bible sais in Proverbs 20:5, "The purposes of a person's heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out."  The one who has insight is God, and God will draw the purposes out of your heart.  Once your heart is engaged in your purpose there isn't a force on earth, in heaven, or hell that can stop it.  

If you're struggling with the purposes in your heart.  If you're head is making things complicated.  Stop today.  Sit down.  Release this to God.  Give it over to him and ask him to draw the purpose out of your heart that he planted there when you were in your mothers womb.  You won't regret it.

Why we wait

When God speaks to us it isn't just to us, but to creation.  What he promises us is part of a larger plan.  His plan unfolds day by day through doors that open, and doors that close.  

If you're frustrated in waiting, pray today that God show you where he was when a door opened for you.  Ask him to show you doors he closed for you.  And ask him to show you how far you've come in his plan.  

The Purpose of Freedom

Freedom isn't free.  We hear that a lot.  I served many years in the military and can witness - freedom is costly and it has a purpose.  It's not a trivial matter but one we should consider closely.

The purpose of freedom is to serve others with humility.  But that's not usually how we see freedom in action.  Here are some creative ways people use their freedom today:

• Sexual Immorality (#metoo)
• Idolatry and witchcraft.  This is literally worshipping dead things and the devil.
• Hatred.  Some folks love to use their freedom to hate.  It's plain u-g-l-y.
• Discord. Sowing discord is the worst abuse of freedom.
• Jealousy.  This life is hard work.  Jealousy is a tremendous waste of time, and a lie.  Just get to doing what you love.
• Fits of Rage.  These folks love their freedom and they expect everyone else to bow at their feet like slaves.     
• Selfish Ambition.  Truly the opposite expression of real freedom is serving oneself only.
• Dissensions.  This happens when personal opinions take precedent over serving others.  (#governmentshutdown)
• Factions and envy.  When dissension grows up and hits adolescence we have a Faction.  People in factions place the earth and all its inhabitants, past, present and future, on axis around their statement of opinion.
• Drunkenness.  Drinking starts off altering your reality and progressively destroys it.
• Orgies.  Freedom isn't a release from inhibition but the higher conduct of free people.

This list above was actually written around 1,960 years ago to Galatia in Modern Day Turkey by the Apostle Paul.  -Galatians 5:19

When free people use freedom for its purpose to serve others we will see an incredible avalanche of peace across our nation.  Here is what happens when freedom is used to humbly serve others: 

• Love
• Joy
• Peace
• Forbearance
• Kindness
• Goodness
• Faithfulness
• Gentleness and Self-Control

When we are slaves to our nature we aren't capable of true freedom.  True freedom comes through Jesus and the Holy Spirit literally living in you.  

If you want to walk in freedoms' purpose today, humbly ask God for forgiveness and accept Jesus Christ as your Savior.  Ask God to fill you with the Holy Spirit and teach you true freedom.  If you're already a Christian and want this freedom, today ask God to teach you authentic freedom.

Comparing

Everyone in this world has a specific mission, talents, challenges, set-backs and situations that shape their lives. If we judge ourselves according to the lives of others we are on thin ice.  It's like comparing giraffes and tigers.

When I was on the battlefield in Iraq I didn't judge myself according to the mission of another person. I would be successful only if I accomplished my mission as best I could. I had to trust that other people on my team also accomplished their mission, as they trusted me.

The same principle applies in our life. We need to know our purpose and mission and then judge ourselves only according to how we are accomplishing that mission.
If you are struggling to know you own purpose, pray today that God show you that purpose and help you get started.