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3 Feelings That Hold Men Back From Taking Initiative

3 Feelings That Hold Men Back From Taking Initiative

Passing the half way mark, we are in our sixth week of our ten week Stepping Up series with our church men’s group. This weeks topic was about men ‘taking initiative’ and wow was it eye opening and inspiring.

The basic definition of initiate is to cause or facilitate the beginning of.

Pause and think of the men, both young and old, around you. In your family, at church, in your neighborhood, at work or fill in the blank ________. Does the word initiative come to mind? Does there seem to be a lack of initiative in men today?

Hold onto that thought as we dig deeper into some great examples of men taking initiative. The list of great men who took initiative is long, but this session focused the three stories in particular.

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March 10, 2015 Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With: courage, crisis, featured, leadership, life, stepup

7 Things We Can Learn From Joseph When Our Life Sucks

7 Things We Can Learn From Joseph When Our Life Sucks

Have you ever experienced a crisis in your life? Persecution? Being mistreated by someone? You got a raw deal? Stuck in the “life’s not fair” narrative? Life just keeps knocking you down? Or fill in the blank________!

I have walked through hardships and many tough circumstances. I completely understand that walking through any of these is not fun, but there is a nugget that most of us never pick up through these difficult times.

You will quickly discover how real your relationship with Jesus Christ is in the midst of these tough places.

Your response to any of the trials that life throws at you will reveal what’s really inside of you and it will reveal the depth of your relationship with Jesus! When we step into one of these narratives we have choices; we can trust our circumstance to the Lord or deal with them in our own strength and probably crash and burn.

We all have dreams but often the reality of our life doesn’t line up with the picture we’ve painted in our minds, right?

Do you ever have those moments where you ask God, “why me?” I know I do! I wrote an article sharing a glimpse of the trials of Corrie ten Boom and realized that a huge illusion we have about our life, is that somehow we are in complete control of it.

Let’s take a deeper dive by stepping into the story of Joseph, the Old Testament guy.

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January 27, 2015 Filed Under: Faith Tagged With: crisis, faith, featured, God, integrity, life

Why The Story Of Louie Zamperini Should Have Been Titled ‘Broken’

Why The Story Of Louie Zamperini Should Have Been Titled ‘Broken’

Went to see Unbroken with some of my band of brothers and wow what an inspiring movie. If you really want the full impact of what this man went through, I highly recommend the book by Laura Hillenbrand.

I want to start by acknowledging that the movie ‘Unbroken’ based on Laura Hillenbrand’s bestselling biography Unbroken is incredibly inspiring. What pops off the screen is Louie’s grit and courage. His sheer grit alone was awe inspiring — the likes of which not many men could ever hope to exhibit. Jesus tells us to love our enemies and Louie shows us through his brave example of true belief and courage that forgiving your enemies is possible.

Here is a quick summary of the movie before I take a deeper dive with my thoughts.

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January 6, 2015 Filed Under: Life Tagged With: broken, courage, crisis, featured, God, hope, love, story

4 Ways To Begin Living A Worry Free Life

4 Ways To Begin Living A Worry Free Life

Do you get a sense that most people (including you) are worried about something these days?

Some worry about grades in school, job interviews, approaching deadlines, bills and expenses, rising gas prices, insurance costs and endless taxes. Some worry about current events such as; ebola, wars, hurricanes, earthquakes and floods, economy, health care, immigration, NSA surveillance programs, data breaches (Target, iCloud, Home Depot, Chase), unemployment, elections, immigration, fuel prices, riots, nuclear threat, ISIS, world-wide terrorism, rising police state, Israel-Hamas conflict, VA medical care controversy, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, stock markets, wild fires, turmoil in the Ukraine, missing airplanes…I could go on and on!

We all deal with worry in some form and left unchecked, it can become a crippling force in our lives. Worry can keep us from taking risk, from becoming the person God wants us to become, can destroy our ability to build relationships and can have an adverse effect on our bodies.

Some find ways to escape the reality of worry and some move into anxiety. Some of us numb ourselves from our circumstances, some medicate themselves with drugs, alcohol, achievement (this was me), the internet…fill in the blank ______.

Over the span of our lifetime, worrying accounts for hours and hours of invaluable time that you will never get back and it’s just not good for you.

Worry weighs a person down; an encouraging word cheers a person up.

 —Proverbs 12:25 (NLT)

I haven’t perfected being completely worry free, but here are some ways that help me move closer in that direction.

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October 21, 2014 Filed Under: Life Tagged With: courage, crisis, faith, featured, God

Can’t Change Your Thinking? 2 Ways We Can Learn How From RoboCop

Can’t Change Your Thinking? 2 Ways We Can Learn How From RoboCop

Recently saw the new reboot of RoboCop with my son. Underneath the very cool special effects I noticed that there was a powerful theme emerging. This theme was was also in the original RoboCop.

The ability to change your thinking. The power of choice!

If you haven’t seen the move yet or need a refresher, here is the basic story line:

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February 25, 2014 Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With: courage, crisis, family, God, identity, leadership, relationship

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Favorite Quotes

No Reserves. No Retreats. No Regrets. -William Borden

Cool Scripture

Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, without walls. -Proverbs 25: 28

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