Do Not Leave Your Bag Unattended

Have you ever planned a trip and it didn’t go as expected? You took things with you that you didn’t need or even use. Before 911 we were asked at the airport, “Did you pack your own bag?”

In the journey of our lives our parents or ourselves, not terrorists, have helped pack our bags for us with things we definitely didn’t need. Our bags became too heavy. If your suitcase is too heavy at the airport you’re going to pay more fees.

We used to hear "Do not leave your bag unattended.” You and I can benefit from attending to our bag and seeing how we can pack lighter so we have a more enjoyable trip.

When Israel went on their long Exodus trip they took some excess baggage with them as well. The Bible says the mixed multitude (the Egyptians who saw the miracles) went with them along with their beliefs and idols. At that time Israel had yet to receive any written revelation from God, but they had heard the stories about their forefathers all their lives.

They took their difficult experience of 400 years of slavery that impacted their perception of who God was and their expectation of what their journey would be like. A land flowing with milk and honey.

God told Israel, 'I will be your God and you will be my people and I will lead you and provide for you along the way, you just got to trust me.' (Ex.6:2-5). It was not just on this trip alone that the Israelis got involved in things that got them stuck on their journey.

Over the millennia Israel has had a long history of following other lovers and the allurement of alternatives to Gods’ way and it’s no different for us. We have the same human tendency to follow our own way.

Like Israel, there’s a time in all of our lives when we must learn to let go of loved ones, our possessions, our own expectations, or the control of people, places, and things. I’m afraid that too much of the time our lives are about what we want when we want it and how we want it. Israel desperately needed to let go of Egypt's false security. Their constant favorite theme song was, “I want to go back to Egypt,” even though God delivered them from bondage. Go figure.

Like the Israelis have you ever thought, “I’m tired of wandering around and waiting for my inheritance. How long oh Lord must I wait for that some kind of wonderful person or thing to come into my life?”We are constantly being told about a lot of things that just aren’t so, like this smoking ad.

It would help us to accurately understand what letting go means. Letting go doesn’t mean that we forget, ignore or deny that our past trauma or relationship didn’t matter and we can simply move on.

None of us are absolutely free from our past. While we cannot change the past we can experience freedom in the way we respond to it.

Your future can be better than your past.
Like the Israelis, we need to know that letting go is accepting your circumstance and your part in it, no matter how unfair. God intended the Israelis to go the long route to the Promised Land and not the seemingly easier route along the Mediterranean Sea, but just not for forty years. They got themselves into that mess.

Letting go is learning how to let go of your past relationship or if it’s ongoing, not controlling the other person. That’s hard even with the best intentions. Although we should not give disproportionate power to our past the past is not our enemy.

Understanding and acknowledging our past is not a meaningless exercise. While we can’t change the past, but we can learn from it. Like it or not our past can become our identity inventory. It can be good or bad. God asked the Israelis to REMEMBER their past in the celebration of the Passover feast every year for thousands of years.

Being aware of the dynamics of a broken relationship is one thing, but understanding what our part was in a broken relationship is never easy, but extremely helpful for our future relationships. Your past doesn’t need to be a ball n' chain. Don't let it be, it gets heavy and is not very attractive.

Join us next time for part two of this blog as we explore three impacting relational dynamics that can help us have the best possible relationships. Your comments are welcome and appreciated.

Repacking To Improve Your Relationship

In the last blog we began letting go of some stuff in our travel bag so we can travel lighter. Letting go is not easy, it’s difficult. It’s a hassle to go through our bag, especially on-site at the airport counter. We can be more prepared. 

We need to know how to unpack and repack pack more wisely for our trip. Yes, while less is more, we don’t want to miss packing three important items for our life journey.

Three Impacting Relational Dynamics to Help You on Your Trip
1. Understand what happened in the relationship In order for you to move on and develop healthy relationships you need to look back and understand what happened to contribute to a broken relationship. This is the part of your journey where you’ll have to be extremely honest with yourself. It will do you no good to blame someone else.

You need to clearly understand the dynamic you and your significant other created together or that you brought with you and clearly trace the threads of the events that led to the shipwreck. Do some self- inventory.

2. Understand the truth about yourself
This truth is important because it builds on the previous dynamic. Jonathon Edwards, one of America’s most brilliant minds said, “Of all kinds of knowledge that we can ever obtain, the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves are the most important.” 

The positive result of knowing the truth about ourselves is that it can free us to start over no matter how bleak it is. When we honestly look inside our hearts there are things we are not pleased with. This could be depressing if we stopped here. But God is good and desires to redeem our choices

We all have blind spots. How often do we hear, mistakes were made, but not by me?  Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” It’s not that many don’t have the time to examine their lives, they just avoid it.

In contrast, people who do examine their lives and think about where they’ve been, how they got there, and where they’re going, will be more prepared for life’s journey. No one has all the answers and no one’s life is free from trouble and strife. Yet, those who know who where they came from (created in God’s image), who they belong to and why they’re here are in a very fertile place to grow. 

So, how about you? If you apply these dynamics you’ll all be better off and those around you will appreciate it. What is it that I could be holding on to? A failed relationship, poor choices, or hurtful words I’ve spoken? Thank God we can know God’s assurance of His forgiveness. I John 1:9

3. Understand Your Unrealistic Expectations

Israel wanted ‘the land flowing with milk and honey’ as God promised, but just not the way He was going about it. They didn’t want to wait for His timing. Could that be true with US? We just want to inherit the land, we want the territory that God said we have coming to us, the fertile ground and all that comes with it.

Many think they have a relationship coming to them that they deserve. Now let’s pretend that you have some particular qualities you want in a significant other. According to a poll of thousands of American single adults the top five qualities were:  1) physical appearance 2) honesty 3) character 4) personality 5) sense of humor

So you have a list of what you hope to find in a relationship… Now, take that list and make it a mirror and not a microscope. May it not be a list of a potential mate, but a standard for you to become. Become your list. Be honest, who do you want to become?  

We all want to experience love, but unfortunately when we don’t fully grasp our need for God’s love we look for love everywhere else and ignore loving others. If I have the perspective of, “God bless my desire to have that kind of person in my top 5,” I put on the ball and chain again…

Now, go lighten your bag and look into the mirror and be the person you want someone else to be for you. Most importantly, be the person God wants you to be!

Leaving Your Bag Unattended

On a recent vacation my bag was over the limit so I removed a few things to not be charged and I was on to my destination. Before 911 we were asked at the airport, “Did you pack your own bag?” Well, in the longer journey of our lives there have people who have packed our bag for us, not terrorists, but our parents or ourselves with things we definitely didn’t need. Our bags became too heavy.

If your bag is too heavy at the airport you’re going to pay more fees and you don't want that, unless it’s Southwest. In airports today we hear the repeated announcement, “Do not leave your bag unattended.” You and I can benefit from attending to our bag and seeing how we can pack lighter so we have a more enjoyable trip.

Have you ever planned a trip and it didn’t go as expected? You took things with you that you didn’t need or even use. When Israel went on their long Exodus they took some excess baggage with them as well. The Bible says the mixed multitude (the Egyptians who saw the miracles) went with them along with their beliefs and idols.

At that time Israel had yet to receive any written revelation from God, but they had heard the stories about their forefathers all their lives. They also took with them their background of 400 years of slavery. Their family history impacted their perception of who God was and their expectation of what their journey would be like.  A land flowing with milk and honey…

God told Israel through Moses that I will be your God and you will be my people and I will lead you and provide for you along the way, you just got to trust me. (Ex.6:2-5)

It was not just on this trip alone that the Israelis got involved in things that got them stuck on their journey. Over the millennia Israel has had a long history of following after other lovers… idolatry and the allurement of alternatives to Gods’ way and it’s no different with us. We have the same human tendency to follow our own way. My way is Yahweh’s…

Like Israel, there’s a time in all of our lives when we must learn to let go of loved ones, possessions, of our own expectations or control of people, places and things. I’m afraid that too much of the time our lives are about what we want, when we want it and how we want it. Israel desperately needed to let go of the past influence of Egypt and its’ false security. Their constant and favorite theme song was, “I want to go back to Egypt,” even though God delivered them from bondage.

Like the Israelis have you ever thought, “I’m tired of wandering around and waiting for my inheritance. “How long oh Lord must I wait for that some kind of wonderful person or thing to come into my life?”

We are constantly being told about a lot of things that just aren’t so. Look at this smoking add. 

Things that just aren’t so includes some of the bad advice we hear about letting go in life. Jay Leno once asked a man on the street, “Can you name one of the Ten Commandments?”  The man replied, “Freedom of speech.”

It would help us to accurately understand what letting go means. Letting go doesn’t mean that we forget, ignore or deny that our past trauma or relationship didn’t matter and we can simply move on. None of us are absolutely free from our past. 

While we cannot change the past we can experience freedom in the way we respond to it. You can have a new perspective. 

Your future can be better than your past.
Like the Israelis, we need know that letting go includes accepting your circumstance and your part in it, no matter how unfair or how much you don’t like it. God intended the Israelis to go the long route to the Promised Land and not the seemingly easier route along the Mediterranean Sea, but just not for forty years.

They got themselves into that mess. Letting go is learning how to let go of a past relationship or if it’s ongoing, not controlling the other person.  That’s hard even with the best intentions.Although we should not give a “disproportionate power to our past” the past is not our enemy. Understanding and acknowledging our past is not a meaningless exercise. 

Some say the past is in the past. While we can’t change the past we can learn from it. Like it or not our past becomes part of our identity inventory. God asked the Israelis to REMEMBER what they were delivered from in the celebrating of the Passover feast every year for thousands of years.

Being aware of the dynamics of a broken relationship is one thing, but understanding what our part was in a broken relationship is never easy, but extremely helpful for our future relationships. Your past doesn’t need to be a ball n' chain. Don't let it be, it gets heavy and is not very attractive.

Join us next time for part two of this blog as we explore three impacting relational dynamics that can help us have the best possible relationships. Your comments are welcome and appreciated.

With Hope,

Mark

What does it mean to be happy? Experts disagree

The article’s title in the in - flight magazine caught my eye, ‘What does it mean to be happy? Experts Disagree. ‘After a list of several definitions, the summary was - my-happiness-is-better-than-your-happiness… Like everything else, our culture has turned happiness into some sort of an achievement, a contest, like a beauty pageant. Be bigger, smarter, faster, and better looking.

In today’s age of entitlement many are mistaken to think that all social problems, economic insecurity, poverty, racism and even their own discomfort will end today or tomorrow. Many have come to expect that their lives should have less discomfort. We’ve bought into the conventional wisdom that happiness comes from something we do. We do this, we do that, we go here, we go there, and we just “do it.”

Maybe happiness comes from having more or having ‘the’ vacation in that special place? Or being in the right place with the right person at just the right time?

Yet, millions of Americans confess that in the midst of their pursuit of happiness they have not experienced it. Are we chasing something unattainable?

While I was in Uganda the locals told me,'you Americans measure your happiness by what you do and have, we measure our happiness by the friends we have. Sharing a meal or taking a walk is enough for us'  In contrast many don’t know how much enough is. Charles Dickens said, “Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”

What if we had nothing to prove or no score to settle and no one to impress?  What if our happiness did not come from power, or the need to dominate or defeat, but from mutual respect grounded in God’s love?

Could happiness be found in the simpler things in life that we might take for granted? Like a breathtaking sunrise or sunset, a song, a conversation or the smell after a spring rain or a tear from a good movie, or a smile from a stranger.

Are we able to say with the apostle Paul, “…for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. Philippians 4:11  

This all begs a question. How can we train our eye to see and appreciate the simpler things in life and thereby discover joy and contentment? Is there is a spiritual discipline to practice or another book to read?

Maybe it’s as simple as asking yourself each day, what am I grateful for today? How did I enjoy today or what surprised me today? Perhaps ask someone else those questions rather than the typical how are you? We can all say thank you to God for ____________ far more often. Try it you might like it.

Sometimes with gratitude you just have to accept life as it is and are grateful for what you have. “He is a wise man who does not grieve over the things he has not, but rejoices for those which He has” Epictetus

In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy. Brother David Steindl-Rast

Mark

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

A New Self Perception
Some who are just too big on themselves like the queen in Snow White who daily asked, “mirror, mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all?” The mirror responds:"My Queen, you are the fairest in all the land." The Queen was always pleased with that, because the magic mirror never lied.

But, when Snow White reached the age of seven, she becomes as beautiful as the day and even more beautiful than the Queen and when the Queen asks her mirror again it responds: "My Queen, you are the fairest here so true. But Snow White is a thousand times more beautiful than you."

This blows the queen away and she become angry with envy and from that hour her heart turns against Snow White, and with every following day she hates Snow White more and more. Some of us can learn much from the queen.

Envy and jealousy causes so much unnecessary crash and burn. It has been said that comparison is the root of all inferiority. The Apostle Paul responded to those who said he was inferior to them,
“Oh, don’t worry; we wouldn’t dare say that we are as wonderful as these other men who tell you how important they are! But they are only comparing themselves with each other, using themselves as the standard of measurement. How ignorant!” 2 Corinthians 10:12

We’re bombarded daily with messages that we need to be more attractive, more wealthy, more…
Get this, you’re not in competition with anyone else in the world, unless you want to be.

In contrast some have deflated view of themselves. They’ve been hurt and mistreated and have some painful tearful pages to their story along the way. Their sorrows have turned into frost. Maybe you’ve been used, abused, not appreciated and you feel like a no count. Perhaps the enemy has convinced you you’re not so special, that you don’t matter, that your story can’t be redeemed.

You might think that your days or years have been wasted, littered with disappointment or decorated with trivial pursuits of your past. Yet, Peter tells us, “For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.1 Peter 1:18-19

Your life doesn’t have to stay the same. Take a giant step and learn to live, laugh and love gain! Your future can be better than your past

Is your view of yourself accurate? The way you see yourself impacts your daily disposition. It’s reflected in the things you do, buy and the decisions you make. If you think you don’t matter it will impact all of your  relationships?

If you’re preoccupied with your own trauma and drama you might not realize it, but you’ll have a tendency not to care about others as much as you could because you’re so caught up with your own pain. If so, you need a teacher like the one described in the Whisper Book.

A little girl who was born with a cleft palette was constantly asked at school, “What happened to your lip?” rather than say she was born that way her embarrassed response was, “I broke it on some glass,” One day her class had a whisper test which was the way schools tested kid’s hearing many years ago. The student would stand in the back of the room and the teacher would whisper something from the front of the room and the child would repeat the phrase like – “the sky is blue or I see you have red shoes.”

Years later the little girl recalled, “I’ll never forget the seven words that my teacher whispered that day that changed my life forever when she said, I wish you were my little girl!”

We want so much for someone to say something like that to us don’t we? Well, God does. He can melt your heart again so you can really love. Love that can change things.
 

We all need to hear words like that from God Himself. God whispers to you and I and says you are my little girl or boy, you are MINE! Don’t you know I love you? I stretched out my arms and showed you.

To read the previous blog from this series click here. Join us for next life changing truth that can bring lasting freedom to your life.

Shalom,

Mark

mark@startingoverworkshops.com

Repacking Your Bag

In the last blog we began letting go of some stuff in our travel bag so we can travel lighter. Letting go is not easy, it’s difficult. It’s a hassle to go through our bag, especially on-site at the airport counter. We can be more prepared.

We need to know how to unpack and repack pack more wisely for our trip. Yes, while less is more, we don’t want to miss packing three important items for our life journey.

Three Impacting Relational Dynamics to Help You on Your Trip
1. Understand what happened in the relationship In order for you to move on and develop healthy relationships you need to look back and understand what happened to contribute to a broken relationship. This is the part of your journey where you’ll have to be extremely honest with yourself. It will do you no good to blame someone else.

You need to clearly understand the dynamic you and your significant other created together or that you brought with you and clearly trace the threads of the events that led to the shipwreck. Do some self inventory.

2. Understand the truth about yourself

This truth is important because it builds on the previous dynamic. Jonathon Edwards, one of America’s most brilliant minds said, “Of all kinds of knowledge that we can ever obtain, the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves are the most important.” 

The positive result of knowing the truth about ourselves is that it can free us to start over no matter how bleak it is. When we honestly look inside our hearts there are things we are not pleased with. This could be depressing if we stopped here.

But God is good and desires to redeem our choices

We all have blind spots. How often do we hear, mistakes were made, but not by me?  Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” It’s not that many don’t have the time to examine their lives, they just avoid it.

In contrast, people who do examine their lives and think about where they’ve been, how they got there, and where they’re going, will be more prepared for life’s journey. No one has all the answers and no one’s life is free from trouble and strife. Yet, those who know who where they came from (created in God’s image), who they belong to and why they’re here are in a very fertile place to grow.

So, how about you? If you apply these dynamics you’ll all be better off and those around you will appreciate it. What is it that I could be holding on to? A failed relationship, poor choices, or hurtful words I’ve spoken? Thank God we can know God’s assurance of His forgiveness. I John 1:9

3. Understand Your Unrealistic Expectations

Israel wanted ‘the land flowing with milk and honey’ as God promised, but just not the way He was going about it. They didn’t want to wait for His timing. Could that be true with US? We just want to inherit the land, we want the territory that God said we have coming to us, the fertile ground and all that comes with it.

Many think they have a relationship coming to them that they deserve. Now let’s pretend that you have some particular qualities you want in a significant other. According to a poll of thousands of American single adults the top five qualities were:

1) physical appearance 2) honesty 3) character 4) personality 5) sense of humor

So you have a list of what you hope to find in a relationship… Now, take that list and make it a mirror and not a microscope. May it not be a list of a potential mate, but a standard for you to become. Become your list. Be honest, who do you want to become? 

We all want to experience love, but unfortunately when we don’t fully grasp our need for God’s love we look for love everywhere else and ignore loving others. If I have the perspective of, “God bless my desire to have that kind of person in my top 5,” I put on the ball and chain again…

Now, go lighten your bag and look into the mirror and be the person you want someone else to be for you. Most importantly, be the person God wants you to be!

Join us for the continuation of this series and experience the lasting freedom by living according to four truths.

Traveling Lighter,

Mark
mark@startingoverworkshops.com

Do Not Leave Your Bag Unattended

Have you ever planned a trip and it didn’t go as expected? You took things with you that you didn’t need or even use. Before 911 we were asked at the airport, “Did you pack your own bag?” Well, in the longer journey of our lives there have people who have packed our bag for us, not terrorists, but our parents or ourselves with things we definitely didn’t need. Our bags became too heavy. If your suitcase is too heavy at the airport you’re going to pay more fees and You don't want that.

In some airports you can still hear the repeated announcement, “Do not leave your bag unattended.” You and I can benefit from attending to our bag and seeing how we can pack lighter so we have a more enjoyable trip.

When Israel went on their long Exodus trip they took some excess baggage with them as well. The Bible says the mixed multitude (the Egyptians who saw the miracles) went with them along with their beliefs and idols about their various gods. At that time Israel had yet to receive any written revelation from God, but they had heard the stories about their forefathers all their lives. They took their difficult experiences of 400 years of slavery that had impacted their perception of who God was and their expectation of what their journey would be like.  A land flowing with milk and honey…

God told Israel through Moses that I will be your God and you will be my people and I will lead you and provide for you along the way, you just got to trust me. (Ex.6:2-5)It was not just on this trip alone that the Israelis got involved in things that got them stuck on their journey. Over the millennia Israel had had a long history of following after other lovers… idolatry and the allurement of alternatives to Gods’ way and it’s no different for us. We have the same human tendency to follow our own way. My way is Yahweh’s…

Like Israel, there’s a time in all of our lives when we must learn to let go of loved ones, possessions, of our own expectations or control of people, places and things. I’m afraid that too much of the time our lives are about what we want, when we want it and how we want it. Israel desperately needed to let go of the past influence of Egypt and its’ false security. Their constant and favorite theme song was, “I want to go back to Egypt,” even though God delivered them from bondage.

Like the Israelis have you ever thought, “I’m tired of wandering around and waiting for my inheritance. “How long oh Lord must I wait for that some kind of wonderful person or thing to come into my life?”

We are constantly being told about a lot of things that just aren’t so. Look at this smoking add.  Things that just aren’t so includes some of the bad advice we hear about letting go in life. Jay Leno asked a man on the street, “Can you name one of the Ten Commandments?” The man replied, “Freedom of speech.”

It would help us to accurately understand what letting go means. Letting go doesn’t mean that we forget, ignore or deny that our past trauma or relationship didn’t matter and we can simply move on. None of us are absolutely free from our past. While we cannot change the past we can experience freedom in the way we respond to it. 

We can develop a new perspective. Your future can be better than your past.Like the Israelis, we need know that letting go includes accepting your circumstance and your part in it, no matter how unfair or how much you don’t like it. God intended the Israelis to go the long route to the Promised Land and not the seemingly easier route along the Mediterranean Sea, but just not for forty years. They got themselves into that mess. Letting go is learning how to let go of your past relationship or if it’s ongoing, not controlling the other person.  That’s hard even with the best intentions.

Although we should not give a “disproportionate power to our past” the past is not our enemy. Understanding and acknowledging our past is not a meaningless exercise. Some say the past is the past. While we can’t change the past we can learn from it. Like it or not our past becomes part of our identity inventory. God asked the Israelis to REMEMBER their past in the celebration of the Passover feast every year for thousands of years.

Being aware of the dynamics of a broken relationship is one thing, but understanding what our part was in a broken relationship is never easy, but extremely helpful for our future relationships.  Your past doesn’t need to be a ball and chain. Don't let it be, it gets heavy and is not very attractive.

Join us next time for part two of this blog as we explore three impacting relational dynamics that can help us have the best possible relationships. Your comments are welcome and appreciated.

With Hope,

Mark

mark@startingoverworkshops.com