Help me, Lord!

Help me, Lord. Help me to be the person that you want me to be and to know who and what that person is. Help me to be a blessing to others and to care about others as you do. Help me to know you more, to really know you Lord. Help me to hear you and to know what you're saying to me. Help me to love the way that you do. Help me to see you in others and to treat others with compassion. Help me to treat myself as you would treat me. Help me to listen to others and care about what they care about. Help me to forget myself. Lord, help me to think like you think. Lord, help it to be second nature to know your thoughts. Help me to be like Christ.

The stars in the sky, the awesome sunrise, is nothing compared to your masterpiece creation. Your masterpiece is people and your work is wonderful. Help me to see your masterpiece the way you do.

Help me, Lord to act on my belief and to trust you for the outcome. In times of doubt and despair, help me to know that you really care. Help me to be, Lord, all that I can be, a blessing from you to all who will receive it. I surrender to you, Lord, and give you permission right here and now to change anything about me that you want. I know that without you I'm nothing and I'm not able to change anything on my own. Help me to hear your still small voice and in all of my ways bring glory to you. Help me to pass on what you've taught me, oh Lord, to my kids, family, and all that are yours. So that when I get to see you, I hear you say, "Well done, my good and faithful servant. Come here to stay."

Dear Lord, I ask that you will bless everyone that reads this today in a very special way, that they would feel as if you reached down and scooped them up and gave them a great, big bear hug.

Pushing With Excellence,

Keith

What Motivates You?

Last week I blogged about stewardship in my life. I have been thinking a lot about what motivates me to be a good steward in all areas of  my life. The first thing that I looked at was the end result. What do I want to be known for? As a Christian I have a two-fold goal to be Christ-like and to bring glory to God. Those are the two main things I'm shooting or striving for. These are why I want to do better and better. Being a good steward is the "how to". If these are my ultimate goals, then I should have plenty of motivation to do better and since I'll never be perfect I'll always have room for improvement in every area of my life.

Romans 14:5-8 talks about doing things as unto the Lord. This also should help me to become more motivated in every little detail of my life. If I'm working as unto the Lord, then, no matter if I like my job or not, my attitude should be good. If I'm eating as unto the Lord, then I probably shouldn't be stuffing my face with a bunch of unhealthy stuff. What about negative thinking? Can I do this as unto the Lord? I highly doubt it. They just don't go together. How can I be Christ-like and bring  glory to God unless I do things as  unto the Lord? So ask yourself, "am I doing the absolute best as unto the Lord? Is this how I would act if he were standing by me right now?" He is.

Pushing towards Excellence,

Keith

What Motivates you to Excellence?

I want to write about stewardship a little bit. Not just in the sense that its generally talked about, which is traditionally money, but how stewardship should play a vital role in all aspects of my life. Yours also, if you dare to go there.

How does stewardship look in other areas of my life? It goes back to what Jesus says in Luke 6:38. "Give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you." What does that mean to me? It means you truly do reap what you sow and how you sow you get to receive it back. How does that relate to stewardship? It means if I strive toward excellence in my life, I will get back the same. If I put good effort into my marriage, it will come back. If I put good effort into watching what I eat, I can be slim. If I push myself physically, I get to be fit. If I put time into relationship building I get friends and I get a great return for the effort and excellence that I put in.

What would happen if I put time and effort into my relationship with my kids? What would happen if I put time and effort into my relationship with God? What kind of rewards would I receive? This is worth trying just to see. What if I put energy into learning about all the areas of my life? What if I put time and energy into refining what I do know and started doing the things that I do know better and better? Would that pay? I believe that it will.

"The enemy of good stewardship is mediocrity. The beginning of mediocrity is pride."

 

Pushing towards Excellence,

Keith

Fake it till you make it

Now that I had a sponsor or mentor and a written inventory, I
was entirely ready to have God remove these defects of character. After sharing
my liabilities and assets with God and someone else, I saw some patterns in my
thinking which caused me to act a certain way.

My beliefs about things, whether true or not, decided the
action I would take which could either be good or bad depending on the
situation. One thing I found out was that I couldn't change anything by myself.
It was similar to when I realized that I was powerless. It was as if I had no
power no matter how much I wished I did. I could quit doing some things, but I couldn't do it all. Here I was supposed to be entirely ready to have God remove these defects of character. I had asked him to, but he didn't and I kept doing the
same things over and over again wishing that I wouldn't. Some days it seemed
that God would indeed remove them. But other days, I failed miserably. God
could remove them but was there something I could do? I believe there is.

The only way to have real lasting change is to change your
thinking. I could act as if God had already answered my prayers. Isn't that
real faith? Fake it till you make it. Act as if that defect of character has
been removed by concentrating on doing the opposite. For example, if I believe
that God has removed fear then I will practice trust. If I struggle with
selfishness then I will practice thinking of others. If I struggle with pride,
then I will practice unconditional love.

"Fake it till you make it" is faith in action.

Pushing towards excellence.

Keith

The Scariest Place to Be

My mind is a dangerous neighborhood, I shouldn't go in there alone.

Step 5 in AA is admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. For this step we will need a sponsor or a spiritual advisor to talk to. When it comes to revealing yourself totally to someone else that can seem pretty frightening. It was for me, but I knew if I didn't do it I would drink again. The thing is, if I would have let myself off the hook, I believe I would have suffered the consequences of half-hearted efforts. You truly reap what you sow and this way is difficult sometimes. But I believe it to be the easier, softer way when you compare it to the way I was living before.

When I forced myself to open up, my sponsor was kind and loving and forgiving. I thought he might think lesser of me because of my past, but he wasn't judgmental and he shared with me some of his experiences from the past. When I left I felt like a ton of weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. I think that sharing things about my life was a test from God just to see if I was really willing to do whatever it took to be sober. When it was over, I had the same feeling you feel when you ace a test.

Pushing Towards Excellence

Keith

Weird But Wise

How do you pick someone to be a sponsor, discipler, or mentor? First, I would say you want to pick someone you want to be like and someone that is more spiritually mature than you. When I first got sober I picked a guy that laughed a lot because I wanted to have fun. I didn't think I could be sober and have fun at the same time. Over time, distance, from moving, forced me to find someone else. That is good though, because it stretches you even further. One person can only take you so far so you need others to come into your life and push you to greater and greater things.

My sponsor used to say weird things to me. One time when I was having a problem with a co-worker he told me, Keith, I want you to go out of your way to be nice to her and help her out. Another time he told me, Keith, for one month nobody's wrong; even if they're wrong, they're not wrong. He also told me things like, you can't think your way into right living. You have to act your way into right thinking. Action, action, action. Go through the motion, the emotion will follow. He also told me happiness is a by-product of good living.

Weird but wise.

Keith
Pushing Toward Excellence

P.S. Pray for the tsunami victims and for Japan.

The Sharpening

I would like to write about accountability. Why is it important? There was a study done on horses. One horse by himself could pull 2,500 pounds. They repeated the test with two horses and together they were able to pull 12,500 pounds. That’s five times as much as by themselves. I think the same holds true for people. Not by strapping them to a weight, but by strapping them together by accountability.

I know if I talk to someone about a problem I’m having, for some reason I’m able to think a little clearer. Especially when that problem rises again. It is easier to let go and not do the wrong thing if I know I’m going to have to tell someone about it.

What if you knew a person was going to specifically ask you about a character defect or ask how you were doing on being kind, loving, and generous? Don’t you think that has the possibility to change the way you act? Proverbs 27:17 says that as iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another. This is true. Although it might seem scary to share some or all of your innermost thoughts with someone, it will help you to become the man or woman that God wants you to be and it happens a lot faster than trying to do it on your own. A problem shared is a problem cut in half.

Pushing towards excellence.

Keith