Faith, Foundations for Eternity, Ministering, Personal Improvement

Ocean of Abundance

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Giving taps into the spiritual dimension that multiplies us, our thinking, and our results. There is an ocean of abundance and one can tap into it with a teaspoon, a bucket, or a tractor trailer. The ocean doesn’t care. — Mark Victor Hansen and Robert Allen Each day we have the opportunity to make the world a better place. You can find ways to reach out and lift and care for others. You can help make someone’s life better. You can be a powerful force for good. So often the news and other media focus only on the bad in…

Children & Youth, Foundations for Eternity, Personal Improvement

Garbage In, Garbage Out

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Your input determines your outlook, your outlook determines your output, and your output determines your future. — Zig Ziglar In computer science and data science there is a concept known by the acronym GIGO. This stands for Garbage In, Garbage Out. What this means is that when you are processing data or other inputs, if your input and data is garbage, your output will also be garbage. While this concept is used a lot for computing, it can also be seen elsewhere in our lives. We can see this concept in our health. If you regularly eat healthy food, you…

Children & Youth, Faith, Foundations for Eternity, Testimony

Everything Happens For You

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Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. — Byron Katie Life is a stream of experiences. Each day we encounter challenges and blessings, joys and sorrows, and excitement and frustration. Sometimes the experiences we have are thing we desire. We seek them and hope to increase how often they occur. At other times, the experiences that come our way are really challenging and are not what we would choose for ourselves. Generally, we dread these experiences and try to avoid them. We do not always get to choose the type of experiences we have. We usually don’t…

Faith, Foundations for Eternity, Personal Improvement

Skill vs Ability

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Steel can be any shape you want if you are skilled enough, and any shape but the one you want if you are not. — Robert Pirsig Have you ever considered the difference between skill and ability? Too often we confuse the two. We try something new and find that we are terrible at it. Often we then tell ourselves that we are just not good at that task. We make a judgement call about our ability. However, in such situations, it is not our ability that is lacking but our skill. When trying something new, we should not expect…

Foundations for Eternity, Parables, Personal Improvement

Chasing Your True Self

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When I was fifteen years old, I had a very important person in my life come to me and say, “Who’s your hero?” And I said… “You know who it is? It’s me in ten years.” So I turned twenty-five. Ten years later, that same person comes to me and says, “So, are you a hero?” And I was like, “Not even close! No, no, no.” She said, “Why?” I said, “Because my hero’s me at thirty-five.” So you see, every day, every week, every month, and every year of my life, my hero’s always ten years away. I’m never…

Faith, Foundations for Eternity, Ministering

You Glasses

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We see the world, not as it is, but as we are. — Stephen Covey Have you ever heard the expression “Viewing the world through rose colored glasses”? This phrase is often used to signify someone who is only looking at the good in the world, while ignoring the bad. It implies that someone is being naive. Because of this, “viewing the world through rose colored glasses” is usually seen as a bad thing, but the premise it expresses can teach us a valuable lesson. The lesson this phrase carries is that we can choose how we perceive the world…

Atonement, Faith, Foundations for Eternity, Repentance

The Law of Inertia

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Our faith increases as we choose to believe rather than doubt, forgive rather than judge, repent rather than rebel. — Lisa L. Harkness I have always been fascinated by the relationships between natural laws and spiritual laws. One such relationship I find very insightful is the Law of Inertia or Newton’s First Law of Motion. The Law of Inertia states that an object will stay in its current state unless acted upon by external forces. A billiard ball remains stationary until it collides with another ball. A speeding car will continue moving until the driver applies the brakes. When something…

Foundations for Eternity, Personal Improvement, Testimony

What Do You Stand For?

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Decide what you stand for. And then stand for it all the time. — Clayton M. Christensen Indecision. We all feel it at times. And it can undermine our best intentions. You want to get healthy… but the cookies in the pantry are calling your name. You want to achieve that goal… but Netflix is calling your name. You want to be honest… but can gain a huge advantage with only a little, white lie. You want to follow Jesus’ example… but someone treats you unfairly. Too often, our best intentions are thwarted by our indecision. When we fail to…

Children & Youth, Faith, Foundations for Eternity, Personal Improvement

Path of Least Resistance?

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We are kept from our goals not by obstacles, but by a clear path to lesser goals. — Robert Brault You and every other person you meet has more potential than you can possibly imagine. Despite this vast potential, many people settle for lives of mediocrity. Why? This is not because everyone is lazy and unmotivated. I believe most people are desire to have a better future and are motivated to try and achieve their potential. You can see this in the popularity of fad diets, plastic surgery, gym memberships (especially in January when everyone is excited about their New…

Foundations for Eternity, Personal Improvement

Spinning Wheels

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One of the very worst uses of time is to do something very well that need not be done at all. — Brian Tracy Like many young kids in the 80’s and 90’s, I remember spending time reading through the Guinness Book of World Records. It was always fun to flip through its pages and see the many bizarre and crazy world records. The Tallest Man (Robert Wadlow at 272 cm), The Smallest Horse (Bombel at 56.7 cm), Longest fingernails (Shridhar Chillal at 909.6 cm), and many, many more. For many of these records, it was fascinating to see the…