Ask the Minion

Hello Everyone,

Last week, through Facebook, I asked you to send me questions you wanted me to answer.  Here are the questions and the answers.

BC - Will you ever be a master mind like me? - I don't know.  Mastering my mind seems like a lot of work.

AS - Minion are you sweet & do you want to be friends? - Thank you AS.  I really appreciate it.  I have  a separate FB page called Tom Minion and we can be friends on FB that way.

KS - Will you make a show wit the minions? - I don't know.  I'm not associated with Despicable Me.

KT - Who's your best friend? - That's a difficult question to answer because I have so many close friends.  When something goes right or wrong in my life, the person I want to talk with is DC.  She's a great lady.

NR - How do you say, "I love you," in Minion - I typically just say, "I love you."  I speak English and there are just times when the English language is not adequate though.

JT - Why don't you work for me? - God has called me to do something else I guess.

KL - Minion when is my birthday? - I don't know.

CN - Am I a ninja? -  I don't know.

DC - What funny things can you do? - I can wiggle my ears.

JV - Will you be my Valentine?  I'm lonely.  - While I appreciate the offer, I can't.  I promised that to someone else.

JF - What is the Minion's favorite food? - I really don't have a favorite.  I like almost everything.

MY - What came first the chicken or the egg? - I'm going to guess at this one.  When God presented Adam with the animals to name, they obviously looked different enough for Adam to see something so I'm going to say the chicken.

JG - Why are you called a "minion" and what is your name? - My name is Tom Oswald.  I named this blog the Opinion of the Minion because of something funny a friend of mine said in Houston, TX last year.

LMJ - Why does the world spin? - I think I knew the answer to this question once upon a time but I forgot.

BH - Is it annoying for everyone to ask about the minions and not about the read idea of this? - Good question.  No, it doesn't really annoy me.  Everyone needs a place to be heard and if my Facebook page helps then great.  I think I have helped some people (at least I hope so) through it so it is OK with me.

DG - You you prefer candy or cookies? - Cookies.  Peanut butter chocolate chip ones are awesome.

RA - Where do you come from? - Fort Worth, Texas

AC - What is my question? - That's funny.

WH - What is the best way to help somebody? - That's a good question without a good answer because it all depends on the person and what they need.  I would start with listening to them and at least giving them someone who will do that.  After you understand their problem, ask God to show you how to help them.

JK - 1.  Is the idea here to ask "a minion" as in a minion in general or "The Minion" being you? - The idea is to ask me personally questions so I guess that would be "The Minion."  2.  What do you do? - Most of my day, I run a sales company but I am also a lawyer so I do that sometimes as well.

LK - What is the meaning of life? - For me the answer is doing my best to represent God on the earth.  I may not be a very good representation but that's what I try to do.

KC - Why do I love him so much? - I have to answer that question with a question.  What does he do that makes you feel so special?

SP - Why is it that purple can look pink sometimes? - I don't know.

SW - What would you do if you found yourself caught in a room full of balloons and bouncy balls? - I would look for my kids and play with them in the room.  That's probably the only reason I would be caught in it?

MO - Will there be a sequel to Despicable Me?
TC - Do Minion's wear goggles?
NS - Why do minions some only have one eye and are midgets?
YL - Since minions look like Twinkies, are minions edible?
AC - What language do minions speak and are minions ninjas when they are hyper?
CL - Why are you shaped like a bean/ahahaha? You should make little mini movies.
AH - Why do you talk weird and not English?
MM - What language do the minions speak and how do you come up with it?
MC - What do Minions do in their free time? And is there any sort of guide on how to translate Minion into English?
AP - How many of you minions does it take to defeat Superman?
AR - Where do minions live and why are they short and yellow? What language do you speak?
RM - How does Gru understand what you are saying?
KH - How do you say back off in Minion?
BC - Why are minions so short and yellow?
IR - Why are you yellow?
MSG - How many of you are there?
TK - What languages do minions speak?
TS - What is a minion?
CB - Where can I get a minion from they are so freaking cute?
AMB - Why are you so cute?
ZW - How many minions are there all together?
BW - What languages do minions speak?
HM - How do you know who is who and can I rent one out for a birthday party?
KR - How do you say I love you in minion language?
MK - Would you rather have one eye or two?
BJ - Why do you and all your brothers wear the same clothes?
KR - Can I eat you? You look like a Twinkie.
NP - What is ultimate happiness for a minion?
CB - Can I have one of you?
MC - Why do some of you have one eye but some two?
JD - Why aren't you blue?
DG - Will you make mini shows of the minions?
BLB - Why do you look like tator tots/Twinkies?
KW - Are you ever going to make another movie?
BMH - Where do Minions come from?
AC - Are you minions always hyper?
BH - How did there get to be so many of you?
JE - Why are y'all short?
HM - Why do you guys look like tater tots/marshmallows/Twinkies and chicken nuggets?
BF - Are baby minions like miniature?
SR - Why do the minions talk in Spanish?
VM - What language do minions speak?
KC - Why do you minions look like Twinkies in jeans?
KB - Why not eat candy instead of fruit like bananas...skittlz?

The answer to all these questions is, I think, - - I don't know. I'm not associated with Despicable Me. If I misread any of these and you wanted me to answer them, please let me know and I will give it my best shot.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Perfection

Hello Everyone,

Today I want to talk to you about perfection.  Can we ever be perfect?  Many times I have said, "I'm not perfect.  I can't walk on water (I was referring to Jesus who is the only person to ever walk the earth and be perfect)."  I have to change that a little now because you don't have to be perfect to walk on water.  If God needs you to walk on water, He will cause that to happen.  I definitely still believe that he can do miracles today.  They are all around us.

So let's talk about being perfect.  See, I say with my mouth that I am not perfect but I have a very hard time accepting that as a real truth.  It's almost like I say it but I don't really believe it.  How many times do we hold ourselves to standard that we are not capable of achieving?  I have done it many times.  Do you ever get mad at yourself over making a mistake?  How about even worse, do you condemn yourself when you make one?  I normally don't get mad at myself if I make a mistake but I have been know to "enjoy" feeling guilty about making it for several days.  I once had an addiction (no it was not drugs or alcohol or anything illegal) that I could not break.  Now if I gave in to my addiction, I would feel guilty for several days after.  Why?  I guess it was my form of punishment.  Have you ever done that?

Now many of us church people will say that with God, all things are possible.  That's actually very true unless He has already stated something about it in his word.  Did you know it is not possible for you to go through life without facing trouble?  Jesus said that in this life we would have trouble but it's OK because he has overcome the world.  So I can't go around believing that I will not have trouble and saying that all things are possible through God because God already said I would face trouble.  Why am I using this analogy?  Because the same is true when it comes to perfection.  I have seen this in the church but it is prevalent throughout society.  We expect perfection of others.  If the truth be known, I think we do this because secretly we expect perfection out of ourselves.  We know that we aren't perfect and it makes us feel better if we can point out other people's imperfections.

Think about President Clinton for a minute.  I don't want to get into a political discussion but did you know he actually did some good things while he was in office?  All you ever hear about is the sex scandals though.  Why?  Was it wrong for him to do what he did?  Of course.  I'm not suggesting that what he did was OK but guess what it proves.  He wasn't perfect. 

So what am I telling you?  We can't expect perfection out of other people.  Guess what?  You are a people.  If you expect perfection out of yourself you are destined for disappointment.  Now I am not telling you that it is OK to use that as an excuse to do anything you want.  Someone might take this to mean that you should just do what feels good to you because after all you aren't perfect so don't worry about it.  I am not saying that at all.  You should work to do the right thing.  I mentioned earlier that I had a problem with a certain addiction.  Notice the key word - had.  It's not a problem today because God and I worked through it.

What I am telling you is that when you are striving to do the right thing and do your best, there are going to be times when you just mess up.  When you do, it's OK.  Now there are definitely consequences to actions.  If you are a student and forget to turn in a homework assignment, you might get a 0.  If so, then go on.  Next time try to remember to turn your homework assignment.

There may even be addictions that you are struggling with now.  Take those to God and ask for his help.  Now while there are no degrees of sin to God, there are degrees of consequences here on earth.  I over ate for many years.  I was mainly only hurting myself by doing that.  The consequences were bad health and a large food bill, etc.  But if your imperfections hurt someone else, get help.

So let me try to sum this up.  Other than Jesus, no one is perfect.  We can't hold others to a standard of perfection because they will never measure up.  But if no one is perfect, that means you/I will never be perfect either.  So we can't hold ourselves to that standard either.  Just do your best and give God the rest.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Finish What You Start

OK, today I want to talk to you about something I don't see a lot.  Let's talk about finishing what you start. This may not be a real popular blog but I think many times God gives us great ideas and we start on a project.  Then something happens and we can't find the time, energy, etc. to finish the project.  I would love to point a finger at someone else and say that everyone but me is guilty of this but unfortunately if you point one finger at someone there are usually three pointed back at you.

So let's start with a couple of things that I can think of from my own life.

1.  When I was in college at TCU, I was in ROTC.  I thought it was cool to hang out with all these great guys and gals who were in excellent shape and play with guns.  It was like being a kid all over again.  The problem was I couldn't control my weight.  If I had finished the program correctly, I would have been a second lieutenant in the US Army when I graduated.  Pretty cool stuff right.  I think so.  Many of my friends from ROTC did just that and many are still in the Army doing very well.  Who knows what I could have been.  Maybe I could have been the next General Patton.  OK, for all my ROTC buddies, we all know that was probably not going to happen but it could have.  I basically quit the Army ROTC program because I could not control my weight.  Now we will never know what I could have been in the Army because I didn't finish what I started.

2.  I cannot tell you how many times I started to lose weight only to gain it all back plus some within a short time after I started.  Why?  Because I didn't finish changing the way I ate and I went back to where I was or worse.  I could have been much happier but I didn't finish what I started.

3.  I can't tell you how many books I didn't finish reading.  A couple of times I quit reading them because I didn't like the book but many times I simply quit reading them.  I would definitely have been smarter if I had and I need all the smarts I can get.

4.  How many of us have made New Year's resolutions with the best intention of changing something about the way we live only to let things go right back to "normal" within a very short time.  I know I am guilty of this more than once.

5.  Now let me give you a situation that I face right now.  I believe the Lord instructed me to write a book about how He helped me to lose a lot of weight.  This happened several years ago and I did nothing with it for a long time.  Finally in September of last year I started writing the book.  I have a rough draft of the book that I think I finished around November 15th.  Today I e-mailed it to a very special person for her to read.  That was when I noticed the date of the last time I worked on it.  I have let that book lay around for almost two months without ever working on getting an editor, a publisher or anything else.  If I don't do something about this, the book could lay there for ever without me doing anything with it.  That wouldn't be a very good thing.  Why?  Well let me say, I am not sure the book is any good because I wrote it a lot like I write this blog.  But I will tell you this.  The Lord gave me an assignment to write the book and if He gave it to me, He has a reason for it.  What if there is someone who will actually read my book and God uses it to deliver that person from their weight issue?  Let me ask the question a different way.  What if I never do finish the book and someone who God wanted to read it never gets a chance.  What if that person dies because of their weight issue and I could have made a difference in their life?  Let's take it one step farther.  What if that person was not a Christian when they died?  Am I being a little over dramatic?  Maybe but we will never know.  The point is that God gave me an assignment to write a book.  He didn't give me an assignment to start a book.  See God always sees the end of a thing from the beginning.  He is always figuring out how to finish what he starts.  If it's good enough for Him it's more that good enough for me.

Let me begin to wrap this up by telling you about something I used to do at my church.  We used to have a Christian business man's meeting in our church on a regular basis.  Now this organization, the Provision Network, is much more than that but for simplicity sake I will stop there.  At these meetings, I would have any number of people come up to me with great ideas.  They would tell me the Lord told them to do this or that and the vast majority of the ideas sounded like good ones maybe even God ones.  However, these same people would come up to me the next meeting with a completely different idea.  I always wondered why God changed His mind about the first one.  Just so you know, God never changes His mind.  If He told you to do something, He means for you to do it.

I think what happened to them and certainly what happened to me in the examples I gave above is that I came up against a very dirty four letter word - Work.  Remember, the only place that success comes before work is in the dictionary.  I know I should have done a better of job of finishing what I started all those many times and I did not.  I will definitely get back to work on that book.

Let me leave you with this.  Even if you are someone who has never finished anything you thought you should do, one of the coolest things about God is he always has a plan for your life.  So even if you fail at something, don't worry about it, he has another plan.  But in order for us to be successful, we have to actually complete the plan He gives us and it will probably require work but the reward will be well worth it.

That's the Opinion of the Minion

A Golden Opportunity

Today I want to talk to you about Golden Opportnities.  They are not necessarily opportunities to get gold but they could be.  Do you realize how many opportunities you have in front of you everyday?  Many of them probably go unnoticed.  See, sometimes we aren't really looking for the opportunities that God puts in our lives and we miss them.  Many times those opportunites involve doing something for someone else.  But understand this, if God put them in your life He will bless you even though you gave to someone else.  I am sure that I have missed more than I ever want to know about.

Well over the last few days, I realized that I had an opportunity that I took advantage of.  I didn't even know that the opportunity was one until later.  Fortunately, I was able to act on this one.  Now I don't think it was a real big deal to the people involved but most of life isn't about the big deals.  Whether or not you are successful in life is more often than not about how you handle the small deals.  Well on this particular occasion, I got to teach a few people how to fish.

OK, Uncle W, Uncle J, Dad, and everyone else who knows me, you can go ahead and laugh at me now because we all know that I am not a great fisherman.  To be honest, fishing even bores me most of the time.  See I like catching fish, I just don't really like waiting for them to bite.  Now fortunately for me, fishing is in my blood in both my mom's and my dad's family.  I am not very good but I can bait a hook, get the line out in the water and take a fish off of the line when someone catches one.  However, I really don't know much about it other than that.  I don't even know what we caught the other day.  It could have been small mouth bass but I don't have a clue.  The good news is that it bent the poles and everyone had a good time.

So why is this an opportunity from God you ask?  Well, because these three people are very important to me.  I got to impart something good into their lives and I think they really enjoyed it.  Sometimes life can be like a bank, especially with kids.  We have to make withdrawls from the account of their lives in the form of correction when they don't do their homework or when they need to clean their rooms, etc.  These types of withdraws are very important and they certainly are part of helping a child grow into a mature, productive, socially responsible adult.  I am all for them.  But if you don't make deposits into their lives in the form of love, teaching them fun things, spending time with them and just being part of their world, then you will end up overdrawn at the bank.  This is a very bad place to be.  Fortunately for me, I don't have to make any withdrawls from the people I taught to fish but this concept is still very important.  I did get to deposit a fun experience in their lives and I got to learn a little more about each of them in the process.  Here is something else that amazed me.

I had a lot of fun teaching them the very minimal amount that I know about fishing.  It might have been more fun for me than for them.  I did get to teach them about looking behind you before you cast.  It cut's down on the number of times you put a treble hook in your brother's head.  No, I didn't put one in my brother's.  He put one in mine.  But that's a different story.  See when we seize God given opportunities even though they look like giving to someone else God will bless you richly in the process.

Now here is another take away lesson.  I didn't know this was an opportunity at the time.  I was just having a good time hanging out with other people.  Thank you again K for all your hospitality this weekend.  What I did wasn't even anything I thought about.  I was just enjoying myself.  Many times life is like this.  God is putting opportunites into our lives and we don't even realize that these little gifts from Him are there.

God has a million ways to bless you and he sits around everyday thinking up new ones.  If you will look for the opportunities he presents to you each day, he can even make taking out the trash an adventure.  The thing is you have to do the little things to get the big reward.  Like I said, what I did wasn't monumental in anyone's life.  So look around and see where God has given you opportunites to make deposits into other's lives.  You will find that God is making deposits in your life when you do.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Trust

Hello All,

Today I want to talk to you about trust.  For some of us, trusting people can be a very hard thing to do.  If we have been hurt by something or someone, trusting becomes that much more difficult.  Today's blog will not be about trusting someone else.  Today I want to write about something that has been very hard for me until just recently.  We all know how hard it is to learn to trust other people but for me it was even harder to trust a very important person - myself.

For many of you this may not be an issue and if you know me, you might be surprised that this was an issue for me but in certain areas of my life.  I had to learn to trust myself.  Have you ever heard the saying, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck?  Well for me, if it walked and quacked like a duck, I still might have thought it was a pelican.  Why?  Good question.  I don't really know the answer.  But I will tell you that not trusting myself was causing me some problems.  See when we don't trust ourselves, we are always unsure of what to do.

Don't get me wrong, even if you totally trust yourself, there will be times when you don't know what to do.  In those cases, the best thing to do is to get quite until you have peace about doing something.  If you are a Christian, peace is one of God's ways of letting you know what he wants you to do.

Now specifically for me, I had to learn to trust my own instincts when it came to dating.  Because I haven't been in the dating world in a long time, I went to some friends of mine and asked their thoughts on dating and how to do it.  I specifically asked about online dating.  A friend, CS, told me that I should try it after I got divorced because he had friends that done it and had success.  I was very skeptical to say the least.  So after talking to another friend of mine about online dating, I set up a week where I was supposed to have several dates with different women during the same week.  After all, that was the way to work this online dating thing.

I was also got some good advice about how to work things if you found someone you liked.  In order to not appear desperate, I was told to wait to contact a person until the next day and always wait a couple of days before you tried to schedule another date.  You really didn't want to appear desperate as that frightened girls away.  So I took all this good advice and was prepared to follow it.  Why?  Because the advice came from people with more experience than me and that made sense.  However, I learned an extremely important lesson during that week.  First of all, I didn't go on all four dates.  I didn't need to.

On the second one, I found someone I really special.  She truly is an amazing woman and I am very blessed to have her in my life.  On our first date, we went to lunch and talked for three hours.  I think we have talked to each other every day since.  Anyway, after lunch as we were walking out to our cars, I had a decision to make.  I could do what I was told or I could trust my instincts.  The advice I was given was good advice but I decided that I just needed to be myself and do my thing my way.  So I asked this person if I could see her on Sunday of that week and she said yes.  It was simple as that.

After that, I cancelled the other two dates because I wanted to get to know this person better.  When I did it, one of my friends made fun of me a little for doing it.  He is a great friend and he had my best interest at heart but I had learned to trust me by that point and knew I did the right thing.  See I realized that I was never going to be the guy who could date multiple women at the same time.  I just don't have the time or the energy to do it.  I also realized that I had found a truly unique person who was definitely worth getting to know more.  To use a football analogy that a friend of mine told me, I had out kicked my coverage.

The interesting thing is that after my friends met this particular woman, I think they are more interested in inviting her to things than they are inviting me!  I could go on for a long time about her and maybe I will in a different blog.

I don't know if any of this would have happened if I hadn't learned to trust my own instincts.  I just did what I had peace to do and the rest took care of itself.

So what am I saying.  Trust yourself.  You will be glad you did.

That's the Opinion of the Minion

Make a Difference

I read somewhere recently that sometime around 40 years old, something happens on the inside of many of men.  They begin to evaluate their life and there is a deep desire to make a difference in the lives of the people around them.  As many of you know, I am 40 years old and I know this is the case in my life.

There comes a time in many lives where we sit back and wonder what mark we have made on earth.  For some that might mean being the best mom they could.  For others it might mean being the best friend they could.  For me?  Well, I don't know the complete answer yet.  Part of what that means to me is being the best dad I can.  As many of you know I have three really great children and they are certainly a blessing.  But yet, I know that with blessing comes responsibility.  It's my responsibility to make sure they have a house to live in, food on the table, and clothes on their back.  It's also my responsibility to make sure they go to school and get a good education.  Now by the grace of God, I have done this so far.  That should make me a good dad and I could sit back and feel like I've made my mark.  But as a dad, I recently got a true revelation of my real responsibility to train them up in the ways of the Lord and to be/do all the intangible things.  Because of that, I have recently read several books on how to be a true Godly man in front of my children.  If I can impart this to them, I will certainly have made a mark on the world because they can carry this forward.

But while being a great dad is very important, it will not be enough to satisfy me.  I want to do something that will say I was here many years after I depart for Heaven.  So what else should I do?  I want to be a great companion.  There is a song by a group called the Crabb Family called Ellsworth.  This particular song is about an elderly woman who has started to mentally slip to the point where she doesn't know a lot about her day to day activities any more.  But if you bring up her husband, she clearly remembers how much she loved him and how much he loved her.  It's similar to a movie called "The Notebook."  Yes, I've seen the movie.  I want to make that type of mark on a woman's life.  I want to be so good to her that 50 years from now, if I'm gone before her she still remembers how much I loved her.  I want to make a difference in her life.  I think I may be at the beginning of that opportunity now and I am really enjoying it.  There is something very special about a good woman.  Did you know Solomon said he looked through 1000 people and found a real man but he had never found a real woman.  Well I guess I am more blessed than Solomon.

Where else can I make a difference?  I can make a difference in the lives of the people who work for me.  On of the greatest privileges in my life is to have the opportunity to be part of God blessing other people with good jobs.  This is certainly a place where I can make my mark in the world.  I can grow my company to the place where I can continue to put people to work and help them feed their families.  Will this make me a lot of money in the process?  Yes.  Is money my motivation for growing a business?  In part I suppose it is but the though of making a difference in some one's life is a bigger motivation.  I recently added a full time employee to our company and I can tell you it was a good feeling knowing that I gave someone else an opportunity to succeed.

I guess I am certainly pleased with the difference I have made so far in the people around me.  And guess what.  Many of them have made a big difference in my life.  In the last several weeks I have become very content and my heart has filled to overflowing because of one person in particular.

But I still want to be able to touch more people's lives in a positive way.  As I am sure most of you know, that's the reason for this blog.  Thank you for reading them and I hope they do make a positive difference in your lives.  Let me stop for a second and say that setting out to make a difference in other people's lives may seem like a strange thing to do.  After all, aren't we supposed to make sure that we are happy?  Well the answer to that question is partially yes but let me tell you what happens when you set out to make a difference in someone else.  You will get happy in the process.  Giving unselfishly to others will produce more happiness in your life than you could have ever imagined.

So let me challenge you with this.  If you are younger than me or older the time to start making a difference is now.  Start with those closest to you and then expand your horizons.  Before you know it, you might be touching people literally around the world.  You can even do it from a small place like Fort Worth, Texas.

That's another Opinion of the Minion 

Peace

Hello All,

Today I want to talk to you for a few minutes about peace.  This subject keeps coming up in my heart and it's my assignment for this post.  When I say peace, I'm talking about peace inside us.  I am not talking about world peace because while I believe that would be an amazing thing, I don't believe that we will see it until Jesus comes back.

However, isn't inner peace something we all want?  Have you ever heard a parent say I would just like a little peace and quite around here?  Have you ever been at a lake when the sun comes up in the morning?  I used to go to a lake west of Fort Worth and one of my favorite parts of the trip was the very early morning when the dew was still on the ground.  Most days you could see deer walk through the front yard going down to the lake to get a drink.  The birds chirped softly in the background and the temperature was still cool.  I loved it because I felt like I was at peace for a few minutes.  Getting the lake or the ocean still causes me to feel peaceful today.

Now let's talk about things that make us lose our peace.  There are people in my life that make staying peaceful difficult.  Normally it's because they aren't at peace and their actions can be really annoying.  I am sure there are people who would say the same thing about me at different points in life.  Are there people in your life like that?  Let's take it a step closer.  Are there members of your family like that?  For most people, the answer is probably yes.  That's sad but true.  Guess what, we can't do anything to change them.  One of my favorite prayers is the serenity prayer - God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

Maybe there are circumstances in your life that cause you to lose your peace.  Do you have a bill that you don't know how to pay?  How about some other financial need that you don't know how to provide?  Maybe you have a low grade in school and don't know how to bring it up.  There are all kinds of circumstances in life that will cause us to lose our peace.  While this is a blog for a different day, let me say that there are ways to change our circumstances.  But many times we cannot change our circumstances instantly so what do we do while we are going through them?  How do we keep our peace?

Maybe the answer is that we can't.  Maybe we should just continue to blow a gasket every time someone or some circumstance causes us to feel stressed, etc.  Many of us would like to stop right there and use this as an excuse to blow up whenever we feel like it.  Now we should admit that we are mad.  Trying to pretend we aren't isn't good because it's a lie.  It's OK to feel mad or upset.  It's even OK to get mad but when we get upset we lose the peace inside us.  When we lose our peace, we are normally feeling stress.  When our body is under stress there are all sorts of bad things that happen over time.  Also, we feel anxious.

So what's the answer.  Well you may or may not like it but we have to chose to stay peaceful.  We have to make the decision that peace is something important to us and we have to protect it.  Now most of you know that I'm a Christian.  Jesus said that he gave me His peace.  It was a gift he gave to me but just like all of His gifts I have to chose to recieve it.  After I recieve it, I have to protect it.

If someone was breaking into your house to kidnap someone, would you try to stop them?  Sure you would.  I would even have tried to stop them from taking my little brother when we were kids.  Now PK, you are on your own.  Just kidding.

To me, inner peace is becoming more and more important.  It is definitely worth protecting.  There have been two instances in the last three days that have caused me to quit walking in the peace Jesus gave me.  In both instances, I had to decide that I was going to remain at peace regardless of the situation.  That is the real key, you have to decide that you are going to stay peaceful.  Yes, this is something you can do if you chose to do so.

The first time, I was driving out to pick up my kids.  As I got to a spot in the road where my lane merged with the lane next to me, the car in the other lane got in front of me and then started driving slower than I wanted to drive.  I don't really have road rage and I really didn't get super mad but it did aggravate me.  Now here's the great part of this story.  As I started to get mad, I recognized that I was losing my peace.  When it happened, I decided that it wasn't worth losing peace over and immediately let go of it.  Instantly I became much more peaceful.  I finally learned how to protect my peace and was successful doing it.  For me, this was a major break through.

The second time I got an opportunity to practice what I am saying to you happened about an hour ago.  I was faced with a situation that challenged me.  This one involved a person in my life.  I won't go into the situation but let's just say it was one that I have dreaded for some time.  I knew it was going to be unpleasant and involve drama that I did not create but nevertheless would have to deal with.  Because I have know for a while that it would have to come, it has caused me to lose my peace several times in the past.  Guess what, after the encounter today I lost my peace again.  However, this time I realized what happened.  It took me a few minutes in the fresh air to think through the situation and I decided that losing my peace and contentment was not something I wanted to do.  Honestly, I still don't know what to do with this person.  But I do know this, I will remain peaceful.  I have chosen not to let this person bother me.  If I can do it, you can too. 

To summarize, one of the most important things in life is inner peace.  It is something to be desired, achieved and then protected.  We have to chose to stay at peace regardless of our circumstances but it can be done.

That's another Opinion of the Minion