Hello Everyone,

Today I want to talk to you about your identity. I’m not sure what it looks like in other parts of the world but I know in the United States we are seeing a huge identity crisis. People are struggling to identify who they are. We struggle to identify who we are sexually, politically, emotionally, etc.

The reason we struggle so much with this is because we don’t know how to define who we really are. If we want to see the definition of a word, we look in the dictionary. If we want to see the definition of who we are, we should look to the Bible to see who God says we are. If you are a Christ follower, God says you are righteous. God says you were made in his image. Just think about that for a minute. God loves you so much that he created you in His own image. No other creature in the universe is created like that. You are unique and special.

God says you were loved. It doesn’t really matter what someone else is says that or not. And I know people have said hurtful things. But I want you to know that God thinks you are someone worth loving. And according to the way God identifies you, you’re special. He identifies you a special no matter what you have done. See there’s nothing you could do that would change how much God loves you. Maybe you’re reading this and don’t know anything about Jesus. If so, I want to know that Jesus loves you so much that he died for you. Even if you don’t feel worthy, he believes that you are so important. If you’re struggling with who you are, if you’re struggling with your identity, I encourage you to take a Bible and start reading about who God says you are. He says you’re chosen. He says you’re of great value. And he loves you very much.

If you don’t know Jesus and would like to have a personal relationship with Him, all you have to do is pray this simple prayer. Say, “Jesus, come into my life. I make you my Lord and Savior.” If you prayed that prayer, I believe you got born into the family of Christ. Congratulations! If you prayed, would you please let us know.

Also, if you are new to the family and would like to learn more about who you are and how God really sees you, please click the link below. We would love to send you study material absolutely free.

http://eepurl.com/gLci8D

That’s Another Opinion of the Minion

Mind Control

 Hello everyone,

Today I want to talk about mind control. When I think of mind control, I think of Jedi mind tricks from Star Wars. How cool would it be to have the ability to change someone’s mind? Well we can. We can change our own minds. Have you ever heard someone say, “Well I can’t help the way I feel about something?” That’s just not a true statement. Your thoughts control how you feel. Is there someone you want to forgive but just can’t seem to do it? Is there something you would like to get rid of in your mind but don’t know how? Hopefully this will help.

Our minds are constantly feeding on something. We get to choose what we let in our minds. I know people who listen to every news report about the bad things going on in the world and that is always a topic of conversation with them at some point. They feed everyday on the news and they talk everyday about the news. They are renewing their mind everyday with the news. Unfortunately, this is toxic thinking. I am not suggesting we should be ignorant of what is going on around us but if we constantly feed or mind on things, it will effect us.

Maybe you struggle with something someone has done to you. Do you rehearse it over and over again in your mind? Do you think about what they said or what they did and how wrong it was? What are you feeding your mind with? You are feeding it with thoughts about what that person did. Consequently, you stay in a strong emotional place around them. Even if what they did was really wrong, you don’t need to feed on those thoughts. You might say, “Well there is no way I can change the way I feel and I can’t control my thoughts.” Good news – Yes you can!

How do we control what we think? The Bible says that we should renew our mind with the Word of God. In Romans 12:2 it says don’t be conformed to the world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. How? Spend time in the Word. Spend time reading your Bible or listening to it online. When we do that, the way we think and feel will change. It may not change overnight but it will over time.

Do you want to be free from old bad ways of thinking? Then feed your mind something else.

If you don’t know Jesus and would like to have a personal relationship with Him, all you have to do is pray this simple prayer. Say, “Jesus, come into my life. I make you my Lord and Savior.” If you prayed that prayer, I believe you got born into the family of Christ. Congratulations! If you prayed, would you please let us know.

Also, if you are new to the family and would like to learn more about who you are and how God really sees you, please click the link below. We would love to send you study material absolutely free.

http://eepurl.com/gLci8D

That’s Another Opinion of the Minion

Love Doesn't Envy

Hello Everyone,

Today we are going to think about something love doesn't do.  As I said earlier, love is an action verb.  The feeling of being in love is great but it's not the core of Love (God).

For this particular aspect of Love, it's interesting because it's something Love doesn't do.  Love doesn't envy someone else or something else they have.  This should be another easy one right?  Well in one sense that's true.  But let me encourage you to check yourself on this and see if there are any hidden areas of envy in your life.  I know I have found them in mine.

Let me give you a couple of examples.  I go to a gym and work out every day during the week.  I run in the morning before work and I lift weights with a little more cardio at lunch.  I'm in decent shape for 46 years old but the truth is I'm not as fast as I used to run and I'm 30 pounds overweight at the moment.  So what happens in the gym?  I can walk in and see someone working out who is in better shape than me.  Every once in a while, the devil will put a thought in my mind that says there is something I don't like about that person.  I don't like the way the act or how much they talk.  I don't like the way the hog up all the machines.  I don't like how long it takes them to get a set done and get out of my way.  Well here is what the Lord showed me about that one day.  What someone was doing or not wasn't the cause of my irritation.  What irritated me is that they were in better shape than me.  My envying of a person didn't come across as envy.  It came across as something else.

Let me tell on myself again.  I could be driving down the road and see someone speed past me or cut me off in traffic by getting into my lane and get upset with them.  This happened more times than not if the person was driving a really nice car.  I might even say under my breath something about how they think they are special or privileged, etc., because they were speeding or something else (which I have done myself on more than one occasion).  That seems logical right?  They should slow down and should be more careful in traffic.  But the truth behind what made me mad was they were driving a car and I was jealous of them because it looked like they had more money than me.

So what's the big deal with being jealous right?  After all, while I am not being loving toward either of those people, I am certainly not hurting them and neither of them knew I even had a thought?  Well, even if you don't say something hurtful to someone, this is still very damaging - TO ME.  Why?  Well, it blocks the flow of love out of my life and into someone else.  While that's bad enough, it also caused me to be unsatisfied with what I had.  Think about it.  Instead of enjoying the fact that I am in good health and the Lord has blessed us tremendously financially and every other way, I was unsatisfied and couldn't enjoy what I had.

So let me ask you this.  Are there any areas in your life where you might be secretly envious of someone else?  If so, I encourage you to get rid of it.  Envying is really dangerous to your health.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Love is Kind

Hello Everyone,

Today's topic is love is kind.

OK this one should be a no brainer right?  We all know what it is to be kind.  My wife teaches kindergarten and she teaches her kids everyday to be kind to each other.  If I asked some of her five year old children to define kindness, they could.  The would tell me that kindness is being nice to a friend or kindness is sharing your blocks with another kid.  They might say kindness is letting someone get in line in front of you.

They would be right about those being acts of kindness and acts of love.  Notice again that this is an action.  It's not a feeling.  When we are kind to people, it makes us feel good but the kindness itself isn't a feeling.  Already we know that love is an act of the will because kindness is an act of our will.  We make a decision to do something kind for someone else.  As a matter of fact, I am plotting an act of kindness right now and it feels good.  I am really going to enjoy myself tomorrow doing what I have planned.  I'm excited about it.

So here's the slight change the Lord showed me about kindness this week.  Did you know the Bible says Love is patient and love is kind?  Now I have always taken those two things to be separate things.  In other words, Love is patient.  In a completely unrelated event, Love is kind.  But what I am just getting a grasp on is what happens if we combine the two at the same time.

In other words, what would happen if while I was being patient with someone and waiting on them to change or do something I want, etc., I do a kind act to that person or in that situation.  As I said last time, patience creates the space Love needs to grow and work.  If that's true, kindness is a fertilizer that helps love grow.  While you are waiting on your friend to apologize or your spouse to change, you are being patient and that's showing love.  Now take the next step and fertilize that situation/person with an act of kindness.  It will help you be patient and it will help the situation grow.

Remember this, every time you do an act of kindness, you are operating in Love which means you are operating in God.

An that's another Opinion of the Minion

I Want to Know What Love Is

"I want to know what love is.  I want you to show me...."  Have you ever heard that song?  Those are lyrics from a song in the early 80s.  Yes, I am dating myself a little because that was the golden age of music for me.  But it's a popular theme these days.  We want to experience love.  We want to be in love.  We want to feel love.

It's interesting that in every song on the radio and for most people when you ask them about love, they tell you that they want some feeling associated with love.  Have you ever heard someone refer to love as a matter of the heart?  Have you ever someone say follow your heart?  Most of the time that means follow your feelings and let me tell you that can lead to disaster.

Another song from my day said, "What is love, baby don't hurt me...."  So let's tackle things that describe love in general.  First of all, we know that God is love because the bible says that He is.  That means that God equals love and Love equals God.  I will talk in more detail about many of the attributes in later blogs but let's look at a few attributes of Love.

The Bible says, "Love is patient and kind.  Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.  It does not demand it's own way.  It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.  It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.  Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance."  1 Corinthians 13:4-7

I want you to notice something about these verses.  Most of the attributes of love listed are action verbs, not feeling verbs.  How many times to you hear people say, "I feel patient" or "I feel kind"?  I don't know if I have ever.  I have been patient with people and I've been kind to people but I don't know if I've ever felt kind.

Take a look at something else.  All these attributes are things that we DO to other people.  Did you notice that not once do these verses say that we should be expecting this from someone else?  Now you might say that if someone is ACTING this way toward you then they are not acting in love and I won't argue that but if we are walking in love, then we won't keep record of being wronged.  Let me be clear, I am not saying that if someone is abusive to you that you should stay in the relationship and never keep record of being abused.  If you are in an abusive relationship, get out!  But when you do, then chose to walk in love and forgive.

It's when we get past feelings and start living into Love the way God sees love, then we will experience the greatest victories in our lives.  The Bible says that Love never fails.  Are you worrying about your parents?  Are you worrying about your kids?  Are you worrying about some other person?  Then make the decision to act and walk in Love with them.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Love is Patient Part 2

Hello everyone,

I wanted to take moment to tell you about a few things where I have/am learning to love by being patient.  I didn't really understand the power of the force of patience until recently.  See, patience provides room for love to grow.  It's critical.  Let me explain.

Last week, my wife and I were going through the normal things in life.  We were working and raising kids.  Now each of our children is fearful and wonderfully made.  That means sometimes we wonder about them.  Just kidding.  That means they are wonderful and amazing children.  They are God's gift to us and I get excited when we catch glimpses of what's really inside them.  But there are other times where they are challenging.

Parent's have you ever been frustrated because your children don't grow up as fast as you would like?  Have you ever wondered if they would grow up at all?  I can't tell you how many times my wife and I have worried over our children because of their choices or how many times I would ride them about a choice they made over and over.  But what I realized was that in some ways, I wasn't being loving.  Now I'm not saying that we shouldn't correct our children because the Bible says that God corrects those he loves.  But what I am telling you is that in other cases if we will be patient with our children and give God room to grow them up, they will progress so much faster than all our nagging.

The other thing I noticed this week is an area in my personal life where I was not being very loving with someone because I wanted them to do something and they didn't do it.  I got agitated and rolled all sorts of things around in my mind to tell them but in the end, the Lord was telling me to be patient.  See, I was walking in selfishness which is many times the opposite of patience.  What I wanted the other person to do was a good and right thing but I was not giving them time to do it on their own.  I have decided to love them and be patient and wait.

Patience doesn't come across as an action verb.  When you give something to someone, they can see what you give them.  When you do something for someone or say something nice to someone, then they know it immediately.  But with patience, the person you are loving, may never know that you are loving them and waiting.  I think that's what makes it so strong.

How many times do you think the Lord has been patient with us.  How many times has he wanted us to make different choices and we make the same mistakes again and again.  But guess what.  He never walks out of love with us.  It's impossible for God to be anything but Love toward us so I know he is patient with me every day.

Let me leave you with this.  If you are struggling with patience, then ask the Lord to help you stand in faith and pray while you wait.  God is able to do much more that we can ask or think so dare to ask big and then wait.

That's another Opinion of the Minion.

Love is Patient

Hello Everyone,

Today I want to start talking about what love is.  Our topic for today is patience.  Have you ever had an experience were you were not patient with someone?  I know I sure have.  If you have children, especially teenagers, it's easy to lose your patience with them.  On our streets today, you can see how impatient people are with one another.  Well, when we are acting impatiently with each other, we aren't walking in love.  That doesn't mean we don't love, it means in that particular instance, we aren't walking in love the way we should.  Also, there are opportunities for you to be patient whether you pray for them or not.

I have heard in Christian circles for years that you shouldn't pray for patience because God will cause something to come in your life that requires it.  But here's the problem.  God is not saying that if you are patient, then you are walking in love.  What He's saying is when His love is developed in you then you will be patience.  So what you need to pray for is that His love will so grow inside you that you will be a patient person.  You aren't doing work to prove love.  Love is working which causes results.

So what is patience?  One definition is - the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.  What does that mean?  Well for me personally, it mean's loving my children and being patient while I am waiting on things to develop in their lives.  One of the most interesting characteristics is waiting without getting angry or upset.  Let me say to my children, I apologize for the times that I am waiting on you to develop but being upset at the same time.

Now I want to say a thank you to my wife.  She has shown me love by being patient with me.  Overall, I'm a good dad and a good husband but there are a couple of things that I need to get straight.  My wife has known about them since we met and she's loved me and been patient with me for a long time.  Thank you Honey.  I love you.

So what does all this mean?  Start believing God to change you and out of His love, ask for him to grow the attribute of patience.  Then find an opportunity today to be patient.  Maybe you need to be patient while other people are ahead of you in line.  Maybe you need to be patient with someone while you are driving.  Maybe you need to be patient with one of your friends or your parents while they figure things out.  Regardless of what it is, find a place today to show someone else love by being patient.

Time

Hello Everyone,

Tonight I want to talk about time.  Time is finite.  There are 24 hours in a day; 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in a minute.  There's only so much of it and when we run out of time, we run out.  By that I mean when we die and go to heaven or hell, we are out of time.

I recently heard of someone who felt like they were out of time at a very young age.  The felt they had made mistakes that could not be overcome.  They felt like they were behind where they should be based on their peers.  What's so amazing about this person is that they are so young.

Maybe you feel like you are out of time.  Maybe you are 50 years old and have been through a failed marriage.  It could be you think you are too old to go back to school.  Time as run out.  It could be that you are really young and the devil has sold you a pack of lies telling you it is too late for you.  Maybe you feel that time has run out and your situation is now hopeless.  I don't know all the things that the devil uses to make us feel frustrated.  But I want you to know something.  It's not over!  You are not out of time!  God still has a plan for you.  You can accomplish that plan whether you are 15, 35, 55, or 85.  You are not out of time.

I want to tell you about a man named Abram.  He was 90 years old and his wife was almost that old.  They never had kids and wanted them.  Abram had a visitation from the Lord.  The Lord told Abram that he would be the father of so many descendants that they would be more numerous than the grains of sand on the seashore.  Can you believe that?  Well Abram did.  He believed it so much that he started calling himself Abraham which means "father of many nations."  Nine months later, they gave birth to a son and the promise was on.

Friend, God wants to do the same thing for you he did for Abraham.  If there is any area of your life where you feel that it's too late, I encourage you to take it to the Lord and see what He can do with it.  I guarantee you, it's not too late.

Well, I've blogged myself happy again.  That's another Opinion of the Minion. 

A Time to Rest

Hello again everyone.  Today I want to talk about rest.  Before I go into this post, let me say I am not taking my own advice right now.  It seems to me that with the technological advances, we are busier now than ever before.  We might not work sun up to sun down behind a plow like they did 150 years ago but we are still very very busy.

I see it everywhere.  When I was a kid, we played little league baseball and it ran for a couple of months (probably April to June) and if you made the All-Star team it ran a little longer.  Now baseball is a year round sport.  There's fall ball, winter ball, select teams, little league, etc.  It's not just baseball, it's every sport.  In the interest of competition the schedules are much more demanding.  For the kids this is great but for parents it requires more and more running.  You can drive over a hundred miles a day in Texas just running kids back and forth to practices, etc.

Before I get any ugly responses, let me say that I am a sports fan and I enjoy watching our kids.  But you need to count the costs of all those activities.  No, I don't mean the monetary costs although those are important.  I am talking about the time costs.  You see, while every one of these events on their own is really great, we have to be careful that the sum of the events doesn't run us down.  What is the cost of time spent doing anything on the relationships that are important.

Last week, my wife and I were so busy running kids, working, taking care of the house, doing our gym work outs and the list goes on that I rarely saw her at all.  When I did we were rushing off to another event!  Now I am complaining about going, I just began to notice that I was getting tired.  How did I know?  Well, one night my wife and I were in the kitchen talking about the new toll road in Fort Worth.  We were discussing how we seldom see the police on the other major roads but that they were definitely handing out extra tolls on that road every day.  That turned into an argument and we were in agreement on the issue!  Fortunately it wasn't a major argument and we only argued for about a minute before my wife said, "Why are we arguing about this?" and it stopped but it let me see that I was really getting tired.

So let me ask you this.  Are you feeling yourself frustrated and tired a lot?  If so, what type of toll is it taking on your friends and family around you?  Are you short with people you love?  Have you found yourself so busy that you don't have time to read your bible and be alone with God?  If the answer is yes, then let me suggest that you take a minute and re-evaluate where you are spending your time.  It is important to get things done but at what cost?  Are there things you really need to cut out of your daily schedule?  Don't try to keep up with what everyone else is doing.  Run your race.  You'll be glad you did.

And that's another Opinion of the Minion

Focus

Hello Everyone,

Today I want to talk about focus.  Where do you focus the majority of your thoughts?  Do you consider all the bad things going on in the world today?  Do you consider something bad that's going on at school or in your personal life?  Wherever you put your focus, there you will ultimately go.  Let me give you a few examples.

In the Bible, there was a guy named Job.  Now he was a really rich guy and had several sons and daughters.  Interestingly enough he was very afraid that they were saying awful things about God or sinning in some way.  So what did he do?  He offered sacrifices just in case they might have sinned for them everyday (I think it was every day but if not, it was very often.).  Guess what happened?  Ultimately the things that he was afraid of, the things where he put his focus, came upon his children.  Am I saying that Job caused this, nope.  The Bible said it.

Let's shift gears a little.  How many of you have every ridden a motorcycle?  Several years ago, I got my license with a friend of mine, JC.  Now he rode all his life so he was a natural.  Me?  I looked like someone who needed training wheels for his motorcycle and I still do.  I much prefer a four wheeled motorcycle with leather seats, a good air conditioning system and plenty of room.  I think those are called cars.  Anyway, when I was learning to ride, they taught us how to turn.  What we were told was to look where we wanted the bike to go, not where the bike was going.  So we would focus on where we wanted the bike to go and it would go that way.

Let me give you one more example and I will make my point.  The other day, I was thinking about my company and about being an employee.  I run my own company and we do a lot of Oil and Gas work.  As some of you may know, the price of oil has dropped a lot lately and that has caused some slowness in the industry.  I was worrying a little about my business and whether we would be able to sustain our growth even though I knew that the Lord started this business and I knew he was watching it and causing it to grow.  The problem was my focus was on the price of oil and how drastically it could impact my business.  I wasn't focused on where I wanted it to go or what the Lord said about it.

I started thinking about being an employee and how easy it must be to just go to work and do your job.  After that, an employee collects his or her paycheck and that's it.  I started feeling a little sorry for myself thinking about how they don't have to worry about whether or not the check will cash (most of the time) and how easy that must be.  Now my business is really fine but I wasn't focused there.  That's when the word of the Lord came to me.  He said something like, "You should be like those employees you are thinking about.  If you would just keep your eyes on Me and roll the care of it over on Me, things would be much better for you!"

That's what I did.  I put my focus back on my faith in God and what He is doing in our business.  Immediately, I could see where things were going and how good things really are for us!

That's another Opinion of the Minion

The Box Revisited

Hello Everyone,

This is one of the first posts I ever created and I think that every once in a while I should repost it because it was so profound to me.



I have given this a lot a of thought and I believe that the Lord showed me something that changed the way I view people.

You see, when God creates a person he gives them abilities, passions, desires, talents and all sorts of wonderful attributes that we seldom ever see.  Then he takes all these things and puts them in a box with silver wrapping paper and very pretty red ribbon tied in a bow around it.  He calls the box - You.  It is a present to the world.  When I saw this for the first time, I looked around at all the people walking by and said to myself, "Merry Christmas!" because all I could see were beautiful boxes waiting to be opened.

The problem is many people don't even know what is in their own box much less have taken the time to look in someone elses box.  This starts when we are in school.  As we grow up, we learn all kinds of new things about ourselves: what we like, what we don't, the changes that our bodies go through, we learn things in school about the world and we learn about social interaction.  But sometimes that social interaction teaches us that the stuff in our box isn't all that important.

Have you ever felt like the stuff inside you doesn't really matter?  Can you look back to a point in your life where you were doing something you really enjoyed and someone else called it or you stupid or worthless?

When you pull the most precious parts of your life out of the box and let other people see them, it is scary because you are definitely vulnerable at that point.  But know this, the Lord put all those wonderful things inside and they are of great price and value.  Don't let someone cheapen what is so precious by their comments.

Everyday, I see people who are alive but aren't living.  I think it is because they have told themselves that the treasures in their box aren't important or worth much so they don't do anything with them.  They may not have done this openly but below the surface it happens.  You have to know that if God took the time to create you and put all those treasures inside you, they are important both to him and to me.

When was the last time you looked in your box and pulled out something you truly enjoyed and used it?  When was the last time you opened the box?  When was the last time you were passionate about anything?  Are you so caught up in the rat race that your box isn't important any more?

Here is another interesting question - When was the last time you opened up someone else's box to see who they really are and celebrate the gifts inside them?  Do you always know what is wrong with your husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, kids, friends, parents, family, coworkers but never look inside the box for what is so awesome about them?

Husbands, what would happen if instead of criticizing your wife, the next time you saw her, you decided to look at something that was so precious to her, so beautiful, so tender, so amazing and something she loved about herself?  What would happen if you nurtured that gift and encouraged it to grow?  What would happen if, after you opened her box, she decided that your box was the most special one on earth and decided to touch the core of who you are?  What if you both decided to go deep in your relationship?

Boyfriends, what if you looked at her and decided that you wanted more than just what was inside her clothes, you wanted what was inside her heart.  Girlfriends, what if you decided that you wanted the same thing?  What if you wanted to explore who they are and make them the best person they could be while they did the same thing to you?  What if you looked at them and asked, "What can I give?" instead of "What can I get?"

Is this a little intense?  Yes.  Is it worth it if just one person decides to open their box or open someone elses?  Yes.  You see, I believe that I got to see a little glimpse of the creation through the creator's eyes when He showed me this.  It was truly an eye opening experience and I can definitely say I will never be the same.  I got to see how He looked at and longs for His creation to be all that we can be and how His love for us goes so deep His heart aches for us.

So I guess the real question is what is in your box?  I want to know.

That's the Opinion of His Minion

To Your Parents

Hello Everyone,

Today I want to talk to all of you that are parents.  If you are a young person, ask your parents to read this.

Let me start by saying that I am a parent/stepparent to five very wonderful and very different children.  Our children are ages 15, 14, 13, 12 and 10 so we are just hitting the teenage years.  We are hitting the age where they become more and more independent.  But let me tell you this parents, we are also hitting the time of their lives where they begin to dream their own dreams and want to go their own paths.

For many parents this is a hard time.  See we think we have the plan for their lives.  We see them going to college and getting a good job out of school then preparing for a family and in many cases following the same track that we went down.  After all, if it was good enough for us, it's good enough for them right?  Wrong.  They have their own dreams and their own desires.

This past weekend, my wife and I had the opportunity to watch our oldest daughter perform in a theater camp in our town.  It was a wonderful experience for her and she truly enjoyed it.  In the second act, I was hit by part of the performance.  The musical is about kids going through school and it's "target audience" is teachers as they are in the classroom and their impact on the kids they teach.  At one point, four different young men and women describe a boy who writes a poem.  The first poem is named Skip after his dog because that's what it's about.  His teacher gives him an A and a gold star and his mom pins it to the wall.  His dad tucks him into bed and he's enjoying life.

The second poem is called Autumn because that's what it's about.  His teacher gave him an A and his mom told him not to pin it to the wall because the wall had just been painted.  That year he noticed that things weren't as rosy around him.  Then he tried another poem called Question (I think) because that what it was about.  His mom didn't say anything about it and his dad got mad at him when he tried to tuck him into bed.  He wrote his last poem on a matchbook and completely checked out of life.  His parents never knew he was unhappy.

The skit is followed by a song called, "I've Come Home."  It's about children coming home and the place of safety, love and warmth they find at home with their family.  This made me start to think about my own children and I began to wonder if my desire to see grow into the adults that I want them to was clouding my ability to see their dreams and desires.  What part of where they thought they wanted to go was I missing.  Since they are teenagers, their dreams are probably going to change several times over the next few years but that doesn't matter.  I started asking myself what was I doing to encourage them to stretch out and work for their dreams.  What was I doing to help them work hard to achieve the things that God put in their life, not the things that I was trying to put in their lives.  Now I am not saying that grades and their upbringing isn't important and as a parent it's definitely are job to make sure our kids work hard and do their best.  It is our job to help them grow into strong men and women.

Let me close with this.  What if Billy Graham's mom had forced him to be a dentist?  What if Albert Einstein's mom had forced him to be a lawyer?  What if Mother Theresa's mom had forced her to be an actress?  It would be like trying to put a size 8 foot in a size 6 shoe.  It just wouldn't fit.  So let me ask you this parents, what are you doing to help your children realize their dreams?

That's Another Opinion of the Minion

Random Acts and Bank Accounts

Random acts, we've all seen them on the news.  Someone gets mad at someone else in traffic and communicates something ugly.  Someone else comes home from a bad day at work and yells at their kids.  Someone else gets really upset and punches someone out.  This list could go on and on.  So what do they have to do with bank accounts you might ask?


Well I am not talking about the bank account you have at Bank of America or Citibank.  I'm talking about people.  Did you know people are like bank accounts.  Every time you do something negative to them, their emotional account gets lower.  Every time you do something positive to someone, it goes up. 


Let me try to illustrate this.  Last week when I went to pick up three of our five kids, our youngest daughter was having a fit.  She was going to get to go where we were because she was sick and it wasn't a good idea.  Now she is 9 years old but was acting more like 9 months and having a toddler fit.  This particular day, I did not have a great day at work.  To top it all off, I was late to get the other two boys to swim practice.  So what did I do?  I did the "natural" thing to do - I lost my temper.  Now I don't really have a bad temper but I did get really mad (for me) at my daughter.  I was so mad, I was raising my voice at her and she was yelling at me. 


It ended with me spanking her and her still throwing a fit.  At one point, she said some really mean things to me.  Because I am her dad and she is a child, the things she said didn't really bother me.  After all, she is only nine.  Her behavior was in appropriate so I corrected it but what if she was 20 years older and said she hated me?  It could really hurt my feelings and damage my self esteem.  Now this wasn't premeditated, it was a random act that could have really drained my emotional bank account.


Let me tell you another random story.  Most of you know that I am from Texas and I still believe in saying ma'am and sir.  I think it's polite and I like it.  It's a way for me to show someone respect.  Now the other day, I was in a Starbucks in a different state (if you know me that's a shock right?).  The person behind the counter asked me a question and I said, "Yes ma'am."  However for a split second, I was mortified because there was a distinct possibility that I just said yes ma'am to a guy.  It would have been a totally insulting thing to do.  Fortunately, it turned out to be a girl so I was safe.  Again a random act but it could have definitely hurt some one's feelings.  That could have definitely drained that person's emotional account.


Up to this point, everything I have discussed centers around not hurting someone and draining their account.  I suppose I could stop right now and say that it's best to be careful that we don't hurt other people and that is certainly true.


But I want to take a minute and talk about the other side of the ledger.  If you take $100 to your bank and deposit in your savings account what happens?  Your account balance goes up right?  So what if we took that same approach and started adding to other people's emotional accounts instead.  When was the last time you walked up to a total stranger and given them a compliment?  Are you too shy for that?  Well let me ask you this.  How would it make you feel if someone in line at Starbucks that you didn't know (assuming you are a lady) that you really looked nice in the dress you were wearing?  How would it make you feel?  How about if you told someone you work with thank you for doing a good job on something?  It's going to make their account balances go up.


So let me encourage you in this today.  Try to find someone and give them a random act of kindness.  Be careful though.  Because whatever you do to someone, it will be done to you.  If you start giving out random acts of kindness, sooner or later, they are going to start coming back to you!


That's another Opinion of the Minion

Fight or Flight

Hello everyone,

This post might not apply to everyone but today I want to talk about your fight or flight reflex.  This is really something I probably already knew but it's something that I have realized about myself recently.  I don't know where I heard this but I have heard it several times lately.  When we face fear or some unpleasant situation, there is a reflex that kicks in almost immediately.  We either want to fight the situation or we want to run away from the situation.  

Before I tell you what I learned, let me say that to go to either extreme is not a wise decision.  There are times when you should fight and there are times when you should simply walk away.  In the words of my mom's favorite Kenny Rogers song, "You've got to know when to hold'em.  Know when to fold 'em.  Know when to walk away and know when to run."  I will soon describe what I have learned about my flight mechanism but before I do, let me say that there are going to be times when you should run away from the problem.  If you find yourself confronted with a gun and you don't have one, RUN. If you find yourself in an abusive relationship, ladies RUN.

But what if you just find yourself in a hard place?  For me, I used to shy away from conflict.  It has taken me several years to realize that this was me running from problems.  I didn't want to hurt any one's feelings and I didn't like when people hurt mine so I would just avoid the conflict.  In some ways, I reasoned that it was easier to just keep walking.  Now if someone calls you a name, that is the best thing to do.  If you don't like the way they treat you, then just keep walking.

But what if the person you don't like is your husband or wife?  Or what if that person is someone who works for you?  Maybe that person is your boss.  You can't just run away from everyone of those types of issues.  Just recently in my own life, I was faced with a situation where my wife did something that I didn't like.  The easiest thing for me to do would have been just let it go and say nothing.  Now we both do that for each other regularly and that's part of a healthy relationship.  But in this case, it was something that really bothered me.  I could sense myself getting mad at her and I noticed that because I hadn't talked with her about this one thing, almost any little thing she did would aggravate me much more than it should.  That's when it finally hit me that I was trying to run from a situation that I needed to address.  Now here's the amazing part of this story to me.  As soon as I recognized what was going on inside me, the little things that were trying to annoy me disappeared!  I was perfectly fine waiting to talk with her about it until we had time.  Here's another thing, as it turned out, it was just a misunderstanding between us.  This particular issue wasn't a big one at all but it did teach me that I need to identify places where I am trying to fly when there are times that I need to fight.

So that's another Opinion of the Minion

What's Steering the Bus?

Hello All,

I am finally getting around to writing again and I apologize for taking so long to get back to it.  Today I want to talk about what's steering your bus?  What's directing your life?  The answer to that is easy - our thoughts direct or life.  The bible says in Proverbs 23:7 that as a man thinks in his heart so is he.  What does that mean, your thoughts are steering your bus!  Have you ever sat around and worried about a big test.  Every time you think about it, you become afraid of failing it?  Then when you actually take the test, you don't do so well?  I know I've done things like that.

Let me tell you about one area that this has happened and what I figured out to do to stop it from happening again.  My company had a big client up until about a year ago and I listened to several people who would worry with me about this big client and what they were trying to do to us.  We all worried for several months and then I found myself worrying about what would happen if we lost them.  How would we survive and what would we do.  Now there was no real obvious signs of things going wrong with them but my heart began to be fixed on how we would lose them.  Sure enough, at the end of last year they fired us!  Just like Job, the thing that I feared had come upon me.  I believe that this is always the devil's plan for our lives.  He is constantly trying to steal, kill and destroy.

Now thank God that He is gracious enough to see us through our mistakes.  When I realized that I was doing it with another place in my business, the Lord showed me what I was doing and I was able to stop.  Why didn't God show me before I lost the big client?  He was trying to tell me, I just wasn't listening.

If we just stopped right here this would be good news but this isn't as far as it goes.  See, we can set our minds on good things and they will come to pass too!  There is another aspect of my business that is starting to go really well.  It is actually multiplying.  I don't mean it's growing, it's multiplying.  Now we started talking about this business at the first of the year much differently.  When I started this year, I was talking about this business being much larger than it is now.  I was seeing it, I was believing it and I was expecting it.  Guess what - that's exactly where it's headed.  As I am thinking in my heart, so is it.

So let me ask you, where are you seeing yourself?  What thoughts are you allowing to run around inside you?  Do you see yourself as overcome or overrun?  If you are struggling with this today, do me a favor.  As hard as it may be, take 10 minutes a day and start to use your imagination.  See yourself overcoming the thing you are struggling with.  See God stepping into your situation and it turning around.  See yourself as the victor not the victim.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Fear

Hello everyone,

Today's topic is fear.  It's something we see all around us and something we deal with daily.  If you ask any of my five children or possibly my wife, they might tell you that I look really scary in the morning because my hair looks so bad in the morning!  OK, all joking aside, I want to take a more serious look at fear.  Just this past week I was in a meeting with someone who told me that a little bit of fear was a good thing.  This person was trying to make a point and she was very very wrong.  Fear will kill you.  There is nothing remotely good about it.

In her example, she stated that if we don't teach children to fear their hand getting burned by a hot stove, they could get hurt.  What she should have said is that if we don't teach children to respect the heat that comes off the stove, they can get burned.  But they definitely should not fear the stove, there's nothing good that can come from fear.

Now I can already hear someone saying, "Mr. Minion, the Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."  That is what the King James Bible says but what that word fear means is deep respect and reverence of the Lord.  Remember this, the Bible says that God is Love and that perfect love casts out fear.  That means that if we go near God that His love will cast out fear.  Let me put it this way.  I'm a dad and I definitely want my children to respect what I say but I certainly don't want any of my children to ever fear me.  It would hurt me to think that one of my own children was afraid of me.

I don't even think that horror movies are good for us.  Think about it.  They can desensitize us to what fear actually does.  We like to watch movies that have fear in them because most of the time there is no "real" fear that would come after us from them.  But they teach us to live with fear and that fear can be amusing.  I personally prefer comedies because I like to laugh.  The Bible says that a merry heart doeth good like a medicine.

So what about fear?  I heard a preacher say one time that the shadow of a dog never bit anyone. How often do we sit around being fearful of what might happen.  I know someone who is going back to school and this person is afraid of some things that might never happen.  This person is worrying about things before they even come up.  Now I'm not telling you to plan for things and make sure you know what to do if something happens but that is much different that worrying about it.

Earlier this week, I was in a situation at work and worried about it for two days.  The particular thing I worried about never even took place so I worried for nothing.  Worse than that, we can't stand in fear and faith at the same time so I wasn't even standing in faith while I was worrying about it.  How dumb was I?  I have recently realized that there were several areas of my life where I was worrying about things and I am making the decision to quit.  Fear is of the devil.  I am striving more and more to work with one of my wife's 2 Ts (trust and thankfulness) - trust.  When I role the cares of those things over on to the Lord, He can take them and do something about them.

Can it be that simple to stop fear.  The answer is yes.  Quit choosing to live with fear and start choosing to live with trust in God!  When fear comes, tell the devil you aren't buying and choose to walk away from it!

That's another Opinion of the Minion

The Apple Seed

Today I want to encourage you to hold fast to the dreams that God has put in your heart.  Sometimes we have to continue to work a while before we see results.  I bet there are some of you who read my blog that are saying to yourselves, "I want to quit.  I've been working toward a goal for quite a while now and it seems like I will never get there.  I'm not even seeing results or at least not the results that I want to see." 

Well I can tell you I have been there before and I even face that now (well sort of).  There are a couple of areas in my life where I truly believe I know what the end result looks like.  But right now it doesn't exactly look that way.

Do you know what happens when you plant an apple tree seed?  If you water it properly and take care of the soil sooner or later it will sprout up an apple tree.  After a while the apple tree will produce apples.  But guess what.  The apple tree doesn't start producing apples the day after you plant the seed.  As a matter of fact, if you were to dig up the seed and look at it right after you planted it there would be nothing different about it.  It would just look like a dirty seed. 

See that seed needs to go through some days where there is no sunlight.  It goes through days that are rainy and it goes through days where people are putting fertilizer (that is manure) on top of it and all around it.  It needs to go through some days where there is nothing but darkness and pressure all around it.  If you left it above the ground where it was always bright and there was no pressure, it would wither up and die.  It would turn to dust.  But if you take away the sunlight, throw in some pressure, manure and plenty of rainy days the next thing you know that apple seed will begin to multiply and push it's way through the dirt to the surface.  It takes the pressure of the soil and the manure and takes nutrients from them.  It takes those rainy days and uses the water to grow.

I believe we are all in places where there is pressure in our lives.  For me personally, I know of a couple of places where I feel pressure.  If I look with my natural eyes, I don't see much movement or much way of getting through the dirt to the sunlight.  I've seen plenty of rainy days lately.  But I know what those rainy days mean.  Those rainy, pressure filled days where I see know light at the end of the tunnel mean that I am one step closer to getting above the ground and bearing fruit.  I'm one step closer to the success that I want and to the goal that I set.

So let me encourage you in this.  If you are facing what seems like an impossible situation right now.  If you are trusting God and putting your faith to work but you aren't seeing the results you want, don't quit.  All the bad stuff that is being thrown at your dream is a sure sign that your sprout is about to push through the surface!  You may only be one step from getting the result you wanted.  So don't stop trusting God to do what He said He would.  This could be your last day in the pressure!

It's happened again.  I've blogged myself happy. 

And that's another Opinion of the Minion

Courage

Today I want to talk about courage.  We all know that our military men and women are very courageous and that they have and will lay down their lives in the face of danger.  Policemen and firemen would do the same.  We have stories about people giving their lives for others which is a very courageous thing to do.  As a matter of fact, Jesus did this very thing for us a long time ago.  But today I want to talk about having courage to live life and face problems.

This is a whole different type of courage.  As we enter the Christmas season it is very easy for some people to withdraw emotionally and feel dis-couraged based on their circumstances.  I know that for many years, I didn't have enough money to do the things I wanted for my family at Christmas and it would make me depressed.  I didn't want to go to Christmas parties or watch Christmas movies.  I viewed everything surrounding Christmas as a chore.  Christmas cards went out and gifts were given - the job got done but that wasn't really living.  Do you know what courage is?  Courage is being in a situation that you don't really like and deciding to make the best of it regardless of whether it feels good or not.  Courage is staring at the things in your life that you don't like about yourself or your situation and not letting it stop you from living and enjoying life.

But for years I was unable to face my weight problems or my financial problems.  I was just too afraid to admit that I had them.  Why?  Because then my life wouldn't be so perfect.  And my life was perfect.  it was perfectly wooden.  I was living dead because I didn't have the courage to face my short comings.

Have you ever faced depression?  It takes real courage to recognize it and decide that you are going to do something about it.  See depression is a very serious problem and if your not careful it can kill you.  So what do you call someone who has faced that monster and overcome it?  Courageous.

I knew of a situation where someone was depressed to the point of wanting to commit suicide.  Now the story goes that this person was a young person.  While it's not uncommon, what seemed strange to me about this story was that the person had low self esteem when that person easily could have been just the opposite.  This person was very attractive, smart, caring, funny, had a magnetic personality and extremely gifted but also battling depression.  One thing that caught my attention specifically about this story was that the person in it was strong enough to admit there was a problem and ask for help despite all the fear many fears of doing it.  That person is my hero!  I only hope that I will have that kind of courage when I need it.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Faith

Today I want to talk about faith.  Did you know you have faith?  "Well, wait a minute," I can hear you say, "I'm not even a Christian.  I don't believe in that faith stuff."  My friend I beg to differ with you.  You do have faith.  What you have faith in is a totally different question.  While I was working out at the gym today, my trainer showed me a video of the guy who recently jumped out of that balloon from the edge of space.  Did you know he had faith?  In what?  Gravity.  He believed that he would return to earth when he jumped out of that capsule.  If he hadn't believed it, he would never have jumped out.

See we operate in faith all the time.  When you get out of bed, you have faith that you will be able to stay on the floor (gravity again).  You have faith that you are breathing air.  You have faith that the round ball in the sky providing light is the sun.  We have faith in all kinds of things.  Yes some of us have faith in God and that's a very good thing.  According to the bible, the opposite of faith is fear.

Fear is faith that something bad is going to happen.  If you have fear that you are going to die in a car accident, you are really saying that you have faith that this will come to pass in your life.  That's not a good thing.  Now I know some people will say that they had faith in God for this to happen or that and it didn't.  Why didn't your faith work?  I can't say for sure.  There are a lot of reasons that you may not have received what you wanted.  But let's look at the other side, there are many times when we fear something will happen and it doesn't.

I am amazed sometimes at how much fear and faith we see everyday.  Some fear is stronger than others but some faith is stronger than others as well.  I want you to know that fear and faith are not equal even though they are opposites.  Faith in God will always beat fear.  So let me ask you what you are afraid of today?  In the last couple of weeks I have been afraid of a certain thing.  But here's what I learned, when I started trusting God and putting my faith in him, that fear had to shrink away.  So let me ask you this?  Where is your faith?

Is it in something bad or something good?  The answer is something you have to decide but know this - you will operate in faith in many things today.  You only get to chose what you have faith in.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

What to Do When the Cross Gets Heavy

Today this keeps running around in my head.  Now earlier this week it was for me but I sense it's for someone else today.  I posted this on the Minion Facebook page and on my personal Facebook page at different times this week.  It's the lyrics to a song called "Through the Fire" and it's performed by a group called The Crabb Family.

The lyrics that keep impacting me are these - "He never promised that the cross would not get heavy or the hill would not get hard to climb.  He never offered our victory without our fighting but He said help would always come in time.  Just remember when your standing in the Valley of Decision and the adversary says give in, just hold on.  My God will show up and He will take you through the fire again."  Those words are so true and they have impacted me greatly several times in my life.  This past week I went through a bit of a fire of my own making.  I'm thankful for friends and a wonderful woman who helped me see it for what it was.  I also gave myself permission to not be perfect this week.  Thank God for His grace.

Now I want you to think about something for a minute.  Put yourself in a room that is on fire.  You are standing in the middle of the room and everywhere you turn there is fire.  You can't see windows through the smoke and the flames.  What are you thinking about at this moment.  Chances are you see and think nothing but smoke and flames.  You're in a bad spot and there doesn't seem any way out of it.  What do you do?  There is no way to put out the flames so you will either go through or get burned.

Obviously this exact situation doesn't happen to many of us.  But what about when you are up against a school project that's due tomorrow?  Or maybe you are in a relationship that doesn't work right.  Maybe your financial picture is all messed up and you don't see any way out.  The list of possible bad situations could go on and on but I hope you see my point.  Regardless of what you are facing, I want you to know that God never promised you wouldn't face trouble.  The only way that happens is after you go to Heaven.  Before that event, you will see trials and tests.

What I want you to understand is that there isn't a situation that can possibly go on in your life that God can't handle.  Now here's where I get in the most trouble.  I have a tendency to meditate the problem for hours.  The thought of meditating God's promise over the situation can escape me at times.  Have you ever been like that?  I have been in situations recently that weren't near as big as I thought they were but because I focused solely on the problem it grew out of proportion.  On top of that, I never trusted God with the issue.

But when I finally woke up and took the issue I faced to God, He was right there waiting for me.  Guess what I didn't have to move at all to get to Him.  All I had to do was turn around and He was right there.  The Bible says He will never leave you nor forsake you.

So if you are going through tough times stop and trust God.  He never said life would be easy but He did say He would bring you through all the trials if you trust Him.

That's Another Opinion of the Minion