One Degree

Today I want to talk about direction and goals.  First of all, is it important to have goals?  Well for some it may not be.  I know some people who's personalities really don't lend themselves to concrete goals.  They meander through life and enjoy it.  For them it is a peaceful way to live and goals really mess things up.  For me, that would be a difficult way to live but I must admit that there are days when I envy them.  I am not a hard core goal nut who has to have a goal for everything in life (at least I don't think I am) but I do think that goals are important.

After all, if you don't know where you are going, how will you know when you get there right?  That's where I think goals are important.  For many of you who read this blog, your goal might be to graduate high school or college.  You may have never thought of it that way but if you are in high school, your goal is definitely to get out right?

Well after we get out of college goals can be a little more vague.  For most, the goal is to get married, raise a family, provide for retirement, etc.  But I know so many people who really don't have any plan for their lives and after we are adults, I think that is not healthy.  Let's say your goal is to get out of debt.  What is the plan?  How are you going to cut spending or increase your income?  Is that plan realistic.  Let me take you back a couple of years to when I first really started financial goals.  Back then, I used budgets to justify going further into debt.  Harry Potter movies were more realistic than my budgets.  So are your goals something you can measure?  Remember if you don't have a destination, how will you know when you get there?

Now I want to get to my point for this e-mail.  Sometimes we set goals for ourselves and we come up with good plans to get where we want to be.  For many of us, it is to be good parents and take care of our children.  For me, one of my biggest goals is to walk closer with God.  Now that goal is a great one but it is a little hard to measure.  When I was losing weight, I could step on a scale and the number it displayed would tell me if I was progressing toward my goal or not.  But with my walk with God, I didn't have as concrete or measurable goal.

But here is what I noticed recently.  I have drifted a little away from the Lord.  Now I didn't backslide to hell by any means and I didn't fall into sin or deny Christ or anything close to that.  However, I did notice I was not a peace.  I hit times that weren't as fun as they should be and I couldn't figure out why.  While this isn't the only reason for my frustration, it is an important one.  I knew I had to get back to a closer walk with the Lord.  As I made a fresh commitment to walk closer to Him, I noticed that I didn't have to turn and run back to where I last felt close.  See He followed me on my journey.  The Bible says He will never leave you nor forsake you and He didn't.  He was right there when I went looking for him.  It was great and definitely refreshing.

One of the big questions in my mind was how did I get to this place were I had lost my peace.  I didn't hurt anyone; cuss anyone; do wrong that I knew of so what happened.  The answer is I got one degree off course.  I didn't take His presence seriously enough in my day to day life.  I quit praying as much as I should.  I quit reading His word and my daily devotional with as much attention as I should.  The next thing I knew I was out of peace.  Did you know that if an airplane starts flying from Fort Worth to Paris and it is only one degree off course it can wind up miles and miles from it's goal?  Well that's exactly what I think happened to me.

So let me leave you with this.  What are your goals in life?  Have you ever woken up to find yourself way off course?  If so, all you have to do is rededicate to your goals and set your course straight.  Then take time regularly to check and see if you are still headed where you want to go.  If you aren't simply fix the course.  Many of you may not be where you want to be with Christ at this particular moment.  If that's so, getting back to where you need to be with him is easy because even if you quit paying attention to Him, He never left your side.  If that's you, would you pray this simple prayer.  "Father, please forgive me.  I strayed from my course with you.  Please help me get back into Your perfect will for my life."  If you prayed that prayer, then you are back at the right place with God.  Now search His will out for your life and get ready for the adventure of a lifetime.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Conflict

Today I want to talk about something that is a very tough subject and honestly I don't know if I have ever seen people do this right.  I want to talk about how we solve problems between people.  Now I don't think that we can really go around solving other people's problems.  I know several people who have tried unsuccessfully to do that for years.  But what I want to talk about today is a great personal triumph for me.

Think with me for a minute about learning how to drive a car.  If you had never done that before and had never even seen a car, do you think you would be capable of driving one?  Let's say you managed to get the car started and drive it.  Since you don't know the traffic laws, there is a very good chance that you will wreck that car and quite possibly get someone else hurt right?  Well that's the way I think I have been with conflict resolution for most of my life.

If you are married or in a serious relationship, you are going to have conflict between the two people in the relationship.  If you aren't, you are going to have conflict between yourself and your friends and all sorts of other people.  Now for me, resolving conflict with friends has always been fairly easy but for years I have had conflicts with people who are close to me and had no idea how to resolve it correctly.  As I have said before, for a long time I simply turned my emotions off.  That wasn't the best thing but it made conflict resolution easy.  How?  Well, most of the time I would other people simply run over me. Whenever there was a conflict I was normally the one to try to keep the peace.  I read in the bible that blessed are the peacemakers and I tried to be a peacemaker.  The problem was, many of the people I knew only wanted peace on their terms.

That typically didn't work out well for me because I just gave in.  Was there really conflict resolution?  No because I just bottled up all the hurt and never found a balanced, healthy way to resolve it.  Part of my problem was having to deal with people who didn't know how to resolve it either.  Most of them learned that the way to resolve conflict was to get mad and yell.  If you show enough anger then the other side will back down and the conflict is resolved right?  In the short term, that is true but it is very damaging to a relationship.  So that way doesn't work either.

About a year and a half ago, the Lord really opened my eyes to my emotions and how they work.  Since then, I have felt a lot of things.  Most of them are new.  Many feel good but many do not.  This brought a change in the way I decided to resolve things.  If I didn't get a good solution to the problem and one that was more on my terms then I would simply cut the offending person out of my life.  I applied this to dating and I can tell you it didn't really work either.  What I was saying then was unless you are perfect, I won't be around you because if you mess up once, you must be like the other people I have dealt with who don't know how to do this any better than I do.  Guess what, that isn't a winning strategy either.

So why am I so excited?  Well I recently dealt with a person over a particular issue.  On the issue in question, the other person did something that aggravated me a little.  Now fortunately, I read a book earlier that day discussing conflicts and how we resolve them.  Some people believe that how you resolve conflict will indicate how long you stay in relationship with someone.  If you don't do it well, that relationship won't last.  Well in this particular case, I ran a quick errand to give myself a little breathing room to think through things a little.  When I did, here is what I discovered.  This issue did irritate me and it would be unhealthy for me ignore the emotion.  However, in the grand scheme of life, it really wasn't that big a deal.

The other person in this situation could sense that I was offended and thus became a little defensive.  I was able to share how I felt.  It didn't take long and as soon as I shared my feelings and knew the other person generally cared about how I felt, all of my aggravation over the situation left.  I felt much better.  At the end of the discussion this person felt better too.  The funny part is that I don't know if the other person has had much success in life resolving personal conflict either because I sensed this person was waiting for me to attack.  When I didn't it seemed like it was a little shocking to that person as well.  Did it feel great?  Yes!  I finally let something bother me, expressed my emotions in a calm and respectful manner and then the situation was resolved.

So what did I learn?  When you have a problem with someone, you need to acknowledge that their is a problem.  Don't stuff it down but don't react out of anger either.  Take a few minutes to cool off and get your head under control.  After that, take the time to express yourself in a respectful way to the other person.  After that, you will feel better.  Now let me also say that it certainly helped that I knew the other person loved and cared about me.  This particular person is also very level headed and very capable of rationally discussing the situation which was a big plus.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Are You Drunk?

Hello everyone,

Today I want to tell you about something I really saw in a different light this week.  But before I get to that, I want to roll the clock back several years and tell you a little story.

When I first started working for company I run today, some of the people from our company had to take a trip to Detroit.  Now I was very new to flying and so I was really excited.  But the truth be told, I was new to almost everything related to business.  I was still a wet behind the ears rookie at our business at it showed.

There were four of us on this particular trip.  We were going to see a company that wanted us to work for them and this was our interview process.  It was a chance for us to interview them and vice versa.  But since we were coming to Detroit on our air fare, they paid for our hotel rooms (remember this fact, you will see it again).  My boss was normally in a good mood when we went on these trips and he needed it for this trip.  As we got to the counter, I was the first one in our line.  Now my boss was in the frequent flier program and he had the ability to upgrade to first class from coach.  The attendant asked if I wanted to upgrade since I was in my bosses party and I said, "Sure! Updgrade the whole group!"  Because I wasn't using my money, being a big spender was no problem.  The funny part was that I didn't know it cost money to do the upgrades.  I thought my boss got to do this just because he had flown so much on that airline.  Well $500 later we got on the airplane in first class.  If he was mad about it, he never mentioned it.  Truth be told, he would probably have done it himself.

So he and another of the more seasoned veterans of our company sat a couple of rows behind us while I and another wet behind the ears salesman sat in the bulkhead row.  It was an evening flight and we all had a good time.  In fact, my companion had a very good time.  He drank a bottle of wine during the flight.  Well we are about to start our decent into Detroit when the flight attendant asks him if he wants to take this other bottle with him when we get off the plane.  When my friend finds out he has 30 minutes until we land, he promptly orders the bottle opened and finishes it before we hit the runway in Detroit.

At this point, he is finished himself.  See two bottles of wine over the course of three hours is a lot of wine even for him.  At that point, he could hold his liquor pretty well.  What he didn't factor into the equation was the altitude and how it makes the alcohol even more potent.  While we were standing in line to get our rental car, he has his arm around the guy behind.  This other guy is wearing the ugliest suit I have ever seen.  It is bright yellow and he is wearing a bright yellow hat like the guy from Curious George.  Being the salesman he is, my friend is trying to convince this stranger to come charter a boat the company owed!  He was totally plastered!

So we get to the hotel and start the check in process.  In case you have never stayed at a hotel, this is a typical check in process.  You walk up to the counter, announce who you are and they start the process.  At this point, the people behind the counter ask for your credit card to pay for the room and any other incidental charges.  Unless someone else has already paid for your room!  At one point in our process and I find my friend in a full on argument about paying for his room.  Now he is attempting to pay for it with his driver's license (not a credit card).  When the lady behind the counter explains that the rooms have been paid for by the company we are visiting, he gets upset because he thinks that this little lady is saying he is in capable of handling his financial responsibilities and tries to pay for his room with his YMCA card.  This whole process goes on for a while before we get him convinced that the room is paid for and he is in right standing with the hotel.

That's sort of a funny story right.  Well what would you say if I told you that you have probably done the same thing in your life?  I can already hear people saying, "Not me!  I've never been drunk!" or something else explaining my ridiculous question.  But hold on there for a minute.

See, I bet there is an area of your life where this is a problem.  Have you ever done something wrong in your life and then regretted it?  Have you ever felt bad about something you did and sort of punished yourself for doing it?  I'm pretty sure you have.  But you see, your forgiveness has already been paid in full.  Jesus did it once and for all.  He took care of your hotel bill for good.  I think we go around a lot trying to pay for our own sins with our driver's license or YMCA card when Jesus has already taken care of it.  So if that's you today, quit trying to pay for something that's already paid with something that wouldn't take care of the bill if there was one.  Just accept God's forgiveness.  When you do something wrong, admit it, quit it and forget it!

That's another Opinion of the Minion.

Stealing from The Minion

Hello everyone.  Today I want to tell you about something that happened to me this week.  On Tuesday, my wonderful girlfriend and I went to eat dinner at a local Mexican food restaurant here in Fort Worth.  While we were in the restaurant eating, someone broke the glass out of my vehicle and stole my iPhone.  That's pretty mean right?  Well in the process there was some additional body work that needed to be done and it's in the shop.

I bet some of you are already a little mad at the person who did this right?  I was for a short time.  This brings me to what I want to discuss today.  Today's blog is about forgiveness.

I know of a person who holds grudges extremely well.  This person is not into forgiveness.   As a matter of fact, this person can bring up injustices whether real or perceived from thirty years ago and relive them just like they were yesterday.  Now this person, who I will call person A has held a grudge against person B for at least 40 years and when A brings up events that caused the hurt over 4 decades ago, it's as if it happened last week.  You can see A's blood pressure go up and A's face turn red.  You can see the tension in A's body and all the stress.

B, on the other hand is just living life without one care about all that stuff.  I can tell you that B hardly ever brings any of it up.  I learned a lesson from watching this.  Who was really hurt all these years by the events of forty years ago?  The answer is A.  A has been damaged for not forgiving.  Now the bible says that God can't forgive us if we can't forgive other people so we must learn to forgive.  But aside from that extremely important fact, it's important for us to forgive others who have done us wrong because it frees us from the damaging effects of holding things against them.

I know this can be very hard.  I was in a relationship once with someone who did something that they shouldn't have done and this hurt me deeply because it betrayed a basic trust that I had with that person (I don't think the person I am talking about reads this blog, so if you are my friend and reading this it's probably not you).  I could have held a grudge and I could have worn that wrong suffered like a coat full of spikes on the inside lining but the only person who would have gotten hurt was me.  The other person never even asked my forgiveness.  But I decided to give the people involved forgiveness because I didnt' want the hurt.

Now this is exactly what I did after the incident with my phone.  After about thirty minutes, I cooled off and started thanking God that no one got hurt, I got to spend an great evening eating with someone I love, and at the end of the day everything was going to be OK.  After I got done with the thankfulness part, I purposely, from my heart, forgave whoever stole my phone.  Do you know what happened?  It set me free from the weight of unforgiveness.

So let me encourage you right now.  If you are holding on to something that someone has done to you, forgive them and let it go because unforgiveness only hurts you.

And that's another Opinion of the Minion.

Be You

Today I want to deal with another subject that grew out of a very sensitive conversation that I had with someone recently.  As in my last post, I will not go into the situation because it was a very sensitive one and it could cause the person who talked to me harm even though I don't think anyone involved reads this blog.  I am not sure why people want to talk to me but it seems that they do.  (If I am fortunate, it is because people see the love of God come through me to them).

Let me use an example from my own life to illustrate my point.  When I was married, I changed a lot.

Some of it was for the better - I was a financial train wreck waiting for a place to come off the tracks for many years of my life.  As a matter of fact, some people who knew me back then thought I was crazy for going to law school because I was so irresponsible that they didn't think I could make it through.  Eventually I changed over time and grew out of that which is a very good thing.

I also became a father.  That was definitely a change for the better.  When the movie, Courageous came out I watched it and my heart broke.  I realized then that I did not know how to be a great father and I really wanted to be one.  Now I don't think I am a bad dad but I definitely know I can improve.  But being a dad for the first time definitely changed me in a good way.

But I also changed in some not good ways.  I quit being myself because part of me seemed to always make my ex-wife mad.  The Bible says that people who make peace with other people will be blessed so I always tried (most of the time unsuccessfully) to make peace with her.  But in doing so, I lost touch with part of who I was.  I was never really comfortable around her.  I don't think that she was responsible for this.  As a matter of fact, there are parts of me that I should have refused to change because they were really who I am. 

As an aside, don't use this as an excuse to be mean or act inappropriately to anyone.  I can hear some guy saying, "Well I just like a lot of girls.  That's part of who I am so it's OK for me to date other girls while I am married to someone."  NO I am not saying that.  Quit being a jerk.

But what I am telling you is that you need to be true to who you really are.  If you like football, that's OK as long as it doesn't rule your life.  If you like romantic movies, that's OK as long as it doesn't rule your life.  See it is important to stay true to yourself.  Don't let people change you to the point that you don't even recognize you anymore.  That's a mistake.  Now I have decided to just be me.  That doesn't mean that everyone has to like me.  Some people probably don't but that's OK. 

So I want to leave you with this.  Stay true to who you are.  Be you.  Do the right thing even when it's not popular but be you.

That's Another Opinion of the Minion

Two Feet Part 1

Hello everyone,

Many of you know that I use to way 350 pounds and the Lord delivered me from weight issues.  I believe he told me to write a book.  Below please find a small part from the first chapter.  Please let me know what you think.

That's the Opinion of the Minion

It’s 5:55 a.m. and the alarm clock begins signals the start of another day.  After a couple of seconds I roll over and turn it off.  Out my picture windows, I am greeted by an amazing sight.  The sun is just beginning to rise over the tops of the buildings downtown.  Fort Worth isn’t the biggest city in the world by any stretch but it’s my city and its home.  I live in the penthouse and the view from my balcony is breath taking.  I let Clara Belle out on it and she lays down to enjoy the air.  She’s a Great Pyrenees mix and looks more like a polar bear than a dog.  It’s a cool 65 degrees Fahrenheit outside today.  Quite a change from the hottest summer in north Texas history.  We have had 70 days of over 100 degree weather and I am glad for a break.

That done, I pick up my Ipad and open the Sonus app that controls the stereo zones in my apartment.  I only play the music in the bedroom so I don’t wake up any of my neighbors but it gets me going.  Next, it’s time to make the bed and start the shower. Shower complete, vitamins consumed and dry fit clothes on, I lace up my Asics Kayano gym shoes.  They only have a couple of days left before they are trash but they still feel good.  At around 6:25 I head out the door and down to the car.  It’s a short ride to the gym and there is an audiobook talking to me through the Lexus’ stereo system.  As I walk in the door, I see many familiar faces and they are a mix of smiles and frowns just like you would expect.  My good friend and trainer is there talking to his fiancée on the treadmill so I stop to offer some good natured words of quasi encouragement and head to the men’s locker room.  I drop my bag in the back corner and pull out the Garmin watch along with my IPod Nano.  It’s just another day in paradise.  On my way out the door, I stop to drop my shirt by the computer monitor on the desk and step out into the cool air.  What a beautiful morning.  It‘s one of those times in life that you are in awe of God and his creation.  I can see more of the sun peaking up over the tops of the buildings and know this is going to be one of those great days.

As I stand there waiting for my Garmin to sync up with the satellites OneRepublic’s  Good Life is blaring in my ears.  It’s nice just to sit there and hum along while the watch talks to whatever it talks to.  My trainer just told me that I don’t have to do weights today just cardio but he asks me to push just a little today.  This should be a good run.  The humidity is low and the temperature perfect.  I will only run six miles today.  Certainly not the farthest I have ever run but a lot farther than I could have gone eight years ago.  Watch finally working I start out.  Almost immediately I take a right turn and head toward White Settlement road.  The tunes change and my mind drifts all over the place.  I think about the people in my life.  Who needs help today and what can I do about it?  When I get to work, what needs to be done?  What else is on the agenda today?  I have a blog that has 37,000 fans from literally around the world.  What would the Lord have me tell them today?  How am I going to bring them a word of encouragement?  It’s a great day and I start much stronger than I have in a long time.

Now I hit the 1.25 mile mark and start the climb up the first real hill.  The whole run is a little uphill but this is the first one that really gets my attention.  I have to cross 7th street and then make the climb.  The cool air definitely helps and my legs don’t really burn today.  I am holding steady at about 7.4 miles per hour.  Now that’s not really all that fast even for me but it’s much faster than I have been running.  

As I come over the top of the hill.  I spot something truly remarkable.  It’s a box and it’s on the opposite side of the street from where I am running.  This box isn’t just any old box, its silver with a bright red bow around it.  You know the kind; you can take the lid off the box without disturbing the ribbon on the lid or the box because someone has wrapped each separately.  I will never know exactly what is in this box but I appreciate it none the less.  God has placed certain unique qualities inside this box.  Who knows what they are but because He took so much time and care when he created it, I respect it greatly.  It is truly an amazing gift to the world and I am honored just to see it for a few minutes.  As I look around, there are more boxes.  One is crossing the street and one is already in front of me on the same side of the street.  One thing I know for sure - God is deeply and passionately in love with each of these boxes and that makes me appreciate them greatly.  Many of these boxes need help and I wish I could be the one to help them all.  Sometimes I get to but not as often as I would like.

You Want to Do Something for Me?

OK everyone, today I want to talk about something that is very difficult for me.  It is hard for me to let other people bless me.  As I have said before, I am divorced and obviously my marriage wasn't a great one or I would still be married.  One thing I learned through the process is that I didn't want my ex-wife to do anything for me.  Now this is probably just my perception but it always seemed like if I let her do something for me, it would come back to me in a negative way.  I really think this was just my perception and in fact she said more than once that I didn't let her do things for me.

I don't want to rehash my divorce but I do want to talk about this whole issue for a few minutes.  I am in a relationship now with a remarkable person.  I have learned much from her and am thankful for her.  One of the things that I struggled with as we started dating was letting her do things for me.  This next part may sound conceited but I don't mean it that way.  I think I am just stating a fact.  I am a good guy and I really like her so it is natural for me to do nice things for her.  But for whatever reason, it was not natural for me to let her do much in return.  Fortunately, I am finding balance now. 

There is one particular instance that really made me understand my problem.  I was at her house one day and she decided that she was going to fix us a meal.  I sat at the table watching her work on our meal and it made me extremely uncomfortable.  To alleviate this, I asked a few times if I could help with something and she very sweetly and politely said no.  She just wanted me to sit there and we talked.  This made me even more uncomfortable.  I really didn't like not helping with some part of the process.  I think I felt that if I did some of the work then I would "earn" my right to enjoy dinner.

Now I have done things for her that I would not let her help me do because I wanted to bless her.  Again, I don't mean this as bragging.  But when the shoe was on the other foot, I was really not interested in just letting her bless me.  That was very selfish on my part.  Fortunately, I didn't say anything and we had a great meal.  How rude would it have been for me to want to bless her but not allow her to bless me back.  She is a very giving person and I wanted to stifle her giving.  Well I am learning to enjoy being blessed as much as I get to be a blessing now.

Before I get to the main point of this blog, let me say this.  We cannot always sit back and "let others bless us" without being a blessing to them.  That's called being lazy and probably a little narcissistic.  I am not saying that I should sit back and do nothing while she "serves" me.  The mere thought of that turns my stomach.  What I am telling you is that we need to be balanced in this area.

So let me get to the main point here.  Just like I was trying to justify enjoying my meal with my girlfriend, many times we do the same thing with God.  Did you know that when you ask God to forgive you, He does it immediately.  He doesn't put a tickler in your personal file and then get around to forgiving you next week.  That's not the way he works.  Here is another thing about forgiveness.  We cannot earn it.  It is a gift.  Yet how many times do we try to earn our forgiveness from the Lord just like I was trying to earn the right to enjoy dinner?  Have you ever decided to feel bad about something for several days as a "punishment" for what you did?  I hear about people doing this type of thing all the time but that's not the way God looks at it.  You should feel sorry when you do something wrong but don't think you can earn your forgiveness.

Here is another thing that I learned.  God wants to bless us all the time.  He prepared a way for us and has a great plan for each of our lives.  And yet we still ignore his plan preferring to do things on our own.  I am not against doctors and if I am sick I will go to see one but what about going to God and receiving the gift he already gave us for healing?  Why do we feel that we should not let God help us and that we need to do things on our own?  God is such a giving God and he loves you very much.  Look around today for his help and when you find it receive it.  You didn't do anything to earn it, yet he gives you gifts and that's not only OK, it's the way he designed things.  So I hope we all can learn from my issue.  It's OK to let people do nice things for you (assuming their motives are good) and it's really OK to let the Lord do nice things for you.  We can't earn them; we can enjoy them.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Know It All Minion

OK today I have to tell on myself.  We can all learn a lesson from this though.

Yesterday, I took an amazing woman with me to church in Houston, TX.  We decided that we wanted to go to church and how we got to this particular one really isn't important but let me describe the church.  I don't know how things really look outside of Texas but for this Texan, when you say small church it brings up a certain image.

The church building is a quaint little place and the biggest structure by far is the sanctuary.  But the whole thing isn't very big.  When you go inside, you find the steeple roof and the bench pews all neatly arranged. There is an alter down front where people go to pray every Sunday.  There you can pray with the pastor or some other deacon who is ready and willing to help you communicate with God.  Most of the time, you see a plaque on the wall that has three rows.  One with weekly attendance, one with the offering from the last service and I can't remember what's in the other row.

The people are all normally very friendly and they want to shake your hand and give you a hug.  They greet you warmly and there is a general order to the church.  That means that certain families have went there for many years and they sit in the same place every Sunday.  As you sit, there are three things in front of you.  There is the Bible, a hymn book and normally a little pencil to fill in the offering envelope that sits next to it.

Many times kids accompany their families to church and sit with mom and dad.  Sometimes it's because mom and dad want them there.  Sometimes it's because the church is so small, they don't really have a children's church.  Normally there is a nursery with a couple of grandmotherly figures who faithfully take care of the babies.  Many times, this is the second or third generation from the same family that they have seen.

The choir sings three hymns, the pastor preaches for about an hour and the whole thing is concluded by noon.  It's just the old time way.

See the thing is, I come from a very big non-denominational church in Fort Worth where we are taught from the bible.  I like our church and it is the best church for me at the moment.  Also, I read my bible every day.  I'm not saying that to brag, the devil knows the bible but it's important to this particular blog.  I have read the bible through several times and while I am not a bible scholar, I do know some things from the bible.  So when we sat down yesterday, I really wasn't expecting to get anything from the message.  After all, this was a small church full of sweet people.  They sang three hymns that I know well and there was only one person in the choir.  After that, the took up the offering and we were welcomed by everyone.

Now these were some very sweet, genuine, loving people.  And for the most part, they were at least one generation older than us if not more.  I was not expecting much revelation out of the service.  We went there to bless this congregation and we enjoyed the whole service.  It was a good one.  What I did not expect was to learn anything.  After all, I go to a big church.  I really didn't expect to get anything from the sermon but guess what.  The Lord used that as an opportunity to teach me that I didn't know it all.  I saw things in that sermon that I have never seen before in all my many years of reading the bible.  Lord, please forgive me for being arrogant.

Let me say, I did not have a major prideful spirit but I was walking in a little bit of pride.  By the end of the service, I am sure our offering blessed them but I know their service blessed and taught us both something.

So what am I trying to say?  We don't know it all.  God can use the most unlikely places to teach us something.  So be careful of that prideful spirit.  It can rob you of learning and so much more.  I am thankful for that sweet church and the sermon we heard.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

What to Forget

OK, on Monday we discussed what to remember.  Now let's talk about the other side of the coin.  We need to talk about what to forget.

Most of us have embarrassing moments in our life or times when we failed.  Because these were so painful, we can recall them in very vivid detail.  I remember my junior year of high school.  All of the good athletes made the varsity football team that year.  I was stronger than most of the kids in my class and thought I would be a lock to make varsity as well.  The first week of two a days, I was even a starter on the offensive line.  But there was one practice where we were supposed to work on pass blocking.  This kid across the line from me was quicker than I was and he ran right by me and sacked the quarterback three or four plays in a row.

Not only was I demoted from a varsity starter, I was sent to the junior varsity team.  It was humiliating.  To make matters worse, when the list came out and I everyone knew I was on the JV team, a certain classmate of mine made a very vocal point of telling everyone around that I was JV.  That was even more humiliating.  When I tell this story, I can still feel part of those humiliating emotions inside me.  They aren't very big and it certainly doesn't bother me but it is still a reminder of a failure in my past.

There was another time while I was at TCU that I was trying to make an ROTC sport team called Ranger Challenge.  Now the TCU team was one of the top squads in the nation and I really wanted to make the team.  At the very first of the season, I was running pretty well and I had a good shot at making it.  Then I got hurt playing softball and ended up being a back up.  I was devastated and it sent me into a depression.  Now my friends on Ranger Challenge never said anything.  They were great guys about the whole thing but I was still embarrassed.  This even happened at least 15 years ago and I still remember it pretty well.

Yet, when I graduated from law school, I graduated Cum Laude and 4th in my class.  I certainly remember doing this but it is more of a distant memory and it only happened about 10 years ago.

So why do I remember my failures more vividly than my successes?  Because pain can stay around longer than that feeling of happiness that comes from success.  Now I can certainly tell you that after all these years, I learned lessons from both of the failures I described above and that's a good thing.  But I let my ROTC failure ruin my grades at TCU.  I let my high school failure completely shake my confidence.

So here is what we should learn from what I did.  There are certain things that we just have to choose to forget.  I'm not saying that you will completely forget those bad things that happened to you.  Obviously I remember high school and TCU to this day.  But we do have to choose to let go of what happened and we definitely have to learn to "forget" the pain involved.  If we don't let go of those bad events in our lives, we will never have an opportunity to reach for and then celebrate success.

If we continue to hold onto and relive those bad memories too long, it's like trying to swim with cement shoes on.  It will just keep dragging us down.  We will never be able to soar to the heights God intended if we continue to focus on our failures.  Now I am not telling you to pretend that bad things didn't happen and I'm also not telling you to never be sad when bad things happened.  That would be ridiculous.  But what I am saying is after you have had some time to feel sad, let it go.  Don't go around talking to yourself or other people about your failure, let it go and start climbing to the next place God has in store for you.  No matter how bad things are in your life right now, God has a good plan for your life.

So let me sum this up by saying that there are going to be bad circumstances in our lives that we have to deal with.  I know they are there.  However, if we keep our focus on all the bad things that happen to us and never choose to focus on the great things we have done or that God has done for us, we will never achieve the full potential God has for our lives.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Is It Right?

Today I want to talk about something sort of serious.  The question - Is it right?  I talk alot about doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do.  Now I am not perfect at it but I really do want to do the right thing.  I believe this is the best way for me to live my life.  It's also the way the Lord wants me to live my life.

There is something else I should say before I get to the main point of this blog.  Doing the right thing means doing it when no one else is looking.  I have seen many fake people who only appear to do right when others are watching but the true test of whether or not we do the right thing is what we do when we are alone.

For example, I tried to lose weight for years.  I would go on diets and when I was out with people, I would eat a salad or something reasonably healthy.  If I was around others when I was "dieting" I ate reasonably well.  And yet several weeks into my "diet" I still weighed the same weight.  Why was that?  Because when I wasn't around other people, I wasn't eating healthy.  I was eating cookies and ice cream or some other form of sugar.  Was I doing the right thing to lose weight?  A small part of the time I was but not all the time.  Which brings me to another great point.  Doing the right thing means that is your way of life.  Does it mean you are perfect?  Certainly not!  For all of us Christians who go around trying to hold other people to the standard of perfection, stop it.  The bible says no one is perfect.

But what I am telling you is that we should try to do the right thing.  This brings me to my point today.  What is the right thing?  I have heard people say that we should do what makes us feel good.  That is the right thing.  Unfortunately, this just isnt true.  There is a right and wrong period.  It doesn't change. 

I was recently in a situation at work where I was going to have to tell someone we worked for that we had not done a very good job.  I thought about several ways to "spin" it and finally decided that the right thing for me to do was to tell them the truth along with what my plan was to correct the problem.  This person could have gotten very upset with me but this person did not.  This person just accepted what I said and told me to correct the problem.  End of story.  I could have tried to spin things but that would have only made the situation worse.  Many times doing the right thing will not feel good but it will get you the result you want.

There are times when I have wondered if I what I was doing was right.  Obviously even in our society today, we know that killing someone is wrong (or at least it's supposed to be).  But there are times when right/wrong is more difficult to distinguish.  Most of the time we know the right thing to do.  I know in my life there are times when I face decisions.  Sometimes I afraid of what will happen.  Sometimes I really want a certain outcome.  In those cases, it can be very tempting to manipulate the situation to get the outcome I want.  When that happens, I start to rationalize that what I am doing is right but sometimes it's not. 

Let me try to illustrate.  Have you ever been to a store or the bank and had the teller give you the wrong change.  Let's say I go to the store and the clerk gives me an extra $20 that really isn't mine.  There is a CD or something else I want to do with that $20.  Maybe I even want to take someone to lunch who really needs me.  That would be a very good use of the $20 right.  So I start thinking to myself that if I take the $20 and use it to help someone else then keeping the $20 is right.  How about if I just say to myself that it's the clerk's fault because he gave me the money.  I didn't do anything wrong.  After all I didn't take the money.  It's his mistake.  How about this.  Maybe God used that clerk to give me the $20 and this was really a blessing from God! 

What am I doing?  I really want to keep the $20.  If I step back for a minute and look at the situation, I know the right thing to do.  That isn't my money.  Make no mistake, God doesn't work in that way.  He has a million ways to get you money and doesn't need to resort to taking it from a clerk who will get in trouble for having the wrong change in his drawer at the end of the day.  The right thing for me to do is to bring the error to the clerk's attention and return the money.

To many of us this example seems a little trivial.  I mean it's only $20 right?  Well how about when we are talking about an unborn baby?  Uh oh, now what?  Did you ever notice that everyone who is pro abortion has already been born?  Ladies and gentlemen, I know abortion is a very sensative subject and I will not engage in a debate about it.  I'm merely trying to make a point.  If you have been a part of an abortion (and I have gotten a girl pregnant who had an abortion while I was at the clinic) then know this - there is total and complete forgiveness.  God loves you deeply and making a wrong decision doesn't change that.  You are not a second class citizen and you have not been cut out of God's family for it.

So let me sum this up.  We are all faced with decisions every day.  I don't think we will ever be perfect.  If so, we would not need God.  But I do think we should do our best to do right.  To do the right thing, we have to define what is right and what is wrong.  Let me end with this, you have got to stand for something or you will fall for anything (I don't know who said it but it's true).

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

Is It Real?

Today I want to talk about something that is a little strange to me.  The question is - Is it real?  Is what real, you ask?  When someone tells you something nice is it real?  Several months ago, I wrote a blog about the Box.  It was probably the most significant thing I have written thus far because it meant so much to me.  In this blog, I wrote about how we should look at the stuff that is on the inside of people and not the outside.  I think it is important to see the great things God has put in all of us.  Now it may have been the same blog or maybe not but I also wrote a little about how to take a compliment.

Recently, I have been around someone who has taken the time to take the lid off my box and see what's on the inside of me.  This person has been very complimentary of me and to be honest, it is a little unsettling.  I am not really sure how to take it.  She's used words to describe me like nice, sweet, caring, etc.  She even went as far as to say that I was a good man.  I am extremely grateful for the compliments and I believe that they are from the heart and sincere but they made me a little uncomfortable.  That made me consider my own actions a little.

When I am around someone, I try to be very positive.  I have worked hard to be someone who sees the best in others.  While I am not perfect, I feel like I have come a long way.  Like I have said before, I'm not where I want to be but thank God, I'm not where I used to be.  But I got a lesson today in how it feels to have someone do the same thing back to me.  Now it is unsettling but in a good way. 

I recently told someone that I thought they were a very special person and the response I got was not surprising.  That person basically said she struggled to believe what I was saying but she was working on believing it.  I have had this answer before in a different context and I wasn't shocked.  What surprised me a little was that this person didn't believe me.  Now she didn't think I was lying, she just found the nice thing I said difficult to believe.  At the time, I didn't understand why but now I think understand why she felt this way.

Have you ever been around someone who tells you one thing and then does another?  How about someone who tells you that they love you and then they do hateful things to you?  What message does that send?  Actions speak much louder than words so the actions certainly override the words.  Also, for some reason pain has a much more lasting effect on people than love.  At least on the surface this is the case.  So when we feel pain, the thought of it stays longer than love although love will impact you on a much deeper level.  But after someone hurts us, especially if it's for a long period of time, we really have a difficult time believing someone else when they say something nice.

Let me ask you this.  Has something happened in your life that makes it hard for you to believe things when people say nice things about you?  Maybe your self esteem is so low that it makes it hard for you to believe the nice things that people say about you.  The truth about the matter is that everything God ever made is amazing.  He made you and by definition that makes you an amazing person.  God wrote a whole book about you and how amazing you are.  The book says you were made in his image.  If someone tells you any different, ask yourself who's lying?  Is it them or God?  I choose them.  If someone tells you something good about you, it's probably true.  Now I do believe that we need to watch out for people who say nice things to manipulate us.  However, there are many people who just recognize the amazing gifts that God put in our box.  When that happens, let it soak through your skin like rain into the ground and get to your heart where it can grow into something amazing.

Today as we were walking, this person told me that I was pretty special.  I know what she says is sincere and I should have been able to believe her and just say thank you.  However, this is hard for me because it's hard for me to feel worthy of the compliment. There is a fine line between believing that we are worthy and being arrogant.  For years I have tried to hide behind humility to avoid compliments.  Now true humility is good and I try to be a humble person.  But I would avoid compliments or block them out because I didn't feel worthy of the compliment.  Instead of dealing wih not being worthy, I simply chose to believe that accepting a compliment could make me arrogant.

I am learning to accept these things from people and let them cause a harvest of good things to grow from my heart.  In truth, we all need to learn this lesson.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Doors

Today I want to take a stab at a funny topic - Doors.  Let's start with wooden doors and then we will move onto metal doors and glass doors, etc.  OK, for those of you who have read a few of these, you know that I won't talk about actual doors but I do want to talk about doors in our lives.

Just like I joked about there being different types of actual doors, there are different types of doors in our lives as well.  Sometimes a door represents an opportunity.  Maybe it represents a new job or a new position at your current job.  I could also represent the opportunity to do something new at school.  But doors can also represent a new friend, a new girlfriend or boyfriend, etc.  We can be talking about one of my favorite subjects - people.  This is were I want to focus for the next few paragraphs and then we will see where things go from there.

Have you ever had a relationship end?  Maybe they end badly and sometimes they just end.  As many of you know, I am 40 years old which means I have been out of high school for a long time.  Now I still keep in touch with some of my friends from high school and there are many who I don't see at all anymore.  I can't think of any of those people that I had some type of problem with.  We just drifted apart over time.  We all went to different schools, started working at different jobs and many of us started our own families.  That all happened over time and many of those "doors" closed in my life.

But there is another side to this.  Most of my very closest friends I didn't know while I was in high school.  We met somewhere along the path of life after and I am certainly glad we did.  All of those people represented doors in my life.  I had to be open to meeting them or I would not be friends with them today.  So let me pause here and ask you this.  Is your heart open to meeting new people?  For some it may be closed because of what happened with other relationships in your life.  I will try to address that in just a minute but let me say, your heart has to be open to new people or you will miss out on some truly remarkable ones.  I recently met a person in the strangest way and I am truly a blessed person because of it.  Which brings me to another point.  God has a million ways to put people in your path that he wants to be part of your life.  Don't let your thinking get so boxed in that you miss the opportunities he puts in your life.

Now let's talk a minute about what would cause someone to close all the doors to new friendship.  Most of the time this happens because someone in our lives has hurt us.  Somewhere along the path of life, a door closed but it didn't just close, it slammed on our finger and it hurt.  When that happens what do we do?

First of all, let it hurt.  Chances are if you are a girl, you are very in touch with your emotions.  You know how to cry and how to feel things on a much deeper level than if you are a guy.  Now us boys, on the other hand, don't do emotions like girls do.  So boys, you are going to have to let things hurt some if you are going to get true healing.  But once it hurts for a while, the healing process will take over and things will get better.  Have you ever cut your finger?  When you do it hurts.  That's your body's way of saying you need to put a band aid on your finger to stop the bleeding and start the healing.  But have you ever noticed that even before it is completely healed, the cut stops hurting?  It can be the same way with our friends.

So how do we start the healing process if we lose a close friend?  There are probably many things to do but I can think of a few that are pretty important.  First of all, admit to your part of whatever went wrong with the friendship.  If you did something wrong, you have to own your part.  Don't make excuses for why you did something, just admit that you did it, ask for forgiveness from God (who will give it to you instantly) and if it's appropriate, ask the other person(s) involved for forgiveness. 

Second, you have to forgive the other person.  This is pretty critical in starting the healing process.  When we hold onto those hurtful feelings and keep that unforgiveness all to ourselves, it can actually feel good.  Using anger at someone to overcome the hurt feelings we have is a pretty normal thing to do.  At first, it works great but just like a cut that gets infected, in the long run it can do us a tremendous amount of damage.  Have you ever seen what happens with a cut that gets infected?  If you let it go long enough, the infection will grow to the point that it can cause the loss of limb or loss of life.  This is the same thing that happens when we choose not to forgive someone.  Notice that the infection gets in us and hurts us, it doesn't hurt anyone else.  It's not contagious and we can't pass it to someone.  It's the same way with unforgiveness.  It only hurts us.  I know this isn't an easy thing to do sometimes because of the bad things people do to us but it has to be done.

Third, while we are on the subject of forgiveness, you have to forgive yourself.  Just like I talked about in the last paragraph, unforgiveness is a killer.  It spreads more quickly and does more damage when we don't forgive ourselves.  Why this is, I am not sure but I have noticed that when I am really getting down on myself it does more damage.  It's almost like opening another cut and letting it get infected.  It hurts about as bad.

Fourth, and this may or not be important, if you are in a hurtful relationship, you may have to leave it.  I will leave that for you do decide.

If you do these things, you are closing a door but you are doing it the right way.  After that door closes, you will find that another one opens.  Regardless of your age, if something like this happens in your life and the person that is leaving is a boyfriend or a girlfriend, this can be extremely painful.  You can have emotional attachments that are strong and they make you want to hang on to the relationship.  That's normal and that feeling is what caused you to become boyfriend/girlfriend with them in the first place.  But what if when that door closed in your life, a better one opened?  That is a difficult thing to see happening for most of us yet it happens all the time.  So, let me encourage you by saying this - If a door closes in your life, you have to process the door and bring "closure" to the situation.  Once you have done that, take a look around.  There may be a much better door right in front of you that you never saw before.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

My Faith Story

Hello everyone.  As most of you who read this blog know, I am a Christian.  An amazing person asked me to share my testimony with her and because if what she said to me after I told her, I thought I would share my personal testimony with you.  After you read this, I would very much love to hear yours.  Please, please, please right back and tell me your testimony.  They are such a blessing.

I have edited it a little but this is what I told her:

I think I was saved when I was four or five. The reason I say this is I have always thought that Jesus was my Lord as long as I could remember. Living like he was Lord was a different thing growing up. We went to a non-denominiational church that believed in the baptism of the Holy Spirit with evidence of speaking in other tongues. The problem with the penticostal denomination is there are some very wierd people doing extremely strange things that make everyone else look strange. I attend Eagle Mountain Church now and it is a non-denominational church. 

Anyway, let me go back in time. Growing up I had a drug problem. My mom drug me to church every Sunday and I hated it. It interfered with watching the Cowboy games and even when they weren't playing I liked to watch wrestling on Saturday night which put me up late.  Hey, I was just a kid.  I didn't know it was fake back then.  I watched local wrestling and really go into it.  Anyway, after I got out of children's church, my brother and I sat at the back of the church in a strategic spot that would allow me to put my bible under my right arm and keep my head straight up and down while I slept. The only way you would know I was sleeping was if you were sitting in front of me and turned around or if I snored.  No one ever woke me up so I guess I didn't snore too loud.  We were also far enough away from the pulpit that the pastor or preacher couldn't see us either.

Back then we went to Calvary Cathedral which is a non-denominational church near downtown. So I slept every Sunday and Pastor Bob Nichols would always end his service by saying, "Father, we have heard the word of God today...." I always felt bad because I hadn't heard it. I slept through the service and I didn't want to lie to God so I wouldn't say that part. Then I finally started staying awake and listening to the word.

That's about when I started TCU. At TCU I was in ROTC and was pretty excited about doing a "varsity sport" called Ranger Challenge. I was in the hunt to make the team when I had an accident at church softball practice that caused me to miss making the team (it was just a bruised thigh but by the time I could run again, I had missed it). That sent me into somewhat of a depressed state. To cut the story a little short, I ended up getting "kicked out" of ROTC because I couldn't hold my weight down and ended up moving in with a girl. This is probably the lowest point in my life and what happened next was truly terrible.  I got her pregnant and she had an abortion.  At this point, I was as far away from God as I ever remember being.  But here's something amazing.  I was far from him but he was never far from me.  The bible says he will never leave me nor forsake me.

While I was going through this period of my life, I obviously quit going to church. I thought up all kinds of nasty things to say about the people who went there. I said they were hypocrites, unfriendly, not real, etc. Word of what I was saying got back to the church I am sure but I never heard anything ugly in response. So, I was living in a one bedroom apartment with this girl and her parents came down and broke us up.  I met her parents before the pregnancy and I remember going for a walk with her dad.  Since we were in college, dating was serious and he wanted to know what my intentions were with his daughter.  I told her dad I wanted to marry her.  It's a wonder he didn't shoot me right there!  I was a complete disaster.  I had been kicked out of ROTC, I was barely able to stay in school, my grades were terrible and I lost my job because I was too lazy to go to work.  If my daughter brought me from back then home, I would have been horrified. After they broke us up, I ultimately got evicted from my apartment because I was too lazy to work and moved back in with my mom and dad. I was either 21 or 22 at the time. At this point, I knew something was desperately wrong. I could not figure out what to do so I would go sit in the bathtub with my bible knowing something wasn't right but not knowing what to do.

Finally, I decided I needed to get right with God (Maybe I got saved for the first time at this point. Honestly, I am not sure). So I decided to go to church with my brother who still attended our church in the youth service. I was prepared to be shunned and rejected and I deserved it but I needed to get right with God and I knew he would be there whether or not the people received me or not. The youth pastor's name was Mark Carillo and I know he preached a sermon but to this day, I have no idea what he preached. As I sit writing this, I am listening to a song called, "The Lighthouse." It couldn't be more appropriate. So Pastor Mark was preaching and it was all I could do not to yell at him to shut up and open the alter. I needed to get right with God and I wanted it done right then. The thought of just going to God on my own was something I could not quite understand yet. Anyway, as soon as he opened the alter, I was the first one down. Then something truly amazing happened. Those people who I had bad mouthed just gathered around me and loved me. They hugged me and prayed with me. It was living mercy that still brings tears to my eyes.

When I stood up, I knew I was right with God and it was a great feeling.

That's the testimony of the Minion 

Forgiveness

OK.  I have a confession to make.  I am writing this particular post for my benefit.  As you read it, I hope it helps you too.

Have you ever had one of those times when you really did something that you thought was wrong?  In the southern United States, we might say have you ever had one of those days where you showed yourself?  Well recently, I did something that I knew was wrong.  Now most people wouldn't consider what I did to be wrong but it was wrong to me and that's what matters in this case.  I did something I said I wouldn't do. At the very least I broke my word.  It was something that really bothered me for a while.

Now I did the right thing afterwards.  I went to the Lord and asked him to forgive me.  I was truly repentant meaning I didn't want to make the same mistake again.  Do you know what happened?  He forgave me immediately.  See his word says that if we confess our sins to him that he is faithful and just to forgive us.  He then takes the memory of our sin and puts it away.  If I had asked him five minutes later about the same sin, He would have purposefully forgotten what I was talking about and wouldn't discuss it.  Because in his mind that situation was over and done.  He didn't hold it against me.  To him it was as if the whole thing never happened.  Now if He is God, the ultimate judge and jury, and He forgave me, why is it I felt so bad for a few days and then why did the feeling bad go away?

Let me tell you my theory.  First of all, I believe you should be remorseful if you do something wrong.  I am not suggesting that we should just not care when we make a mistake.  That's not true.  The Lord will convict our spirits when we do something wrong.  The reason he does this is so we can repent and go the right direction.

So why did I feel so bad?  Punishment.  I think I needed to punish myself for what I did.  God didn't leave the condemnation on me, his conviction was gone as soon as I confessed what I did and asked for forgiveness.  I put all that one me.  And notice something else about what I did.  After a few days, I didn't feel bad anymore.  Today I wish I had done a few things differently but I don't feel bad about what I did anymore.  I mentally served my time.  I can also hear some of you getting upset because I don't feel bad now for doing something wrong.  I didn't say that I felt like it was right.  I just said stopped feeling bad.

So here is the thing.  I need to learn to forgive myself just as quickly as God forgives me.  Once I admitted I was wrong.  That should have been the end of the whole situation.  If God forgives me, I should forgive me too.

Let me ask you this.  When was the last time you did something "wrong"?  It may not be considered wrong to anyone else but you considered it to be wrong.  Did you ask God to forgive you?  If you did something to someone else, did you ask them to forgive you?  Now here is the real question.

Did you forgive yourself?

If you didn't, what are you waiting for?  Once you forgive yourself, forget it.  Try hard not to make the same mistake again but forget what you did.  It's over.  Sometimes that's easier said than done as I experienced recently but it is the right thing to do.

That's another Opinion of the Minion.

Impact

Today I want to talk to you about something important - impact.  Impact what you ask?  Not what but who.  Who's life do you impact?  Some people you know, some you would know if you thought about it and some you may never know this side of heaven but you do impact people's lives.  The question is how do you impact them?

We have all had situations where we did something we regret and it might have impacted someone in a very negative way.  While that is certainly unfortunate and we should all strive to avoid hurting people, I want to discuss how we impact people in a good way.

The first group of people we impact are people we impact their lives and we know it.  I recently found out that a friend of mine was having a really bad day.  I was able to do something for her that really cheered her up.  It was really cool because I knew she was hurting and I got to help brighten her day.  I also got to brighten two of her friends day at the same time.  It was a really fun thing to do.  So let me ask you, when was the last time you did something nice for someone?  When did you do something for someone just because you wanted to do a nice thing without hope of any type of payment?  Can you think of exactly what you did and when?  If it was longer than a week ago, you are long over due to help someone.  I apologize right now if this sounds like bragging.  If you know my heart, you know I don't ever want to brag on myself.  However, it is fun to be the person God uses to bless someone.  I had one day last week where I was able to bless several people on the same day.  It was really neat.  I even had the opportunity to do something nice for someone today.  That came with a huge payoff though.  The smile on that person's face made the whole thing worth while.

The next group of people are ones that you can impact in a positive way if you will just look around and pay attention.  I struggle with this group sometimes because I don't pay as much attention to others as I should.  Now everything you do for someone doesn't have to be a big thing.  Maybe its something small like seeing someone walking out of Starbucks with their hands full and opening the door for them.  I did that today.  Was it a big deal?  No.  Was it something nice for someone I didn't know?  Sure.

See, we all know what our friends and family need.  In many cases, because we are so close to that group, that we are intimately aware of what they need.  When we get a chance to help, we should.  But what about other people around us?  What about the guy in the wheel chair struggling up a hill.  I recently watched a guy go up a hill near my apartment.  I should have helped him but I didn't.  Look around you, there are people everywhere that need help, we just have to open our eyes and watch.

There is another group that we should pay close attention.  Unfortunately, we will never know who this group is.  Well, how can we pay attention to them if we don't know who they are?  We can pay attention to how we treat people in general and the example we set.  Whether you know it or not, people are watching you every day to see what kind of person you are.  Do you help people or do you hurt people.  Let me ask a question.  If you were the only Jesus someone ever saw, what would they think of Him?  That's a pretty sobering question and if you take it the wrong way, you can wind up in condemnation.  I don't want you to go there.  What if someone looked at the way you acted and said, "That person is just a great person.  If that is what Jesus is all about, count me in?"  That would be pretty cool huh.

Well, sometimes we can say a word of encouragement to someone and we will never know that they were encouraged.  Not too long ago, I was talking to a close friend of mine who happens to be my banker.  We were talking and he was telling me about a mutual friend of ours who now lives in Houston and is doing quite well.  Apparently several years ago, I was sharing with our friend about tithing and how it changed my life.  I learned that the true way to increase was to give.  That doesn't make sense right?  But it works.  Anyway I don't even remember talking about this with our friend but apparently he was inspired by what I told him and started tithing himself.  Now he is very successful and he told my banker friend that he remembered our conversation from several years ago even to this day. If I remember right, that pushed him over the top in the right direction.

So let me leave you with this.  You impact people around you all the time everyday.  It's up to you what you do with that opportunity.  You have the ability to do something nice for someone that will bless them and encourage them.

In this life, making a million dollars isn't important, making a difference is.

That's the Opinion of the Minion

A Minion's Good Judgment

Today I want to deal with the subject of judgment.  Don't you just love to be around people who are always judging you or someone else?  Those are my favorite types of people.  Well not really.  I very much dislike being around them.  But let's talk about judgment for a minute.  If you have ever been to church, you have heard the quote from the bible, "Judge not lest ye be judged."  We have taken that to mean that when I am around someone who hurts me or does bad things to me, that I can't judge them right.  I think this is very true.  I cannot judge a person period.

But what I can do is judge their actions.  It's OK to judge a person's actions.  But what I think we really like to do is use judging a persons actions as a spring board to get to what is really fun - judging people.  See I caught myself doing that here recently and honestly I didn't really even know I was doing it.  But before I get to that, let me talk about some things its OK to judge.

Sometimes we are around people who use this don't judge people thing as a way to manipulate us and hurt us.  All the while, they are saying that you can't judge them.  What they are really saying is they want you to continue to allow them to treat you badly.  That's not OK.  If you are around someone who is constantly hurting you, their actions are wrong and that is what I am judging.  I am not saying they are a bad person.  However, don't let people manipulate you into doing what they want if it is wrong.

While I am at it, let me step on a few more toes.  If someone comes up to you and tells you in a loving and kind way that they think you are behaving wrongly, consider what they say.  I know some people who are very difficult to correct because they cannot take someone telling them they are wrong.  I personally like to know when I am wrong (this is not an open invitation for you to correct me).  Let me say that I only trust a few people to tell me I am behaving wrongly.  Most of the time, I listen to my heart and the Lord will correct me where I need correction.  Be thankful when someone does that for you, if you know they really love and care about you.  For me personally, I don't want to go around being wrong.  Have you ever had that dream where you are walking around in your underwear or worse and everyone is laughing at you?  Well that's a little drastic but I think when we walk around constantly behaving wrong in an area, that is exactly what we are doing.

So let me tell you about the wrong kind of judgment.  I know this guy who was extremely judgmental to certain people in his life.  As a matter of fact, he really didn't like having them around.  Why, because some of them did do things that hurt his feelings.  Some of them did nothing to hurt his feelings.  He was just judgmental.  Now I don't know if he was ever judgmental outright to these people's faces but he certainly was in his heart.  He didn't really do it on purpose but he couldn't separate judging a person and judging their actions.  See some of their actions needed to be understood.  In some ways they used him but didn't know it.  So what did he do in return.  He got mad and judged them personally.  He considered himself a pretty humble guy.  He didn't go around openly telling everyone that he thought he was smart or successful.  He didn't go around showing off how much money he made or what he had (although many people thought this was the case).  As a matter of fact, he quit showing people the cool stuff he got and he quit telling people about the cool things that happened to him because some people got jealous.

Regardless of what they did to him, he began to judge himself as better than them.  Now here is where it gets a little strange.  He didn't judge himself smarter, or more successful, or more educated than the people around him.  That would have been too obvious.  He judged worse than that.  He began to see himself as nicer than them.  He would look at his wife and see all the times that she did things that were not nice toward him and only consider the nice things he did for her.  He is to this day a giver and began to feel that people took advantage of that.  So he judged himself to be a nicer and therefore better person than many of the people around him.

OK let me give you three guesses on this guy's identity.  Do you really need three guesses?  Yup, you know it.  This guy is me.  It is a very humbling experience when the Lord shows you that you aren't really all that.  Now I quit judging people before I started writing for the most part but I didn't realize that I was doing it.  It's easy for me to hear people saying nice things about this blog and some of the other stuff I do.  I even have a good friend who told me she thought I was a great guy.  She didn't mean it as one of those blow off things.  This girl really puts me on a pedestal.  She sees things in me that I didn't know were there.  As a matter of fact, there was a certain thing about the Minion that happened that shocked me.  She said that she was surprised it took as long as it did.  So guess what, the Minion isn't all that.  I have already done this in private but I want to go on record in front of you and ask God to forgive me for being judgmental.  That is truly a terrible thing to do and I am ashamed of it.  If I have judged you wrongly instead of just judging your actions, please forgive me.

So let me ask you a question?  Where are you being like I was?  Where are you judging people?  I bet that somewhere you are judging them instead of their actions.  That has to stop.  Do you like to sit around and talk about other people?  That's called gossip and it's very judgmental.  We have to stop that.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Mercy Minion

Today I want to spend a little time talking about two very tough words - mercy and grace.

Several times lately, I have heard someone mention the word karma.  When they use this word, what they are basically saying is that someone got what was coming to them and normally this applies to something  bad happening to someone and the fact that they deserved it.

For instance, when someone is mean to you and let's say they call you something bad.  Then a couple of days later you hear that something bad happened to them.  It can be very easy for us feel like this bad person got what they deserved and maybe they did.  But let me ask you something - Do you want what you deserve all the time?  Do you want that karma to play a part in your life?  Because I know me, and I certainly don't want to get what I deserve because I can tell you that by some of my actions, I deserve some pretty bad stuff.

Now most people who know me would say that I am a pretty nice guy.  I try to help people and try to give where ever I can.  But there was one time that I was an extremely huge jerk.  See, my brother, his wife, my ex-wife and I all went to the movies one night.  Now we were at the snack counter buying stuff for the movie and I think my brother's wife ordered a hot dog that we didn't get so I mentioned it to the clerk.  From there, things spiraled downward pretty quickly and an one point he called my sister-in-law a liar.  This really made me mad so I told this sixteen year old kid that I had a law degree and was smart and successful (at least that's the way I will clean it up for this) and I also told him that he was a worthless nobody who would never make it out of the job he was in.  I told him to enjoy working at a movie theater or pumping gas the rest of his life because that was all he would ever do.

Are you little surprised at me?  Well, I can tell you that to this day, it is one of the things in my life that I am most ashamed of.  That kid didn't deserve the stuff I said to him.  So let's talk about karma.  As I said, I am really a good guy at heart and I want people to judge me for my heart and not necessarily for the things I say or do.  Did I make a mistake with that kid? - YES!!!  Am I extremely sorry that I said what I did? - YES!!!  Would I ever want to say something like that again? - NO!!!  So did I deserve to have something bad happen to me because I said what I did?  According to people who run around talking about karma, I did.  But thank God I don't serve the God of karma.  I serve a God who is full of mercy and grace.  What mercy and grace mean is that even though I deserve one thing, I get something else.  Let's say I deserve to have something bad happen to me because of what I said to that kid, but I am thankful that God had mercy on me and gave me grace so that nothing bad happened.

Before I leave the movie theater story, I want to tell you one of the most grown up things I have ever done in my life.  As you may know I like the movie Dirty Dancing.  Now my favorite line is by Baby's father.  He confronts Johnny at the end of the movie and says something along the lines of "I know you didn't get that girl in trouble," and Johnny basically says, "So."  Then here is my favorite line.  Baby's dad says, "When I'm wrong, I say I'm wrong."  So I sat down in the theater and felt such a conviction from the Lord about what I had done that I told my then wife, I had to go back and talk to the kid.  I will never forget walking up to him.  He was standing at one end of the counter and it looked like he had just been ripped up and down both walls for our altercation which had gotten pretty heated.  The manager started down toward us to break up what he thought was going to be round two.  But when he got close, he heard me telling this kid how sorry I was for my actions.  I told him that I was a christian and what I said was absolutely horrible and awful.  Then I did something strange, I asked him to forgive me for being so ugly.  He said he was sorry too and that he too was a Christian.  We both walked away apologizing to each other.  I don't know where that young man is today but I hope he is fulfilling all his dreams.  I certainly wish him the very best in life.

So back to mercy and grace.  I just told you of a time when I needed God's mercy and grace to cover something bad I did.  But let's talk about a little different situation now.



But what about when someone does you wrong?  First of all, take a minute to look through their eyes at the situation.  You might see things much differently if you do.  Remember that hurting people hurt other people.  If someone hurts you, it is very likely that they are hurt themselves.  Again, I don't want you to let someone continue to hurt you but I do want you to consider mercy and grace.  If you have a way to let them off the hook, consider it.  After all, don't you want someone to give you grace when you mess up?  We all know that you and I never mess up on purpose.  Sometimes we just do stupid things.  Is it possible that the other person you are mad at right now is in the same boat?  They didn't mean to hurt you, they just did?  I know that sometimes this isn't the case but sometimes it is.

So I want to leave you with this thought, there is a God in Heaven that constantly shows us mercy and grace and when we get in trouble, we always want someone to show us mercy and grace.  Then we are going to have to stop giving people what they deserve and give them what we want instead - mercy and grace.

And that's another Opinion of the Minion

A Minion's Hope

Today I want to talk to you about hope.  I belive the single most devistating thing that can happen in your life is to loose hope.  Hope is one of the most important parts of our lives but how often do we hear someone say, "Don't get your hopes up."  That is one the of the dumbest things I have ever heard.  I want you to get your hope sky high.  OK, I can immediately hear people saying, "He has flipped out.  I hoped that this would happen or that would happen and it didn't.  When I hoped for that situation to work out in my life and it didn't, that hurt me deeply and I would have been better of not to have gotten my hopes up at all." 

Let me say, I certainly understand your point.  I have done the same thing.  I got my hopes up that a certain area of my life would change and it didn't.  A few months ago, I got my hopes up about a certain relationship and that didn't work.  I used to get my hopes up all the time that I could go on a diet and loose weight.  I used to get my hopes up that I would be in a great relationship with a woman and that didn't work.  Even recently, I got my hopes up about a situation that didn't work out like I wanted.  So I should have just let it go.  I should have not hoped at all.  Think about it.  Wouldn't it have been better if I hadn't hoped.  If I had just expected failure.  That way I wouldn't have felt the disappointment and in some cases pain of the failure.  I can see what you mean by your question above.  Maybe you were even right.

Well, not so fast.  The critical question about hope is in what or where do I place it?  If I place my hope in you that you will do something or you place your hope in me that I will do something, at some point we will both be disappointed.  Why?  Because we aren't perfect.  Also, sometimes we put our hope in a person who isn't capable of doing what we want anyway.  Think of it this way, if you put your hope in me that I will be able to dunk a basketball.  I can 100% gaurantee you that you will be disappointed.  I am 5'7" tall and my verticle jump won't get me there.  That's not really important in the grand scheme of life but what if you put your hope in a friend or relationship to make you happy?

What if you looked to a girl or guy as the thing that was going to make you happy in life?  That other person is going to make a mistake somewhere and disappoint you.  It will probably hurt when they do.  See, they weren't made perfect so they are not capable of being perfect.  Everyone is going to make mistakes and when the mistake involves you, it is going to hurt.  "OK," you say, "if you want me to have hope and hope is so critical to my life, who or what do I put my hope in?"

Some of you who read this are ahead of me and know exactly where I am going.  That makes me smile.  I will tell you where I put my hope.  I put my hope in God.  He isn't just a train ticket to Heaven.  He is what keeps me going here.  I know that he cannot fail.  If I put my trust in him, there is no area we cannot conquer.  I desire with all my heart to have a godly mate.  I want a woman I can cherish, protect, care for, and grow with.  I want one that I can talk to.  You know my personal feelings from reading the Box.  So when I get around someone who I think is a good candidate, do I put my hope in her that she will be what I am seeking?  Nope, I put my trust in God.  He said He would provide all my needs so I put my hope in Him that He will provide what I need.  I don't hope in the woman, I hope in God.  When I do this, there is such great peace because no matter what comes up, my hope is in God.  If I have a good night or bad, it doesn't matter because my hope stays where it belongs.  Guess what, as I have done this, I have seen deliverance and help from God in every area where I put this to work. 

Recently on Facebook there was a person who stated that they were Wiccan (sp?).  My response was, Why?  I certainly respect their right to be Wiccan.  That wasn't really what I was asking.  Then someone else posted that this person was Wiccan because they chose their religion just like I did.  Well I appreciate their response as I do believe they were honestly trying to help me out but what I wanted to know is why did you chose to be Wiccan?  I can tell you why I choose to be a Christian.  It's because God still helps me everyday.  It's because when I call on Him, He answers.  It's because when things seem like they are coming apart, I can go to Him and He makes me to be at peace even though it looks like I am in deep trouble.  When I place my hope in Him, it centers and grounds me.  All of the sudden, my world turns right side up and things look good again.

And that's another Opinion of the Minion