Go To the Source

Hello Everyone,

I haven't posted in a long time and I apologize for that.  I made a comment several months ago about being bored and I have been busy since.

Over the last 18 hours I have been involved in a situation that prompted this post.  As the situation that I have watched would be extremely embarrassing to the people involved, I will not mention anything about this particular one.  I will say this though - I have no condemnation for anyone involved.  If you are reading this and you are involved, you know who you are.

So let me start with one simple question.  What do you do if you hear something bad about someone?  We all know people who like to gossip.  There are also people who tell you things just because they think you should know for some potential benefit to you - Read that just another excuse to gossip.  Well, here are my thoughts on what to do and not do.

1.  Don't go telling other people about a situation unless they need to be involved.  You don't need to tell your best friend (boys or girls) about something that you heard bad about someone else.  All you are doing is spreading the situation to more people and probably hurting some one's reputation in the process.  Did you know that the bible says that we are to love our neighbor like we love ourselves?  How do we do that?  Well one way we do that is by not running around telling people about all the bad things we have heard about other people.  See the bible also says love covers a lot of sins.  Now I am not telling you to keep your mouth shut if you know someone is in danger or has been abused.  In that case, go to someone who is in authority (your parents, a teacher you know or even the police if it is really serious) and tell them.  But your best girl friend or best buddy really doesn't need to know.

2.  Don't assume that just because you heard some rumor that it is true.  I believe it was in the 1950s when some guy on a radio in New York City started a rumor on the radio about alien invasions that caused a big panic.  It was just a joke but a lot of people got shook up over it.  Also, I remember when I was in high school and the boys started talking about sex.  I can tell you that 95% of what they said turned out to be untrue.  Be careful not to judge someone just because you heard a rumor about them.  That is a very dangerous thing to do and it can hurt people who don't deserve it.

3.  If it really doesn't concern you then just forget it and keep on moving.  Most of the time, when we hear things about our friends, we really don't need to know about it anyway.  If someone walks up to tell you something bad about your friend, you can choose not to listen at all.  After all, will it make you a better person to hear the rumor?  Will it help you be helpful to your friend?  Maybe but most of the time it won't.

4.  Lastly, if you must know something about the rumor or the story you were told, go to the source.  As many of you know, I have been divorced for about a year now.  Well, before I got divorced someone started a rumor that I was having an affair on my wife and it was completely untrue.  I never did anything like that.  This particular rumor got back to someone I am very close to and instead of spreading the rumor or calling someone else to verify what she heard (read that still just spreading the rumor), she called me.  It was a very loving act and I appreciate it to this day.  She will always have a special place in my heart.

So let me conclude with this.  Sticks and stones may break your bones but words will kill you.  Be careful what you say and hear about other people.  It is best just to let rumors drop and die when you hear them but if you must discuss it with someone, call the source and get it straight.

That's Another Opinion of the Minion

Ask the Minion

Hello everyone.  A couple of weeks ago, I sent a note out on FaceBook asking for your questions.  Below please find the questions and my responses.  Just a side note - In an effort to not waste everyone's time, if the question is about Despicable Me, I will not answer it as I don't know anything about the movie.

MPC - What does it feel like to be called, "minion'? - Well, I named the blog myself so I don't mind being called minion.  I'm just continually grateful for all the people who read it.

FD - Will you give me money? - Unfortunately no.

AN - Are you a girl or a boy? - I'm a boy and my real name is Tommy Oswald.

SS - What's your favorite color? - That's a great question but unfortunately, I really don't have a good answer.  I think I have answered this question blue or black before but I don't know that I have a real favorite.

GM - Do you like eating pie?  - Yes

EF - Do you like cheese? - Yes

MG - Why are you so tiny? - I don't know.  I have wondered that myself from time to time.  I'm only 5' 7".

JT - Why do you have so much swag? - As many of you know I am 40 years old so what is swag?  If you can answer, I will try to answer your original question.

BP - How old are you? - 40

MO - Who is the top minion? - Jesus

JE - What's your real name? - Tommy Oswald

IP - When will the boys at school leave me alone? - I honestly don't know.  Probably not until you are out of school.

WH - There's a guy I know who gets on my nerves a lot.  How should I handle the situation?  I hate to sound cliche but you need to pray about it to get specifically what God would want you to do with this person.  Something that might help - Why does this person get on your nerves?  Do you understand why he or she does what she does?  I know that when I understand why someone acts a certain way, it helps me to deal with it better.

MJ - Why are you called THE MINION if you aren't from Despicable Me? - Good question.  I started this blog just to have a place to write my thoughts.  I never in my wildest dreams imagined that God would take it and do what He has done.  The name came from a friend of mine who was describing two other people I know.  He called them minions.  Several weeks later I was joking about writing this blog with some guys I work with and it just rhymed.  So I called it the Opinion of the Minion.

GC - What's wrong with me? - GC that's a loaded question?  Why do you ask?

NJ - If your blog is not associated with Despicable Me then why do you associate it by calling it the Opinion of the Minion and having a picture from the movie? - I think I answered this above but let me add a note about the picture.  I was looking for pictures of a Minion because FaceBook wanted a picture.  I ran across several pictures that looked like small demons and didn't like them.  When I came across this one it made me laugh so I thought I would give it a try.

AW - What's your middle name? - Wayne

TD - Will Obama get reelected? - I wish I knew because I could make a lot of money betting on it but unfortunately I don't.  TD, let me say thank you for asking.  We have known each other a long time and it's nice to get your question.

OK everyone, that's another round of Ask the Minion.  If I didn't answer one of your questions and it was not a reference to the movie, please ask again and I will certainly try to answer it.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

My Way Is the Best

Today let's talk about the best way to do something.  What is the best way to do anything?  Why it's my way of course.  Don't we all feel that way sometimes?  My mom's side of the family is a great family and I love them dearly.  We are a really funny group.  As a matter of fact, the last time I was in Tennessee with several of us at my aunt and uncle's house, we laughed so hard and so long that my jaws were sore the next day.  It was a lot of fun.  One of the funniest times for me with my family is when someone is going from point A to point B.  For some reason, this always sparks a debate.

The issue is how to get from point A to B and everyone in the whole family has a different idea of the best way to get there.  Some prefer to avoid stop lights, some prefer to avoid the freeway and some simply know the best back way.  But one thing is certain, we all know the best way and most of the time we think our way is better than everyone else.  Now this is all in good fun and no one ever gets mad but it does illustrate a good point.  My way is always the best way to me.  Of all those different routes, one might be better than the others and guess what, mine might be the worst suggestion of the whole group.  So what should the person who is going from point A to B do with all these suggestions?  Take the best one - even if that person's isn't the best.

Obviously this type of thing isn't a big deal.  If I chose to take my directions instead of my cousin's or brother's or some one's the worst thing that will probably happen is it will take me a little longer to get where I am going.  But let's take this same philosophy and apply it to something more serious.  How about being a good parent?  As I have stated many times, my parent's are both good parent's and good people.  But one of the things I wanted most for my children was to raise them according to God's way.  My dad has only started attending church regularly in the last several years and growing up, God's word was not as central to our lives as it should have been.  Mom and Dad, I love you both and I am not throwing rocks at your parenting.

My oldest child is twelve years old and my youngest is almost eight.  I have always thought that I was a good day.  After all, I took them to church, provided a nice house and good clothes.  I even play with them although I should do that more.  So I thought I was doing the right thing as a father.  Have I made mistakes along the way?  Sure.  I am not married to their mom anymore and it took both of us to ruin a marriage.

However, last summer I went to see a movie called "Courageous" and it made me realize that I needed to make sure I was being the best dad I could so I bought several Christian books on the subject.  Here is one thing that I noticed I wasn't doing as well as I should.  One of the things that attracted God to Abraham was that Abraham would teach his children the ways of God.  I thought about it and decided that I needed to do more of that.  I needed to help my children understand God's ways so that they would be farther along in their walk with the Lord than I was at their age.  I also realized that my way of raising them needed help.

Let me give you a couple of other examples that I learned about my parenting skills.  I hate to call this person my girlfriend because at 40 years old that sounds strange but I don't know any better words.  Her name begins with D.  Now D is a really good mom.  I have watched her around her kids and realized that there were several things I needed to change about the way I was raising mine.  First of all I pretty much let my kids eat whatever they want.  Neither their mom nor I have ever consistently forced them to eat healthy and that is wrong on both of our parts.  I think we both gave in to them because we didn't want to hear all the complaining that the kids did when they didn't get their way so we let them have it.  That was not the best way to do things.  When people approached me to tell me they were concerned, I always rationalized the situation away.  But after listening to and watching D, it made me realize that I needed to change my ways of parenting.

On another front, I always let my kids drink whatever they wanted.  That wasn't good either.  Sometimes I would rationalize things again by saying I was too tired to deal with all the complaining.  But again, I listened to D and she helped me realize that my way wasn't the best way.  D, let me publicly say thank you for all you have taught me.  I needed every bit of it.

Let me close by saying this.  While the mistakes I pointed out in my own life may seem obvious to you, there are probably areas of your life that I can do the same thing in return.  See, we all have areas of our lives where we think our ways are the best and they aren't.  Be open to learning a new way and becoming a better you!

That's another Opinion of the Minion

The Minion and the Box

My last blog was about the Box.  In the interest of time, I will not go over that post here.  If you haven't read it yet, you might want to read that one before this one.  This one will make more sense if you do.

Last time, I talked about the great gifts that God sends to our planet.  One of them is you and I described what these gifts looked like to me.  The people that God sends to earth look like very pretty presents.  Now over time here on earth, the Boxes get holes and tears in them.  Sometimes stuff gets inside the box that doesn't belong.  Instead of character strengths, there are character flaws.  But know this, God never took the talents and gifts out of any of the Boxes.  In other words, when He placed gifts inside of you, he never took them out again.  Well, you might say, I know this person or that person and they are not nice.  Osama Bin Laden was not a nice person was he?  He is responsible for the deaths of many people.  But did you know that God put great gifts inside him when he sent him to the earth.  Guess what.  Those gifts were still inside him when he left the earth.  Unfortunately, they were never seen like God intended.

Most of us don't know anyone like that.  But many of us know people who just aren't nice.  Guess what.  God put those gifts inside them too and they are permanently there.  No matter how bad the devil would like to get them out of us, he simply doesn't have the power to take them out.  We can choose not to develop them but Satan can't steal them from us.  

Here is another interesting note.  Have you ever noticed that we are quick to point out the holes in the box or the tears in the paper but we typically don't notice the gold on the inside?  Well it seems like that happens regularly.  Take the kid at school who doesn't dress like you do or maybe she is just a little shy.  Maybe she sits by herself at lunch and everyone thinks she is strange.  There is something great inside that person that should be celebrated.  Let me illustrate with a story I once heard.

There was this church that got a new member.  The new member was a very pretty lady who happened to wear shorts that were too short and a shirt that was cut way too low to church every Sunday.  This went on for several weeks and the ladies of the church got more and more upset about the whole thing.  They were calling her all sorts of ugly names.  But right in the middle of it all, someone decided that they were going to buy her a dress and make her clean up her act.  Well when they brought the woman the dress she was overjoyed to have something so beautiful to wear to church.  It turns out that she came from a very bad situation and the short shorts and low cut shirt were the best things she had to wear.  She was very thankful to have something much less revealing to wear to church.  That woman had a very admirable trait.  What was it you ask?  She learned to do her very best even if it wasn't as good as someone else.  Also, she had the courage to go to church when she wasn't able to dress like everyone else.  I like that.

Let me tell you about a boy I know.  Now on the outside, he is not the most athletic.  He is in middle school and he is just like every other sixth grader struggling to cope with this new phase in his life.  I remember my time there and would not want to do it again.  This particular kid loves to build things.  Now it would be easy to push him to do more athletics like football or baseball but instead the right thing for his parents is to encourage him to build things.  See he may never be the captain of the football team but what if he builds the next Golden Gate bridge or what if he invents something that will get us off of oil for fuel?  It would be a waste to try to make him something he is not.  Instead, we need to celebrate the gift for building things that God put inside his Box.

So what am I telling you?  Take a little time to look inside someone's box and celebrate who they are today.

That's another Opinion of the Minion 

The Box

Today I want to revisit a topic that I have talked about several times but it was the real driver that started the Minion so I think it's worth looking at again.  I want to talk to you about the Box.  What is the Box?  Good question.  For me to answer that, I need to step back a several months.

Sometime around the end of May of last year, I was out walking down the Trinity River in Fort Worth.  At that point, I was really hurting because I wanted companionship so bad and I couldn't find it.  I was in the midst of finalizing my divorce which I have said may represent the greatest failure in my life.  My ex-wife and I had not been companions for many years and I really wanted that companionship.  I was lonely and it was not a fun time.  On top of that, I went through an emotional transformation that let all of the emotions I had closed off for many years out of the box at the same time.  I was not a pretty sight.  Well in the midst of this great change in my life, one of the most rewarding things I have ever done was birthed - this blog.  

As I started to write, I found an outlet for many of those emotions that I really didn't understand.  For the most part, I didn't want them and didn't think I needed them.  As I began to write these, the Lord showed me something that has revolutionized my life and I think I need a revival of this in my life.

See, God showed me something about how he does things.  In particular, he takes a box.  Now as I was walking that day, I saw it.  It is silver with a red ribbon around it.  The box and the lid are wrapped separately so that when you take the top of the box off, the ribbon and bow are still on the top while the wrapping paper and ribbon are still on the bottom as well.  It is truly a beautiful looking present.  God takes the lid off of this box and he starts loading it with all sorts of good things.  Once he is finished, he puts the lid back on and sends it to the earth as a present.  So guess what he puts in the box.  He puts in all sorts of wonderful gifts and amazing talents.  He puts kindness, compassion, love, generosity, and all sorts of good things inside this box.  He truly loves the people on the earth and he wants to bless them. 

Now because He loves people so much, He is constantly sending these boxes to the earth.  He takes great care to make each one unique and each one is perfect in his eyes.  Then after he has added His tenderness and joy to this gift, He sends it to the earth.  Do you know what he calls it?  He calls it - YOU!  He cares so much about others that He sent you here and when He did, He made you perfect in His eyes.  There are so many times that other people look at us and we may feel like we are inadequate or inferior in some way but we don't look at ourselves like God looks at us.  The Bible says, He is love.  Now we love people in many different ways.  We love our friends, we love our family, we love our children and we love that special someone in our lives but He is love.  We use love as a verb.  For God, it's a noun.  It's who He is.  And He is incapable of doing anything but loving you.  No matter what you think or others think, the creator of the whole universe thinks you are really special.  He thinks you are amazing and he intended for you to be a gift to the people around you.  He intended for you to be a blessing and He equipped you to do just that.  If you think you are not capable of blessing others, that is a lie from the devil.

So as you look at yourself, know that God made you the perfect Box full of all sorts of talents, abilities and capabilities.  Don't let anyone tell you any different!

Now I want to take this one step farther and leave you with this.  You know that person you don't like very much.  You know who I'm talking about.  The one who annoys you at school or the one at the office that just drives you up a tree.  Yup that's who I'm talking about.  God sent them to earth the same way he sent you and me.  He made them perfect and gave them amazing talents and abilities.  If this person doesn't particularly act right toward you, try to look inside them and see some of the good things that God placed inside them.  How about the person that everyone else calls a loser?  God made them too and He made them unique.  Guess what?  God has never ever made a loser.  He doesn't know how.  So when you see someone struggling, try to look inside their box and see the good things God has placed inside them.

That's another Opinion of the Minion 

Time

Today I want to talk to you about time.  How many hours are their in a day?  Come on, this isn't a trick question.  Yup, there are 24 hours.  Now let me ask a couple more questions.  If you found a homeless guy living under a bridge in Fort Worth, how many hours a day does he have?  Yup, the answer is still 24.  OK, how about President Obama or Bill Gates?  We still get the same answer - 24 hours.

Do you see my point.  The difference in successful people and those who haven't achieved all they would like normally centers around how they use their time.

Some people spend a lot of their time complaining or watching TV or playing video games.  Now before anyone gets mad, let me say that I do not think there is anything wrong with watching TV or playing video games.  I like to play NCAA football on my X-Box occasionally myself.  I was a child of the first video game generation and we started playing Pac-Man and Space Invaders.  So there is nothing wrong with them if they are played in moderation.  But there is something missing these days that concerns me.  When we spend all of our time being babysat by TV or video games, we miss out on so much life.  Guess what adults, we can be babysat just as much as our kids by the TV.  Sometimes I hear people tell me all about what is happening on this TV show or that one and it really irritates me.  Because it makes me wonder how much time they invest in themselves or their families.

Parents, I heard about a survey that was done of small children.  They were asked what would they want more - new toys, trips to Putt-Putt or Main Event type places, going out to eat, or spending time with their parents.  Do you know what the overwhelming number of children said?  Yup, you guessed it.  They wanted their parents time.  Parents, we can learn a lesson from this.  We need to spend more time with our kids and less time with American Idol.  Do you want your kids to actually want to come around you when they are older?  Do you want them to respect your advice and come to you for counsel?  Then spend time with them today.  When you invest in their lives now, it will pay great rewards later.

Kids, did you know that there aren't very many people who make tons of money playing video games?  Like I said, it's OK to play them but what are you doing to expand your imagination?  As I sit writing this, my children are outside my house playing in a field behind it that has a pond.  I am not sure exactly what they are playing but they are learning to use their imagination.  Plus, they are doing physical activity which is very good for them.

OK, for all of us parents and kids alike, let me ask when was the last time you spend any of your time investing in your own life?  For kids, you are probably going to school which is investing in your life.  For adults, when was the last time you learned something new?  I think we are all familiar with the concept of atrophy.  When we don't use a muscle it shrinks.  That's called atrophy.  I think our brains work the same way.  If we don't exercise it regularly, it will grow stagnant.  All of the sudden, we accept the very things in life we want to change most.  That's a bad place.  We should always work to make ourselves better.  I am dating a remarkable woman.  She tells me all the time how good I am to her.  Now I don't mean this to brag but that is true.  I do treat her well.  But let me tell you this.  If right now is the best she ever gets from me, it will be a sad thing.  I need to invest some of my time in making me a better me.  That takes a lot of work but the rewards are well worth it.

So I want to leave you with this.  How do you spend your time.  When you look back two weeks from now will you be happy with the way you spent this week?  It's too late to change yesterday but it's the perfect time to change tomorrow.  Take a look at how you spend your time and use it wisely.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

The Minion Has a Dream

OK, my last post was all about day dreams or thoughts and how we need to be careful where we allow our mind to focus.  For many thoughts, I said that we need to keep them from running our mind.  So now it may sound like I am contradicting myself but I want to talk about allowing certain day dreams or thoughts that we want to run around in our mind until they do take root and cause us to change.

In my previous blog, I discussed thoughts that would lead to bad situations.  I have heard of people who want desperately to be married to each other.  The only problem is that they are both married to different people right now.  They begin to think so much about being with each other that eventually they do something that causes terrible pain in not only their own lives but the lives of others.  These situations start with a thought.
So let's spend a few minutes talking about thoughts that we should continue to think and mediate.  Let me give you an example of one..  I have said before that at one time I weighed 350 pounds.  That's pretty big right.  I was round almost.  I was 67" tall and 58" around.  That's not a good place.  Well several years before I lost any weight, I started seeing myself healthy.  I started seeing myself wearing slim clothes.  I could see myself water skiing and doing many other things.  I could see myself actually outside playing with my kids.  I even thought about what it would be like to be able to stand up, look straight down, and see my shoes. 

That sounds kind of crazy right?  Well I couldn't see my feet at that weight.  Here is a big one - I could see myself sitting on an airplane and not needing a seat belt extender.  I actually went as far as to start saying that I weigh 205 pounds.  Think about it.  That's totally ridiculous.  Now I didn't say this to other people.  I just said this to myself.  Did you know that is exactly what Abram did.  God changed his name from Abram to Abraham.  He was 90 years old and his wife was too.  They had no children and he started walking around saying I am the father of many nations.  Well guess what?  When you start lining your words and thoughts up with Gods, miracles happen.

Now, when I first started day dreaming about this stuff, nothing happened.  As a matter of fact, for several years everything stayed the same.  I didn't lose weight and I didn't exercise.  But one day, that vision became so big inside me that it started to change my actions.  I ultimately took this problem to the Lord and he delivered me from my addiction to carbohydrates.

Now this isn't some type of magic formula.  I didn't lose weight because I saw myself losing weight.  I lost it because God delivered me from carbohydrates and then I started eating right and exercising.  Remember, the only place that success comes before work is in the dictionary.  But what this did do for me was it gave me motivation.  I still had to do the work.  However as that vision of being skinny began to develop on the inside of me, gradually I wanted it more than I wanted pizza. 

What are your goals in life?  Those are things you should think about.  See yourself passing the chemistry test.  See yourself getting out of debt.  See yourself healed and whole.  When you start putting the right images in front of you, you will gravitate toward them.  Just like with the negative images, you will start to make your dreams a reality.

So if you aren't happy with some part of your life, maybe it's time to start getting a vision for where you want to go and what you want to be.  I know for me, I can get lost in the day-to-day grind of daily life and lose sight of what is really important.  I think I need to spend a little time working on my vision for my life today.

Thats' 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

Watch Out for Foxes

Today I want to talk about foxes.  It's funny because when I was a teenager we might call a pretty girl a fox but we don't call them that today.  Now while some guys might say that a pretty girl can certainly be trouble, I am not talking about them today.  However, I do want to talk to you about another type of fox.  The Bible says that little foxes spoil the vine.  I know this has been true in my own life.

Let me talk to you about a couple of things that happned to me in the last few days.  Yesterday I got up and went to the gym.  After I got done lifting weights, I went out for a run.  Well at least it should have been a run but my hips were hurting so I ended up running part of it and walking part of it.  Normally when I run, I let my mind sort of drift where ever it wants to go.  I think about my day and what needs to be done and the people in my life for the most part.  But yesterday was a little different.

My mind drifted to a couple of people and situations that I don't particularly like.  I envisioned myself confronting them and telling them exactly what I thought of them.  As I was doing this, I noticed that my mood started to darken a little.  I am generally a very positive person and I wasn't turning into Voldemort but I wasn't as positive as I normal.  Here is something else I noticed, I wasn't really all that upset with any of those people or situations, I was upset with the fact that my run was going extremely slow and that I was in a pain.  So the real question for me was how to let my thoughts effect my day.  If I continued down this path, I was destined to be in a bad mood the rest of the day.  These little foxes were going to spoil my day if I didn't do something.

At some other time, I will talk about the two Ts - Trust and Thankfulness.  For now, let me say that I had to trust God during my run and I had to consciuosly walk away from those thoughts.  When I did, my whole world brightened back up and I did enjoy the rest of my day.  While I am on the subject, let me say a word about the other T - Thankfulness.  I was out in the fresh air on a beautiful morning run/walking my normal six mile course.  The first several weeks of this year have been the best start of a year in at least the last 20 years of my life.  I have the most amazing woman in my life.  She has two kids who are truly a blessing to be around and I enjoy spending time with them.  I have three of the most amazing kids God ever gave anyone.  My business is going up and a new business that I started is really picking up.  For the first time in a long time, I feel great.  What's my point?  The Lord has truly blessed me.  God has been very good to Tommy!!

On top of that, both of my legs work just fine; I can see; I can smell; I can touch; I love and I am loved.  Let me take a side trip to relate a story that is pertinent to thankfulness.  On another morning I went out to run and had a bad time.  It wasn't a bad run but it was slower than I like.  After the fact, I was grumbling inside about life in general but the root cause of my grumbling was a bad run.  I was blaming other people for all kinds of stuff.  On the outside I was smiling and having a good day but on the inside I was throwing a temper tantrum like a two year old kid.  Eventually the Lord had enough of my unthankful attitude and He told me so.  You wouldn't have heard what He said to me because I heard it on the inside but it had a lasting effect.  He said, "You see that man over there in the wheel chair with no legs from the knees down?  He would almost kill someone to be able to go and do that "sorry" run you just did."  Well that jerked the slack out of me in a hurry. 

The same was true for my run the other morning, I trusted God to do what he said in his word and deliver me from those stupid thoughts (the foxes) that were running through my mind.  Once I put a stop to those, I went on to have a very productive day.

Let me wrap this up by asking, what little foxes are spoiling your vine?  Maybe you are faced with an annoying person or situation.  Maybe you are just allowing your mind to run all over the place like mine did.  Maybe you are just complaining too much.  Whatever it is, I want encourage you to take a hard look at it and make a conscious decision to walk away from it.  If you will focus on the positive things going on in your life, it will make the negative ones get so much smaller.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

What to Remember

Today I want to talk to you about what to remember.  In my next blog, we will discuss what not to remember but let's talk about what we should remember.

I have read the bible many times and one of my goals for every year is to read the bible from cover to cover.  There are many things that I don't completely understand about the bible but one thing I do love is that God shows me more and more about him every time I read it.

So today, I want to tell you about something that confused me for years.  I would love to tell you that I am one of those guys who doesn't need to be told anything twice, that I retain it all the first time through but that isn't the case.  However, most of the time if you tell me a story, I will remember the whole thing.  Sometimes not in great detail but I generally remember most of it.

Well, the Bible repeats the story of God delivering Israel from Egypt several times.  As a matter of fact in the Psalms, David references it multiple times.  Moses even made the children of Israel learn songs about it.   I know that God wanted the Israelites to teach this to their children and I thought for a long time it was just a history lesson.  I thought that God wanted generation after generation of Israelites to know about him and that's certainly true.  But why did he repeat this story so many times in the Bible.  Was it because He knew many of us wouldn't read our Bible and He just hoped that if we opened it a few times we would stumble onto the truth?  Nope, God doesn't work this way.

Now I can't tell you that this is the only reason that God put that story in the Bible so many times but I can tell you one reason that it shows up over and over and over.  See, when David was retelling this story over and over, I locked onto one reason.  He said that he was stirring himself up by telling this story.  When David got in a hard place and it looked hopeless, he would start thinking about all the times that God delivered him in the past and it would increase his faith.  That is one reason God tells this story so many times.  He wants us to stir up our faith in him.  When we see places where it looks like everything is hopeless, we can go back and say, "Wait a minute.  When I was in a situation that looked hopeless before, God delivered me."  I can tell you that there have been many circumstances in my life when I didn't see a way out.

That feeling of anxiety and hopelessness sucks.  I don't like it.  But I can tell you that if I start looking back at all the times that God has delivered me in the past, I start thinking about the time when I needed gas for my car and God provided it, I start thinking about the time when I needed extra money and a check for a few hundred dollars showed up in my mailbox, I start thinking about the time when it looked like my business might fall apart and God supernaturally changed things in my favor, I start thinking about the time when I felt lonely and God brought someone into my life, I start thinking about when I didn't know what to do with my children and God showed me the way.  It's happened again.  I've blogged myself happy.  When I think about His goodness and what He's done for me, I get happy.  But guess what, there are still situations in my life where I don't know what to do, I sit back and remember all the times that God has brought me through before and those feelings of helplessness and anxiety go away because I know He will do it again.

So I want to encourage you.  If you are facing a situation that you don't know what to do with, start remembering all the times that the Lord delivered you or made a way where there didn't seem to be a way.  Start thinking about how He was always there when you called out.  It will make the situation you face now grow smaller as His provision grows larger in your life.

Now some of you may not have many places to draw on for those types of memories.  Don't worry, read.  The Bible is full of places where God delivered people.  Start reading those and mediating on those.  He promised that if He did it for someone in the Bible, He will do it for you.  Test God.  Remind Him of His word and what He promised.  That's not arrogance, that's faith.  God is looking around all over the earth for people who will have faith in Him and His word.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Friends vs. Family Part 2

Hello Everyone,

Below please find part two of my sister-in-law's thoughts on why relationships with our friends can be more successful than relationships with our family.

CO-
This brings me to the topic of family. I believe that family should be respected and viewed on the same level we would give to a close friend to be successful.  However, we usually fail for several reasons.  Family is something we do not choose. We are born into our family. We are usually able to choose our spouse therefore to some degree we also choose their family. Unfortunately most, usually do not consider the family they will be marrying into. At the risk of sounding tacky I would like to say that we get stuck with the family we have. Family is harder work than any friendship will ever be. I think this is because we can choose our friends and enjoy them, but family tends to operate differently. We are supposed to love our families despite any characteristics they have that become unappealing to us. We do not get to out grow them, or let them fall away when we suddenly have nothing in common with them any longer. Our brother will always be our brother. Our sister will always be our sister, and our mother will always be our mother, and hopefully, done right, our spouse will always be our spouse.

In most cases I think families are more complicated and harder to get along with. I do believe our families love us, or at least the family that we are connected to by blood loves us. However, I also think that our family tends to forget that we are people too. Rather, they see us as the daughter, the son, the niece, the nephew, or the grandchild. I know this sounds like I am reaching and stretching this to make a point, but I do believe there is a difference. It is as though there is a chain of command and everyone has a title over a name. It is set up in the family from the beginning of our lives that our authority is our parent, and their authority is there parents, and so on. There are other authorities over us though they are lesser because what mom and dad say comes first. We are taught to listen to our aunts, uncles, and grandparents. I am not saying this is a bad thing. What I am saying is that as we mature and become adults, our families do not let loose of their authoritative roles in our lives. Rather than letting us go to live our life, make our mistakes, and be happy for our successes they try to continue to control us. The sad thing is that as adults if we do not do things the way they think we should then suddenly we are not honoring them. I have found that manipulation runs rampant in families and I have yet to meet a family that does not do this to some degree. Families set up expectations of us that are not achievable. It is kind of like a snare set up for failure and I do not even think they are aware of the fact that they do it. Sometimes they demand more from us than we are able to give. Our families haven't any qualms about being judgmental toward us and often they lack understanding, and have no interest in gaining any because they have already decided they know what is going on and how to fix it, when they probably don't.
 
To Be Continued......
The Minion

 

Wait

Ok, I have touched on this subject in different posts but I want to illustrate it again because it's a lesson I am continually being re-taught.  Today I want to talk to you about waiting.  This can be a very hard thing to do and it is especially hard at times for me.

Ladies let me help you understand something about men.  When we are presented with a problem, our first thought is fix the problem.  I know that many times ladies want to discuss the problem just to get their feelings out.

Men, this is a good thing and we cannot change them.  We will make them much happier if we learn to listen to them when they are expressing themselves.  Many times when a woman is telling us about a problem, she is just wants to express her emotions.  This is a good thing and we as men, need to be more in touch with the emotions that are inside us.  When a woman tells you about something that is bothering her, don't try to fix it unless she asks you to.  The more you learn to empathize with her, the better your relationship will be.

However ladies, you need to understand the way we operate.  God wired us to solve problems so if you present us with a problem that you just want to talk about, you can help us help you but letting us know up front that's what you want.  For either sex, if we expect our partner to read our mind, we are setting ourselves up for failure.  Why do you think God gave us mouths?  He intended for us to speak.

So judging by this you would think that I had an issue with the amazing woman that I am dating right?  Well, you would be wrong.  We communicate very well.  The issue I had was an internal one that I had to discuss with God.  Now this particular issue that I was working through was really not a big deal.  It didn't cause me a great amount of stress and it is certainly nothing critical now.  It is simply an issue that I know I will face at some point in the future.  When and where I am not sure at this point but I know I will face it.

So here was the problem, I was trying to figure out the answer to this particular issue today.  It wasn't even an important issue today and I wasn't spending a lot of time consciously thinking about it.  I could just sense it sort of floating around in the back of my mind.  I knew that even if I had the perfect solution, it was not the right time to do anything about the "issue."  I hate to use the term issue because it really wasn't yet.  But like I said, men see problems as a challenge and as you know most men enjoy challenges and for the most part I am no exception to the rule.  Are you ready for the revelation that the Lord told me.  It is of massive proportion.  Here's what he said - stop.

That's it, stop.  He didn't tell me to do anything but stop.  He brought this song to my mind.  It's called "Only Believe."  Some of the words are, "Only believe, only believe.  All things are possible.  Only believe."  I love this song.  But what He was telling me was to wait on Him.  He was telling me that He would give me the answer to this particular challenge when the time was right.  But today was not the day.

It took me a little time yesterday to let this sink in but when it did, it was liberating.  Sometimes the hardest thing to do is wait.  Sometimes we want to jump out and fix a problem without knowing how to fix it.  If we don't really know what God wants us to do, we can try to crack eggs with a sledge hammer.

So what am I saying today?  Here are some of the things the Lord reminded me of through this.  First, today has it's own things to deal with.  Sometimes we try to jump to far ahead.  What are you facing today?  Deal with that today and spend much less time worrying about tomorrow.  Tomorrow will have it's own stuff to deal with.  Second, it's so extremely important to simply trust God.  For this particular challenge, I don't have the answer but I know One who does.  I know that God will see me through every challenge.  Sometimes I just need to be reminded to trust Him.  Lastly, stop and wait.  There are going to be times when we have to just stop and wait.  It may not be our nature but it is the right thing to do.  I hope this helps someone.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Ask the Minion

Hello Everyone,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CN - Am I a ninja? -  I don't know.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Finish What You Start

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's the Opinion of the Minion

Ask the Minion

Hello Everyone,

I decided to do another round of ask the Minion because I have had fun with the first couple so here goes.  Before I start, I think most of you know this but I want to be clear on one thing.  I am in no way associated with the movie Despicable Me.  I just liked the character so I put it on my page.

BA - Why do I call my blog the Opinion of the Minion - Originally, I was really just joking about writing a blog with some of the guys in the office.  While on a trip to Houston in February, a friend of mine asked me where two people were who should have been with us working.  He asked me where the minions were.  I thought it was funny at the time.  When I decided to start writing my own blog, I knew it was basically going to be my opinion and minion just rhymed so the name stuck.  What I didn't see happening was the number of people who would actually read what I write.  It is still very difficult for me to wrap my mind around all the people who are fans of this blog.  Thank you all.

ANH - Have you ever resolved the problem with the anti-gravity serum? - I'm not associated with the movie.

EW - What's my Opinion on gay people - Wow.  This is a loaded question.  First of all, I love people period.  Gay, straight, black, white, green, purple, or orange.  I know some people who are gay and they are really nice people.  However, I think what you are asking me is do I think being gay is right?  The answer is - What I think isn't important.  What the bible says is.  If I look in the bible, it says that same sex relationships like that are wrong.  Please don't send me any hate letters.  I didn't write the book.  I'm just telling you what it says.  Now before you gay bashers start chiming in on how wrong you think homosexuality is, let me tell you something else.  Jesus told people to work on themselves before they got into other people's business.  He said that people are walking around making a big deal out of someone elses' sin that is little while they have massive sin in their lives.  What does that mean, mind your own business.  It's not my place to judge a gay person.  It's not my place to judge anyone.  When they get to heaven, they can take it up with God.  It won't matter to me at that point because I will have plenty of areas where I am wrong to discuss with God.  He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.

RS - Why can't you give me $10? - RS, many people in my life have asked me for money.  You are the first one to do it on the Minion and that's funny.

MMDM - Do you think aliens are real?  If so, why? - I think there is life that is not on earth.  After all, God is a real person and he is in Heaven.  We know that Heaven isn't on earth.  It is a real place and it is somewhere so there must be life outside earth.  I don't know if God put other life forms on other planets though.

SB - Why did you pick that as your profile picture? - When I was setting up my FB page, I needed something to go up as a profile picture and I wanted a picture of a minion because of the name.  I really didn't know what to expect but I knew I didn't want anything that looked scary or bad.  When I googled pictures of a minion, the one I used came up and I liked it.

ZKR - What language do you speak? - I don't know much about the movie characters but I speak English.  I can speak very very little German and even less French.

TM - If you choked a minion for an experiment, what color would it turn? - That's cute.  No clue.

JC Part 1 - Explain to me what the real definition of success is in today's society? - JC is a good personal friend of mine so let me start by asking JC something.  Would you consider me a success?  Why?  The definition of success in society is how much wealth you have and what you have been able to achieve like college degrees, etc.  Unfortunately, that measuring system has nothing to do with success.  Success in life is really measured by the number of lives you touch and how you touch them.  Are you a good dad, friend, husband, wife, mom, etc.?  Do you help people when they are in need if you can?  Do you have good relationships?  Are you trying to make a positive difference in the people's lives around you?  If so, then I would call you a success.  Success is measured in the quality of your relationships not the value of your bank account.

JC Part 2 - What will break the cast system we currently need to overcome today for everyone to be able to thrive and prosper together peacefully? - OK you will definitely not like my answer on this one.  The answer is the second coming of Christ.  The bible says that in this life you will have trouble and that there will be wars and rumors of wars.  So the live together peacefully part won't happen until then.  As far as breaking the caste system, I think people have to wake up and want out of it.  If you look at many people today, you will see apathy.  They simply don't care about what is going on around them enough to make any kind of change.  Let's take politics for example.  If enough people don't like someone, they can get together and have him or her voted out of office.  Does that happen normally?  No because it takes a lot of a four letter word - work.  When I was at my heaviest, I was always telling your brother that I was going to lose weight.  Finally one day he told me that I was a liar.  He said that when I got tired of being fat, I wouldn't be fat anymore.  I think it applies to breaking out of the caste system as well.  People have to get tired of it but most don't.  They are more interested in watching TV than changing things.

IR - What's a question?  -That's funny.

IR - What would you do in case of a Zombie Apocalypse? - No clue. Again, that's funny.

WH - How can you recover from a broken friendship? - This is probably a good question for a completely separate blog.  In short, it takes time to heal from a broken friendship.  They are the hardest because typically it's someone you trust.  To start with, find someplace safe.  Because you are a guy, I will give you a piece of advice that applies to everyone but we guys don't do this much.  Let it hurt.  It's going to and when you feel pain, it's your body and spirit telling you something is wrong.  I tried to shut all painful emotions out of my life for a long time and it made me very callous which is a bad place to be.  Next, own up to anything you did in that relationship that was wrong.  Here's another thing I see a lot today, people are afraid to be wrong.  It's OK to be wrong.  Guess what, there was only one man ever to walk this planet who never made a mistake.  You and I are going to make them.  After that, ask God to forgive you of anything you have done wrong.  These next two can be hard.  First - forgive the other person.  You shouldn't be around them if they are going to continue to hurt you but forgiving them will help you heal.  Second - forgive yourself.  After that, it takes time.

JC - lotto numbers - If I knew, I would have already bought my own ticket.  :-)

SS - What is the name of the minion in your picture? - I don't know.

TK - Do you like pie? - Yup.  My favorite is my grandmother's homemade pecan pie fresh out of the oven with a scoop of ice cream on top.

MS - Why can't minions talk? - I don't know.

BP - Why are they yellow and not, like, purple? - Again I don't know.

EM - Do you think the world will end in 2012? - Probably not but I don't know.  Here's why I say that.  The world will radically change when Jesus comes back the second time but from what I have read in the bible, I will be around for a few years after that.  The bible also says we don't know the day or the hour when Jesus will return.  So if everyone says 2012 then I doubt it will be then.

MS - How can the force of gravity come together from mostly the sun and make the world end in 2012? - No idea.

BA - When are you going to answer all these questions? - Today.  Sorry it took so long.

BM - What's a minion bible story? - It's a story from the bible that I try to tell in my own words.  Several weeks ago a couple of people asked me if I would write them so I thought I would give them a try.

SS - Can you rap anything? - Nope

DP - Are you a glow stick? - Nope

JB - What's your girlfriend's name? - I don't have one yet.

JB - Have you cheated on her and what's your dad's name and your momma's name? - I don't have one and so I can't cheat on her but I wouldn't anyway.  If she isn't the girl that I can't stand to be without then I won't stay with her anyway.  I want the girl that looks fine dressed up but is more beautiful to me in blue jeans and a tee shirt with her hair in a pony tail.  I want the girl that I cannot stand to leave.  Someone that I just need five more minutes looking at her and talking to her.  I want her to be physically attractive certainly but that's not enough.  She has to be attractive as a whole person.  If I find that, there will never be any need to cheat on her.  My parents names are John and Donna.

GD - Republican or Democrat? - Hard to say.  Neither party has a clue about fiscal responsibility, neither party seems really accountable to the American public and I am not convinced that either of them has the best interest of the country at heart.  That said, from what I know in extremely broad terms, the Democratic party tends to want bigger government and that is just a mistake so I typically vote Republican.

JWG - How is cooler:  Pon or Zi? - I don't know.

SDJ - Why are minions yellow? - I don't know.

AR - Why can the minions only say ehhh and ahhhh? - I don't know.

SG - Does this page have a contest? - Sort of.  I like to give out "The Box" awards.  What are they?  I will try to write a post but I like to give out an award to someone who does things for others.  If you know of someone, let me know and we can talk about getting them an award.

AA - How small are the minions in inches? - I don't know.

JH - Who does the voices of the minions in the movie Despicable Me and why do they talk in an alien sort of language? - I don't know

And those are answers from The Minion

My Oldest Son

In keeping with my theme for this month, I want to send another letter.  This one is to my oldest son.  I am so thankful for him.

Dear David,

As I write this, you are going through a hard transition in life.  Some of this is just part of life and some of it is because of your mom and I.  You are adjusting to 6th grade, changes in your attitude toward girls and unfortunately mom and I's divorce.  It is a lot for one kid to handle and I think you are doing such a good job.

As I look back on my how I have done as your father so far, I am a little sad because I know that I could have done much better.  I was just recently that I realized how little I knew about being a Godly father.  It is my whole heart's desire to teach you to be one in the few years we have left before you step out on your own.  I want to prepare you to be a Godly man.  If I can do that, I have succeeded beyond my wildest imagination for you.  The strange thing is I think in spite of all we have done, you are already becoming a very Godly young man.

I am so very proud of you.  Whether you know it or not, you started school when you were three years old because you had speech issues.  This was due to a hearing problem you had as a little tyke.  Now when I was in school kids in those classes were sort of looked down at and made fun of.  When I was in school, those kids barely made it through.  But not you.  You went from needing help with speech to all honors classes.  You are a really brilliant young man.  I also see things in you that I never could be at your age.  I look at you and see courage.

How?  Well, it took courage to ask that girl to the homecoming dance.  I would never, ever have done it because I would have been too afraid.  When we talked afterwards, you told me that your heart was pounding in your chest pretty hard and that even though when you asked her the dance had already passed, she was nice to you with her reply.  Son, I want you to remember that feeling and what you did.  There will be many more opportunities in life for you to feel that way and make a decision.  You are going to be in places where you risk rejection in your life.  It just happens.  But you possess that special quality called courage.  Don't ever change that.  Take risks because if you don't, you won't have rewards.  I know you didn't see it that way then but that's what you did and I am extremely proud of you.

Son, you are growing up so fast and it seems like it will only accelerate from here.  As you get older, I want you to understand something.  I heard a story about the head of the Salvation Army.  You know those guys who stand ringing the bell at Christmas time asking for donations.  Well they take those and use them to help people who need it.  One year, the head of the Salvation Army was going to send a telegram to all his offices around the world.  He wrote it out and then went to send it.  When he got to the telegraph office, he realized that it was too long and he had to cut it down.  So he trimmed it down to one sentence. Again, it was too expensive to send.  He finally trimmed it down to a single word - others.  Son, that's what our life is all about.  We are to help others.  You have to let the Lord show you who and how but always remember that's what life is about.  As you get older, you will see people who define success by how much education and money you have.  I thought the same way for a long time.  Don't get me wrong, money and education are important but not as important as people.  Think of others and ask the Lord to show you who you can help today.

Lastly, I want to talk to you about what you are going through in school today.  I know some of the kids make fun of you.  That really hurts your feelings and quite frankly, it just plain sucks.  When I was in school, kids did the same thing to me.  Grandma and Grandpa did they very best they could but I didn't wear brand name clothes like the rest of the kids and some people made fun of me a lot.  I also got made fun of because I had big ears and I had a lot of pimples.  It really hurt my feelings.  Son, as you go through these times, know that you were not alone.  Guess who else was made fun of and people talked bad about? - Jesus.  I guess that puts us in pretty good company huh.  You may not see it now but this will pass.  Just keep doing the right thing because it's the right thing.

I cannot begin to express how impressed I am with you.  You are smart, handsome, loyal, you love God, you aren't afraid to share your faith, you know how to build stuff, you always try to help your brother and sister, and you are a really respectful young man.  No matter what you do, know that I will always love you.

Love,

Dad

That's another letter from the Minion

Don't Quit Minion

Through this journey called The Opinion of the Minion, I have had the privilege of putting my opinions out there for people to read.  I continue to be baffled by the support you, the reader, have shown.  Again, I can't say thank you enough.  Today, my opinion is only two words but they are extremely powerful.

Don't Quit!

Don't quit what you ask.  Well I can't answer that question.  Only you know what you are going through.  But I know this.  Tough times don't last, tough people do.  Whatever you are facing in life, you can make it through.  Even if no one believes in you and even though I don't know most of you personally, I do believe in you.  How can you believe in someone you don't really know?  Well that's an interesting question.  I believed in God and His son Jesus before I knew them and my life has never been the same.  Also, sometimes it's easier for me to believe in someone I can't see than it is to believe in someone I know.  So from the bottom of my heart, that I do believe in you.

I want to tell you two stories.  The first is about my friend Al.  Al and I have known each other since middle school (for almost 30 years).  Now Al is one of those guys.  You know the type.  He's the guy that everyone likes.  He would literally give you the shirt off his back if you needed it.  I know because once I asked for a car (we called it the Tank) and he practically gave it to me.  He was a much better friend to me than I was to him growing up.

Now if you are in the mood to run someone into the ground verbally or when you get that real urge to gossip about someone, we all know the people who will pitch in and run others into the ground with us.  Al is NOT one of those people.  I think he would find something nice to say about the devil.  It's just the way he is.  So it shook me to the core several months ago when I found out that he had throat cancer.  We were only 39 at the time he found out and we are both only 40 now.  So Al went through the treatments and we hoped it was over.  But unfortunately, it wasn't.  We recently found out that there was more cancer to deal with and this stuff is really serious.  I won't share the details to protect his privacy but I will tell you that he has a beautiful wife and two great kids.

So last Saturday, I called Al.  After all, I write the Minion and the Lord uses to cheer other people up sometimes.  He uses me to help people feel better and if there was anyone I wanted to feel better, it was Al. When I finally got him on the phone, I was totally shocked at what happened.  I called to tell him to hang in there and try to encourage him but I never got the chance.  He was encouraging me and blessing me.  That's not the way it was supposed to go but Al's attitude floored me.  He said he had too much to live for and that he was planning on seeing his grand kids, etc.  I wanted to tell him, don't quit.  But that thought never entered his mind.  He started telling me stories about the other people he had helped.  Can you believe that!  Here this man is facing a very serious cancer situation and he is more concerned about helping others than what was going on with him.  It was a truly humbling experience.  I hope my heart is as big as Al's one day.

I posted on FaceBook about this a couple of days ago and the response astounded me.  Many of you are praying for Al.  I saw people from literally all over the world who were and I have no way to express my gratitude to you all.

So if you are in a hard place, don't quit.  God can see you through.

But maybe you aren't having it real tough right now.  So you look at this post and say, it really doesn't apply to you.  Not so fast.  Look around you.  There are people who need your encouragement.  If you are emotionally full, find someone to encourage.  Don't be discouraged if they don't receive it immediately.  Just keep at it.

I have a very special friend who is writing a book.  Now I have went so far as to day dream about the time when I will go to this person's book signing.  I can see this person's book published and this person receiving royalties for the book (no it's not my book).  I went as far as telling this person about what I say for them.  Now at first, I don't think this person could see what I saw and I got push back about thinking too big.  But then something amazing started happening.  This person is starting to believe that this will happen.  It's baby steps but it's going forward.  Watching confidence grow in this person is so rewarding.

So take a look around you.  Who needs your help?  Find some way to encourage them.  One day, you will be on the other side of this and need some encouragement yourself.  If you are on the other side, DON'T QUIT.  You can make it through the struggle.  God believes in you and I believe in you.  If you will decide to believe in you that makes three of us!  You can accomplish what you set out to do.

I have said it before and it's true again.  I have blogged myself happy.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Why Minion?

Today, I want to talk about something that is extremely important - Why we do things.  I don't want to focus on what motivates you to go to work or school or do clean up after yourself, although all of those things are very important.  I want to focus for a few minutes on what why we do things for other people.  What is our motivation?  I can already hear some of you thinking, I don't really do anything for other people.  But I think you probably do and don't know it.  The question I have today is why?

Is our motivation for helping others just purely to help them or is our motivation for helping other people so that we can get something in return from them?  Sometimes it is very difficult to distinguish why we do things.

Let me illustrate.  Part of the time I was growning up we lived on a street called Sherwood in River Oaks, TX (Mom, it's definitely not Tulane as you will see).  Now my brother is about 4 years younger than me and it just so happened that we had friends who lived down the street who were the same age as us.  We played together a lot.  When the weekend came, we always wanted to spend the night and basically asked my mom to do a kid swap.  One weekend, I would go to their house and my brother's friend would come to ours and the next weekend, we would switch.  So we would try to con our mother into letting us do this.  How did you con her you ask?  (Disclaimer - we were not exactly the world's smartest con men in those days.)  We decided that if we cleaned the house top to bottom to "bless" mom that she would be in a better place to let us go.  Notice that our motiviation was never really to bless mom but to get our way.  Little did we know that all she wanted was for us to help and she would let us go anyway.  As I said, we weren't the smartest cons and mom laughed at us all the time.

That's really cute because we were little kids right?  Well, let's grow things up a little and you will see that this manipulation can really be a problem.  As I have said before, I am a giver.  I really like to give to others of my time, money, etc., and this is a very good thing to do.  But what would it look like if I was "giving" something to someone with the expectation that they would do something for me in return?  That is a really bad place because it's no longer a gift but a tool used to manipulate someone to get my way.  I constantly have to check my motives to make sure that I am just giving to help.  Does that surprise you?  It shouldn't.  We are all that way.  We all have a mind that wants what it wants and it can be very easy to get off track with why we do things.

As a matter of fact, I caught myself doing this several weeks ago.  It wasn't intentional on my part and when I figured it out, I was more than a little bothered.  There was a situation that I really wanted to see go a certain way.  Now my way wasn't a bad way to do things and ultimately I might get what I wanted all along.  But during this time, I recognized that I was putting a lot of pressure on the situation and might have caused someone else pain because of it. I didn't even really understand what I was doing until I stepped back and took a look at the situation from a distance.  Once I did, it was pretty easy to see what I was doing and I immediately put a stop to it.

Worse than that, I hear people tell me that their motivation for doing a certain thing is to get even with our hurt someone else.  This type of conduct is terrible.  I know of a certain situation where a guy says hurtful things to this other person just so he can humiliate, intimidate and manipulate them.  Folks, that type of behavior just shouldn't be.

So let me ask you this.  What is your motivation for the way you treat other people?  Are you doing things strictly for their good or is there something inside you that is trying to get what you want from them in return?  You may not even know that your motivation is wrong.  When is the last time you took a step back and looked at your motiviation for the way you treat others?  I bet you don't think about it much but it's important. 

And that's another 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