Is There A Plan for Your Life?

Hello everyone,

Today I want to answer a question that we have all struggled with at some point in our lives.  Is there a plan for our life?  Let me ask it another way, does God have a plan for your life? 

The answer to that question begins with the most despicable act ever committed in human history.  Do you know what it was?  Think of all the horrible things you know about - murder, racism, hate crimes, mean words, assault.  The list goes on and on.  Here's the answer - eating fruit from a tree.  I know it sounds bad, but when Adam and Eve ate from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they gave the devil all authority over the earth. 

The Bible says that the devil came to kill, steal and destroy and that's exactly what he did.  He killed the divine link between God and man.  He stole man's right to be part of God's family and he destroyed the tight relationship between Adam, Eve and God.  The devil hasn't changed.  He's still doing this today.  I can't imagine how it felt to Adam and Eve. The whole Cain and Able thing would never have happened if they hadn't eaten from the tree because the devil wouldn't have had authority to operate in the world.

Here's where it gets interesting.  The first thing God did after He found out what happened was deal with the devil.  He told the devil that there would be enmity between him and man and that man would bruise the devil's head.  God knew how bad this was for the world and for His children.  He knew what the devil would do throughout the years.  He could see all the holocaustic things that would happen over the next several thousand years.  What did He do?  He immediately announced the plan to bring Adam and Eve back into right relationship with him - Jesus.  This is what He was talking about when He said he would bruise the devil's head. 

He announced the plan to save the world from all the destruction that would come from the devil.  Adam and Eve would one day have a chance to get back in right relationship with God through Jesus sacrifice.  God didn't abandon them.  He had a plan B.  It was Jesus and it was perfect.  It was a great plan for the world because it allowed us to be part of his family again.

Let's fast forward to today.  Are there things in your life that you think disqualify you from having a good life?  Have you ever done something you wish you had not?  Maybe you have done something so bad that you think God can't help you anymore.

Is what you did worse than what Adam and Eve did?  Absolutely not!  The Bible says in Jeremiah 29:11 that God still has a good plan for your life.  It may not be his original plan but He always has a plan B and C and D and E....  There is nothing you can do that disqualifies you for the good plan He has for your life?  Why?  Because for God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son and when He did that, it provided a great plan for your life!

So don't let the devil lie to you anymore telling you that you have done something so bad that God can't give you a good life.  It's a lie.  Start believing what God says about you.  You will be surprised where He can take you.

That's another Opinion of the Minion. 

Random Acts and Bank Accounts

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


That's another Opinion of the Minion

Fear

Hello everyone,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's another Opinion of the Minion

The One That Got Away

Hello everyone.  It's been a long time since I put anything together and I am sorry for that.  Today I want to talk about the one that got away.  Have you ever heard a song by Garth Brooks called "Unanswered Prayers"?  Basically Garth Brooks is talking about going back to his old high school and looking at his life growing up.  He's with his wife and apparently loves his life.  But his life isn't exactly what he thought it would be back then.  He prayed for God to do certain things in his life and God didn't answer those prayers but things turned out good anyway.

I find this very interesting because it happens so often in life.  It happened to me recently.  I pray every day that God will protect my business and that I will not lose any of my clients.  Now my company has had this one client for over 15 years and it's a big one.  We learned in December that effective at the end of July of this year, they will no longer need our services.  At first I was really upset.  Their decision not only effects my life but the lives of 20 to 30 people around me because it either effects their check or someone in their family.  That was a tough pill to swallow because I prayed about it all the time.

Now let me rewind a couple of years.  In January of 2010, the Lord instructed me to start a small company.  This company is very similar to the company that I run now with some marked differences.  This company isn't very big yet but it has potential for tremendous growth and we are already seeing it start.  After a couple of weeks of figuring out my current company in the aftermath of our upcoming loss, I began to see what the Lord had in mind when He wrote, "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  Jeremiah 29:11.  I finally got a glimpse of His plan.  I could see that this decrease was actually increase in disguise and it's already coming to pass.

What I didn't see at first was this.  The one that got away needed to go away so I could land a bigger better fish.  I think that happens often to us in life.  Now let me ask you this.  What are you feeling so dis draught about right now?  What set back or disappointment are you facing?  Is it a bad grade at school?  Is it the loss of a girlfriend, boyfriend or job?  Maybe it's the loss of your house or something else due to the economy and you are mad at God about it.  Well I can certainly understand your frustration.  Let me tell you this - God does too.  It's OK to get mad at him.  He has big shoulders and He loves you very much.  He will even let you yell at Him.  So get it off your chest.

But after you are done yelling and getting upset, I challenge you to take a look around and see what God has in store for you.  If you ask Him, He will reveal the next door that needs to open.  And guess what, the thing to replace what you lost is probably right around the corner.  If it's from God, it will be better than what you lost.  Remember, sometimes you have to prune a tree so it can grow taller and stronger.

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.

Old Friends

Today I want to discuss a subject that I have come to appreciate more in the last week.  I want to talk about friendship.  Before I get to my Opinion for this blog, I need to back up a little.

Not that long ago, a good friend of mine, A, went home to be with the Lord after a long fight with cancer.  Now A and I stayed in touch over the years but we didn't stay as close as we were growing up.  I met A when I was in the 7th grade and we are both 41 (A is very much alive, he just went to a place called Heaven).  I still have fond memories of playing football.  A played center and if I remember correctly, he was a starter on the 1st team (or A team) when we were in middle school.  We are a lot alike.  I can still see him wearing his 3/4 top Nike Monster cleats when we played ball.  Later we called him "Hair" because when we were in high school he had long hair.

I also have very fond memories of us playing hide and go seek when we were in middle school with a whole group of kids from our neighborhood.  When we played, our boundaries were several blocks in every direction and we had a lot of fun.  Now A wasn't the only kid I hung out with.  There was B.  He was the high school baseball stud pitcher when we were in school and interestingly enough, he was also very smart.  For a while B and I were best friends and we were inseparable.

There were other kids in the neighborhood too - B and his little brother A, B and his little brother C and  several others.  For the sake of time I will stop right there except to say that B and I went to see my friend A the other day.  It was a very hard time for both of us.

Now let me fast forward to watching my own kids.  Over the last week, I had the opportunity to watch my kids pretty closely and one thing I noticed was that a couple of them were not very well adjusted to playing with other kids.  Why?  Well, one answer is that they don't have very many kids around them to play with.  That small fact - having kids around to play with - was something I realized was a true blessing in my life and also something that I see missing in my kids lives.  I learned a lot last week.  I can't say it was an easy week but it was certainly rewarding.

So let me leave you with the two things I learned from this past week.  First of all, kids need to be around other kids.  So parents please find ways to help your kids socialize.  Second of all, grew to really appreciate all the great kids I grew up with.  A, you will be missed.  I love you and even though we didn't stay as close as either of us would like, I miss you.  Let me leave you with this - Appreciate your friends.  They are truly a gift from God.

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

Somebody Like Me

This morning I am sitting listening to a song called, "Somebody Like Me" by Jason Crabb.  This song is about a homeless man that walks into a church and no one sits next to him, no one ministers to him and when he leaves no one goes after him.  Yesterday a friend of mine and I were listening to this song as we drove to lunch.  He said something that was true but it didn't sit right with me regardless.  He said that he had never seen this happen at his church and that people would have reached out to this guy if they were at his church.  I agree and that would probably happen at my church as well.  The problem is we get all emotional at church and then what happens when we walk out the door?  If we are Christians, what does Christ look like to the rest of the world?  Will Christ stop to help someone?  Will Christ give to someone in need or will Christ make some excuse about why he can't help.  Understand this - The only Christ that some people will ever see is you and me.

Let me tell you about a couple of places where I faced this situation.  One was in the church lobby a few weeks ago.  There is a lady at my church who I have sort of known all my life.  I have been to basically three churches in my life and her family has been at the same three.  The funny thing is we don't know them all that well.  This particular lady has such a sweet spirit.  She loves God and you can just tell.  On this particular morning, she was a Christian and I wasn't.  The interesting thing is that this particular lady has some type of mental disability and while older than me, she acts much younger.

As she walked toward me that Sunday, I didn't want to talk to her.  I buried my head in my phone pretending to be doing something but really I was just hoping that she would pass me by so I wouldn't have to talk to her.  All she wanted was to talk to someone and have them talk back to her with some amount of interest in what she was saying.  I however was too caught up in myself to be Christ.  As someone walked up and diverted her attention, I quickly got up and walked off.  Oh how easy it is to write this blog and have people from all over the world read it but when it came to actually being a member of the body of Christ I failed that morning.  When the reality of that set in, I was ashamed of myself because I know I am better than that.  Have you ever experienced a situation like that?  If so, you know how it feels to have an opportunity to do something for someone else and miss it.  My Father still loves me but He certainly couldn't have been happy with me that morning.  I know I wasn't.

But the Lord had a special way of telling me and showing me how much He loves me.  I don't speak with this person very often but the next morning as I was rounding the corner, here she came again.  This time was different.  I was excited.  I got an opportunity to talk to her and really more let her talk to me and I took it with gusto.  It didn't last very long but I know she enjoyed talking to me and I really enjoyed talking to her.  This particular Sunday, that somebody was me.  It felt great.

Now let's get outside the church walls.  What does Christ look like at Starbucks on Wednesday morning?  Please do not take the rest of this story as bragging because it isn't.  I constantly deal with the feeling that I don't do enough for other people.  It seems like no matter how many people I help, I never feel like I do much and certainly not enough.  Anyway, as I was sitting in Starbucks working this morning, and a man walked up to me who looked dirty.  He handed me a laminated piece of paper that said he was mute and looking for money for food for his family.  He showed me tatoos on his arms with the names of his parents and the dates of their deaths.  I really didn't want to deal with him because I was enjoying what I was doing.  Before he got to me, he stopped at another table to ask for help and they turned him down.  But here's the difference.  This time I purposed in my heart to be someone God could use.  I decided that God could count on me to show this man Christ.  I wasn't going to be relegated to the side lines this time.  I was going to get in the game.  He was going to see Christ give.  I am thankful that Christ gave me the ability to bless him.

Please don't take this wrong.  I, above all people, know that I'm nothing special.  But I do know that I serve One who is beyond special.  As we get closer to Thanksgiving, I want to challenge you to look around you.  If you are a Christian, what does Christ look like to the people who are around you?  Are you helping?  When was the last time you helped someone who could do nothing for you in return?  When was the last time someone saw Christ in you?  In my own life, people don't see Christ enough.

That's the Opinion of the Minion

My Mom vs. Goliath

Today I want to tell you how thankful I am for the drug problem I had as a child.  No, it wasn't the kind of drugs you are thinking about.  My mom drug me to church every week.

The church building isn't there anymore.  It was knocked down by a tornado that hit downtown Fort Worth several years ago and I really miss that church building.  Now don't get me wrong, Jesus isn't in a building and the church is so much more that a building.  The church is the people who go to and from the building every week.  See when people see us they should see Christ in us not in a building.  But that building was a very special one to me.

I have said this publicly but I will say it again, Thank you mom for dragging me kicking, screaming and sometimes cussing to church with you every week.  If it wasn't for that, I would hate to think about where I would be today.

So let me tell you a little more about this drug problem.  When I was around 5 years old, we started attending Calvary Cathedral in downtown Fort Worth.  The church started out as a Baptist church that Pastor Bob Nichols bought.  At the age of 5, church was fine but as I got a little older it really cramped my style.  Because of where we lived and just our normal schedule, I did not make many friends at the church when I was young.  (I think I would have made several good friends if I was more friendly myself but that's beside the point.)

The other problem was something I considered much more critical.  Now you have to understand that this was before the days of VCRs and DVRs so I couldn't record anything from TV.  Why is this important you ask?  Because the Dallas Cowboys played at noon and I was a big fan back then.  I hated that I had to go to church and miss part of the game.  By the time we got out of church, the 1st Quarter was always over and I didn't like that.  As I got to high school, I would stay out late and be tired and thus again I didn't want to go to church.  I cussed my mother out more than once (No, not to her face.  I wasn't that stupid) for dragging me to that church.  I even decided that I wouldn't stay in the services while I was there.  Now the church building was pretty big and it had two stories so I decided to hide in the rooms upstairs until the service was over.  This worked out pretty well for several months until the mom of one of my few friends followed me up to my "secret" room.

Needless to say, my mom found out and I got drug out of the room and back down to the service.  I can tell you she was a very unhappy camper when she found us that day.  Now my mom is a little lady but she sure looked like a giant that day.  If David had seen her instead of Goliath he might have reconsidered.  If Goliath had seen her he would have ran instead of running his mouth.  So back down to the service we went.  After a certain amount of time, I finally decided I would outsmart her again.  I didn't want to be there and while she could drag me there as long as I lived under her roof, she couldn't make me listen to a word Pastor Bob was saying.  If anyone from Calvary reads this, let me say how thankful I am for a true man of God like Bob Nichols.  I have nothing but the highest respect and admiration for him. 

So if you were looking out from the pulpit, I was sitting in the very back row on the far right hand side of the sanctuary.  Now our sanctuary was round so the isle we sat on had only three seats.  If you took one of them you did so at your own peril because my brother and I owned them.  There was a strategic reason that I picked these seats.  You could not see my facial expression from the pulpit, there was no one directly behind me, you would have to turn around to look at me if you were in front of me and lastly, if I put my bible on the arm rest of the chair, put my elbow on the bible, and leaned my face on my hand, my head would stay upright and you couldn't see my eyes if you sat to my right.

Why was this important?  Because it allowed me to sleep through every service without getting caught.  Or at least no one woke me up if they knew I was asleep (I am sure that people knew because I snored like a chain saw at a logger's championship).  So I slept back there and my mom kept dragging us to church.  But there was something that really bothered me.  At the end of every service, Pastor Bob would start his closing prayer by saying, "Father, we've heard the word of God today...."  Only I hadn't heard the word so I wouldn't pray that part of the prayer because it would be a lie.  So one day, I decided to stay awake and listen to what he said.  This went on for several more years and Pastor Bob taught me a lot.  Thanks to a mother who wouldn't stop bringing her son to church.

But here's the interesting part.  There were many things that I wanted to do with my time back then.  Church wasn't in the top 100.  I wanted to play outside, hang out with my friends, watch football, etc.  But when the major crises came in my life, when I needed help with my weight, when I was going through my divorce, at every point where I struggled, I never once cried out to the Dallas Cowboys, to my friends or to any other thing that would have taken my time.  I cried out to the One that I learned about all those times mother drug me to church.  I cried out to God.  Never once quoted a Cowboy rushing stat when I needed financial help.  I qouted the word of God and God saw me through my difficulty.  I never once found comfort in any church substitute.  I found comfort by going back to the place where my mother drug me week in and week out all those years.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Thanksgiving

For most of this month leading up to Thanksgiving, I will try to write something that relates to me giving thanks.

I think this subject is very often overlooked and even though I have written on it before, let's take a look at thanksgiving from a little different angle.

Today I am thankful for - Resistance.

OK, you say, this topic already makes no sense.  Hold on, I will try to explain.  When I was in high school, I liked to lift weights.  In fact, I still work out quite a bit today but I am not near as strong as I was back then. 

Let's look a little closer at weight lifting for a minute.  One of the most important exercises for us in high school athletics was the bench press.  I had a pretty good bench press but was by no means the best.

For those of you who don't know the bench press works like this.  You lay flat on your back on a narrow bench (hence the bench press).  There are stands on either side of that bench that hold up a metal bar.  The ends of the bar were slightly larger than the middle it that's where you put the additional weight.  So while laying on your back, you extend your arms until both are gripping the bar and you move the weight off the stands.  Now the bar is above you.  You lower the bar until it touches your chest and then you push the bar until your arms are straight.  Back then I could max at about 300 pounds.  But as you can imagine, if I had dropped that weight on my chest it would have done substantial damage. 

Also, every time I did a repetition, it would break down my muscles slightly.  This doesn't make much sense right?  Well, you have to throw in one more element to see the benefit - time.  It would take some time but my muscles would heal and when they did, I would be stronger than before.  The total amount I could lift would actually increase.

Most of you can probably see where I am headed right.  Many times in life there are things we come up against that don't want to move or worse yet we come up against things that would do us substantial damage like the bench press bar would have done to me.  However, don't get so upset with the setbacks in life because many times they will help you grow stronger.  I am not saying that any of them are fun but sometimes we have to be torn down a little to grow beyond our current limitations.

Now I want you to notice one more thing and it is one of the hardest things for me to deal with.  After my muscles were torn down, what did it take for them to grow stronger?  Time.  Don't be upset if your growth or what you need to overcome a situation doesn't happen over night.  Just know that you will grow stronger.

And that's another Opinion of the Minion