Embrace the Within no. 52

“On Christ, the solid rock, I stand: all other ground is sinking sand.”

• Edward Mote

And just like that it’s Monday again and back to the routine. I spent a long conversation yesterday about the importance of a daily routine and a plan to set yourself up for success. And I wanted to take some time today to emphasize the importance of setting the tone for your day when you get up and going every morning. So, I want to talk about why being intentional about the way you start day, start a task, or approach starting anything is important.

Our brains are very programmable and hackable. I am sure you have seen at least one life hack or unlearning and reprogramming your brain post. And that is because our brain, despite thousands of years of social and civil change, is basically the same brain that protected us out in the wilderness. The brain makes us social creatures in need of protection from the group because the group was the way we survived. Human young have no way of protecting themselves. They are vulnerable and need the protection of their family, their tribe. Our brains, despite all this technology around us and all these creature comforts, has not changed from the time of tribes wandering in the wild. We like to think we have changed. We like to believe we have evolved. We like to aspire to some lofty pinnacle BUT we are still just the “quintessence of dust”. So, setting ourselves up for success is as simple as convincing this primitive brain that we are successful. And one way to do that is by having a routine that makes us feel successful.

Have a routine that you can complete successfully. I think a lot of folks want to magically be transformed overnight and set unrealistic expectations and then fail at those expectations. And that makes them unsuccessful and back to the cycle of failure. So, make your routine something you can achieve. Find manageable goals that can help you feel like you have done something, accomplished something. Make those activities aimed at an end besides just doing something. Your activity should be directed at changing or growing some part of your health. It needs to focus on a part of your body, mind, and/or spirit. Work from those basics and build.

When you start your day on a foundation of success, the change in this perspective permeates the rest of your day. So, I cannot emphasize the importance of setting yourself up for success daily. Life is difficult enough without setting ourselves up for failure.

Shalom to your home. Bless your being. The reign of YHWH is now. Be a blessing to YHWH and others.

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoGodsNoMasters #MyNepheshMyChoice #ChristsLifeMatters #EmbracetheWithin #NotMyWayYHWH #GodKnows

Embrace the Within no. 51

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters when compared to what lies within us.”

• Oliver Wendell Holmes

This week has filled itself with reflection, introspection, and perspective. And those acts of thought led to sitting down and doing what I have not done in quite some time on a Sabbath and that is write a blog rather than a poem. The pantoum this week was taken from Psalms 95 in the New Messianic version of The Bible. This psalm in itself is a bit reflective in the end when it alludes to the stubborn necks of the people of Israel when they approached the land promised to them by YHWH. Some times we can be so close to what YHWH wants for us and then we start to second guess whether that path, that gift, that realization is truly what we want this side of eternity.

It is nothing more than self sabotage. And we do it all the time. We do it out of pride. We do it out of fear. We do it out of stubbornness. We do it for any number of reasons. BUT we do it against ourselves. We do it because, as it says in His Word, “There is a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof [are] the ways of death” (Proverbs 16:25) NMV). Just like in the Garden, we see things and think they are good and we are wrong. We’re dead wrong. And we see things that way because we’re looking at the world without wisdom. We are looking at the world as if it were all that is.

Sometimes we self sabotage by outsourcing our freedom and salvation. Even before I was on this exact path, I was teaching the importance of personal responsibility and self ownership. Those concepts did not lose their importance with my salvation. I would not be on this path today if I didn’t take radical responsibility for everything that I have done in my life and given it all over to YHWH through Christ. I am responsible for making that choice and moving forward with what YHWH has for me to do in His service.

Too often the responsibility stops there. And I see too often folks stopping at salvation. And folks resting on the idea that once they are saved they’re good and nothing more needs to be done. It is like they ran one leg of the race and then sat on the sidelines while the rest of the course lay ahead to complete. You weren’t called just to save yourself. You weren’t called to just stop with yourself. You weren’t called just to get yourself good. And you know that. It is again self sabotage.

Despite how much I hate politics and parties anymore, BUT I do like the vigor of their recruitment. I was violently and unapologetically a believer in liberty and I preached it all the time. I spoke it’s truth and probably alienated more than a few people that were stuck sleeping in the state. How much more should I shout the Truth of Christ? How much more should I live that testimony? How much more should I shout The Truth to those sleeping in knowledge of salvation?

You can’t outsource your freedom. You can’t go out there and have other people get you free. It is never going to work that way. And no one else is going to do your salvation either. Christ gave us all the path to getting back at one with YHWH and He never forces it on anyone. We all have to choose that path as well.

Maybe you like enslavement to the world. Maybe you like being part of the crowd. Maybe you like saluting your #SkyCloths and saying your #MagicPrayers for freedom. Or maybe you want to get yourself free of the chains that bind you because YHWH broke, “ . . . the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor” (Isaiah 9:4 NMV).

You can’t outsource your freedom.

Shalom to your home. Bless your being. The reign of YHWH is now. Be a blessing to YHWH and others.

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoGodsNoMasters #MyNepheshMyChoice #ChristsLifeMatters #EmbracetheWithin #NotMyWayYHWH #GodKnows