One Day

Posted: 1479 days ago | In: Relationship

The memories are so fresh, it’s like it happened yesterday. I was 12 years old and that Sunday seemed to be like so many others. As far back as I can remember, my entire family – parents, two brothers and one sister – would spend every Sunday at my grandfather’s house, on my mother’s side. He was very nice person and had converted the garage of his house into a grocery store, which was paradise for us kids. We could walk in and take whatever we wanted – candy, sodas, potato chips, ice cream… it was a blast.

For my mother it was an opportunity to catch up with her larger family. Innumerable aunts and uncles were only a small part of this large family that migrated from the northeast of Brazil to the big city when my mother was only a child.

When they played “Sueca”, a card game I never understood, my dad was the faithful partner of my grandfather, and they played for hours and hours…and hours. We always arrived home very late at night.

But that Sunday was not like the rest.

At the end of the day, when it was almost the time for us to leave, my parents got into an argument in front of everyone. I don’t remember the what or the why of the argument, but I do remember the embarrassment; the fear that the look on my father’s face instilled in me; how I wished that my mother would just shut her mouth to avoid making things worse; the desire to yell out:“WHY CAN’T YOU TWO JUST GET ALONG?” — these are impossible to forget.

That day, trouble entered our family.

After the fight, we got into the car and went home. For the entire trip, not a word was uttered, and that silence, especially on my father’s part, continued for almost one year – and then the bomb exploded. An affair, another woman, witchcraft, a living hell. I’ll spare you the details.

The point is that everything has a beginning. Nothing has always existed, except for God. The Bible speaks about the “time of trouble” (Psalm 41.1), the “day of adversity” (Proverbs 24.10) – in other words, there’s a particular day in which evil comes into a person’s life. From that day on, things go from bad to worse. It’s like a derailed train – there’s no going back.

Your health was good until the day a symptom appeared. Your marriage was happy until you had a disagreement that couldn’t be resolved. Your business was doing well until your sales went down and never came back up again.

But the interesting thing about the day of trouble is that it comes without invitation. It’s the nature of evil – it attacks when we least expect it.

But the day of salvation, the day of deliverance, the day of change has to be induced. Said another way, it doesn’t happen by accident. I hear a lot of people say “one day my life’s going to change”, “one day I’ll make it” – and yet these people leave this day to chance. They think that on some beautiful day, good fortune will smile on them. But no one’s life changes that way.

Change is the result of a DECISION. The day I make a good decision will be the day that my life begins to change. But it’s me who chooses this day, no one else.

You need to appoint your own Day of Decision.

On this day, trouble will be forced to leave your life and give room for the good that you choose.

“I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live.” (Deuteronomy 30.19)

What’s YOUR decision?

P.S. Was there a day when evil (or good) entered your life? How did it happen? If you managed to make a positive change, what was the key decision you made that provoked it? Please write it in the comments below and share your story — it could help someone.

Hasty Judgement

Messages

One day, a woman was walking down the street and, according to her, she saw a terrible scene as she looked in through the window of her pastor’s house.

Imagine: her pastor was running after his wife with a broom. She could hear the wife screaming and running around, and she saw the husband running after her.

There was no doubt: the pastor was beating his wife. The woman spread the news around town. She told everyone she knew, and, because she was still not satisfied, she began telling strangers as well.

Before long the whole town knew about the pastor’s inappropriate attitude.

Due to what happened, the leaders of the church met and took the necessary precautions. They removed the pastor from the ministry and communicated their decision to him. He, very wisely, accepted the decision without saying anything to defend himself. He just made one request: let me do one last farewell meeting this following Sunday, and invite everyone who could attend.

On the chosen day, after a short but uplifting evangelical message, he invited his wife to come up to the pulpit and explain why he was being fired.

She said in a loud and clear voice:

- My husband is being removed from the church because of a Hasty Judgment! I am aware that the decision to remove him was because he hit me. I never complained to anyone about this, and I couldn’t, because what really happened was that while I was cleaning, a mouse appeared and I started running around the room. Because I am afraid of mice, I screamed and ran. My husband saw what was happening, grabbed a broom and began to chase the mouse to kill him.

If this is a good enough reason for my husband to be removed from the church, we will move to another city, if not, I would like the person who spread this lie about my husband hitting me to come up here because we (my husband and I) are ready to forgive the person that made this mistake.

Everyone that was present knew who had spread the rumor, so the woman did not have any other choice but to go up there and ask for forgiveness. Then, the pastor said to her:

- I forgive you, but you will have to do what I am about to ask you, okay? - She replied affirmatively.

Given her response, the pastor presented her with the following instructions:

- I want you to take a feather pillow, go to the top of a hill on a windy day and release all the feathers into the air.

"That's easy!", she must have thought. But the pastor continued:

- The following day, go back and collect all the feathers and put the pillow together again, exactly like it was before.

- Oh, pastor, that is impossible! After the wind blows around the feathers I will never be able to gather them together again. - She replied.

- This is exactly what you did with my life! After you spread that rumor, the people of this town will never see me the same way. We will move to another city, but we would like to leave you with this life lesson:

Never judge anyone hastily, and do not spread what cannot be recovered.

Evil which enters through your eyes

Posted: 5 days ago | In: Spiritual Intelligence

Human-beings have a gift for finding faults in others. Although, it may be more of a disease than a gift. There are even those who find fault in God, like the men who found fault in Jesus when he walked the earth. He warned us about the dangers of this disease:

 But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. Matthew 6:23

I may not know if you have ‘evil eyes’ towards me. Yet, your evil eyes won’t make a difference in my life. They will affect you. How is that so?

When we have evil eyes towards someone, we start to look for their flaws. The command we send to our brain is: “This person is bad. I’m going to find evidence to prove this.” Then we start to see everything in a distorted way:

• The person arrived late? How lazy. The person is early? They’re just showing off for the boss.
• She’s pretty? She’s so full of herself. She’s ugly? She deserves it.
• He has money? What a thief. He’s broke? What a loser.
• She works hard? What a brownnoser. She’s a bad employee? How selfish.
• He stands out amongst the rest? What a show off.  He makes no difference? What a waste of space.

The search for flaws is endless. You become a bitter, hateful, spiteful person, whose tongue drips venom. If you have evil eyes towards someone, there’s no way that person can please you. But the problem is with you, not the person.

Your condition is so serious that the victims of your evil eyes don’t even need to punish or criticize you; they don’t even need to defend themselves. You already punish yourself: the darkness that’s there inside of you does that. Carrying anger that never ends, you’re a bitter person that only attracts friends like you – those who hate the same people. You somehow live off the feeling that you’re the only “perfect” person, even though you know such a thing doesn’t exist.

How can you not see this?

Sorry for asking, I forgot. You’re in darkness.

Every day, no exceptions

Posted: 101 days ago | In: Faith, Spiritual Intelligence

Last part of the series, “How to define a vision for your life.”  Read the first part here.

Now that you have defined the four things that will contribute in making your vision come true, you are ready to begin. Simply having completed the three tasks up to now it should have made you feel more motivated, focused and hopeful that your life will truly change. This is the sign that you are on the right track.

What to do now?

Now it’s time to separate the enthusiasts from the committed. Those who are full of talk but no action and the serious.

Take another good look at the things you wrote on the paper for the last task. Look at the dates. Take one more trip to the future and see those things coming true. I’m serious: go get the list and do this. Then come back. I’ll wait.

…

Now ask yourself a question: Am I committed to doing at least one thing per day in order to bring me closer to one of these objectives?

Think before you answer. The proposal is for you to do at least one thing for each one of these four objectives every day. It can be anything that is going to help you take a step in their direction. Every day. No exceptions.

Let me remind you that:

You eat every day. Drink every day. Sleep every day. Probably check your e-mails and Facebook every day. Hear, read or watch the news every day. Speak on the phone every day. Take a shower every day. And do a whole lot of other things every day. Some of them are not even necessary, but you somehow find time.

So, every day you can do at least one thing in regards to your objectives, if you can, and if you want.

Clearly some days you’ll do more and others less. But, it’s not a matter of how much you’re going to do, but that you do something every day.

“You can’t even go one day without doing something? What if something unexpected happens?”

Yes, there will be days like these. But you can’t intentionally slack off because you feel lazy or decide to procrastinate; the day that you do this you will be sabotaging your vision. One thing is certain: one day of slacking off can lead to another, then three, and then pretty soon you will give up all together.

So, if you’re not COMMITED, stop right now and don’t do another thing. Perhaps you’ll understand someday the importance of having a vision and working tirelessly to make it happen.

I guarantee you one thing: if you’re ready to make a COMMITMENT with yourself, you’re going to start using a new notebook, a diary, an agenda or something similar, and you’re going to write or paste the four things in the first page. Right after, you will write:

I, __________________________ am committed to doing at least one thing that will lead me closer to each one of my objectives, every day.

Sign your name underneath. And from now on, write daily in your diary:

What I did today in order to get closer to objective number 1:
What I did today in order to get closer to objective number 2:
What I did today in order to get closer to objective number 3:
What I did today in order to get closer to objective number 4:

If you didn’t do anything towards reaching your objectives on a certain day, write “nothing.” Obviously if you start to write this frequently, it’s a sign that you’re really not committed. Re-evaluate your commitment or vision.

And don’t forget to always pray and present your projects to God.

 Commit your works to the Lord, and your thoughts will be established. Proverbs 16:3

I would really like to receive comments on your experience after following the steps instructed here. It can be now, if you want to write about what has helped you in these last four posts. After you reach your vision as well, even if you only come back a year from now to write about your story.

I will be praying for you. Be blessed!