Came across two great post today on personal development plans from google reader.  The first was  a simple question from Jesse Phillips at Catablog, “What is your personal development plan? share it!” I did not share mine because I don’t have a specific plan.  I read a lot of books and piggyback them off of each other, I read the bible and pray, I spend quiet time before the throne of God,  but I have not had a specific plan for a couple of years.

Luckily Ron Edmondson is where Jessie got the question from.  Ron had posted on his blog  Three Questions to Write a Personal Development Plan.  I immediately went to Ron’s post and scoured the article.  Ron is a leader and leaders help those around them.  I am not going to put Ron’s three very simple keys on here because I want you to go to his site and read them for yourself.

So do you have one?  Post it here, or over at Catablog.  If you are like me and don’t have one let’s get started together.

The fourth of July is my favorite holiday.  Any time you have a legal ability to blow things up it’s a good thing.  Growing up in a small town we were free to blow up anything we could get our hands on.  Many 4th of July mornings I was the first kid out of the house.  The problem was old man Cromwell as we affectionately called him lived directly across the street from our house.  Mr. Cromwell’s favorite holiday was any day I or one of the other ten kids in town did not bother him.

Can you see the conflict building?  Mr Cromwell carried a very long pistol in his overalls.  He hung the handle of the gun on the bib of the overalls so we could all see it.  Mr. Cromwell was not afraid to whip that pistol out and point it at us kids if we made him mad enough. My dad always told me that the gun was not even loaded, but just having him walk out of his house was enough to make all of us run.

Looking back I think our problem is one we all still face today.  Mr. Cromwell and I had a different view of what freedom meant.  Mr. Cromwell’s view of freedom was being able to live in peace without kids being noisy and bothering him.  My view of freedom was being able to prove that that old man was a curmudgeon who hated life and everything about it. Can you see the tension in our views.

Isn’t that the way our world is today.  So many people have a different view of freedom that our tensions build and we grow to dislike or even hate the persons we disagree with.

Freedom is a sticky subject.  While we as Americans have more freedom than any other country in the world we complain like we are being herded into train cars to be taken to concentration camps.  But doesn’t it work that way?  The more freedom we have the more we complain.  The more we complain the less freedom it seems like we have.  It’s a vicious cycle that we put ourselves into, and I know just as well as anyone how hard it is to get off the complaining roller coaster. Which is why I chose the scripture we read earlier for today.

Paul had a lot to complain about.  Paul’s freedom had been taken, years before this letter so he had been in prison for some time.  He was in Rome and under house arrest probably chained to something or some one most of the time.

Have you ever felt like that?  Maybe, oh let’s say, YOUR JOB?  Or maybe just your life in general.  You feel trapped and you hate this or you hate your boss or your spouse or your kids.  So what do you do? You complain.  And God hears every word of it.  Think about that for a second.  Every time you complain God hears it.  He hears everything you say, so he hears your complaint.  In His book God Change My Attitude, James MacDonald says this, “God never shrugs off complainers.  He deals with them.  If you are a chronic complainer, just set your watch: discipline is coming.”  How does that make you feel?  Made me feel pretty bad, because I am a chronic complainer. In the Old Testament book of Numbers we see how the children of Israel complained. In Chapter  11  it says, “Soon the people began to complain about their hardship, and the Lord heard everything they said. Then the Lord’s anger blazed against them, and he sent a fire to rage among them, and he destroyed some of the people in the outskirts of the camp.” God had – had enough.  He wanted them to trust Him and all they did was complain.

They complained at the Red Sea and God saved them.  They complained because they were thirsty and he gave them water.   They complained about not having food, and he gave them food.  Then they complained about not having meat. And God had enough he gave them quail to eat, but it came with a plague.

Do you see the pattern?  Paul has nothing to lose and everything to gain so he is content with what he had.  The Israelites were free and only had to trust in God and all they did was complain.

So lets look at how Paul told the Ephesians to cope.  In Ephesians 3:14 the first thing paul says he does is fall to his knees and pray.  “My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth.”  Remember, this is the guy in prison.  This is the guy chained to something at all times and his response is to pray to the creator of the universe during this hardship.  But he doesn’t pray for himself, he prays for the Church at Ephesus.  He prays that they will have strength, that they will know the full love of Christ, that they will live full lives in Christ.  Then he says this, God can do more than you can imagine or ask in your wildest dreams.  I think that is his way of saying, “I’m gonna be okay.”

What does Paul say, “First things first.”  the first thing you should do is get on your knees before God.  Matthew 6 tells us to seek God first and we will have everything else.  Our New church name has our mission as well under it Seek God, Serve People, and Share life.   So What did he pray for them?

First he prayed that they would have strength.  Not physical strength, but an inner strength that would help them get through tough times.  Do you know anyone going through a tough time now?  Have you prayed for them, or do you just say well it will be okay, God is in control.    May be its you that has been kicked in the teeth.  Maybe you need a real strength that can only come from God.  Maybe you need a little intestinal fortitude to deal with what you are going through now.  God can give it to you.

The second thing he prays for is that Christ will continue to grow in them and they will experience his love.  Seeking God first is the key to this passage. When you let Christ in he begins to grow and change you as you open up your heart to him.  The famous Christian cop-out is, “Well God Made me this way.”  Yes he made you, but he loves you too much to leave you like you are.  Paul says, “you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights!  Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.”

The last thing Paul tells them in this part is God can do more than you can ever imagine.  Not by being a bully and pushing us around, but by changing us on the inside.

When we complain we don’t put God first.  When we put God first, we don’t complain.  When we live in the fullness of God, we may not have money, or fame, but we will have a future that never ends.

We have all the freedom in the world today, celebrate by enjoying the fireworks and the kids and the noise.  Celebrate with strength and love, and celebrate knowing that God love you very much, and knows what you are going through

You first need to know that I am weird by nature.  I laugh at things many people would cringe at, so reading this you may think I am nuts.  Having given you the disclaimer… I was reading my daily passages on YouVersion and Psalm 104 was the Psalm of the day.  It is a wonderful Psalm that extols the majesty of God and worships his creative power.  As I enjoyed my read I found the way the Psalm ended funny.  The last three verses are essentially:

I will Praise you all my life

I hope my thoughts please you

P.S. Please kill all the sinners

Amen

If you can’t find humor in that line of thinking you are too serious. Just thought I would share.

Pinnacle Balance was started in 2007 as a Christian personal development website.  Not long after I started it I broke off another website called Spiritual Teamwork.  As they both developed separate identities I wanted to bring them back to one blog.  Without just doing it, there is no way to do it so…   Now the time has come to bring the two back together and finish what I started.  I will be uploading the contents to Pinnacle Balance in the next day or two.  Much of the content on Spiritual Teamwork is spiritual disciplines and spiritual growth if you are interested in those two subjects I want to invite you to stay on as a subscriber, if you are not interested in those subjects and decide to drop our feed we will miss you, and we thank you for supporting us to this point.

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1.  Stop saying Yes.

No I don’t mean say yes to things you want to do and no to other stuff. I mean say no to everything.  Once you have told someone no, then you can go back and say yes later.  This will give you freedom to choose what you want to do and not have to back out of things you don’t.  Think of the times you have said yes to something you thought at the moment of asking that you wanted to do, only to realize later that it really was not your first choice of things to do.  Saying no to everything will give you a chance to test everything you want to do, then allow you to choose the best things.

2. Evaluate Everything.

When you evaluate your choices you can list them in the order of importance.  The example here would be volunteer at the church picnic or clean the house.  If you are going to freak out because the house is not clean, that would be the better choice.  While volunteering at the picnic may make the most people happy, your peace of mind is still the better choice.  Evaluating also allows you to decide earlier how to plan.  You could clean the house the night before and still make the picnic, if you evaluate and plan what you want to do.  There is no right answer to our question.  You have to decide what is the better option.

3. Plan everything.

Yes I know that people live among us that are free spirits.  Spontaneity is the only way they want to live.  I also know if they would plan in times to be spontaneous those weekends to Miami would be less of a headache on Monday morning.   As a free spirit you can take ideas 1 and 2 and give yourself more time to be spontaneous, but still do things  for your greater good.  Having a plan will let you see where you are getting caught making two promises at once.  Having a plan gives you the opportunity to see where you are at and make adjustments to help you do what needs to be done and not feel overwhelmed.

4. Learn to be intentional.

As I was developing a plan for spiritual growth I came across a word I had heard, but never paid attention to, “Intentionality.”  Intentionality means you are doing something you intended to do.  Have you ever said I wanted to be a better… or I wanted to spend time doing… The truth is you never intended to do either thing because you did not do them.  If you had really wanted to do them you would have.  Being intentional means doing what you say you are going to do.  I want to spend more time with my family but we have to much going on.  Then get rid of the stuff and spend time with your family.  Be intentional and you will never have to say I wish I had done that.

5. Plan one weekend per month just for you, or your family.

This needs to be done for a year in advance, and can not be compromised by anyone or anything.  This is your me time, or family time to just stop and relax.  It can be at a local park or a lake.  It can be at the house with the phone and computer off, but it has to be planned, and it has to help you unwind.  This is the one I will get the most push back on.  The, “I can’t…”  will start coming out.  You can make all the excuses in the world why you can’t do this.  Start making excuses why you have to do this, and it will get done.   If you learn the art of being intentional about the things that really matter you will do the important and not make excuses.

6. Downsize.

This is the one 90% of you will tune out.  If you have read this much then hang-on.  If you really want to have balance in your life, get rid of your stuff. Stuff is the reason most of us have no time.  If your house burned down tonight what would you try to save.  If your laptop comes before your children, my point is proved.  Take a serious inventory and list in order of importance the stuff you can not live without then start getting rid of everything else.  A good post to read on this is the 100 Items challenge. It has challenged our family and I hope it challenges you.

7. Don’t focus on what other people have.

When we look at the things others have we begin to want.  We see their nicer car, we see their nicer home, or boat, or couch, or cabinets, and we lose focus on why we are here.  When you focus on what you have been blessed with, you begin to see you have enough.  It may not be the newest and nicest, but it is yours and it is paid for.  Don’t get sold on advertising.  You are the reason the companies you buy from exist.  Go on a media fast for a week and see how you feel.

8. Evaluate what you say.

You may not know this, but we say a lot of words everyday.  Even shy people talk more than we think.  Taking time to think about what we say can help us find balance.  Instead of blurting out the answer you think the other person wants to hear, listen to them and let them find their answer.  This does two things.  It helps you not give bad advice, and it lets them know you care enough about them to listen to what they think.  Not giving bad advice keeps your conscience clear, and letting them know you care opens your life to new relationships.

9. Cultivate Friendships

Don’t try to go it alone.  You need people in your life that can come along side you and help you carry your burdens.  Jesus said, “my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  He said that because he comes along side those that chose to accept his burden and helps them carry it.  There are many people in your life now  that you can turn to for guidance and help.  Take time to get to know those around you, and maybe you can help someone else in the process.

10. Realize Your Dream

Set a goal of living a balanced life, then set the small goals to achieve that.  Many people say they want to live a balanced life, but most don’t do it because  they never really start.  Starting the process can be as much as getting in the habit of getting up 30 minutes earlier each day.  don’t try to do everything at once.  You have taken to this point to get unbalanced, take the time to become balanced.  Living each day as it comes and practicing prayer and meditation, will increase your balance exponentially.  Don’t give up if you don’t get it the first time.  Be intentional and keep at.