Ponder this...

Friday Links

Michael Hyatt nails it with this article "What Keeps You Going When You Want to Quit?"

I enjoy watching theologians make fun of theologians

How to Preach the Gospel to Yourself

My friend Mike offers up some gems in 100 Ways to be a Better Leader

This is so true

The secret to church growth can be found here

To let it go

 

Letting go is hard. 

 

After all, the thing that you are holding is valuable. It has meaning. It represents something that is of deep importance. If you have held it long enough, it has become a part of you, part of who you understand yourself to be. If you let it go you feel as if you are letting part of yourself go and you hardly have enough self as it is so you don’t want to just let go of the familiar parts!

 

You used to just hold it your hand, but then you kept bringing it up to your eyes to look at it – to examine and enjoy it. Pretty soon you realize that you may as well just keep it in front of your eyes and since that moment the world has never looked the same. It has colored the way you see life. It has changed the light patterns and the shadows and over time you have grown comfortable with how it makes things look.

 

In fact, most of the time you do not even feel it. Your muscles have grown and stretched to accommodate it and now it is just the way you are.  It’s just the way life is.  It’s just the way things are going to be. It happens and so be it.

 

What you may not realize is how it has grown. Well why wouldn’t it?  After all, you have been feeding it. You have been nursing it with worry and energy and hope and expectation of course it has grown larger! Of course it has developed a family of it’s own and set up a home with an office and several bedrooms and a two car garage - it's only natural.

 

What you are yet to see is how the thing that you are holding is in fact holding you.  It has occupied a piece of you that can never grow unless fresh light and clean air are allowed in. It has captured a section of your heart that you’ve always assumed was just a section of your personality. Instead of providing light it has actually stolen your vision and left you seeing only a slice of what is available. You are now left with a blind spot - a place just behind your awareness that makes you act and feel in ways that you don’t understand.

 

What you are yet to see is the price you are paying for clinging to it. The love that has long been constricted.  The hope that has remained in the dark. The freedom that sits unrealized. The joy that awaits.

 

Letting go is hard.  You need help.

Twittering

I've been using Twitter for a few weeks now and I feel like I am finally able to use it in a helpful way!  Here are few tidbits that twitter has sent my way the past week:

"We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it. God’s purpose isn't limited by your past." - Rick Warren

"Your problems are not punishment; they are wake up calls! God is trying to get you to change.. Ps. 119:67

"It is always more Christlike to resolve a strained relationship than to disolve it. Hang in there. Gal.6:9 - Rick Warren

"Facing your fears is like grabbing an electric fence. It's a jolting experience, but you live thru it." - Tim Sanders

Bob Kilpatrick's "Secrets of Silence: Praying w/out Words" next on my list. He quotes Mozart: "The notes are silver, the rests are gold" - Len Sweet

I've also got in a free book giveaway, learned a bunch about making speeches and read a lot of Scripture. I also find it a fun challenge to get my thoughts down to 140 characters!