Drink, Steal, Swear & Lie - 4 rules to live by?

(FOUR RULES TO LIVE BY)

I met this guy while I was in Albuquerque and he has a motto he lives byeveryday. He said listen carefully and live by these 4 rules: Drink, Steal,Swear, & Lie.

I was shaking my head 'no', but he then told me to listenwhile he explained his four rules. So here they are:

1.. "Drink" from the "everlasting cup" every day.
2.. "Steal" a moment to help someone that is in worse shape than you are.
3.. "Swear" that you will be a better person today than yesterday.
4.. And last, but not least, when you "lie" down at night, thank God youlive in America and have freedom.

I am not as good as I should be; I am not as good as I could be; but THANKGOD, I am better than I used to be.

- Author Unknown
(from EmailMinistry@yahoogroups.com)

A Baby Carriage on the Beach...

The other day we went to the local beach here in Florida, Pine Island.

Something struck me at this beach that I wanted to pass along to you. We were sitting in the sun, I was reading, the kids were swimming, and a man walked by dragging a baby carriage through the sand. He was yelling to his wife how hard it was to drag that carriage with those tiny wheels through the sand. He even said, "I don’t think this thing was designed for use in sand." What struck me was that this man was only twenty feet from a sidewalk – walking parallel to it. Only twenty feet to his left, he would have found a very smooth path for his carriage. But he continued struggling.

We are God’s workmanship. But so often we drudge along, finding it very difficult to do things that we were never created to do in the first place. And often the solution is so close. But we are so stubborn…

Good Morning Grace...

I am on vacation these weeks - actually halfway through at the time I finally get to write something.

We are going to Florida to see my parents, and on the first night out, we stopped to see our neice in North Carolina. She has a new dog since our last visit, named Grace.

We spent two nights with our neice, so we could have an entire day with her and her husband, and that first morning when my wife came down the stairs, the dog, Grace, went crazy to see her, excited as only a dog can be. She shouted out, "Good morning, Grace" as she saw the dog coming.

That stuck in my head. Good morning grace! We know that God's grace is new every morning. And I can easily imagine God's grace as excited each morning as the dog was. Can you? God's grace as happy to see you as a pet dog might be.

Imagine that tomorrow morning. As you get up, greet God's grace! And imagine how excited God is to give you that grace today!

Random Reflections...

When I started this blog about a year ago, it was to be a daily reflection on the being a part of the Body of Christ. Lately I haven't been doing to good at the daily part, and I apologize for that.

Since then, in the last year, we have had over 2800 page views from people in 19 U.S. States and 23 countries.

That is amazing to me. Thank you for reading this blog. Thank you for waiting and watching for what might come next. I thank you most for your faith in God, for without faith, you would find other things on the internet to read.

I find it very interesting that direction that God takes our lives. I praise Him for his work in me, and I will be available to Him as long as He can use me. And after that, I guess I'll have to trust Him all the more...

Trusting in God

Sometimes as I read Scripture, I find something that causes me to pause and reflect.

That was the case this morning. I was reading Psalm 41. In this Psalm, David’s enemies are pursuing him, saying evil things about him, and devising evil plans against him. Even his best friend has turned against him. He is all alone, and fears that death is near.

Yet he looks to God. All of his hope is found in God. He believes that God will lift him up and deliver him. And his proof? Verse 11: “By this I know that you are pleased with me, that my enemy does not triumph over me.”

How does David know that God is still with him? Because his enemies, while hotly devising evil schemes, have not yet killed him!

I find that pretty incredible. Today, so many people want God to deliver them from every bump in the road. Every hitch, every setback, is cause for wonder if God is still there.

Have the faith of David. God is with you! The fact that you are still here is all the proof you need. Live your life for God now, no matter how difficult it might be. Because you’ll probably never be as bad off as David was when he wrote Psalm 41. And David still knew of God’s love for him.

Though you may face trials of many kinds, God is with you and will deliver you. Trust in that!

A Closing thought on Social Regression...

I have been passing along some thoughts over the last few days from Roberta Gilbert’s book, The Eight Concepts of Bowen Theory, that show that our society today may be in crisis. Today, I would like to pass along one final thought on this (Again from Gilbert's book)…

How many people would it take, doing just one of the following -

• Connecting with their generations, eliminating family cutoffs
• Educating themselves as to the facts in our society – the regression (the social crisis)
• Becoming clear on their guiding principles, being guided by them instead of political correctedness or groupthink
• Taking a stand, after careful consideration
• Defining a self in their families
• Becoming principle-guided parents, rather than projecting a worried focus

- to bring the regression to an end? One can only guess how many it would take, but it is a fascinating question.

An answer to Social Regression...

Yesterday, I looked at some statistics from Roberta Gilbert’s book, The Eight Concepts of Bowen Theory, that show that our society today may be in crisis. That, according to Family Systems Theory, or Bowen Theory, we may be in a time the theory refers to as Social Regression.

What do we do about it? How can change the course of society? In a family system, in order for the system of change, one person in the system, preferably a parent, will need to make a stand for higher and better functioning of self. They will begin to function better in the system, and in time, the system will react differently and change in the system will come about. Can we apply this to Society as a whole?

Roberta Gilbert makes the following suggestions of how we can make a difference:

1. Learn the facts and begin to make a difference. If societal regression is to turn around, people will have to get out of denial and start learning what is really taking place in society. This will mean reading more books and searching outside the usual media sources for facts. There is little time on TV for imparting the big picture – all the facts.

2. Learn to “think systems” in families and in organizations. Under the effects of heightened anxiety, people tend not to see the “big picture” or to think systems.” Rather they tend to think “cause and effect,” laying blame (on others).

3. Get clear on one’s guiding principles and learn to think according to them rather than what society tries to dictate. If one believes the family to be important, for example, one will already be standing contrary to what much if not most of society dictates.

4. Take a stand, after careful consideration address the problems in accordance with principles. With clarity on the facts, and as much information on the process as possible, guided by one’s best principles, a stand must eventually be taken.

Tomorrow, one final thought on the problem of social regression according to family systems theory.