Monday, July 29, 2013

Practice Your Best


A few bullet points to jog the memory of those who attended service Sunday, July 28th, 2013   -   To read the full text, click here.

 ·        Some people make waves and some people make way for things to happen.
·        If you wanted to experience health, would you study disease? If you wanted joy, would you study depression? If you wanted to have a happy marriage, would you study divorce?
·        This is the way the world approaches life. We study weaknesses and try to improve or eradicate them in order to have a positive experience.
·        This, it seems to me, is how many of us approach our walk along our spiritual path.
·        Does knowing what does not work make what does work, work?
·        Study/ practice what does work in whatever it is you wish to accomplish. “What doesn’t work” will become evident because it will be in glaring contrast to what does work – you won’t have to wonder.
·        Sometimes we make the same old decisions that are driven by our weaknesses.  It seems easier, but is it? Is it easier to make the same old choices and stay where we are in awareness when we long for a different experience?
·        “What you are supposed to do when you don’t like a thing is change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. Don’t complain.” (advice Maya Angelou received from her grandmother)
·        In the book of Mark, the disciples are arguing over who among them is the greatest. Jesus tells them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”
·        We think of ourselves as “human being.” Perhaps Jesus was saying put the human identity and all the variations of the personality last and let the body and the personality serve the spirit.
·        Living from Being first is living from strength.
·        Living from strength brings success.
·        Jim Kaat pitched for the Minnesota Twins in 1966. That year his pitching coach asked him to primarily practice his best pitch rather than spend time trying to improve his weaker pitches. Jim Kaat pitched from his strength 80-90% of the time that year and won 25 games. (only 3 pitchers have won more than 25 games since 1966!)
·        In life, Love is your greatest strength. Utilize it
·        Kathy Lamancusa tells the story of her son, Joey, who was born with club feet. By age three, with lots of medical assistance, Joey was able to walk normally. The doctors said, though, that he wouldn’t be able to run and play like other children.
·        Kathy and her husband never told Joey he’d had a deformity or that he probably couldn’t do what other kids could do. In seventh grade Joey made the cross country team and participated in competition with mostly eighth graders.
·        Joey never knew he was supposed to be limited because his parents never told him.
·        You are unlimited. Never tell yourself (or anyone else) otherwise.
·        The human part of us has the tendency to give others our opinion. How much better to give others a piece of God's opinion - which is always optimistic, always positive. God would say to Joey (and you), yes there is a WAY! No matter what you have, no matter what obstacle you have faced, no matter what block has come in your life, through My power you can do all things.
·        And so it is.

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