How Are Your Decision Making Skills?
Often when talking with “leaders,” husbands, wives, or parents, who are experiencing problems, difficulties, road blocks, resistance, revolts, failures, disappointments, or other catastrophe’s, it often can be traced back to making a poor decision. Some questions to consider: What is your process for making decisions? Do you have a process? How do you decide whether or not to purchase a washer and dryer? Whirlpool or Maytag, Lexus or Volkswagon? Are you a leader? Pastor? Business Owner? Parent? Are you aware that decisions have long lasting effects on the future, the flock, our finances, our spouse, children, patrons and a host of other people as a result? Poor decisions and undesirable outcomes are often the result of making decisions...
On the Mountain of the Lord It Will Be Provided
Genesis 22 “Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. 2 Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.” Can you imagine hearing the voice of God telling you to do such an insane thing? But Abraham had astounding faith and he recognized the voice of God. Don’t know about you, I have trouble with both having faith and recognizing the voice of God. But Abraham responded immediately “Here I am.” He had an ear for hearing God. There was no confusion, no arguing, no questioning, no “but God…. but…....
Rules Made to be Broken Part 2
For example, the rule we have about “cars should not ever pull out in front of us” is our rule, our rule only, and not anyone else’s rule. Sure, it makes sense; it would be nice if people always displayed courteous and safe driving habits. But the truth is, sometimes people will pull out in front of me. The truth is, sometimes I make mistakes. I am not perfect. Others are not perfect. So how do we avoid the anger? We need to re-frame the irrational rules developed and replace them with rational and true thinking patterns. Learn to recognize rules that cause you trouble. Usually the rules we have adopted start with “I must always” or “I should,” “You must always,” “You should.” For example, “I must be in control of...
Rules Were Made to be Broken Part 1
Ever experience what is referred to as “road rage?” You know, someone pulls out in front of you on the road then slows to a crawling 35 mph in a 50 mph speed zone and you suddenly have the urge to pull up beside them and make obscene gestures with your hands or fingers. Or you decide to pull up as close as you can to their rear bumper and flash your headlights. This is a good example of unhealthy anger that boils up when one of our rules are broken. We all have rules about life, ourselves and others. We have rules about how others should treat us. Rules about being on time, being accepted and how our children should behave. We have rules about how other children should behave. We establish our rules about “knowing,” or being in control of...
Social Anxiety
Ever experience fear or anxiety when meeting new people or in social settings? We’ve probably all felt some tension at one time or the other. Where does this fear originate? Multiple sources of evidence suggest that problematic social anxiety is directly related to our attempts to hide aspects of our “self” from others. We might be telling our self that “If you really knew (_____ ) about me, you would reject me.” We try and avoid scrutiny at times to avoid negative evaluation. But more recent research seems to indicate that it’s not just the fear of negative evaluation by others but more related to the degree to which we BELIEVE the negative evaluation is true. Do we believe the negative evaluation being conducted...
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