Will you pray for us? Many of us, especially men can find those words terrifying, I know I do.  You might ask why?  What is so difficult about praying?  You pray every day throughout the day not only on your bended  knees at night, but also whenever we want or need anything during our day. However whenever we are asked to pray over someone else, or prior to an event or just aloud we choke on our prayers and our throats go dry. It should come naturally with the words rolling off our tongue and yet we begin to get anxious and our palms start to sweat like we are getting ready to speak to thousands rather than just One.  We are humbled in prayer to ask of anything and our words become laden with the arid air of the desert as where the battle was won so many years ago. We are entangled in a battle of the mind against the heart every time we pray as we have the thoughts of inadequacy and the fear of a child asking for anything.  While we are told to pray unceasingly and that our prayers will be answered we still feel incapable and unworthy. The seeds of doubt and fear are planted within us at birth and we are forever burdened with the overcoming and the desire to battle in a war already won.  We allow naysayers to get into our minds and convince us that we are not worthy of Grace,  yet Grace was granted […]

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Most people reading that headline will shiver at the thought of network marketing and some of you will quit reading at this sentence just because of the word. For those of you that have braced yourselves for rest of the story, I thank you and promise there will be no opportunity being pitched for you to buy into the next big thing in this post. You see my experience with network marketing was probably similar to many of you.  I remember going with my mother as a kid to go pick up her Amway orders from the local distributor who also happened to be a long time family friend across town.  I knew nothing about the business model itself, all I knew is all the products in the house from laundry detergent to deodorant and toothpaste all had the same  packaging and were not the name brands everyone else was using. Many, many years later I was introduced to another product that contained a bunch of juices blended together and well I drank the Kool-Aid and was sold.  I learned everything I could from the people who were successful in network marketing.  For several years I was that guy that everyone ran from when they saw me coming because I had something new to sell them.  The funny thing was I was not a people person but yet if I believed in a product I could sell it to my grandmother without blinking an eye.

In today’s lifestyle it is difficult for anyone to walk past a mirror without taking a moment for self-absorption or self-loathing.  We have become a society that is focused on the way we look to the rest of the world. “Sometimes I hate the man in the mirror.” – Lecrae Instead of being consumed by what is wrong with that guy in the mirror, we should focus on the gifts within. Public opinion makes the assumption that the psychological disorder of vanity is mainly a female problem. Yet I am sure you like myself know many a man who spends more time in front of the mirror than is healthy, maybe even it is you. Rather than dwelling on how skinny or young we should be; or how we need the abs we used to have back in our hay-day.  If we focus on God’s grace in the gifts that we have to share to others, all the rest will come naturally. Focus on making yourself into the reflection where others see Christ when they look at you. If your actions speak volumes it will not matter what the man in the mirror may look like to you. “The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity.” – Psalms 94:11 We look into the mirror and see ourselves big and mighty strong as a lion. Yet many of us are with scars of hurts and pain of sin that we carry unable to forget our past.  Unlike the women in our lives, we […]

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