The PF Women Team at our Annual Team Retreat ~ 2018 Today on Seth Godin's blog, he said: It's tempting to decide to make a profit first, then invest in training, people, facilities, promotion, customer service and most of all, doing important work. In general, though, it goes the other way. Yes, it does. If you are waiting to make a profit before you do these things, in my experience you're not going to make a profit. So many organizations, ministries and churches are struggling with financial issues. I know your pain. As anyone who follows our story knows, our ministry was in a ton of debt four years ago when I came on as director. Since that time, we've gotten out of debt and turned a profit every year. God has done amazing things through out team, for which we give Him the glory! I find that what Seth is saying here is absolutely true, with one disclaimer. For Christian leaders, spiritual disciplines must always be first. Before we started i...
Last night I was reading in my devotional by Oswald Chambers and he said, "When you yield to something, you will soon realize the tremendous control it has over you. Even though you say, "Oh, I can give up that habit whenever I like," you will know you can’t. You will find that the habit absolutely dominates you because you willingly yielded to it. It is easy to sing, "He will break every fetter," while at the same time living a life of obvious slavery to yourself. But yielding to Jesus will break every kind of slavery in any person’s life."
It reminds me a lot of what I learned in weight watcher class this week...about the WHY of emotional eating. The longer I'm in this thing the more I realize, it's a spiritual battle, and not at all about food.
Something our new leader has been talking about a lot is... "PROGRESS - NOT PERFECTION." That is a truth that has REALLY impacted me a lot. You see, I've always been the type of person that if I don't think I can do something well, I don't even usually attempt it. I go after things I know I can succeed at. I want to consistently hit home runs, (obviously figuratively, never literally since I'm not gifted sports wise). If I played baseball and just got to walk to a base versus hitting a home run it would really bother me. After so much of that I'd probably quit the game and move on to another one where I could excel.
It's like this journey with weight...when I make a mistake, fail, even SIN (let's call it what it is...) my thinking is often, "I've already screwed up, so what difference does it make? I've already eaten one piece of cake...it might as well be three, because NOW IT WILL NEVER BE PERFECT!"
I realized through our leader's teaching that many times I have gone through bad weeks because if I failed once, I just gave up knowing perfection could not be achieved that week. If my weight tracker had a bad looking day on it, I just didn't think it redeemable at least for that week. I'm learning day by day -- PROGRESS...NOT PERFECTION.
Honestly, today wasn't the best day for me. Just being completely transparent here...
It had nothing to do with WW. Class was great! It had to do with many other things. Some I can blab to the world, some I can't for other's sake. (I never care about blabbing to the world for my sake. If I'm quiet about something it's only for the sake of someone else.)
A few disappointments came my way today. To the point where I came home from work, laid on my bed and counted each second until I had to get up and go to church. It was the last thing I wanted to do. It wasn't church I dreaded, it was just that due to having some disappointment in my mind, I didn't want to do anything, go anywhere. I just wanted to...lay on the bed, cover my head and go to sleep...or at least watch Forensic Files and try to pretend like none of the issues exist for 30 minutes. Not possible. Going to the house of the Lord wasn't the issue...it was just that emotionally some things had me spent.
I went to church dependent on the Holy Spirit so heavily for the ministry that had to be done. God moved in such a mighty way. He always does when it's all of him and none of me. I love it when that happens, but I hate feeling the way I did going in. Honestly, that which has me downcast has not changed, but I know God loves me and I am trying to just yield to His purposes in my life more and more. I yearn for so much more...
I know a lot of people needed that service tonight. When I came into the building I greeted one person and said, "how are you?" and they said, "just hanging in there." The next person I encountered walking down the aisle said, "Hi. I've had a really bad day." It seemed to be the theme of quite a few people's day. We needed a refreshing in God and thankfully we got one. Once there I felt the love of my church family and quite honestly, that plus the love of the Lord that I felt was enough to bring a calm to my soul that was deeply needed.
I just have to keep believing that as I yield to God more and more, He will bring everything together in my life like it needs to be.
It's easy to surrender to His love. Far more difficult to surrender to what He requires sometimes.
It reminds me a lot of what I learned in weight watcher class this week...about the WHY of emotional eating. The longer I'm in this thing the more I realize, it's a spiritual battle, and not at all about food.
Something our new leader has been talking about a lot is... "PROGRESS - NOT PERFECTION." That is a truth that has REALLY impacted me a lot. You see, I've always been the type of person that if I don't think I can do something well, I don't even usually attempt it. I go after things I know I can succeed at. I want to consistently hit home runs, (obviously figuratively, never literally since I'm not gifted sports wise). If I played baseball and just got to walk to a base versus hitting a home run it would really bother me. After so much of that I'd probably quit the game and move on to another one where I could excel.
It's like this journey with weight...when I make a mistake, fail, even SIN (let's call it what it is...) my thinking is often, "I've already screwed up, so what difference does it make? I've already eaten one piece of cake...it might as well be three, because NOW IT WILL NEVER BE PERFECT!"
I realized through our leader's teaching that many times I have gone through bad weeks because if I failed once, I just gave up knowing perfection could not be achieved that week. If my weight tracker had a bad looking day on it, I just didn't think it redeemable at least for that week. I'm learning day by day -- PROGRESS...NOT PERFECTION.
Honestly, today wasn't the best day for me. Just being completely transparent here...
It had nothing to do with WW. Class was great! It had to do with many other things. Some I can blab to the world, some I can't for other's sake. (I never care about blabbing to the world for my sake. If I'm quiet about something it's only for the sake of someone else.)
A few disappointments came my way today. To the point where I came home from work, laid on my bed and counted each second until I had to get up and go to church. It was the last thing I wanted to do. It wasn't church I dreaded, it was just that due to having some disappointment in my mind, I didn't want to do anything, go anywhere. I just wanted to...lay on the bed, cover my head and go to sleep...or at least watch Forensic Files and try to pretend like none of the issues exist for 30 minutes. Not possible. Going to the house of the Lord wasn't the issue...it was just that emotionally some things had me spent.
I went to church dependent on the Holy Spirit so heavily for the ministry that had to be done. God moved in such a mighty way. He always does when it's all of him and none of me. I love it when that happens, but I hate feeling the way I did going in. Honestly, that which has me downcast has not changed, but I know God loves me and I am trying to just yield to His purposes in my life more and more. I yearn for so much more...
I know a lot of people needed that service tonight. When I came into the building I greeted one person and said, "how are you?" and they said, "just hanging in there." The next person I encountered walking down the aisle said, "Hi. I've had a really bad day." It seemed to be the theme of quite a few people's day. We needed a refreshing in God and thankfully we got one. Once there I felt the love of my church family and quite honestly, that plus the love of the Lord that I felt was enough to bring a calm to my soul that was deeply needed.
I just have to keep believing that as I yield to God more and more, He will bring everything together in my life like it needs to be.
It's easy to surrender to His love. Far more difficult to surrender to what He requires sometimes.
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