God Can Use Even a Reluctant Leader Johah 3: 1-3

I was watching Joel Osteen last night and he was speaking of the story of Jonah. Thought I would re-post this…and ask you, are you ready for a “do over”?

Water tends to seek its own level and most of us usually prefer to choose the path of Least Resistance. It is because of this that we tend to be reluctant when it comes to running the gauntlet .

Such was true when God called upon Jonah to take up the call and seek to cause Nineveh to repent of their sins. This was not to be an easy task but God was looking to form a divine partnership that would allow God to work thru Jonah and show His Strength and compassion. There are many times in live that we too tend to ignore our inner voice and run not walk from that task. And it is in that running that we tend to stumble and fall. This was to happen clearly to Jonah. He was given a choice: Help God in His Glory or end up in the Big Fish. I think you can imagine that the Fish was not the most pleasant of options. Eventually, Jonah came to his senses and went about God’s task of helping to bring repentance of sins in Nineveh. And as a result, God was compelled to spare Nineveh from destruction.

We as Leaders may not always understand why God wants them to do certain things but we should and must realize that it is not through our understanding but more to the obedience of His instructions. One can only think as to what the results may have been in the annals of history had Jonah not come to his senses and followed God’s plans. One can only imagine in our daily lives what the outcomes could and would be if we would give up our reluctance and follow that of our inner voice.

Thank God, that most of the time He gives us a 2nd Chance to get it right. Kind of like a “do over”. My call to action for you is to think of those times you have been reluctant and ask you to decide moving forward….God’s Plan or the Big Fish!

Peace. BB

Clear the Mechanism…Yours!

I remember watching the Movie “Gettysburg” where the Sargent Major was describing to the Commanding Officer on the eve of battle that he needed to caution his troops about staying calm and focusing of the task the lay ahead. For in the heat of battle, he went on to say, when things were progressing so fast, it was not uncommon for the men to panic and force more than one projectile into the weapon and thus jam everything up preventing them from firing. Or even worse, causing the weapon to blow up in their face.

And then I think of the days of my early basic training in the military when we were using blank ammunition of just how easy it was for our weapons to jam and how easy it was for us to force and jam another round forward really messing things up. What I learned during those early days of training that I would (hopefully) remember as I progressed through life, was to take my time and when the jamming of life occurred would be to “clear the mechanism”.

Now I clearly realize that in our everyday lives, that we don’t go around with weapons in our hands but we do in fact, go through each and every day with an awesome and very powerful weapon. That weapon is us and it flows through not only our conscious self but more importantly through our sub-conscious self! I just recently went through some additional training with my teacher and mentor, Dr. Paul Scheele and one of the things that caught my attention during that training was that of the 11 million bits of data that we as humans process each and every second, that only about 70 bits of data occur in our conscious mind. That statement alone is eye opening about our awareness. I will bet that even as you read this (blog) or hear my (podcast) that you are thinking and processing quite a bit in the back of your minds. More than likely, in color and full sound playing. Think of the times that you have wanted to do something, knew that you could do it, but consistently failed to accomplish it. Let’s not bother to count them for you would surely lose track. 

We possess amazing gifts as human beings. WE are learning organisms, born into this world equipped to find answers to the problems that face us. The human brain, mind, body, and emotions are designed to make us perfect learners, providing us with all we need for success in life. However, on the other hand, even with all our enormous capacities, many of us daily face the reality of not being able to accomplish the important goals we have set for ourselves. Like a riddle or puzzle, the answer(s) has been in your hands the whole time. And once you discover the answer, you wonder how you could have missed it up to that point.

I would also like to provide in this writing / podcast an excerpt from Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” where Frankl quotes from Nietzsche: “He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How.”  The explanation of those prisoners in the death camps during World War II, who gave up on life, who had lost all hope for a future were inevitably the first to expire. They expired less from the lack of food or medicine than from the lack of hope, the lack of something to live for.

So in conclusion, with all that goes on in your life day in and day out and the complexities that go along with them, it becomes all the more easy for you to try to push through with the effect of jamming round after round in the chamber of your life. You were designed the way you were for a purpose and a reason, with the ability to think through and thus allow you to clear and reset the mechanism. So today and from now on, I encourage you to do just that when you think that it could not get any worse. Stop, pause, clear your mechanism and reset.

You can do this. You need to do this and if you are to survive the rigors that everyday life presents, you must do this.

For information on how I can work with you in your quest to learn how to “Clear the Mechanism” and the Courses that I offer…contact me at [email protected]