I guess since it is my blog, I can change topics again, right? I was thinking today about my new goal of eating healthy and exercising. I am actually doing quite well. Shock! Of course, it has only been 10 days into the New Year. I am forcing my car to drive to the gym this week and ride the treadmill. The reward is that I read a book while I am exercising. The purpose of this blog today, in case it helps even one person, is to analyze why I think I am being successful. The biggest reason is because I am allowing accountability in my life. Do you have any idea of the power of accountability? In 1 Thessalonians 5:11 it says "Therefore encourage one another and build each other up." In Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, “It is better to have a partner than go it alone. If one falls down, the other helps. But if there's no one to help, tough. By yourself you are unprotected. With a friend you can face the worst. Can you round up a third? A three-stranded rope is not easily snapped." We tend to want to keep our goals a secret. Obviously if we fail, there is no face to lose if we have not shared our goal. I ask my students to send me 5 goals for the second semester of school. I also ask them to mention the person that will hold them accountable for that goal. It increases the chances of their success if they have asked someone to hold them accountable. If one of your goals is to get out of debt in 2012, the last thing you want to do is to admit to a trusted friend the amount of debt you may have. However, the power of partnering with another person to conquer that debt would be amazing. If my goal is to begin to have a quiet time of reading the Bible and praying every day, I need to let another friend know this. Maybe a goal for someone might be to start a blog! Tell a friend to nag you. Allowing accountability is like opening the windows and allowing lots of sunlight to enter your house. Let the sun (Son) hit every room this week!

Revaluate

Since it’s officially the end of week one of 2012, it is a great time to assess the damage. If you set goals, how did it go? If things have already fallen apart, ask yourself why. Were your goals unrealistic? Was it really a goal of yours? I know that sounds strange, but sometimes our goals are not consistent with our core values. If that is the case, then something needs to change…either our goals or our values! It may help to go back to square one and define what do you really value, not what you give lip service to. My last blog talked about writing a life vision. If you completed exercise one and are still unsure about what your vision is, try to complete exercise two. What do you want to true at 40? 50? 60? Once again, I am giving examples of what I put. I could be on a different planet from you but I think you can still get a lot from this exercise. At age 60, • I want a friendship with my family • Still have a pit crew that sharpens me(I hope I don’t run them off) • Meaningful prayer life • Know the Word of God(and apply it) • Give away a large % of my income. Be content to live on a small amount • Still having an exciting ministry, “not slowed down to retire” • Physically fit, so I can have the energy to serve. Do you need to revise your life vision? I think it is important to grow up and figure out that being an impact player in this world requires sacrifice, hard work, and discipline. But the reward is to look back with less regrets.

The Power of a Focused Life

My blog this week will take a different turn. I will return to my goal of healthy eating after I visit this new topic. Last summer I wanted to teach a Bible study and I asked my son, Luke, about ideas. He referred me to the International House of Prayer website. He suggested that I research the ideas on the Power of a Focused Life. I will share some things that I learned from a summer of research on this topic. First of all, we all need a life vision. In Proverbs 29:18 “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (KJV) “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint.”( NIV) Your vision statement or life vision serves as a compass to keep things going in the right direction. It helps you measure your progress, set goals, establish priorities, and know when to use one of the most important words in your vocabulary: No Make a life vision! Look at this in different ways. Start by writing down a short paragraph that summarizes your life’s vision. Whatever you have already written down, revise at the end of this exercise. You may revise it several times. On my next blog, I will give you another way to grade your life vision and revise it, if necessary. Exercise I. What would you want those who knew you to say about you at the end of your life? These are 5 suggested categories of people in your life. I included what I put, as a starting point. Person: God Statement: Loved me with all her heart, soul, and mind. Trusted me. Lived radically. Servant. Was about doing my work. Enjoyed being in my presence. Had a heart of gratitude. Joyful heart. Wanted to please me more than man. Person: Mark, Ben and Luke and extended family Statement: prayed about everything, humble, not vain, servant, consistent- acted the same around everyone, lived as she taught, (these are the hardest ones –they know me too well) Person: coworkers Statement: Not a complainer, added joy to faculty, hardest worker, encourage my coworkers, Person: friends that you socialize with (if different from job) Statement: was not afraid to be different, not a conformist, loved the Lord, really knew the Lord and had a vibrant relationship with him Person: ministry (young adults at church) Statement: she lived in such a way that I could see how to be a lover of Christ, understood the importance of prayer and reading the Word, she inspired me to want to trust God with everything After you complete these (and I hope they will take a long time), look at your life vision. Do you have a better idea of your life vision? If you are still with me, I will give you a different exercise on my next blog.

Quotes

Being married to a former football coach, I have been “blessed” to hear many quotes over our years of marriage. I guess coaches are just born to quote. Mark says things to me like “don’t count the score at halftime, babe.” He would say that a lot when our boys were teenagers. He used to tell our sons “get a plan and work the plan.” Needless to say, they would not always want to hear that lecture. He really likes to say “Fatigue makes cowards of us all,” one of the most famous quotes, attributed to Vince Lombardi. That quote is stuck in my mind the past couple of days. I have been sick. Fever, chills, sore throat…you name it. As a result, my courage is waning. I can’t go to the gym and exercise. My throat hurts too bad to swallow anything, much less anything healthy. However, I will roll with the punches. Another famous Mark Cooper saying is “Get bitter or get better.” Instead of being bitter about being sick, I can rejoice in the fact that I am almost never sick. I am so thankful for that. Better blogs to come!

Discourage vs Courage

Well by now many of us are getting discouraged about our goals for the year. They seemed so reachable 2 or 3 days ago and now they seem impossible. 1 Corinthians 16:13 says "Be on your guard; stand firm in your faith, be courageous; be strong." We should make note that the verse does not simply say to "be courageous." It starts by stating to "be on your guard." I do not know the first thing about being a soldier, but I think the courage of a solider has a lot to do with being on guard. A solider would be foolish to attempt to be courageous, without being on the lookout for things that would be dangerous. His courage comes from being informed and being smart about the dangers he will face. He will have a plan. Because I am trying to eat healthy, I will use that for my example. I will lesson my discouragement if I am on guard with the food or situations that will be my downfall. For example, I started this year with a specific "box" in mind of what I would allow myself to eat. If I did not put chips in my box, then I need to be on guard against chips being in front of me, surrounding me. The next part of the verse says to “stand firm.” To stand firm in my faith means that I will trust that God will give me a way to escape when confronted with a really bad food choice. Faith implies going all the way in your belief. This is not a job for sissies! No one ever promised us that changing a destructive habit would be easy. It takes courage. Obviously, we will face discouragement. But we do not have to stay in that mode. We CAN turn things around.

Long Day

I am not going to post everyday but I may need to express my failures and successes a little more often at first. I made it through yesterday, achieving all the small goals I had set. I do not think anyone would be interested in reading about what I eat everyday so I will simply say that yesterday seemed like the longest day! However, my motto kept coming throught my mind...I do not eat like that anymore. From a spiritual aspect, we need to realize that we are wretched sinners who are set free from the sin that so easily entangles us. In 1 Peter 2, it says to "Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God's slaves." Can we say outloud that overeating is a sin, to eat unhealthy is a sin, to eat fast food and junk food is a sin? Why...simply because of the ramifications of these actions. We put our health at risk. We put our ministry at risk. We may put our marriage at risk. We may be putting our future marriage at risk. Satan knows that he can accuse us the minute we do the very thing he has tempted us to do in the first place. In Christ there is no condemnation so that is not condemnation from him. The Holy Spirit convicts, not condemns. Big difference. One is the recipe to give up, while conviction brings hope that you can overcome that sin. Reading the Bible and praying were firmly in place for me in 2011, but this area of health was creeping out of balance. I will have to have a lot of accountability in this area to turn the ship around. Please use this blog as an area of accountability for you, if you desire. No judgement here if you feel that your devotional times are nonexistence. It would be amazing if this blog helps someone come to know Christ this year! As I stated yesterday, I am writing out of obedience, not because I want to show my weaknesses to the world. That is exactly why I quit writing 3 years ago. I could not stand to put my heart out there for people to read. It is too embarrassing. I read something about a month ago that made me want to start writing again. In 1st and 2nd Peter, you get the impression that these books were his swan song. He realized that he was probably going to die soon and wanted to say all that God had told him to say. Even though I do not feel like my time is close(hope not, I have a grandson to meet!), the devotional pierced my heart when it challenged me to do anything I had put off. What was I waiting for? Retirement? That is the lamest excuse I have ever heard. Debts paid? Pitiful reason. Some of us may say, "When I marry, I will have quiet times with my husband and be more committted." Really??? Whatever the reason we have used to put off living, it is time to write it down and light a match to it! I have a lot more to say, but I have to finish schoolwork:):):)

A New Start to This Blog and This Year

God has been prompting me for a long time to add to this blog. I just did not know how to pick it up after 6 months, then a year, then 2 years, then 3. So I decided that to simply be obedient and get going.
God has been faithful! He has been so faithful. As I start this new year, I have some areas that are screaming to be shared. If no one reads this blog, it really will not matter. I just want to be obedient to share some truths.
The main topics that are on my heart are being a Proverbs 31 woman, taking care of our bodies, and the power of a focused life. I am going to try to stay focused on those three areas.
Since it is New Year's Day, the one that is on my mind today is being more balanced. As I get older, I realize that my ministry will be more difficult if I am unhealthy in any area. If I allow my prayer life, my Bible study,and even my eating plan to get out of wack...my ministry will suffer. For the past couple of weeks I have tried to make changes to any area that needs tweaking. It is so hard to change! Yikes! I started a new Bible study plan to dig deep into the New Testament this year. If I spend a month on one verse, then I will allow myself to do that. For the past 33 years, I have read through the Bible every year. I am realizing that I need to slow down and let each verse change my life. As far as my prayer life...I want to keep on trusting and praying and having a heart of gratitude. Turn my thinking around as quick as I can when life gets rough and see things from an eternal perspective, not temporary.
Lastly, my eating and exercise are way out of balance. The past three days, I have fasted and prayed to get my head neutral and hear what God is wanting to teach me in this area. I will try to actually write more about this area because I want to be accountable to others. I am thankful that God is so patient with our shortcomings and failures. I believe that any efforts that we make to please Him are magnified 1000 times in his eyes. He is the perfect Father.
If you read this blog, two things are happening. You are thinking that you need to make courageous changes this year. I cannot imagine what your weak areas are. They are probably different than mine. However, the second thing that is happening is that the liar and accuser is already convincing you that you cannot change. Test the voice you are listening to. The only voice that is worth acknowledging is the voice of your Heavenly Father. What would He be speaking to your heart?
Lastly, I am a prayer and lover of people. If you need me to pray for you, I would be honored.