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Building A Dream Life

What Are We Going to Do About Jesus?

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Because it Looks Like He’s in Trouble

Most of us have heard of some of the strange and odd laws that are out there. Like for example, crazy law #14 of the 20 Most Stupid Laws in the U.S.

In New York, “It is illegal for a group of people to wear masks in public”. I wonder how that’s currently working out?

Here are a few of the 50 Dumb Laws from Across the United States. In Alaska, flamingos are not allowed in barber shops. A pickle is not a pickle in Connecticut unless it bounces. Christmas decorations are not allowed up after January 14th in Maine.

Most of these laws made their way onto the books because of some specific situation and/or understandable reason at the time. The problem is that we tend to get caught up in the rules and regulations and lose sight of what the underlying reason was.

Laws have been a problem since the beginning of time.

In Luke 6:6-11 Jesus was teaching on a Sabbath and a man with a crippled hand was there. The Pharisees and teachers of the law were watching Jesus to see what He would do.

Jesus knew they were watching and asked the man to stand up. He asked the question, “On the Sabbath should we do good or evil? Should we save life or destroy it?”

Jesus knew it was better to heal than to hurt.

He asked the man to hold out his hand and it became well.

The teachers and Pharisees were furious and started asking each other,

“What are we going to do about Jesus? He had crossed the church leaders and now…

It looks like Jesus is in trouble.

These church leaders had gotten caught up in the law. They were missing the reasons behind them. What started as a good they had made bad.

The wrong focus by the leaders of the church made Jesus angry.

Too often, we think of Jesus as only soft and weak. He is also strong and powerful. He is, after all God. The Bible is full of examples of God getting angry with us for doing the wrong things.

If you don’t think Jesus gets angry just look at what he did to the people in the temple who were cheating. John 2:14-15 The GREED of the people in the temple and the SUPERIORITY of the church leaders are just a couple of things that make Him angry.

Other things that make Him angry are – HYPOCRASY, HARD HEARTEDNESS, SPIRITUAL PRIDE and LUKEWARM LIVING.

These things should make us angry too.

We need to put our focus on the right things. The things that Jesus focuses on.

It’s okay to get into trouble when we’re doing it the way Jesus does.

The Right Church Can Make All the Difference in the World

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And It’s the People That Make the Real Difference

“Here is the church. Here is the steeple. Open the doors. And see all the people.”

This nursery rhyme with its clever hand motions has kept little fingers busy for decades. It was created as a fun and simple way to teach children about community within the church.

What is the church and who are the people?

This rhyme about the church brings back fond memories, but its message points out a common misconception that should be addressed.

The church is not a building, but rather the people.

The Church is the blood-bought, Christ following, believers…THE PEOPLE.

The Bible has a lot to say about the Church. In Acts 2:42-47, it says that the Lord’s followers met together and broke bread and shared and praised God. This sounds like a church to me. Likewise in Matthew 18:20, “Wherever two or three of you come together in My name, I am there with you.”

I’m so blessed to have spent my whole life involved in and connected to a church made up of Christ following believers.

Once again, this past Sunday it was made evident with a “faith sharing Sunday”.

Pastor Lee shared four different sharing stories from people who have experienced Christ’s love through the people of the church.

The first was from a 9-year-old girl who was sitting with her dying grandfather when Pastor Lee stopped by to see him. As the Pastor and her were visiting, he asked her what she remembered about the sermon the day before. She shared several things from the message and he was amazed. He asked her to write what the church meant to her.

She wrote, I always come to listen to God to know what to do. I come to church to get direction. It gives me strength to never give up because God is there.

Wouldn’t it be great if we as adults would be this observant?

Next was from a lady that grew up in this church. She had a strong family tie to the church and community. She had many fond memories of experiences at the church through the years.

As an adult she moved to Colorado and began looking for a new church. With Tisdale being her standard, she found it hard to find a church who met that standard.

Now that she has moved back, she said, “It feels the same today as it did as a kid growing up.” Tisdale’s spirit was not just there and then, but is here and now.

Third was from a newer member of our congregation. She grew up in a church where, as a kid she never felt welcome. Because she didn’t want her kids to feel this way, she stopped going to church for a long time.

Then she came to Tisdale, and it was different. She felt welcomed. She saw her kids beginning to blossom and be more open around people. They began to grow into the people God meant them to be. The church is a big part of this. Pastor Lee and Kay accept everyone with open arms. The congregation accepts everyone with open arms. This is the way the Church is supposed to be.

The last one is a letter from someone who has never even been to the church. It is from a student at the school where Kay, Pastor Lee’s wife, works. This young man isn’t even her student. He has just seen her in the hall and the cafeteria.

He wrote her a letter telling her that he sees how she treats people and he wants to be like that. He wants to help people the way she does. They have now become good friends.

This is the way the Church is supposed to be.

The church isn’t the building…it’s the people.

It’s the people being the hands and feet of Christ in the world. And the right church can make all the difference in the world.

Living a Christian Life is Like a Game of Tag with a Twist

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In This Game, It’s Good to Be Tagged

We’re all familiar with the game of tag and most of us played it as kids. 

It involves two or more players chasing each other in an attempt to “tag” them out of play. When a person is tagged, the tagger says, “Tag, you’re it.” The last one tagged is the loser and is “it” for the next round.

The Christian game of tag works a little differently. Instead of tagging people out of play, in the Christian game, we “tag” them in. Every person we tag joins in the effort to tag others, who then do more tagging. 

The people tagged in this game are the winners.

In Luke 9:28-36, Jesus takes Peter, John and James up on the mountain. While up there with Jesus, they were tagged. They went on to tag others, who tagged others…

This experience, among others, made them want to be like Jesus and “tag” people.

Being like Jesus, sounds relatively easy on the surface, but think about the sacrifices He made. He came to earth and lived like a human. He shared in our sufferings. He loved us that much.

Dr. Maxell Maltz tells a remarkable story of a love like this.

A man had been burned and disfigured in a fire while attempting to save his parents from a burning house, but he couldn’t get to them and they perished. 

He mistakenly interpreted his pain as God’s punishment. The man would not let anyone see him — not even his wife.

She went to Dr. Maltz, a plastic surgeon, for help. He told her not to worry. “I can restore his face.”

The wife was unenthused. Her husband had repeatedly refused any help. She knew he would again.

Then why her visit? “I want you to disfigure my face so I can be like him! If I can share his pain, maybe he’ll let me back in his life.”

Dr. Maltz was shocked. He denied her request but was so moved by her love that he went to speak with her husband. Knocking on the man’s bedroom door, he called loudly. “I’m a plastic surgeon, and I can restore your face.” No response. “Please come out.” Again there was no answer.

Still speaking through the door, Dr. Maltz told the man of his wife’s proposal. “She wants me to disfigure her face, to make her face like yours in the hope that you let her back into your life. That’s how much she loves you.”

There was a brief moment of silence, and then, ever so slowly, the doorknob began to turn.

The way the woman felt for her husband is the way God feels about us. But He did more than make the offer. He took on our face, our disfigurement. He became like us. 

The places He went to reach us show how far He will go to touch us.

“Tag, you’re it.” Now go and tag someone else.

Love Is Not Something You Feel, But Something You Do

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There’s No Hope for the World Without Love

What is love?

According to Merriam-Webster, love is a strong affection for another rising out of kinship or personal ties; attraction based on sexual desires; affection based on admiration, benevolence or common interests.

But there’s more to love than just this.

John Piper says, “Love in the Bible, as in our everyday usage, can be directed from person to person or from a person to things. But there is another aspect of interpersonal love that is very important in the Bible. There is the aspect of love for persons who are not attractive or virtuous or productive. In this case, love is not a delight in what a person is, but a deeply felt commitment to helping him be what he ought to be.

Ultimately, love requires action.

This action isn’t necessarily easy. Sometimes it’s downright hard.

In Luke 6:27-38 Jesus tells us to love our enemies and bless those who curse us. Living this out is not easy.

We’re all familiar with the abundance of internet scams out there. But I had no idea it is as bad as it is. In 2020 Americans lost 4.2 billion dollars…that’s BILLION with a B!

We’ve all received emails or social media messages where someone is in line to get an inheritance or court settlement, but first they need to pay some small fees up front. If we will help them pay these fees, they will split the large sum of money with us.

This was the case for Ben in Utah. He got just such a message from a man named Joel in Liberia and recognized it as a scam.

“He decided to play along just for fun. Ben has his own YouTube channel, and he thought it would be a good idea to record his interactions with Joel so he could teach his viewers how to spot Internet scams.

This is where the story gets good. Ben decided to turn the scam around. He claimed that he ran a photography business and would pay Joel to take some photos of African sunsets. To his surprise, Joel came through with some pretty decent photos. So, Ben did a very strange thing: he bought Joel Willie, the scammer from Liberia, a new camera. He sent him the camera and asked for more photos. And the pictures Joel sent were definitely better quality this time around. Joel also sent an enthusiastic message saying that he was committing himself to their new photography partnership.

Now Ben had a situation on his hands. He had told Joel he would pay him for good photos. And Joel trusted him. So, if Ben didn’t come through, he would be guilty of running a scam himself. What should he do? Ben decided to print Joel’s photos in a small booklet and advertise it for sale on his YouTube channel. He titled the booklet after a phrase Joel used in his emails: By D Grace of God. He only charged $8 per booklet. Within a short time, he had sold $1,000 worth of booklets.

And this is where the story gets even better. Ben sent all the money to Joel on one condition: that he donate half of it to a local Liberian charity. Joel gladly did exactly that.

And this is the best part of the story. In 2018, Ben traveled to Liberia to meet his new business partner, Joel. The two men took more photos and published a second book detailing the strange and wonderful story of their business partnership. Their two books have raised $90,000. Some of the money has gone to Joel for all his hard work. But the rest has gone to do good works in Liberia. It has been used to buy food for the hungry, to purchase Christmas care packages for children, and to save a local school.

Isn’t that a great ending or maybe we can think of it as a beginning? It’s a story with a happy ending for Ben, Joel, and all the people whose lives have been impacted by the charitable giving from their photo booklets. So, I think the title of their first book is so appropriate By D Grace of God, (link to book) this story didn’t have to turn out this way. It became a story of generosity, hope and new beginnings, by D Grace of God.”

We need more love and openness to generosity. It’s not easy, but no one ever said it was. This has never more needed than now. We are living in a world of division. This is what Satan wants. Hate divides…generosity unites.

Love is the engine that runs generosity, but love requires us starting that engine and pressing the accelerator!

Happiness is not Determined by What We Have, But by Who We Are

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We Have Control Over Who We Are, so…Who Do You Want to Be?

Happiness is the state of being happy.

So, what does it mean to be happy?

Being happy is the feeling of pleasure and enjoyment.

Each of us is going to find pleasure and enjoyment in different ways and places. Too much of the time we’ve been led to believe that stuff is what’s going to make us happy. Jesus tells us in Luke 6:17-26, that’s not where our happiness comes from.

That doesn’t mean you can’t be happy if you have stuff. Things just aren’t the source of happiness.

Studies have shown that even though the standard of living is better now than it was fifty years ago, people are less happy.

Some of us have our “valuables out of whack”. This happens when we put too much value on valuables.

The question is, is your happiness internal or external?

We all know people who are happy even when going through tough situations. We also know those who, no matter how good things are, they’re still complaining.

I think Anne Frank is a good example of choosing to be happy. While living in a small, cramped space with seven other people, hiding from the Nazis, she found happiness even in her situation.

Here is a summary of her message taken from Andy Andrew’s book the Traveler’s Gift. The Seven Decisions: The Joyful Decision – Today, I Will Choose to be Happy

I am a happy person, for I now truly understand the concept of happiness. Few others before me have been able to grasp the truth of the physical law that enables one to live happily every day. I know now that happiness is not an emotional phantom floating in and out of my life. Happiness is a choice.

Today I will choose to be happy. I will greet each day with laughter. I am enthusiastic about the day. I am alert to its possibilities. I am happy! Laughter is an outward expression of enthusiasm, and I know that enthusiasm is the fuel that moves the world.

Today I will choose to be happy. I will smile at every person I meet. My smile has the strength to forge bonds, break ice, and calm storms. I will use my smile constantly. I will always smile first. My smile is the key to my emotional make up. When I choose to smile, I become the master of my emotions. Discouragement, despair, frustration, and fear will always wither when confronted by my smile.

Today I will choose to be happy. I am the possessor of a grateful spirit. In the past, I have found discouragement in particular situations, until I compared the condition of my life to others less fortunate. Just as a fresh breeze cleans smoke from the air, so does a grateful spirit remove the cloud of despair. It is impossible for the seeds of depression to take root in a thankful heart. My God has bestowed upon me many gifts, and for these I will remember to be grateful. Too many times I have offered up the prayers of a beggar, always asking for more and forgetting my thanks. I do not wish to be seen as a greedy child, unappreciative, and disrespectful. I am grateful for sight and sound and breath. If ever in my life there is a pouring out of blessings beyond that, then I will be grateful for the miracle of abundance.

I will greet each day with laughter. I will smile at every person I meet. I am the possessor of a grateful spirit.

Today, I will choose to be happy.

It’s up to you, you can decide to be happy or not.

How to Prevent Weariness from Being a Part of Your Life

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It Comes from Catching God’s Vision That’s Specific to You

There are multiple studies that show that people working 50 hours or more per week are at a higher health risk than those working less than 40.

What exactly constitutes work?

According to dictionary.com, work is the exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something. To be productive or operative activity.

Exerting effort to accomplish something sounds like a good thing…not like it should be a health risk.

So, the question is…is it work or something else that’s the problem?

I would argue that the problem is less about the activity and more about the purpose.

Granted, I’m not basing this on any scientific study, just personal observations.

There is no doubt that we’ve all been tired and worn out after working hard. But how does being worn out “feel”?

For me after spending a long day working in the heat framing a house and being exhausted was one of the best feelings ever. It felt really good being so tired that I could hardly move. The sense of accomplishment made the pain feel good.

Those feelings come from accomplishing what we’re put here to do.

It doesn’t matter if it’s building a house, raising a family, fishing, leading a church, or any of a thousand other things. It’s about finding out what God put us here to do and doing that thing to the fullest of our ability.

In Luke 5:1-11, Peter had been fishing all night and hadn’t caught anything. He was exhausted. Jesus told him to “row out, let his nets down to catch some fish”. Peter said, “If You tell me to, I will…” They caught so many fish the nets were tearing and they needed another boat to haul them all. I’m thinking Peter forgot all about how tired he had been before.

Peter listened and caught God’s vision specific to him.

God has a plan for each of us. When we find that purpose and live it out as directed by God, our work becomes our life. What we do becomes a blessing, not a tiresome chore.

Finding and living our God given purpose is the best way to heal a tired spirit.

Being tired is more than physical or mental. Weariness runs spirit deep. It comes from a lack faith and belief. Not knowing and following God’s plan is what makes us tired.

When NASA landed the Perseverance rover on Mars, they embedded a hidden code in the parachute. Within hours of hinting at this hidden message, it was cracked by puzzle enthusiasts.

The message was “Dare Mighty Things”. This is a credo that is often cited at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, which built and operates Perseverance.

It comes from “The Strenuous Life” a speech by Teddy Roosevelt in 1899:

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”

Dare mighty things. This is what Jesus told Simon Peter. This is what Jesus is telling us.

This is a sure way to prevent weariness.

Faith Sharing; Stories from the Church Family and the Importance of Connection

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The Need for Relationships with Others Goes All the Way Back to the Beginning

This past Sunday was another faith sharing Sunday. Pastor Lee shared stories from the congregation about the life affecting interactions with the people in the church.

God said that it wasn’t good for us to live alone so…

He made a partner for Adam. Someone to go through life’s struggles with and share in the joys. Genesis 2:18

There is no question how important it is to interact with other people. This is as evident as ever over the past couple of years.  The separation that many people have experienced has been difficult. As people have tried to cope with separation there has been an increase of suicides and drug overdoses.

Spending time with others is vital to our wellbeing. I have a friend who is developing a program for being the best version of ourselves. Part of this course includes CONNECT-ability. This shows how important the connection with other people is to us being our best.

One of the things she shares is Maslow’s Hierarchy which shows the five levels of human needs to be the most completely satisfied. This hierarchy starts at the bottom with the need to have our most basic needs of survival met. The second is security; having a job, stable income, savings, etc.

Third is LOVE AND BELONGING – this addresses the social need of belonging. We are social creatures that crave interaction with others. When deprived of this, individuals experience loneliness and depression.

This connection may not even be a direct one. Sometimes it happens from a distance.

People see how we act and if those actions are consistent with things we say.

It’s also not restricted to adults. Pastor Lee shared a joke that one young man of the church wrote. It is evident that he has a connection because he heard this in church.

The joke –

If Jesus went to the Temple to learn and the Temple is the House of God…does this mean that Jesus was home schooled.

His connection with the church is part of him becoming who he’s meant to be.

Interacting with others makes us better people. Proverbs 27:17 As we join together in love, we will be wonderfully blessed. Colossians 2:2-3 Whenever two or three of us come together in His name, He will be there. Matthew 18:20

Fellowship, relationships and connection to one another are foundational for our wellbeing, growing and becoming who we are designed to be.

So Now We’ve Determined It’s More About the Action Than the Question

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It’s Time to Do the ONE THING that is the Most Important

Doing the “One Thing” sounds great, but how do we do it?

This would be so much easier if somebody else would just tell us what to do. Not to mention, it would give us someone to blame if it was the wrong thing. The problem with letting someone else tells you what you should do is that it will be more about fulfilling their dreams…not yours.

We make determining the “One Thing” more difficult than it needs to be.

Making things more difficult is something I’ve struggled with for as long as I can remember. What if I do the wrong thing, was a question that I asked a lot. This would keep me from doing anything.

We need to do something…even if it’s not the perfect thing.

I will explain this with something I heard Dave Ramsey say referring to the Debt Snowball process. People often are scared about making paying small payments to debtors, but may be necessary to get out of debt. To put it in perspective he said, “What’s the worst thing that can happen…because they can’t kill you.” (This is assuming you don’t owe money to the mob)

The same thing is true for making a wrong decision when trying to determine what to do first.

Doing something is better than doing nothing!

I’ve referred to the book, The One Thing, over the past several weeks as I’ve been implementing its suggestions into my life plan. The main point of this book is that you can only do one thing at a time. So, it becomes imperative that you get clear on what’s most important for you to accomplish and take actions that will move you toward that.

I’ve determined that my one thing is –

Build God’s Kingdom by helping people find solutions for building their dreams through better business systems, quality construction projects and life lessons.

I do this by having core values that align with this purpose. Next, I need to make sure that the different areas of my life and my big someday dreams support it. Lastly, I need to decide…

Which one of the millions of bricks that it’s going to take to build this Kingdom I’m going to lay now?

Last week I shared my big long-term dreams and told you that this week we would go deeper.

To do this let’s take one of my big someday dreams and use it as an example.

Big someday dream (6-year goal – 2027) –

  • Remodel and renovate our existing home that was built my Great grandfather in 1916 and has been our family through three generations. This project will consist of a two-story addition with a basement added to the existing home and remodeling the existing home to the level of new, giving us more space to live and entertain while honoring and building a family legacy.

One year goal (end of 2022) –

  • Have preliminary floor plan and design agreed upon including rough sketched drawings and preliminary budget

Monthly goal (end of February) –

  • Have two preliminary lists of things to be included in the project, one from me and one from Debby

Weekly goal (by Sat. 2/5/22) –

  • Have lists started

Daily goal (1/29/22) –

  • Explain to Debby what is needed from her list and give her a deadline
  • Start my list

Right now –

  • Make a note on my to do list so that I don’t forget

Now go through this process for all your big someday dreams. In my case this is seventeen dreams. Some of the dreams will be a higher priority as they relate to your “one thing” or your present situation.

Once all my dreams have gone through this process, I can look at the RIGHT NOWs for each one and decide which is the highest priority RIGHT NOW and do that thing RIGHT NOW.

After that thing is done, I do the next most important one…always determined by what is most important RIGHT NOW to accomplish my ONE THING.

None of your dreams will ever be fulfilled if you don’t make a DECISION and take ACTION.

How do You Know When You’ve Reached “Rich” Status?

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That Depends on What Your Definition of Rich is

If we aren’t careful, we can get caught up in chasing the “almighty dollar”. There’s nothing wrong with money as long as it doesn’t become the only thing you’re focused on.

We can also go too far the other way and see money as evil. It’s not. Money is a tool that make ministry possible. It’s much easier to rebuild a home damaged by a storm if there’s money to buy the building materials.

One definition of rich is specific to money, but another is plentiful or abundant. What is it that you want to have in plenty and abundance?

Love and joy are the kind of things that makes us rich.

Here’s an excerpt from a story about being rich from Eddie Ogan:

I’ll never forget Easter 1946. My dad had died five years before, leaving Mom with seven school kids to raise and no money.

A month before Easter the pastor of our church announced that a special Easter offering would be taken to help a poor family.

When we got home, we talked about what we could do. We decided to buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live on them for a month. This would allow us to save $20 of our grocery money for the offering.

We thought that if we kept our electric lights turned out as much as possible and didn’t listen to the radio, we’d save money on the electric bill.

My sister and I got as many house and yard cleaning jobs as possible, and both of us babysat for everyone we could.

For 15 cents we could buy enough cotton loops to make three pot holders to sell for $1. We made $20 on pot holders.

That month was one of the best of our lives.

Every day we counted the money to see how much we had saved. At night we’d sit in the dark and talk about how the poor family was going to enjoy having the money the church would give them.

We had about 80 people in church, so figured that whatever amount of money we had to give, the offering would surely be 20 times that.

The night before Easter we were so excited, we could hardly sleep. We didn’t care that we wouldn’t have new clothes for Easter; we had $70 for the sacrificial offering.

We could hardly wait to get to church! On Sunday morning, rain was pouring. We didn’t own an umbrella, and the church was over a mile from our home, but it didn’t seem to matter how wet we got. Darlene had cardboard in her shoes to fill the holes. The cardboard came apart, and her feet got wet.

When the sacrificial offering was taken, we were sitting on the second row from the front. Mom put in a $10 bill, and each of us kids put in a $20.

As we walked home after church, we sang all the way.

Late that afternoon the minister drove up in his car. Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment, and then came back with an envelope in her hand.

We asked what it was, but she didn’t say a word. She opened the envelope and out fell a bunch of money. There were three crisp $20 bills, one $10 and seventeen $1 bills.

Mom put the money back in the envelope. We didn’t talk, just sat and stared at the floor. We had gone from feeling like millionaires to feeling like poor white trash.

We kids had such a happy life that we felt sorry for anyone who didn’t have our Mom and Dad for parents and a house full of brothers and sisters and other kids visiting constantly.

I knew we didn’t have a lot of things that other people had, but I’d never thought we were poor.

That Easter day I found out we were. The minister had brought us the money for the poor family, so we must be poor. I didn’t like being poor. I looked at my dress and worn-out shoes and felt so ashamed–I didn’t even want to go back to church. Everyone there probably already knew we were poor!

We sat in silence for a long time. Then it got dark, and we went to bed. All that week, we girls went to school and came home, and no one talked much.

Finally on Saturday, Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money. What did poor people do with money? We didn’t know. We’d never known we were poor.

We didn’t want to go to church on Sunday, but Mom said we had to. Although it was a sunny day, we didn’t talk on the way.

At church we had a missionary speaker. He talked about how churches in Africa made buildings out of sun dried bricks, but they needed money to buy roofs. He said $100 would put a roof on a church. The minister said, “Can’t we all sacrifice to help these poor people?”

We looked at each other and smiled for the first time in a week.

Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope and we put it in the offering.

When the offering was counted, the minister announced that it was a little over $100. The missionary was excited. He hadn’t expected such a large offering from our small church. He said, “You must have some rich people in this church.”

Suddenly it struck us! We had given $87 of that “little over $100.”

We were the rich family in the church! Hadn’t the missionary said so? From that day on I’ve never been poor again.

I’ve always remembered how rich I am because I have Jesus!

You can read Eddie’s full story here.

When money is our focus, it doesn’t matter how much we have. If we don’t have our priorities in the right place…we’re poor. Money is an important tool to be able to build God’s Kingdom…but it shouldn’t be our focus.

Fulfilling our purpose with Jesus is what makes us truly rich.

Asking This Question Can Be the One Thing That Leads to Nothing Getting Done

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How Do I Know Which Thing, is the Right Thing, to do First?

This is the million-dollar question…literally.

I think this one question costs us more time and money than any other. Especially as entrepreneurs and business owners.

Last week I wrote about the millions of bricks that represent all the small pieces that our dreams are made up of and the difficult decision of choosing the one from the millions.

When there are millions of things to choose from it can be overwhelming.

As a recovering perfectionist I struggle with indecision. This indecision comes from a long list – lack of clarity, it won’t be good enough, fear of failure, fear of success, and a multitude of other insecurities.

This indecision is the one thing that costs me more than anything else.

It’s frustrating having dreams and them not becoming reality.

Dreams are the subliminal ideas, thoughts and images occurring in our minds. I believe this is how God shares His ideas of our purpose and a direction for building our lives.

This means that when we’re not taking actions to move us toward those dreams, we’re ignoring God.

Dreams are critical to living the life God intends for us.

In the Certain Decision, from the Andy Andrews book, The Traveler’s Gift, he says, “A person without a dream never had a dream come true.” This is what happens after we’ve had dreams that haven’t come to fruition. We give up on those dreams and just drift through life without a plan. We get stuck between dreaming and results and just stop dreaming.

I gave up on my dreams until God got my attention with a smack in the head with a board. Don’t ignore your dreams. They’re there for a reason.

I would have all those big dreams, but for some reason I couldn’t get from dreams to results. I could figure out a plan and get the dreams turned into goals but would struggle to get to the results that were needed to turn those dreams into reality.

How do I get my DREAMS to become RESULTS?

The missing part was the ACTION. This needs to be actions specific to achieving the goals. Not just actions that make us feel good about being busy. They need to be specific to accomplishing the goals that lead to the “one thing”.

Previously I wrote about building our dream lives one brick at a time and the importance of doing something rather than nothing.

My life plan includes a process for getting dreams to results.

DREAMS   →   VISIONS   →   GOALS   →   ACTIONS   →   RESULTS

Having a life plan helps me do the things that get the results that will build my dream life.

It starts with a plan for building my best life as per God’s plan –

  • Building my relationship with God (spiritual)
  • Building a family legacy (family)
  • Helping people build their dreams (vocational)
  • Build wealth (financial)
  • Build the best me (personal well-being)
  • Help others build a better them (ministry)
  • Help build a better world (social & community)

It also includes a list of big, someday dreams –

  • Home addition/remodel to level of new
  • Keep my truck repaired and maintained in like new condition
  • Build, repair and/or maintain out buildings, fences, yard, etc.
  • Traveling / cruises
  • Have a four-wheel drive project/play truck
  • Own properties; houses, commercial buildings, land
  • Have trucks, trailers, tractors, loaders etc.
  • Vacation home in the mountains
  • Own a NASCAR team (possibly sponsor instead?)
  • Have a plane with optional container spaces – office, seating, living, storage and ability to haul my truck (Could be used for disaster response and various services)

But how do I know which thing, is the right thing, to do first?

Next week we’ll go deeper yet.