Posts Tagged 'decisions'

a secret for making high quality decisions :)

Published May 3, 2013 Holy Spirit , living , prayer 4 Comments
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When I was younger, I used to make decisions really fast and sometimes this worked out well for me.  Quick decisions are helpful when you’re low on fuel for your car or when you’re dehydrated and need to drink more water.  Quick decisions, however, are not as helpful when the stakes are higher – as I’ve recently learned.

Last month, I had a situation come up that was really important & I needed to make a very high quality decision on this issue.  Thankfully, I didn’t just do a quickie snap decision but rather took a few days to think, pray & evaluate.  After taking a little bit of time and getting some high quality input & advice from other people who were well qualified to give input on this type of situation, I made a really excellent decision and the outcome has been extremely wonderful.

I’ve come to the conclusion that when I need to make a high quality decision, it helps to give it some high quality time ,)

Pressure exposes trust

Published April 22, 2013 enemies to intimacy , Genuine love , Holy Spirit , living , prayer , seeing Jesus , spiritual 1 Comment
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There are some really great worship songs that talk about trusting in Jesus & how wonderful it is to trust Him. In theory, I agree with these songs & I appreciate their melodic & soothing tune & words. In practice, however, I’m not very convinced that trusting in Jesus is a really smoothy & groovy road. For me, the challenge to trust in Jesus often exposes areas in my life where I’m not trusting in Jesus well. Furthermore, the adjustments I need to make in those areas to trust Jesus better can be difficult. But at the end of the day, I am wholly convinced that it is truly better to trust in Jesus more than anyone or anything else. Don’t let various pressures tempt you to not trust Jesus :)

fight or flex

Published March 13, 2013 family , Genuine love , Holy Spirit , living , prayer , saving moses , spiritual , travel 2 Comments
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The last few days have had some interesting experiences for me, some of which have been totally amazing and others which have been abyssmal.  Adding to this adventure, I thought I was supposed to fly to Houston for the day to do some work with Saving Moses.  When I arrived at the airport this morning at 5:45a, I discovered that I was a week early (my flight is next week).  Needless to say, my husband was surprised to see me again before 7am :)

All of this is to say that it seems to me that it takes less energy to be flexible than to resist change.  While I may not be liking everything that’s happening in my world in this season, I can totally rest in knowing that God is in control and I can trust God to create beyond AMAZING results as I continue to love God and stay true to the divine purposes for which I’m created – Rom 8:28-29.  So I’m chosing to be flexible :)

Being Contagious

Published March 12, 2013 Uncategorized 5 Comments
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Something I’ve noticed is that often one of my kids gets sick, that bug can sometimes work it’s way through our family. I’ve also noticed that when I walk down an airplane aisle & smile, people tend to smile back. These observations have caused me to be more aware about how I can be contagious either positively or negatively – but the choice is mine. I can be an agent of positive or negative influence. I can be constructive or I can be hostile or destructive but God has given us, as individuals, the power to make such decisions. So lets be positively contagious, spreading joy, hope & love :)

More thoughts about quality decisions

Published February 15, 2013 Genuine love , Holy Spirit , living , prayer , spiritual 1 Comment
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I’ve been thinking some more about the topic of decision making & the results of my decisions. Sometimes the quality of my decisions gets compromised because my thoughts & feelings are in a bad place. When I allow insecurity, fear, hopelessness, discouragement and other dark things settle into my thoughts & feelings I inevitably make mediocre to low quality decisions. Perhaps this is why Paul in the Bible said that we should take captive every thought that exalts itself against the knowledge of Jesus. Decisions are often the results of thoughts & feelings, so it’s important to be dialed into that on which we allow our mind & feelings dwell.
This is one reason why Saving Moses is so important – it gives loving hope for a better future to babies & their moms who are in hopeless & even dying situations.

The importance of quality decisions

Published February 13, 2013 family , Holy Spirit , living , prayer , saving moses , spiritual Leave a Comment
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In the last few days, I’ve been thinking about the quality of various decisions that I make – not just with big decisions but also with what seems to be little decisions. It seems that when I get under some heavy pressure that I can tend to let the quality of my little decisions deteriorate under the guise of letting off steam (staying up later than normal, drinking coffee at 5pm, eating crummy food, playing on the computer rather than working out & more). I totally understand that we all need some outlets to just “be”. However, when I make mediocre quality decisions I shouldn’t expect outrageous quality results.
So I’m challenging myself to make higher quality decisions & to be better disciplined with my time & energies – quality decisions = quality outcomes :)

some help for worry

Published January 25, 2013 enemies to intimacy , family , Genuine love , Holy Spirit , living , prayer , relationships , saving moses , spiritual , travel 2 Comments
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Lately, I’ve had some struggles with worry & if you give me the line that I’m not supposed to worry, I’ll hit you ,)

With that being said, I had a nice chat with God about this & I received some great help that you might also find useful, if not today, maybe for the future.  I learned that when I worry, I make an attention decision that can undermine the closeness of my walk with God (not that God moved, but rather that I’ve compromised my trust in God).  When I worry, I choose to give my attention to challenges, problems & difficulties that I’m unable to resolve.  When I worry, I neglect to include God in these struggles and therefore become increasingly absorbed in them, to the point of being all consumed.  And clearly, being all consumed with worry is no place I want to live.  So that counter-point to worry is choosing to trust God and while this can be difficult, this decision is much better than going down the worry path.  But I’m also learning that trusting God is often a continuously active decision.  So let’s encourage each other to keep our eyes on Jesus and to make healthy choices to strengthen our hearts by trusting God :)

Martin Luther King Jr

Published January 21, 2013 family , Genuine love , living , prayer , relationships , saving moses , spiritual Leave a Comment
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When I was in my early twenties, I read the autobiography of Malcolm X and found it to be really disturbing.  For much of his life, Malcolm was a proponent & participant of violence against the white establishment, which had been extremely cruel to him and his family.  In contrast, Martin Luther King Jr was an advocate of nonviolence and steady & assertive pressure against the white establishment.  Clearly, there were plenty of justified reasons for both men to adamantly oppose the white establishment, but they chose different paths.  Both men were born and assassinated at similar times, but today we honor the memory, methods and practices of Martin Luther King Jr.

When we are treated unfairly in our lives, the shortcut reply is to return injustice for injustice.  Such reactions seem to be the normal human reaction.  In contrast, the heroes who most readily capture our attention & admiration are those individuals who decided to step out of the eye-for-eye quagmire and to live at a higher level of moral authority:  good trumps bad, love trumps evil and forgiveness trumps retribution.  Admittedly, these are extremely difficult choices and in my mind, we cannot make these noble choices without the help and power of God working in our hearts and thoughts :)

When you make a bad decision

Published January 17, 2013 enemies to intimacy , Holy Spirit , living , spiritual 3 Comments
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If you’re like me, from time to time, we make bad decisions. I don’t like it when I make a bad decision & I like the consequences even less. But what is worse than making a bad decision is not learning from such mistakes. So here’s a few things that might be helpful when dealing with bad decisions:
*mistakes & failures are an essential ingredient of success
*beating yourself up over mistakes adds zero value – own the mistake & mistake & move on
*blaming someone else tends to minimize our personal learning experience with the mistake or bad decision
*dont let the fear of a bad decision or mistakes paralyze you from trying
*consider all the people in the Bible who made mistakes & you’ll start feeling better quickly ,)

navigating landmines

Published December 5, 2012 Angola , enemies to intimacy , Holy Spirit , living , prayer , relationships , saving moses , spiritual , travel 3 Comments
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The first time I visited Angola with Saving Moses, our host quickly explained that although the civil war in Angola was finished, there are still more than 10million active landmines scattered throughout the country.  As we were driving, they explained that whenever we saw a tree with red painted on the branches or trunk, that the field or area behind that tree had not been cleared of landmines.  If the tree had white painted on it, the field had been cleared.  To add to the excitement, most of the terrain through which we drove had neither red nor white marked on the trees so I guess we were just supposed to figure it out!

Sometimes our lives feel like they have lots of landmines – places of conflict, explosive potential and unseen danger.  And like my experience in Angola, it’s not always possible to know where these landmines might be in our lives.  With that being said, here are some helpful point for navigating possible landmines in your life:

  • keep your eyes on Jesus – let Jesus be your guide as you walk through life, directing your decisions, thoughts, interactions and more
  • ask for wisdom from God – James tells us that God gives us wisdom when we ask with faith
  • trust God – Ps 23 says that even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death we won’t fear evil because God is with us

sarahbowling

  • A few lessons I've learned from my mom: sarahbowling.me :) 15 hours ago
  • Sometimes the only way to learn to forgive is by consistent practice :) 17 hours ago
  • @DavidHolland - thx friend! Looking forward to seeing y'all nxt wk! :) 1 day ago
  • Don't let your ego write the checks for your future; humility is living today with your feet on the ground :) 1 day ago
  • @LeeGrady you are totally the best my friend! What an incredible honor to get to meet you - thx heaps for your time & ministry!! :) 1 day ago

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  • Through the Lens of a Camera: A First Hand Account of Angola May 16, 2013
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