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10 Things to learn from the worst pastor I know

September 28th, 2009 admin Location: Raleigh, North Carolina

So, I met this christian pastor that in MHO, is not doing a good job. I wanted to find positive things in the midst of all the hurt that I see him causing. Here are 10 good things I chose to learn:

1. Life is always about the people. When you have the opportunity to focus on your dreams or on people, focus on people. People around you need you. That is why they are around you in the first place. Make them happy. Make them comfortable. Make them feel loved and appreciated.

2. Sometimes we all make mistakes. Even you pray and you try the best to make good choices, still there is the possibility of being wrong. People that care for you will approach you and tell you that. Make space for some criticism in your life. Let people tell you their opinions and pray to God to see if what they say is justified.

3.When you pay attention to other people’s opinions, you will find that they also pay attention to yours. Many minds think better than one, so allow people around you to share their opinions and gather as much information from those opinions to build your own. Make an honest effort to elect the best decision even if it is not your own.

4. God’s direction is sometimes hard to determine. Lots of prayer, quite time and silence can help. However ultimately God has given your heart and mind for a reason. Making good and intelligent decisions is God desire for his children. In case of doubt, do what the bible says, be obedient instead of trying to be “right”. Make God first and then your own opinions second.

5. Try your best to be transparent. Do what you say and say what you do. The bible says it very clearly: “May your yes be yes and your no be no”. It is easy to find yourself in situations where small lies are easier to say than the truth. Give yourself a chance to tell the truth and to be free. Tell people your real motivations and fears and they will truly support you.

6. Don’t rely on your talents in order to avoid hard work. BJ Penn is the best example that I can think of this. He is such a talented MMA fighter, however, sometimes he has allowed himself to rely on his talent instead of paying the price of discipline and focus. Most people won’t notice in the short term. Everybody will know in the long term. Is like a tree that looks strong from far away, when you lean on it, it falls down.

7. Don’t pay attention to your legacy and to your accomplishments; when you focus on what people will remember of you, you are paying too much attention on an empty bucket. People’s opinion is like the wind, it comes and goes and it changes direction very easily. Put your legacy and your self-worth in the hands of God and he will make you feel that your life is worth his son’s life; not only that, Jesus will prove it in the cross.

8. Be of service to other people. Treat other as if they are more important than you. Give them all your respect and admiration. Don’t let your inner desires to be served, take root in your heart.

9.Pay attention to what you do wrong and then make adjustments. Be sensitive to your mistakes so that you learn and improve for future ocassions.

10. Don’t think that decisions are black and white situations. Always try to visualize multiple opportunities and find many answers to a single problem. Don’t push people into believing that things will never be the same after a decision, remember that God can restore and repair like nobody can.

Money does not equal life. I repeat: Money doesn’t equal life.

November 3rd, 2008 admin Location: Raleigh, North Carolina

Difficult times don’t bring out the best in people. Is hard to ask a sinking person to think about anybody else other than saving himself. The economical crisis is showing the real character in the people around you, and in myself.

Producing value for others is not an easy task. For most people, their lives are completely tied up to their jobs. Their jobs provide the security of sustainability and affordability of social anesthetics like shopping sprees and Friday’s dine out.

My questions today revolve around: why do we all live so attached to the pursuit of money? why is it that we believe that with more money our life would be easier, safer and better? I have the impression that most people in their death beds don’t look back and say: “I would try to live longer so that I can make more money”.

A life in the pursuit of “more” is a life full of absolutely nothing. If I live my life as if I was awaiting for a destination I would miss my life completely. Because life is really the trip.

The worst part about it is that I pretend that my only problem is lack of money when in reality deep inside I know that the real lack is faith.

If you take two people and send them to a deserted island: To the first one you give a million dollars and to the second you give a reason to live, who do you think that would last longer?

We are like money hungry robots with junk-filled garages. We associate so much pleasure to the act of getting that we have forgotten how does it feel to give something to somebody else.

The paradox:

I want to work hard to get more money. The more money I get, the more things I buy. The more things I buy the less money I end up with. So I have to work more for more money.

In the end, I have neither money nor life. It is a pretty clever distraction.

Summarizing: Our entire lives we sell our time in exchange for money. Money that we plan to use to buy a better life. But at that point we have no time left.

Is like working at Disney World. Waking up every day and working hard. When you retire, somebody asks you if you enjoyed the rides and you reply: “I didn’t have time to enjoy them”.