I think it’s kinda foolish—a naive hubris—when I read book titles about the “Ten Keys to Success” or hear talks embodying “all ya gotta do is….” Let’s face it: success has many facets and if we were to catalog them all, it’d be a significantly large list. Jack Canfield’s book The Success Principles is nearly 500 pages long. So obviously the ingredients to success are many and varied. In that light, it feels a little silly for me to write about the “Two Keys to Success.”

In my Time Alone With God (TAWG) this morning I came upon that piece of wisdom in Proverbs 23: 26 which says “My son, give me your heart and let your eyes keep to my ways.” Imbedded in that simple sentence are two really important concepts.

Give Me Your Heart

The heart is the center of a thing. The heart of the matter is what’s really at its core. The heart of the city is its urban center. The heart of a tree is the hard wood in the middle of the softer exterior. And the heart of a man is the center of his being.

God says “Give me your heart.”

Many people view giving to God in physical, financial, or chronological terms. They give money. They sacrifice time to show up at a church service. While those things have a certain importance and necessity, they really miss the point. In teaching the first Christians Paul said “A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart….” Romans 2:28-29

We give our hearts to God when we bow our head in humility and acknowledge that He is God and we aren’t; when we put ourselves in subservience to him and seek his leadership in our life; when we acknowledge our sinfulness and our need for a perfect Savior.

There’s an occasion when we do this for the first time, and then we need to do it daily—recenter our heart, recalibrate our spirits to the tune and tempo of the Great Musician.

But when we give God our heart we aren’t done. We’ve only just begun.

Let Your Eyes Keep To My Ways

Once your stepped into God’s realm, submitted before him, there’s the need to learn how to walk in this new world. The gravity is a little difference. You can get thrown off balance. He says things like “It’s better to give than to receive” and “The first shall be last.” His ways are different than the human ways to which you’ve been trained.

Notice he said “Let your eyes” keep to his ways. That’s intentional. It’s with the eyes that we focus and concentrate. Its through the eyes that we absorb into our brain things for us to ponder. If written today, in our vernacular, he might have said “Look at things this way….”

Success comes when we begin to align our thinking with God’s thinking. From our thinking comes our words and our actions. Those words and actions produce results for us, but before we did them we thought them. So we have to train ourselves to “think like God thinks. But how?

Read the Bible. Whatever else the Bible is, its God’s revelation to man. It’s a big long letter from the Father. It contains family history, guidance, direction for today, and hope for the future. It paints a picture that clearly spells out what it means to be in this family—to bear this name—and what the Father’s hope is for the children’s future. As I read I do so with pen and notecards in hand, capturing the things that the Holy Spirit causes to leap off the page into my spirit, so that I can make any adjustments to my thinking that may be necessary in order to produce the actions most likely to lead to success.

Read those who are ahead of you. I have a world-class group of mentors, some of whom I’ve met and some I haven’t, but they all mentor me through their writings. Just today I was praying for one of them—Mark Batterson. Mark has met me once. He won’t remember that. But today, I was so grateful for how what he had written was ministering to me that I stopped and prayed for him and his family.

Your Path to Success

You are on a path to somewhere. Is success that destination? Why not? It’s just as easy to go there as anywhere, and far more rewarding. Start on your knees, focus your eyes, train your mind, and produce the fruits that lead to Abundant Living!

I’d submit you are too busy NOT to read. A thousand other things, seemingly more pressing call for your attention, but the harder you work and the faster you run, the more you need to be reading. Otherwise, you’re like the carpenter cutting lumber with an increasingly duller saw that needs to be sharpened. One of the best ways I know to keep that saw sharp, is by reading.

A few nights ago I ran into my friend David Turner having dinner at a restaurant. He said “How do you find time to read so much?” (At that point the new year was ten days old and I’d already posted the third book I’d read for the year to Facebook; a little self-accountability exercise that helps me to keep reading and I hope encourages you to as well.) As I struggled to answer David’s question about “how” I found time to read, I’ve captured some ideas about how I manage to find time to read, and how you can read more to.

Some of us are faster readers with better retention than others. I’m one of those people. I read well. I can’t do math. I can’t run marathons (I jog like a Clydesdale). But I am a good reader.

You shouldn’t compare yourself to me, or to anyone else. You may not read as much as I do, or as rapidly. The question is: Are you reading? Charlie “Tremendous” Jones says “You are the same person today as you’ll be one year from now except for the books you read and the people you meet.” So what are you reading?

Ten Ways to Find More Time To Read

1. Keep books handy. I typically have a book beside my easy chair, a book on my night stand, and a book beside the toilet.
2. Read in the bathroom. You’re going to be spending some time there anyway, you’d might as well multi-task.
3. Read on your kindle (or other e-reader). I like the kindle reader on my iPad because I can take it with me when I travel and its not as bulky as carrying books.
4. Read while you exercise. I exercise everyday for nearly an hour. During this winter, I’m walking on the treadmill and I get bored so I need to be distracted. Books don’t help because I find them hard to keep open; they keep wanting to shut and are difficult to keep open to the most recent page. But my iPad lays flat on the screen of my treadmill allowing me to read easily without fighting to keep the page open.
5. Read while you are on vacation. We typically vacation for 9 days. That’s a week, with a weekend on either end. During that nine days I’ll usually read five or six books. In fact, I have authors who release about one book per year, and I save those books to read while I’m on vacation.
6. Read while you are waiting on your family. I live with three women, so I wait alot. (You’ve heard that country song “Waitin’ on a woman” haven’t you?) Just this morning I had about 15 minutes to wait before all my girls were ready to leave for church. I sat down in my easy chair and read.
7. Read before you go to bed. I read most nights before I go to bed. Not always. Sometimes I watch TV. Sometimes I pray. Sometimes I read my Bible. Sometimes I get quiet and think. But I’ve always got a book at my bedside and more often than not I read before I go to sleep.
8. Read as part of your TAWG discipline. I have a daily Time Alone With God (TAWG) every morning. I typically read two to eight chapters of the Bible and pray during this time. But sometimes, if I’ve got a book going that supports my efforts to be spiritually centered I read a chapter in that book during my TAWG. Right now I am reading The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson. Its a fantastic book on prayer that is very helpful to my life. So its a good spiritual investment for me to be using a portion of my TAWG reading about how to be more effective in my praying.
9. Read instead of watching TV, web surfing, or playing computer games. Come on, is there really anything on the tube that you really benefit from watching? Oh, I like to watch TV. But often its just a dull, mindless waste of time. Shut the darned thing off an feed your mind.
10. Set aside work time to read. Reading is a legitimate work activity. It’s part of improving—continuing education that makes you better. Periodically we have sessions with our staff where we take time away from our daily work to discuss certain books we’ve been reading. If you’ve not read, had your staff team read, and discussed with them Linchpin by Seth Godin, that would be an excellent investment of your time.

Reading is like anything else. You’ll do it if its important to you. If you are going to be better this year, you don’t have a choice: you’ve got to start reading.

Everybody has the same 168 hours in their week. Its just a matter of what you do with yours.

Find the time. Read!

Is fear inherently sinful? Apparently so.

“But the fearful, and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone which is the second death.” -Revelation 21:8

Its certainly instructive that fear, murder, lying and idolatry all appear in the same category. That’s not because God is “picking on ‘fearful, murdering liars.'” It’s because all of those behaviors deny God. They enliven (or are enlivened by) a Spirit that denies God’s love for you, his love for others, and his principles for how life was designed to work. Remember, fear is faith. It’s just faith placed in the Satan’s ability as superior to God’s will, desire, and ability.

You don’t have to be afraid. You can grow out of your fear and begin to walk in overcoming faith that will result in an increase in confidence, recognition of blessing, and a positive shift in perspective that will make you a much more positive person.

The first step is to shift your mind and say aloud “I’m not going to give into fear any more. I’m learning to live out my faith in God who loves me.” I’d encourage you to practice saying that phrase aloud several times a day.

The second step, is you have got to learn who you are in Christ. You must understand your identity as a child of God. You can’t do that apart from digging into the Bible. I’d recommend you start by reading a chapter in Proverbs everyday. Today is the 14th of the month. So today you read chapter 14.

There’s alot more. It’s not complicated or hard, but neither does it come overnight.

I’ll leave it there for now. If you’re starting on this journey, I’d like to know. Send me an email.

Remember when you were a kid and you were afraid of darkness? Has that fear gone away, or now that you are a big boy/girl do you just pretend its not there so as not to appear childish, while you go out of your way to avoid dark places because its socially unacceptable for adults to wet their pants?

Darkness and fear go hand-in-hand. That’s why when you are in darkness its so important to know why its dark, and where the light is.

I John 1:5 says “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” All light. No darkness.

If you find yourself in the darkness you can know that it didn’t come from God. God doesn’t do darkness. He can’t! He’s all light. Light can’t create darkness. Dark is anti-thetical to the properties of light. Can water leap into flames? No! And in the same way, he who is light does not produce darkness.  The darkness isn’t from him.

So, why are we in the dark?

There are two reasons I can think of for why we experience darkness. First, we may be in the dark because we are too far away from the light source. Thus, its light is not shining where we are. The second reason is that something is standing between us and the light so that we are in the shadows.

If you find yourself in the dark, and you recognize that you have never been near the light source, or you have been near the light but you’ve drifted away; run to the light. James 4:8 says “Come near to God and he will come near to you.” God will meet you way more than half way. He’s just looking for any indication you are moving his direction.

If you find yourself in the dark suddenly, and after examination you realize that you haven’t drifted from closeness to God, it means that you are in a shadow. Something, maybe something big, has stepped between you and the light. It may be uncertainty about your job. It may be a person who has drifted from God causing you to fear for them and for your relationship which casts a shadow over you. It may be illness. It may be loss. It could be anything. Whatever it is, you must realize that the shadow is created because the problem has wedged itself between you and the light. That’s why its so important that we “Fix our eyes on Jesus…” (Hebrews 12:2) Don’t look away. Something might obscure your vision and you can’t refocus when you turn back in his direction.

When you realize you are in the darkness of the shadow, fix it. Analyze what’s between you and God. It is real or perceived? If it is real, what can you do to fix or eliminate it? Do it. And finally, speak to it. Speak to it? Yes, speak to it. Jesus said in Mark 11:23 “If any of you shall say to this mountain ‘Go throw yourself into the sea’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes, it shall be done for him.”

For most of my life, I haven’t spoken to my mountains. I’ve agonized over them, fretted and feared them, and cried out to God to move them. But I’ve come to realize that one of the gifts that God places in us when we believe is a mountain moving type of power. So today, I ask God to move the mountain, AND, I ask God to empower me to move the mountain, AND, I speak to the mountain and tell it to move. That’s a way in which personally, my faith becomes substance.

If you’ve never been in the habit of speaking to mountains, this may seem a little weird to you. That’s OK. We’ve all gotta start somewhere. Don’t make this faith thing harder than it is. Simple start walking in it. The next time you are in the darkness of a shadow, speak to the mountain. Then, begin looking intently through the mountain and you’ll begin to see the light shining ever brighter on the other side.

Afraid? I would be, except I know how to turn on the light and I’ve quit making excuses for why I’m in the darkness.

Are you afraid? I dare you to employ the principles I’ve talked about here. But wait! You might want to grab your sunglasses first. I see a bright light in your future.

Have you ever faced a challenge that was bigger than you? I have. And I want to tell you a story that I hope will inspire and encourage you.

I’m writing this on Black Friday. Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and it was a GREAT day at our house. In most ways it was no different than other years. Same food. Same schedule. Same cast of characters. Though yesterday’s 65 degree weather beat 2010’s ice by a country mile.

For our family this was a special Thanksgiving. We didn’t plan it that way, it just happened. But since I don’t really believe in “just happened” perhaps I should say that God planned it exactly as it went down. First, there is the food preparation. That can be taxing but it was smooth at our house. In fact, I even made dressing from scratch for the first time, and that was easy! (Why haven’t I done this before?) The turkey was juicy. The pie was succulent. The sweet potatoes flavorful. Everything came off perfectly on time. The food was wonderful.

Then, there is always family to contend with. This year our gathering was small; the four of us, my parents and my 88 year old grandmother.  The conversation was pleasant and relaxed. After the meal the girls gave the grandparents the tour of their bedroom Christmas trees while Kel and I did dishes. Afterward everyone gathered in the living room to be serenaded by all manner of tunes accompanied by acoustic, electric, and base guitar along with piano. It was noisy, but it was pleasant. No social issues at all this year. That’s nice.

All this in the atmosphere of a roaring fire in the fireplace (which wasn’t needed because of the 65 degree weather, but I’ll turn on the air conditioner if I need to so that I can have a fire in the fireplace on Thanksgiving.)

To cap off a day that is going well, I had two baby calves born yesterday.

Fantastic!

As the day yielded to evening Kel and I smooched around in that way that always makes our daughters say “Ew, gross” we talked about how much we enjoyed the day. I’m telling you: yesterday was about as warm and cozy and Rockwellian as it could get.