"No" is completely fine

I believe that for anybody who lives, breathes, and walks...it's difficult to say no. Why? It's so much easier to say yes! Saying yes makes people feel good. When you say yes you're usually helping someone else out or doing something with someone else because they can't do it alone. 

One of the things I struggled with right when I entered "adult life" was saying no. When opportunities came up at work, or someone needed me to do something for them I would always say yes. In moderation though, that's fine to an extent. If a coworker of mine asked me to get lunch with him when I should be networking and not catching up, that's when I should typically say no. 

Across the board, no's are powerful. Whether they have to do with your career, friends, or even family. 

I believe the most powerful no in history came from God. In John chapter 12, Jesus was predicting his death and one of the things he was contemplating was this: "Now my soul is deeply troubled. Should I pray. 'Father, save me from this hour'? But this is the very reason I came! Father, bring glory to your name." (v. 27-28) 

Jesus seemed to be at a point where he was thinking to himself...is this all worth it? 

Briefly after Jesus said this, a voice from heaven spoke and said: "I have already brought glory to my name, and I will do so again." (v. 28)

That is the most powerful and important no in history. Because if God said: sure, I will save you from this hour..." we wouldn't be here and Jesus wouldn't have died on the cross for all our sins. 

God just always seems to work in the most unique ways...I was listening to a podcast on Sunday when I was on my way to pick up my wife from the airport and a lot of what I just wrote about was talked about in that sermon. For the life of me I couldn't figured out where that passage was in the Bible, and my daily reading for today were those exact verses. 

I don't know if God is using this because I need to get better at saying no, or because someone who is reading this right now needs to. My encouragement to you, is that it's okay to say no. 99% of the time when you say no to somebody, they're going to give you grace and understand. They might jokingly give you a hard time, but they're going to be okay with it. For the small percentage of people who are upset with you, maybe it's a good reason you said no and shouldn't be associating with people like that.  Please don't put too much on your plate for saying yes all the time. 

no discipline seems pleasant

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. - Hebrews 12:11

Discipline never seems pleasant at the time. There is never anything pleasant about waking up at 3,4, or 5 in the morning. I remember the first person who asked me to work out with him one morning back when I was a freshmen in high school. I met Brandon at the weight room at 6:15 and I will never forgot how accomplished I felt because we got such a great workout in so early in the morning. 

Discipline is often painful at first because you are in the process of training your mind and body to do new things to better yourself. You are going against the norm when you start to create discipline, and if you haven't noticed, people really don't like change. 

If you talked to anyone that knows me well, they would probably tell you how disciplined I am. I am not perfect and there are so many more people who are more disciplined than me, but I've got a really good understanding about what it takes to be disciplined. 

I believe in life, there are going to be things that happen for you that open the door for you to become more disciplined. Up until college it was always sports. I was going to workout every single day because my dream was to play college basketball. It didn't matter how long or crazy my days were, I had a dream that I was going to accomplish. 

In college, the injuries I dealt with on the court, lead me to becoming disciplined with my physical therapy. There was nothing more worse than sitting on the sidelines during practice watching your teammates get better, while I was hurt. I would set up everything I needed to do for my rehab along the side of the court and I would do my rehab the entire practice. I wanted to be out there! 

This discipline wasn't fun, it was painful. 

My discipline from basketball, then my rehab, lead me to become disciplined in the most important area of my life and that is my relationship with God. I had built all these crazy good habits that helped me out physically, and I recognized, and had people in my life who helped me recognize that I could use this discipline towards getting into the word daily! Praying daily. Journaling daily. etc. 

That discipline has lead to me writing 800 blog posts. (today marks the 800th post) Most importantly though, things happened in my life for me, not to me. For those who lack discipline, I would encourage you to start small. You are not going to become disciplined in everything you do tomorrow. I mean if you could, that would be awesome!! It takes time. 

Focus on one area at a time, then once you reap the harvest in that area, do another, and another, and another. Reap that harvest that discipline produces. 

I know I have talked about me getting into running in most of my recent posts, but I plan on reaping the harvest in September when I complete my first marathon. My running journey last December was just some fun thing to do to get in shape for our wedding. I thought it'd be great to run 5 miles everyday that entire month. Now, it's almost July and I still run 5 miles everyday. Most weekends I will do 10, 15, and even 20 mile runs each day because the discipline I created for myself has lead me to doing things I never thought I was capable of doing. 

Long story short, discipline is something that I am very passionate about. If I could help even just one person become more disciplined, I would be so fulfilled! If you are someone who feels that way, don't hesitate to send me a message. 

Discipline is hard, it's not pleasant, and it's painful sometimes. But those who create discipline in their lives will reap the harvest. 

a good exclusion: leap for joy!

One of the things that I used to struggle with a lot when I really started growing in my faith was that I had better discernment, so it was easier for me to tell what I should and shouldn't be saying/doing with the people that I was hanging out with. 

That feeling used to eat my up. I kept thinking to myself...is this worth it? Am I okay with not fitting in and possibly losing friends? Over and over again. There were times where I completely didn't fit in and it was very hard. 

As believers in Jesus we all have our own stories of how we came to know Jesus and made our faith our own, but I do believe that feeling I addressed above is something we all experience as we grow. As much as I would've liked to just skip over it, I am happy I got to experience it. 

That feeling, when you feel different, excluded and like you are not fitting in with your own friends is a good feeling. We have to start changing our mindsets to understanding that it is good! 

"What blessings await you when people hate you and exclude you and mock you and curse you as evil because you follow the Son of Man. When that happens, be happy! Yes, leap for joy. For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember their ancestors treated the ancient prophets that same way." 

(Luke 6:22-23)

What blessings await...how amazing is that? It's not easy, but I promise as you grow, this will happen more and more and my encouragement is for you to have a vision of the blessings ahead. My life isn't sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns, but I've been through it all and where I stand in my faith and my relationships have flourished because of the things I have been through! Leap for joy and be happy when things are difficult.

Leap for joy...

a higher standard

One of my favorite things about being fortunate enough to travel a lot up to this point in my life is all the unique places I have gotten to stay. I am not just talking about the amazing locations, but specifically the hotels. I have been on trips tp fancy resorts and I have also been on trips where we stayed in rooms that didn't have screens on windows or air conditioning. 

What I found is that the type of place I stayed in directly correlated to the standard that I was holding myself to. At the nice resorts I kept everything clean and organized and made sure everything was left even better than when I got there. At the not as nice places, I often didn't care as much. I didn't keep my bags as organized and if I made a mess I didn't worry about it as much. 

As believers, we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard. A standard that is worthy of the Good News about Christ! 

"Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ. Then, whether I come and see you again or only hear about you, I will know that you are standing together for the faith, which is the Good News." (Philippians 1:27)

Conducting yourselves in a manner that is worthy of the Good News is like staying in the nice places. (there is nothing wrong with places that aren't fancy, just the example I am giving)  As believers we are the love God and love others above ALL else! We are also called to serve God and others. We are to live by the fruits of the Spirit. There is a manner we should be holding ourselves to. I know Satan has his agenda too. He is trying to deceive us and tempt us into thinking that it's okay to not live as Christ calls us, it's okay to every once in a while step out of line...and those are just his games. 

We are dirty rotten sinners, we are going to sin, but above all else we must conduct ourselves in a manner that is worthy of the Good News. 

your superpower

When I was younger (I say that as if I am old) I loved any and every movie on the Disney channel. One of my favorite movies that I remember watching was Sky High. I won't give the full movie review, but essentially this was a high school where every kid had a super power. I thought the kids were so cool because of everything that they could do. 

Realistically, we don't have superpowers like those kids, we can't become invisible, have super speed, or fly, although I wish we could! But we do have one superpower. I have it. You have it. We all have it.

We have the superpower of choice. 

We get to make our own decisions! 

We get to choose whether or not we are going to be joyful today, or have a bad attitude. 

We get to choose whether or not to serve and love on people today, or focus on ourselves.

We get to choose what we believe in, we get to choose what we watch on TV, we get to choose what music we listen to, we get to choose whether or not you get up to go to church on Sunday, we get to choose!!

We have a superpower greater than anything we could ever imagine.

Take advantage of it today! Choose to serve, love, and glorify God! 

Requesting with joy

Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy. (Philippians 1:4)

Joy: a feeling of great pleasure and happiness

When Paul made requests to God through prayer he always did it with joy. He didn’t make requests because he was desperate, he didn’t make requests when he was upset, he always did with joy! I find that super encouraging. 

I also feel convicted because I feel like a lot of the times when I pray about something, I don’t do it with joy. No wonder I am missing out on so much fulfillment when I pray. It makes sense. I believe that joyfulness requires a certain amount of positive energy. Energy is contagious right? It absolutely is! Imagine how encouraging it might be to other believers and nonbelievers to always bring our requests before God with joy. 

Think about the last person you told you would pray for them or the situation they were facing. You hear it and see it everywhere. You most likely said in a sympathetic voice: I will be praying for you. I most likely would guarantee that’s just how it always is! I do it all the time without even being aware. 

Let’s make requests to God with joy! Let’s be joyful and have it be contagious to others. Joy creates a get to mentality rather than a have to mentality. 

armor of God

From the moment we open our eyes and wake up every morning until the moment we close them and try to go to sleep, we are at battle. We have a challenge every day to stand firm against all the strategies of the devil. 

Now this battle isn't against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in the dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places. 

To me, this sounds like and feels like a battle that I want to be fully prepared for with a full set of armor. A battle like this I would never want to not be prepared for or think I was going to be prepared for it if I just put on some of the armor. 

We are to put on EVERY piece of the armor. We need a belt, shoes, a shield, a helmet, and a sword. 

The awesome part about the armor of God is that all these pieces of armor have significant meaning.

Belt: of truth

Shoes: of peace, so that we are fully prepared

Shield: of faith, to stop the fiery arrows of the devil

Helmet: of salvation

Sword: of the Spirit, which is the word of God

Every morning, we have to put on EVERY piece of armor. It's not going to do any good if you put on everything and forget your sword...or if you forget your shield, etc. We must put on every piece. The good news? The battle has been won, we just have to continue to stand firm.