Preparation

6. February 2012 by Bernice Davis.

 Weekly blog for Feb 6-12, 2012.

Grace and Peace be unto you from God our father and from the Lord Jesus Christ:

Hello Everyone: 

Welcome back to my blog.  We are well into the New Year with one month under our belt and I’m sure we will all agree that the month flew by.  I said that to say that if you don’t plan for a successful and prosperous year, soon it will be December and nothing will be accomplished.     I have traditionally started my first blog of the year with sharing with you some personal tips on how to help make your year fulfilling and how to accomplish goals.  Many of us find ourselves depressed as the year closes because we realize that another year has passed and we’re still in the same place, physically, financially, and spiritually.

 I normally divide my goals up in three categories; Spiritual, Physical, and Financial.

 

Spiritual:

 

Prayer:

(1) Plan to meet the Lord in prayer.  I am not going to tell you to spend an hour each day in a designated place and commit to it for a lifetime but what I will say is really begin to focus on spending quality time with God through prayer and meditation of HIS word.   If it starts out small then okay but start.  I have found that the more I plan to meet with God through prayer the more I want to spend more time with him.  It is the sweetest place I know.   It’s a time that helps me to re-focus, to get rid of heavy burdens by talking about them to God in prayer and releasing them so they don’t weigh me down and it is a time of replenishing.  I always feel strengthen, renewed and refreshed after my prayer time with the Lord.   Prayer also helps me to walk in a state of repentance and humility.  It is very difficult to sincerely stand before a HOLY God and not first confess your faults, failures, inconsistencies, etc before you begin to really engage in fellowship with the Lord.   My prayer time allows me to constantly check myself and it helps me to work on my shortcomings.  I was just telling my husband tonight that I want to be a better wife to him.  I told him that he deserves better than what I’m doing.  It is my communication with God that makes me come to such conclusions and convicts my heart of sins.  I love the Lord for this, it is helping me grow and become more Christ like in all of my endeavors.

 

Recently, I was a little down about something that happened to me and one of my close friends asked me if I was okay and I told her that I was fine, all I needed was a little time with God at the chapel and I would be okay.  I truly released it and left it at the altar.    Whooh…. I am singing the hymn..  “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!     It is truly a privilege to pray…

 

Meditation

One of my favorite scriptures is Joshua 1:8  “this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth but thou shalt meditate on it day and night that thou mayest observe to do all that is written therein and then thou shall make thy way prosperous and thou shalt have good Success.”  This will also be our memory verse for the week. 

 

The word meditate that is used in the above scripture means to think on something to the point that you act.  You can easily see this definition in the body of the scripture for the text says to meditate so that you will observe or obey which means to act.

 

This is not a foreign concept to us at all.  We have all meditated on something to the point that it caused us to act.  It could have been something negative or positive.  I remember a long time ago, I was in a relationship and this man hurt me so that I vowed to get even.  I meditated (thought) on the matter so hard and long that I was moved to act out my thoughts or my meditations and it ended very ugly. 

 

I have also had positive meditations.   I remember when I wanted to open up my first business.  I meditated (thought) on it to the point that I begin acting out what I had been meditating on in my mind and I have now been self employed for almost twenty years. 

 

I can go on and on with examples of how I have held thoughts in my mind and focused on them until the point that those thoughts became realities.  The word of God teaches us to meditate on God’s word to the point where the word that you have in your mind manifests into reality.     A friend of mine by the name of Bishop Dwight Pate always says that your “wealth is in your mind.”  It all starts with a thought.    A meditated thought is acted out upon.

 

So when we talk about having meditation time, the scriptures are not simply saying just read your word but hold on to it in your mind and focus on it and guard it so the enemy want counteract with evil thoughts and cast down every imagination that would exalt itself against the knowledge of God.

 

Think God’s word and act upon it.  Our Joshua text also teaches us that we are to meditate day and night.   Then the text closes with powerful results.  If you do this, then YOU will make YOUR way prosperous and YOU will have GOOD SUCCESS.

 

If we focus on the spiritual this year and not the material the possibilities in God are unlimited.

 

Study:

 

(2)I use the You Version on my ipad of this “read the bible” in a year software.  Before I got my ipad, I used the book version.  You can pick them up at any Christian book store or order them from places like Amazon.com, etc.   They are the one year study bibles.  I use this program just to read content.  It is one of the chronological ones so it goes from Genesis to Revelations in the order that the events happened.  I do not use this bible to study with but just for meditation purposes.  So my goal is to get through the bible in a year.  You would be amazed at how many Christians have never read the entire bible.  It never gets old.  Each time I read it, I find things that I don’t ever remember reading before.  It is fascinating to me.   The software that I use is wonderful. It allows me to track my progress and if I miss a day, it will send me a text message to my phone.   A couple of weeks ago, I had fallen behind a day and a text came across my phone at 3am and I was so mad because I was in a deep sleep and I wanted to know who was texting me at 3o’clock in the morning.  To my surprise, it was my bible study program reminding me that I was behind on my reading.   Since, I could not go back to sleep, I jumped up and caught up on my reading and it was the funniest thing afterwards, I was able to go right back to sleep.

 

(3) Study Projects-   I also like to choose biblical goals.  I pick various subjects such as the prophets, or the psalms, or Proverbs, or a study of the disciples, or the monarchy, etc and I try to master that subject.    Currently, I am doing a study on the book of Matthew and my goal is to master this one book this year.    This study is different from my reading/meditation studies that I mentioned above.  This study is project oriented. 

 

(4)Volunteer- Giving back to others that are less fortunate is an awesome way to grow spiritually.   It is so rewarding to be able to help someone else.  Sometimes I think these experiences are more rewarding to me than they are to the people I am assisting.  Volunteering also helps you keep your mind off your own problems and helps you to be grateful for what you have no matter how little or great.  Volunteering just helps you maintain a grateful heart.

 

Physical:

 

(1)If you are married, make sure you don’t let the busyness of life keep you and your spouse from spending quality time together.  My husband and I have a date night once a week where we just catch up on what has happened for the week.  I will admit that last year it was really hard to keep it always because we were blessed with some new contracts for our business and it made our schedules almost impossible at time but things have settled now and we are able to begin our date nights again. I am so excited.  I love those times that we plan together.  They are the best.

 

(2)Exercise -  I know this is the worst but it is so necessary to keep our bodies moving.  Maybe I should not have said this is the worst because some people are really into exercising but I am not one of those but I know I have to plan exercise time in my schedule in order to live the life that I want.   I am not an expert on weight loss but I have read and know that doctors say as low as a  5 to 10 pound weight loss can have significant results in terms of better health.    So let’s make sure we keep it moving this year.  There is so much free information on the web concerning weight loss and in our communities where we can pick a plan that will accommodate our lifestyles.

 

(3)  ME TIME-  Have one day a week just for YOU.   For me, it is Sunday.   I attend an early service so after church, it is my day just to do whatever I want for me even if it is to do absolutely nothing.    Sometimes I walk the neighborhood or if the weather is good, I go to a place called Stone Mountain here in Atlanta and I walked the trial around and up the mountain or sometime I write on one of my book projects, or I go see a movie by myself or just lay around.  It is my day that I invest in my own mental and emotional health and just focus on me.     I know with kids it may be very difficult to take a full day but maybe it just may be a couple of hours or so but TAKE IT.  It will help you to be so much more productive and focused.   It’s the best.

 

Financial

 

  This year I will be focusing solely on building my savings account back.  Those of you that follow me know that I was on a six year plan to get out of debt and I am currently debt free except for a mortgage.  It is now time for me to start back to contributing to our IRAs, etc.   SAVING, SAVING, SAVING.  This is my goal this year….. less spending and SAVING…    Someone wrote on their face book status today that it is time that we start living below our means so that we can stop being a slave to bills and I so agree.  It is so liberating when you live debt free.  You can do more and you can help others more..    If you are in debt, please focus this year on getting out.  A wonderful place to start and the book that I and my husband used was by Dave Ramsey.  You can visit his website at daveramsey.com for additional resources to use during this journey or there are also plenty of other resources on the web and many of them are free.  Just begin to research.  Start this debt-free journey.  You want regret it.    It is one of the most liberating things I have done outside of accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. 

 

Remember:  Change does not happen without an announcement of what you’re going to do.

 

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

Yes, things happen but what we know for sure is that nothing will happen unless you start planning.

 

Write the Vision and make it plain…  (Habbakuk)

More Tips:

2.  Break your goals down into weekly or monthly goals so you can measure your progress.  It does not work well when you just say you want to accomplish something by the end of the year and have no strategic plan to accomplish it. 

3.  Now that you have your goals written down.  Take each one of them and list them on a separate page and write daily or weekly things that you will be doing to accomplish them. 

4.  If you get off track, do not beat yourself up.. Simply pick up where you left off and KEEP MOVING.

5. Make sure you take time for you.  If you do not invest in yourself, you will become overwhelmed and it could lead to things such as stress, depression, procrastination, etc.

6.  One of the best things to do in a New Year before you begin your journey is to clean your home.  You may think this is crazy but when you have clutter around you , it is very difficult to stay focused.   When you have things that you know you have to do but won’t do them, it stops you from moving forward, because that thing that is incomplete will always be calling you to it and you will end up not doing anything.  Get all projects and things that you need to complete out of the Way.  Stop procrastinating. 

7.  whatever your goals are this year, just remember to have fun.   Whatever you create today, you must live in it tomorrow.   Make great choices and LIVE FREE in Christ.

 

Enjoy your week.  We will resume our study of the scriptures on next Monday. 

Stay encouraged everyone and don’t forget to pray and read God’s word daily.

 

 

 

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