God's Unique Creation

Knowing that we are created by God is important.

If we go to the Bible and see in Genesis 1:1-5 (see all referenced Scriptures below), we see several facts listed about God's creation. All of it came from God speaking. (Hebrews 11:3) God created through His Word. He spoke and there it was. The Bible says that He created all that we see and all that we don't see.

What are things we don't see? Ions, microbes, DNA - just to name a few things that come to my mind.

In Revelation 4:11 it says that we should respond to His creation through praise and honor and glory. We do this by the way we live our lives, through worshipping Him and obeying His commandments and the rules He has set out before us written in the Bible. The Bible is our life's manual.

But, why did He create YOU? If you look in Isaiah 43:7, you'll find that we were created for His glory! Stop for just a moment and think about that. That is the very reason you exist. That's a pretty awesome reason for being here, don't you think? You are here to glorify God. How are you or how can you accomplish that purpose?

Go back to Genesis 1:26-28 and you'll read why humans are unique to this world. We are unique in that we are made in the image of God. No other living creation was ever created in the image of God. We relect His nature - were created godlike - and have been given authority over all the earth.

Our authority and position is that we are responsible for the earth and every animal that moves on the earth.

Our purpose is to reflect God's nature, for His glory, to prosper, reproduce, fill the earth and take charge!

There are things in our lives that do not reflect this uniqueness. What are they?

How do you live for His glory?

Why is it important for us to know that we are created by God?

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All Scripture references taken from "The Message"

Genesis 1:1-5
1-2First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don't see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God's Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.

3-5 God spoke: "Light!"
And light appeared.
God saw that light was good
and separated light from dark.
God named the light Day,
he named the dark Night.
It was evening, it was morning—
Day One.
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Hebrews 11:3

3By faith, we see the world called into existence by God's word, what we see created by what we don't see.
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Revelation 4:11

11 ... Worthy, O Master! Yes, our God!
Take the glory! the honor! the power!
You created it all;
It was created because you wanted it.
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Isaiah 43:7

7"...Whom I created for my glory,
yes, personally formed and made each one.'"
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Genesis 1:26-28

26-28 God spoke: "Let us make human beings in our image, make them
reflecting our nature
So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea,
the birds in the air, the cattle,
And, yes, Earth itself,
and every animal that moves on the face of Earth."
God created human beings;
he created them godlike,
Reflecting God's nature.
He created them male and female.
God blessed them:
"Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!
Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,
for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth."
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Exciting Plans For Your Life

Did you know that God has plans for you? Good plans? No matter where you are in life right now, He has great plans for your life.

In 1st Corinthians 2:9-16, the Bible talks about how God has these exciting plans for your life. They are actually already arranged and read to go! It says that the Holy Spirit will bring it out in the open for you. But, you have to be open to the Holy Spirit's guiding and listen very closely. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit isn't content to just "flit around", but rather He "dives into the depths of God, and brings out what God planned all along." "The depths of God" - just think about that for a minute. What is inside the depths of God that has been planned for you? Did you think your thoughts and plans were yours alone?

And did you know that God not only knows what you are thinking, but he lets us in on what HE is thinking - through the Holy Spirit. His gifts, His plans, His thoughts for you are life and salvation - not just in the eternal specter, but here on earth, as well. He wants to bless our lives in every area.

Our natural self cannot receive these gifts. It may seem silly to some who don't understand or know God. But once we allow our spirits to know the Spirt of God, we can communicate and learn how to access everything God is doing.

The last verse in this chapter states: "Isaiah's question, 'Is there anyone around who knows God's Spirit, anyone who knows what he is doing?' has been answered: Christ knows, and we have Christ's Spirit."

Start today to communicate with God and reach out to Him. Establish a strong relationship with Him and you will find that you are blessed in so many areas of your life. You will find new opportunities and victory through Him.

1st Corinthians 2:9-16 - Learn this from God.

Organizing My Photos

I have a lifetime supply of photos - lots and lots and lots. So, I've decided to sort through them and pass down what needs to be passed down and organize the rest.

Today, I briefly looked through a few of the photo albums to sort of get an idea of what needs to be done. I found a little photo book of my oldest daughter's third birthday - thirty years ago. Was it really that long ago?

I remember now that we were visiting family in the midwest. My girls and I took a much needed trip to be with family. My grandmother was still alive and she and my aunt had put together a little birthday party for my daughter.

The first picture of my daughter was one of her holding out that baton she wanted so badly. She was smiling from ear to ear. I remember ending up hating that baton because it was always in the way and it seemed like I was always putting it away. If I put it in the toybox, it stuck straight out of the top. It just didn't seem to fit anywhere.

Oh, if only that little girl and her baton were here now, even for just a moment. The children not only grow up - they go away. And although they turn into wonderful people, they are still missed. I guess that's why God gives us grandchildren.

There's another picture of her sitting in the 1950's high chair that all of my grandmother's grandchildren sat in. My daughter was proudly sitting there in front of the white frosted cake that had brightly lit candles displayed in the number three. Another proud grin on that little face. It was certainly her day.

The last picture was of her and her younger sister in the bathtub together. I think after all that cake and ice cream they probably both needed a bath. Especially the younger one who always needed bathing after eating. I like this one especially because it shows that they haven't really changed. My oldest daughter is there posing a wide smile for the camera and there is her younger sister looking at with admiration at her older sister, as she still does today.

Today my daughters are beautiful, productive women with full and happy lives. And they add to my photo collection with pictures of their children at birthdays and in bathtubs.

I have a feeling that organizing these old photos is going to take awhile because there will be many stops for times of fond memories of children who are part of my soul.

Personal Coaching - Week Three

I must say I am surprised how much I've learned and implemented in my life these past three weeks from just this little bit of coaching.

I've established three goals that I'm actually working on right now. I've broken them down into smaller goals and am seeing accomplishment.

This week, however, I realized I needed to change one of my goals. I realized that I need to put my writing at the top of the list and concentrate on that, since that is the gift that I've been given. So, that's what I'm setting out to do.

I've reviewed what I accomplished last week, and what I did NOT accomplish last week. Then, I considered why certain things were not accomplished and what, if anything, got in the way.

Next, I've made goals to accomplish for this week - the smaller goals to reach the final goal. Then, I decided what actions I needed to take in order to accomplish those smaller goals.

Remember discussing "tolerations" in a previous blog? Well, I've also addressed three tolerations this week. One of them was to throw out a few small kitchen appliances that I rarely use. But, after discussing this with my husband - well, he would like to hang on to them for a little while longer, so I scratched that one off of my list. Instead of that, I shampooed the dog - which was long overdue. Boy, let me tell ya' - I was SO glad I switched those tolerations. Whew!

Next I made a list of small nurturing things I would do for myself this week - you know, fun things I like to do.

And last of all, I wrote down something for which I was grateful.

This past week has been very productive for me, as far as coaching goes. I worked on three goals, realizing that one of them needed to be changed, I made a new friend and made a lunch date with an old friend, cleaned off my desk (which took all of five minutes tops), colored my hair, bathed the dog, read my book, watched an old classic movie, blogged and realized how grateful I am for the opportunity to experience this personal coaching thing.

This weekend I'm going to work on a visual anchor for my goals. I think I'm going to create a vision board and put up a collage of pictures of the goals I'm achieving. I think that will be fun. Apparently, having that in front of your face throughout the day causes you to subconsciously work towards these things.

Since setting goals and getting rid of tolerations, I have become more satisfied and at peace within my spirit. Who knew?

Action Creates Results - Results Create Motivation

"Persistence is the ability to maintain actions regardless of feelings. You press on even when you feel like quitting. When you work on any big goal, you're motivation will wax and wane like the waves hitting the shore. Sometimes you'll feel motivated, sometimes you won't. But it's not your motivation that creates results - it's your action. Persistence allows you to keep taking action even when you don't feel motivated to do so, and therefore you will keep accumulating results. Persistence will ultimatley provide it's own motivation. If you simply keep taking action, you'll eventually get results, and results can be very motivating." ~ Zig Ziglar

This quote was given to me today from my personal coach. It really inspired me and opened up my eyes.

Today's assignment was to pick one goal to work on next week from the ten goals previously created. One of my goals was motivation, but I changed it, realizing that with persistence, motivation will come. So, I changed motivation to loving. I will try to become more loving this year.

But, for next week, my goals to work on will be to continue to lose weight, increase my circle of friends and learn some marketing skills.

I'm already working on the first two. I've started counting my Weight Watcher points - which I hate. However, my coach highly recommends the South Beach diet. One of the people in our group has been trying it this month and has already lost considerable weight. So, I think I will read that book this week.

And my circle of friends - well, I've started taking a Bible study class at church and there are about twenty ladies in that group. So, I should be able to increase my circle from within that group somewhat.

And the marketing - well - I need to learn this in order to be able to do what I want to do and I am so intimidated by this. However, I WILL overcome it this year.

Action creates results and results create motivation.

That's all the time I have for today.
Watch me grow!

Personal Coaching - Second Week

I've started my second week of personal coaching.

So far, I have written down pages and pages of goals. Then, under each category, I chose a "Thrilling Goal". A thrilling goal is something that you would do if there were nothing to hinder you at all - no fears, money wasn't an issue, etc. So, I have four of those - one under each category.

Then I have created a list of about 25 tolerations. Tolerations, in the coaching world, is a word that is used for things that you put up with in your daily life. For instance, one of my tolerations is dim lighting in our home. It seems it is never bright enough in any room for me to be able to read. And some of the lighting we have comes on slowly and gradually - my husband's love - not mine. When I turn a light on, I want the light to come on - not have to wait for it to warm up so I can see several minutes later. So, that's a toleration for me. And, yes, I have a list of twenty-five. My coach instructed us to make a list of ten to twenty-five and I was going to stop at ten, but - hey - I was on a roll. What can I say?

Next step was to create a list of ten goals that I want to accomplish this year. That was easy enough because I had all the goals previously listed from my four categories. So, I grabbed some from there and wrote them down.

Then I had to pick "BE" words. These are words that describe how I want to be. As the coach pointed out, we define who we are oftentimes by what we do. "I'm a teacher. I'm a secretary. I'm a doctor." This exercise is to help you define who you are by what you want to be - or how you already are. So, I picked three "BE" words and then after I wrote them, I went back and put the word "very" in front of my "BE" words.

After listing ten goals to accomplish for this year and picking three "BE" words, the coach instructed us to go back to the list of ten goals and write how we will BE by accomplishing these goals.

By doing this last exercise, I could clearly see that by accomplishing my goals I become who I want to be. And then I realized that even if I didn't accomplish the goal this year, just the fact that I've tried will help me become who I want to be.

So, here I go on my way to becoming:
1. Very self-confident
2. Very motivated
3. Very prosperous

Watch me grow!

Tolerations - Energy Drains

My personal coach today had a simple assignment - to make a list of things that we tolerate - energy drains - things we put up with for whatever reason. I made my list of about 20 things - some big, some small, some take a little money, some a lot of money and some no money at all. So, I'm interested to see where she is going with this.

I've also been listening to Tony Robbins on some old cassette tapes. I've been getting a lot of good information from those, as well. He's been discussing goals and why we need them. He said that we need to find out WHY we want a particular goal. The "why" is the incentive. So, today his assignment for goals was for personal development, things that you want - if money, time, etc. were no object and financial goals. Then he had us go back over each goal and define how many years it would take to achieve each goal - one year, three years, five years, ten years and twenty years. After that was determined, I took three from each category for the one year goals and DID SOMETHING on that goal TODAY.

So, today, I exercised, worked on some marketing skills, and I'm going to dance at home with my husband tonight - but, he doesn't know it yet. :-)

So, set some goals for yourself, determine a timeline and do something to achieve that goal today. You'll be one day ahead of the game.

"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten."