Self versus Perceived Self

Critical Digest Room

For the purpose of introduction, the self is a common concept that is either privately or generally perceived and conceived.

Talking about private or generic perceptions of self, what is the self?

Many premises have been laid on this concept. Some view it as a representation of a person. Others see it as intrinsic features that constitute an individual. For this context, the self is a subjective view of a person and their social, religious and political standings.

Well, that’s by the way.
Let’s come down to private and public perceptions of self: do people see you the way you see yourself?

Self and personality are two concepts that hardly correspond to people’s views.

In consequence, there is usually a floating ego that earns no penny.

Here are the points:

1. You are not always who you think you are. You may think you are dedicated to your students or the…

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Gender, genderless, androgyny, bisexuality, cisgender and transgender

How many children between 10 and 14 are not going through a phase where they wonder who or what they are?

Photo by SLAYTINA on Pexels.com

In some countries, such as Belgium among others, there is a view that there are not two genders but that genderless people should be taken into account, i.e. people who feel neither male nor female and often have no need for a person ‘of the opposite sex’. In Belgium, they are given the designation X under their gender. The genderless, a grammatical category, often designated as male, female, or neuter, used in the classification of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and, in some languages, verbs that may be arbitrary or based on characteristics such as sex or animacy and that determines agreement with or selection of modifiers, referents, or grammatical forms.

Photo by Magda Ehlers on Pexels.com

In other countries, such as the United States of America, then, people who feel genderless or feel that they are in a body of another gender are more likely to be regarded as “devilish” and are taunted and humiliated, as well as dismissed as perverts. For many citizens over there it is normal that the man should have the highest position and that the woman should be considered the lower one, and coloured people the lowest. Equality is out of the question, whilst in other countries, it is not the priority at the moment. Worse is it when there are people who admit they feel attracted to both sexes, male and female. From searching by whom they feel most at ease, some enjoy their being with both genders and enjoying sex with as well as male as female persons. such persons are often between two camps; for one group they are cowards, not gay enough, unfaithful, untrustworthy, indecisive, and confused, for others, they are doing it for attention, or just for sex and their own selfish physical satisfaction. In some cases it is also part of the experimenting, looking for their own particular favourite, on the way to gay or on the way to find out that they are sitting in a wrong appearance male or female body. For lots of people, their wondering and feelings, being afraid of what others would say, make them suppress their sexuality and their true inner feelings. For most Americans, it seems that only the “normal” (heterosexual) kind is valid, making it very difficult for those who feel differently, to express their feeling or to accept what they really are.

In the USA, there is a very dangerous development going on at the moment, with a certain grassroots group wishing to have all kinds of books removed from libraries and schools. Books for children and young adults containing themes of race, gender and sexual identity received an “unprecedented” number of challenges last year, the American Library Association (ALA) has said, reflecting a growing national trend of attempted censorship. The challenges came from conservative parent groups and others. In some cases, the group says, librarians and elected officials were threatened with violence by members of the Proud Boys and armed activists at school board and library board meetings. In April, Pen America, a non-profit organisation that works to protect freedom of expression in the US, reported that 1,586 bans were implemented in 86 school districts across 26 states in the nine months to the end of March. The challenges reported to ALA in 2021, it said, represented the highest number of attempted book bans since the list began more than 20 years ago.

Already two years ago Republican state Rep. Tony Randolph introduced a bill that would outlaw marriage equality, permanently legalise conversion therapy, ban changes to legal gender markers, and block the passage of LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections.

In February 2020 House Bill 1215 (prohibit the state from endorsing or enforcing certain policies regarding domestic relations) was the third in a trio of anti-LGBTQ bills brought to the state’s legislature, the House passed a bill that criminalised trans-affirming medical care for minors. The other, Senate Bill 88, would require mental health providers to out kids expressing gender dysphoria to their parents. Anti-LGBTQ lawmakers and organisers use the state as a test case for the nation, experts say.

Kara Ingelhart, a staff attorney at Lambda Legal, characterises HB 1215 in particular as one of the most comprehensive bills to date targeting LGBTQ people.

Such laws and attacks from thought-limiting groups are also happening also more in some countries of Eastern Europe, where one can see that people’s freedoms and rights are gradually becoming more and more restricted.

“We don’t allow children’s parents to decide whether or not they can drink underage, whether they can smoke underage, whether they marry underage, and we certainly should not allow a child to be disfigured in a horrible way, in an irreversible procedure before they’re 18 years of age,”

Rep. Williams Lamberth, R-Portland, said.

The Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) said they require parental consent to treat minors who are being seen for issues to those receiving gender-affirming care and never refuse parental involvement for those under 18. VUMC officials said they began their Transgender Health Clinic because

“transgender individuals are a high-risk population for mental and physical health issues and have been consistently underserved by the U.S. health system.”

“We have been and will continue to be committed to providing family-centered care to all adolescents in compliance with state law and in line with professional practice standards and guidance established by medical specialty societies,”

officials said in the statement.

In some countries, people go so far as to consider it plausible that those who dress or behave differently from their physical appearance may be freely harassed, humiliated in words but also in deeds, even raped.

Photo by Alexander Grey on Pexels.com

Countries already immersed in a civil — rather, uncivil —war between two distinct political ideologies, the last five years seem to have come into a #MeToo rage and starting another uncivil war between the two genders.

During childhood, it often happens that parents want to steer their children into certain role patterns that are traditionally constructed. The search for “being” and dealing with attraction towards others, be they persons of the opposite or same sex, is part of growing up and belongs to peculiarities of puberty and adolescence that most young people have to go through.

During the search for one’s own personality and sexual identity, it does happen more than once that a conflict situation arises between parents and child because the parent cannot enter the child’s own emotional world and feels hurt or feels a sense of failure because the child chooses a different sex than the parent has in mind.

In September of this year Tennessee lawmakers made their way into the discourse about providing gender-affirming care. Matt Walsh — a Daily Wire conservative commentator, who questions LGBTQ rights — said he considered the care to be that of castration and mutilation to minors and adults.

According NHS England most children who believe that they are transgender are just going through a “phase”, and therefore  it has announced plans for tightening controls on the treatment of under 18s questioning their gender, including a ban on prescribing puberty blockers, outside of strict clinical trials. The last few years in the states as well as in England we could see more clinics where such puberty inhibitors or hormone blockers, medicines used to postpone puberty in children.

Several campaign groups in Britain, receiving taxpayers’ money have told teachers to drop all gendered toilets and language – and not to tell parents if they change their child’s identity.

The Cass Review, commissioned by NHS England, has found

“there is a disproportionate number of children on the spectrum, in care, same-sex attracted or with trauma in their background who identify as trans.”

Victoria Atkins, who has responsibility for the Government’s gender equality policy, expressed concern that a rising number of teenagers were seeking “life-changing” medical interventions. Young people were undergoing treatment to change their gender because they regard it as

“an answer to questions they are not asking themselves”,

the minister said.

“It may simply be a case of greater awareness, it may be that for some they see it as an answer to questions they are perhaps not asking themselves. We need to be particularly alert to this with regard to young people. The treatments are so serious and life-changing, I’m a little cautious of the use of those treatments because of the potential for the rest of their lives.

“Lots of questions are rightly being asked about how we treat young people, people whose bodies perhaps haven’t developed yet.”

The NHS  services note that there is a need to change the services because there is currently

“scarce and inconclusive evidence to support clinical decision-making”.

NHS England says that the interim Cass Report has advised that even social transition, such as changing a young person’s name and pronouns or the way that they dress, is not a “neutral act” that could have “significant effects” in terms of “psychological functioning”.

Parent groups and professionals have long raised concerns that NHS medics have taken an “affirmative” approach to treating children, including using their preferred names and pronouns.

The proposals say that the new clinical approach will for younger children

“reflect evidence that in most cases gender incongruence does not persist into adolescence” and doctors should be mindful this might be a “transient phase”.

Instead of encouraging transition, medics should take “a watchful approach” to see how a young person’s conditions develop, the plans state.

When a prepubescent child has already socially transitioned,

“the clinical approach has to be mindful of the risks of an inappropriate gender transition and the difficulties that the child may experience in returning to the original gender role upon entering puberty if the gender incongruence does not persist”.

In March 2022 there were 5,500 children on an NHS waiting list for gender swap treatment at the Tavistock and Portman Trust’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) in London, after a “surge in demand”.

In 2010/11 this were only 138 children and in 2020/21 a 17-fold increase could be noted, that number had grown to 2,383 children.

Could the surge in demand for help and treatment possibly be linked to a global pandemic and the three lockdowns that left vulnerable youngsters imprisoned, isolated and glued to their screens?

By January 2021, a report compiled by the Care Quality Commission showed that the waiting list had already reached 4,600. In March, Stephanie Davies-Arai, founder of campaign group Transgender Trend, explained that during those lockdowns,

“life stopped, really – so adolescents at that stage in their lives, where they’re really searching for their identity, turn online”.

Photo by Alexander Grey on Pexels.com

The public consultation documents say that change is necessary against a backdrop of a sharp rise in referrals to the gender identity service, from just under 250 in 2011-12 to over 5,000 last year.

In recent years there has also been a spike, with

“the number of referrals currently at 8.7 per 100,000 population per year in 2021-22 compared to four per 100,000 in 2020-21 and 4.5 per 100,000 in 2019-20”.

On the day that Tom Daley marched into the Commonwealth Games with a pride flag bearing trans colours, the health service announced in July that it would be closing the Tavistock and replacing it with two regional centres based in specialist children’s hospitals.

Trans-ideology according to some is the inevitable culmination of left-wingers deconstructing gender and sexuality in the 1960s cultural revolution. Several conservatives are asking for a serious look at the consequences of the previous era of free expression of opinion and free sex.

Gay activists discredited the notion of aberrant sexual activity. Feminists said gender was a construct and a prison. This coincided with a new take on children, insisting they weren’t miniature versions of their parents but autonomous human beings who should control their own destiny, even their education.

The move is aimed at taking a more “holistic” approach to treating children and looking at the reasons why they are questioning their gender.

It is expected that the regional centres will be operating by the spring, whilst long-term plans for the gender identity services for under 18s, based on the final recommendation of the Cass review, will come into effect in 2023-24.

Rather than being delivered by therapists and hormone specialists, the new clinical teams will include experts “in paediatric medicine, autism, neurodisability and mental health”.

The proposals note that a “significant proportion of children” who are referred for treatment have neuro-development issues or family of social problems.

The new treatment teams will be led by a medical doctor and the service will only take referrals from GPs and other NHS professionals.

NHS England will also “strongly discourage” young people from buying hormones from private clinicians and will not accept clinical responsibility for the treatment of those who have done so.

Is one prepared to bear the consequences that children with yet serious questions regarding their identities and gender have to resolve, and how?

How exactly does the NHS plan to clear up the mess and plan for the fallout of mental health issues that will emerge?

The consultation on the plans closes in December.

It is the task of the adults to help children to accept themselves as they are and to get them to feel happy in their own bodies, even when it is not fitting in the general traditional idea of the mainstream. Parents and health workers should not teach them that mutilating their genitals and living inside a skin costume of the opposite sex is the way to peace and contentment, because studies have shown this is not the case. A life lived in medicalised pretence is not a happy or healthy one.

But we should be open to helping those who have come into adult age, and even when for some that may look late, when they are in their twenties and then changing, there are still many years to come to live in a ‘renewed body’.

Let’s hope the tide is turning, for the sake of our children.

 

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Preceding

A Progressive Call to Arms

Added commentary to the posting A Progressive Call to Arms

Times of overcorrections

Who Am I That I Could Hinder God?

Do the concepts of male and female need to have a formal official definition

The Catholic synod on the family and abortion

Looking at an American nightmare

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Additional reading

1. What’s church for, anyway?
2. Anti-Semitic incidents in Australia in 2012 highest ever on record
3. Human relations 2013
4. Study says highlighting gender leads to stereotypes
5. 2014 Culture
6. Same sex realtionships and Open attitude mirroring Jesus (Our View) = Same sex relationships and Open attitude mirroring Jesus (Some View on the world)
7. Tony Campolo Calls for Full Inclusion of LGBT Into the Church
8. Two synods and life in the church community
9. 2015 Human rights
10. Cincinnati outlaws quoting the Bible
11. In Eastern Europe the Foundations of the European Union in danger
12. Right-wing fundamentalist Christians to dictate the U.S.A.
13. Rights of Polish people in danger
14. Living in this world and viewing it
15. Problems with church counseling for gay people
16. A selection of The Telegraph articles for Sunday 2022 October 23
17. The Telegraph Front Page for Monday 24 October 2022
18. Oppressive language of anti-Jehovah people does more than represent violence
19. Intermarriage and Protecting the state of the Jewish and/or Jeshuaist family
20. Belonging to or being judged by
21. Need to Embrace People Where They Are

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Related

1. The Celebration Will Not Be Televised
2. Stonewall Was Not Televised (a “missing” post)
3. FTWMI: Introducing….You
4. The Impossible Cornerstones of Liberty
5. FTWMI: Re-Introducing Sophie
6. We’re All Going to Die: Doctors
7. Shocking News from the White House!!!: EU, transgender peoples, bathrooms and disagreements.
8. Transphobia: a debate that is perhaps wisest to sit out.
9. Imprecise pronouns
10. Oh, come on, or: Srsly?
11. Gender-neutral, or: Girly
12. America’s (Two) Social Commandments
13. The Tail Of A Winner: A Ten Commandments’ Tale
14. The Conversation Starter: A Ten Commandments’ Tale
15. Woke-nochio: A Ten Commandments’ Tale
16. How The Australian has run a Holy War on transgender youth
17. Let them serve: Defence drops ban on transgender soldiers
18. Unprecedented South Dakota Bill Aims to Erase LGBTQ People From Public Life Entirely
19. When is the right time to reveal your gender identity?
20. A trans woman has been found beaten and strangled to death in her own home
21. Sediments – London Film Festival
22. Digital Inclusion (Transgender)
23. Modern Feminist Classics: “Sexist History at the Heart of the ‘Science’ on Transsexualism” by Dr. Em (Parts I and II)
24. ”Gender dysphoria and being trans” – A scientific explanation
25. Me And The Trans Community
26. Born in the Wrong Body
27. Self-Care Sunday: Learning to Accept & Embrace Who YOU Are Amid Familial & Social Obligations, & Why it’s so Bloody Important!
28. Androgyny
29. Non-binary genders
30. On bisexuality
31. College students are increasingly identifying in ways other than’she’ and ‘he.’
32. Queer: A Graphic History – Meg-John Barker and Julia Scheele
33. Ask The Passengers, and coming out
34. Street harassment, and silence
35. No room for “gender fatigue”!
36. Boss Lady
37. Intro to sociology as cartoon
38. What we need to know as a #society as a #whole
39. Development projects: Urban research, informal settlements, migration, displacement, gender and the climate crisis
40. Kim Hye-soo Hyunta, son Yoo Seon-ho’s gender identity to change (Shrup) : Sports Dong-a
41. Equality
42. Mood 21: masculinity & self-care
43. A Peek into the #MeToo Purgatory Chamber
44. There Are No Cisgender Gods
45. The Hulk and Gender
46. Nashville: Thousands rally near State Capitol to end medical care for transgender kids
47. Is It Men Behaving Badly or Is It Us? Help-Hiding in Men
48. Nashville: Thousands rally near State Capitol to end medical care for transgender kids
49. I Just Want to Understand the Other Boys
50. US libraries face ‘unprecedented’ efforts to ban books on race and gender themes
51. Fig Leaf
52. Biblical Sexuality and Gender Bibliography
53. Biblical Sexuality and Gender, Part Two 1 Peter 3:16-17
54. What Would You Do if Your Dad Came Out to You?
55. Coming Out of “Love, Simon” with Gratitude
56. YOBcast 097: Scripture Stories, Part 2
57. YOBcast 098: Side B Resources, Part 1
58. Gay and Disabled – Just Like Me
59. Am I Actually in Touch with My Feelings as a Gay Man?
60. The First Relationship I Didn’t Know I Wanted
61. Wedding dreamers
62. Free the nipples
63. Women lost their jobs
64. Boys and dolls
65. The old witches
66. When I met The Ladyboys Of Bangkok…
67. Gender-Grusel und Werkzeug (2)
68. Exespía trans denunció que fue detenida en Moscú por llevar bandera de EEUU en su mochila
69. Mulher transexual tem direito a cirurgia plástica mamária feita pelo SUS
70. La verdad sobre el supuesto trío de Fernando Carrillo con una modelo transexual
71. Asesinaron a Alejandra Ironici, la primera mujer trans que cambió su género en el DNI sin ir a la Justicia
72. La insólita historia del transexual que denunció a un ginecólogo porque no lo atendió
73. Revictimización, discriminación e indiferencia: la realidad de las personas trans en Latinoamérica

Do you want to take control of your life?

A danger for our own personality is when we allow other people to take over our mind and control ourselves.
Mind and body have to be in unison with each other and when there is an unbalance we should find our way by meditative arts. Kounovsky, Yoga, Mindfulness and meditation a.o. can help to get back in balance, having a healthy body as a covering of a healthy spirit.
A lot f people also forget that there is a Word Which can bring us back on the right path and make us stronger to cope with all the difficulties of life. That book of book is available in so many languages that everybody, wherever living in the world, can get to read that Guide to live in the best way we can.

Anita's Perspectives on Life

What are boundaries and how to set them?

As discussed in my last article on” Gaslighting”, some people try to control other people around them. The main reason behind this kind of mentality is gaining power over others through their actions. If you are in this kind of situation, it becomes very important to gain control over your own life, so that no one can overpower you and your life.

What is the most crucial part of taking charge of your life?

You should have full control over your body and mind. Mind and body connection is the link between a person’s thoughts, attitudes and behaviors. Everyone knows now that emotions can affect our physical health and longevity.

You must have experienced that your body responds to stress and anxiety or depression. When you are stressed, you might develop high blood pressure or headache. While feeling depression or anxiety, you…

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Stereotypes

Today many focus on social media to find their (fake) mirror-image, all wanting to be better, smarter and richer than they are, plus able to outshine others.

That is what our world makes so crazy and going wrong, having lots of people with burn out and depression, not feeling happy in their skin.

 

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Further related

1. Stereotypes
2. Stereotypes for a reason | Happenology
3. Stereotypes Suck…
4. Breaking down The Alpha Stereotype
5. Gender Stereotypes and Children
6. Media smoke and mirrors
7. Personality
8. 16 Personalities test
9. Blank Mind
10. Superficial Personality
11. Misandry
12. Thoughts
13. How Do I Describe Me?
14. Kokology
15. 10 assumptions I have had to deal with
16. Why Community Awareness is Important

Alive

No one is meant to be perfect, that is why pencils have erasers.

In today’s world of stereotypes, everyone seeks to protrude but ends up as replications of one another.

In the quest of being ‘perfect’, we are losing our originality.

The society is entangled in this web of so-called perfection and is failing to acknowledge the significance of flaws in one’s personality.

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A Place for Questions

On this platform, people who may have many questions, might find lots of answers.

Honestly, I am a very difficult and nervous type of person always full of questions. I can understand that my parents sometimes sat with hands in their hair, which probably could be quicker grey, by my innumerable questions.

Today, the medical world has such a beautiful labels for people with my personality or as many would call it, personality disorder. Being enormous busy, all the time full of energy, constantly with a barrel full of questions running around, I, here and there, have sometimes to find an outlet. But why would I not share some of those questions with others?

How many people are not daily tampered with countless questions, but do not know where they can go with it? For them (and me) there is now on WordPress also a place where they can find questions that are common to many. Also there they may find questions by which they themselves also can pose other questions or give reactions. They may give their opinions on those questions. It is a place for Question and Answer, which hopefully shall be liked by some people. But they will first need to know to find that spot.

All the readers who come along here, are hereby also invited to meet my site Question Time.

Opening’s article of Questiontime – Allereerste artikel op Questiontime – Vragenuurtje: 2016/11/30

Question Time – Vragenuurtje was born on November 30 of the year 2016, and will occasionally posit some questions, which I hope some readers will not mind to give some answers to them. Not really being a forum it just brings some musings and questions to the forefront. The articles are provided with links to other sites which can provide some answers are go deeper into the subject. Complementary to the information supplied by visitors or comments, this should give you and me the ability to dive into the given material and to become somewhat wiser and spiritually richer.

Please do find my invitation, here with, to come to visit and to discover my site Questiontime.

Find the first English articles:

1. First blog post – Eerste blog post
2. The first question: Why do we live
3. 2nd question: What or where is the beginning
4. and the page telling more about Questiontime -Vragenuurtje

Questiontime-Vragenuurtje website: 01 December 2016

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Dutch version: Een Plaats voor Vragen

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Further reading

1. Question Time
2. Question time! #1
3. Question Time from Stirling.
4. Being in the audience of Question Time – a few thoughts
5. Is It Just Me: Horrified After Question Time?
6. Six Things you might not Know about BBC Question Time 
7. Question Time panelist pauses for applause which never comes
8. Is Question Time really biased?
9. Growing old gracefully
10. Well…
11. Get To Know Me!
12. More lame excuses
13. Question – Who do you look up to?
14. Question – What is the one thing that you want to accomplish tomorrow?
15. Question time!
16. Where are you on your Goodreads Challenge?
17. Starting something futile | Question Time
18. What Is The Meaning? #99
19. When should you use first principles thinking? When should you avoid it?
20. Today’s question
21. ask not how but why – musings on ‘the interview’
22. Do I want 
23. I’m going through a whole thing.
24. 25 Questions That Will Tell You Immediately Whether He’s ‘One Of The Good Ones’
25. The First Thought;
26. Personal Development Interaction.
27. Being Okay with the answer NO!
28. Answers
29. Not Everything You Need Is Necessary.

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Related articles

• Love Your Work, Episode 53 – James Altucher: Invest in Yourself
• Finding our identity in serving God

For those Christians who say they are the Victim

You Are Not A Victim

Nova Scotia, Canada (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Paul Van Buren, a preacher born in Nova Scotia, Canada who lived in so many places since then considers himself to be called by God at the age of 19 but knows that calling was knit into him before his birth.

Being a father of 11 children and husband to a most wonderful lady, he is the pastor of a Holy Spirit directed church in LaSalle, Quebec where  he is having the time of his life. On his Pastor’s Blog he writes that it frustrates him when Christians play the part of victim.

He writes:

Victimized Christians do not know who they are in Jesus and it is a shame that they are wasting the precious days they have been given in this world.

Probably he thinks of the many gifts we are given: first of all life itself and secondly many gifts when we grow up and try to make something of our life.

Having lots of messages circulating on the media, with lots of horrible pictures of terrorist acts lost of people are getting so afraid that our Western World would become Islamised and that we Christians should have to convert to Islam or being killed. Strange is that not more people question how it comes that so many left Christianity or Christendom and became Muslim and do not wonder how it comes that so many Christian churches are getting more and more empty.

Clearly we should question Christians how they live their faith. Is not many their faith as dead? What are they doing to bring others into the faith?

How are they helping those who have doubts and wonder if those Muslims are not right?

Let us have a look on what Paul Van Buren writes:

Paul first reminds Timothy that he has been raised and trained in a life of faith. It was demonstrated to him in his mother and grandmother. Paul encourages Timothy by stating that he is confident that this same faith resides in Timothy. Then:

Because of this, I’m reminding you to revive God’s gift that is in you through the laying on of my hands. (v. 6)

I like this. Because of this faith Timothy I am reminding you to operate in it. Live by the Spirit. Do what you have been equipped to do. The Spirit provides the equipping but we are responsible to operate in it. Then Paul writes what we all must grasp:

God didn’t give us a spirit that is timid but one that is powerful, loving, and self-controlled. (v. 7)

This is not personality. Personality type does not play in your calling and equipping. Look at many of the servant’s of the past who tried to get out of their calling with excuses, like Moses and Jonah. It has everything to do with the spirit he has given to us and it is one of boldness. He has equipped us with his power, his love and the power to be self-controlled. This is good stuff that we simply have to act on, in faith that it is so.

Too many Christians seem not to feel that power which they have received, or what has happened more likely when getting older and more trapped by this materialistic world they have lost he fire of their faith and the flames are only burning very weakly or not at all.
Several people are also born in a Christian family and lots of them were even baptised before they could properly think or understand what God and faith really meant. This also makes that many of those name Christians never ever did feel that Spirit in them. They only got the name or the label ‘Christian’ on them and want to consider themselves Christians because they want to belong to the general group of the West.

Now the West comes under threat again from Muslims going to the west, like they had already done before and had conquered Spain, now Europeans are having fear those Muslims will conquer the whole of Europe. But when they would have a strong faith, why should they than be so full of fear?

For sure it is because most of those Europeans do not have any faith in God or do have no idea at all what their faith-groups stands for or if that faith-group follows really the Holy Books or not. The same for the many Muslims here, lots of them born in that faith-group and not knowing enough their own holy books, they do not react strong enough against those who defile their holy books and the teachings of Muhammad. They should have reacted much more against those criminals who defile the Name of God in name of the Muslims, blackening their ummah and making it more difficult to have a peaceful life here in the West.

Today we are living again in a similar time when Noah was alive. Everywhere around us we can see how people live against nature and against God’s Wishes. In a certain way it would be no wonder if God would shaken the world once more to awaken them. But it is not God Who brings terror and horror over people. It are the people themselves who bring cruelty over themselves.

We better should think again of those times, what happened after the water came down and Noah got promises from God. We also should remember how people at the time of Moses very fast had forgotten how God ahd liberated them and how fast they went worshipping other gods again.

Pastor Paul writes:

When Moses was about to die he addressed the nation and told them to possess the land because Yahweh had told them to possess it. He encouraged them:

Be strong! Be fearless! Don’t be afraid and don’t be scared by your enemies, because the Lord your God is the one who marches with you. He won’t let you down, and he won’t abandon you. (Deuteronomy 31:6) 

Two things right there are the source of our boldness. First, our God is always with us, going before us, always preparing the way. He abides in us. Psalm 139 states we can never escape him, even more now that he lives in us. This is for our encouragement.

The second thing the pastor wants to highlight is that we may count on God:

He won’t let you down. That is a big one all on it’s own and can only be understood in the context of a loving, intimate relationship.

Though in his text we have the impression he , like so many Christians got two Biblical characters mixed up. He namely continues than with looking at Jesus, who is the sent one from God, and not God Himself.

As Christians, being followers of Christ, we should believe the words of this Nazarene teacher and see how his heavenly Father protected him and gave him special gifts. In the knowledge that this man also did not tell lies, because he did not sin, we may assume that also his promises will come true.

Jesus promised that he would be with us until the end of this age. He said his desire was for us to be one with him in the same way that he is one with Father. The Way, the Truth and the Life is in you. The one who declared that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him, is intimate with you. The one who stated that he is the Resurrection walks with you every day.

With that knowledge we should have our minds at rest. It should be a comforting thought that at the end times those who love God shall find peace after the big battle or the Big Tribulation, which nobody can escape. Yes the big trouble shall come over us all. But Jesus has told about the signs and it is up to us to recognise them and to prepare ourselves for that time of the Last Days.

It is not that we ourselves shall have to go into the battle and have to be conquerors.

Paul wrote that we are more than conquerors, we are overcomers. We are not victims. We are not powerless. We are not timid, because our God has given us the authority to forgive. Thank about that for a moment. The power does not rest in the hands of the offender but in the hands of the offended. Without your forgiveness, the offender will have to give account for their actions. With your forgiveness that offence is wiped away. By offering forgiveness you are also set free from the cage of victim. That is power and that is what has been given to you with the responsibility to love your enemies.

We cannot and must not live with a victim mentality. Jesus has made us greater, more powerful than people can grasp. Now walk in the boldness you have been given and dare to love where others have failed.

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Preceding: Fear for rebel groups and men

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Related articles

• DIG for Tuesday the 15th of March…..we can know His will, He has revealed it to us…..Ephesians 1 v 9
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• The Holy Spirit and Being Guilty (Word to the Wise)
• Sparked Up
• Building Our Faith
• The holy spirit will bring back to your minds all the things told
• Why is the Holy Spirit sometimes called the Holy Ghost?
• If you’re not baptized in Jesus’ Name according to Acts 2:38, do you need to be re-baptized from Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (Matthew 28:19)?
• God is Jehovah Shammah-God is There!

To Soar In The Spirit You Have To Be Hard Core

A problem with a lot of so called re-born Christians is that they do think they do not have to do anything any more to please God because they are saved for ever. They do not worry to sin, because they trust in that eternal salvation (according to them).

Today, many who call themselves Christian are not really followers of Christ, because they do not follow the teachings of Christ Jesus and they do not take up the task of preaching which Jesus asked his followers to do, going into the world telling the Good News.
Those so called reborn Christians are not exactly in a reborn body or are not a reborn soul. This would demand a transfiguration of their personality and the majority prefers to stay the same as they were before, keeping doing the same traditions, celebrating the same pagan holidays and doing the same pagan activities.
Of many of them it can not be said that they have taken a merciful approach to dealing with those around them who think differently. They also do not work against the enemies of the soul because they are convinced that there are no works of faith. Though they forget the essence of the parables of Christ and the warnings of the rabbi and his disciples, like the saying of the apostle James who clearly tells us that faith without works is death.

When we look at the behaviour of many Christians we cannot see any difference between a believer in Christ and in an atheist. Sometimes we see that the atheist behaves more accepting to people with other ideas than the Christian. We often see atheist who are less aggressive to others than those who call themselves Christian. We also get more aggressive talks and bad names calling from so called Christians than from atheists. Therefore no wonder when we look at the world today we can hardly make any distinction between those who are supposed to be born again and those who are dead in their sin.

Not many today are interested in putting the carnal man to death. There are even Christians who do believe they never had a carnal man in them, because they believe they never were born from a carnal birth.
Today the carnal man willing to be merciful to carnal living and preferring to compromise with the enemies of the soul rather than to destroy any connection with them makes that the filth continues to spread and children of those people do not get the right good examples of Christian living and the Jesus like attitude.

Nothing has changed much over the centuries. Today we still see the double minded, trying to serve the flesh and live spiritual at the same time.

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Preceding article:

Salvation and Righteousness

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Please read also:

1. Being Religious and Spiritual 8 Spiritual, Mystic and not or well religious
2. As Christ’s slaves doing the Will of God in gratitude
3. Myth 12: The Hyper-Grace Gospel Makes People Lazy
4. God’s wrath and sanctification
5. Evangelisation, local preaching opposite overseas evangelism
6. The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong
7. Outflow of foundational relationship based on acceptance of Jesus
8. A race not to swift, nor a battle to the strong

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  That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
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  Time as we know it is coming to a close, and the wrath of God against the ungodly is fueled by His anger against you, and His judgement is already hanging over your heads, awaiting the proper time to unleash it’s vengeance upon you. You are standing on the edge of your own doom and don’t recognize it.
  (ed.note: the writer talks about fools who would not see who Jesus is but we do have the impression he himself is not seeing who Jesus actually is and what he rally has done. He writes ” and investigate the facts to see if Jesus was indeed God as he said he was,” but jesus never said such a thing and never claimed to be God.)
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  If people do these things to a live, green tree, can you imagine what they’ll do with deadwood?
• Witness for JESUS (news.sosevents.org)
  Many Christians do not witness. Fear is probably the biggest reason they do not tell others. SOS Events simple method the “3 Things God CanNot Do” helps to take away fear and excuses. SOS has tools, training, tracts and tactics to help anyone become a witness for Christ.
• See Other with God’s Eyes (heartfixxer.wordpress.com)
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  A song of Salvation should be on all our hearts. Preparing the way for others to come to be apart of our lives. How will anybody hear unless we make ourselves willing, to be filled by The Holy Spirit, and used as a vessel, to share the good news of Salvation, with whoever we come across.

theinscribedheart

Deuteronomy 7:2
“And when the Lord your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them.”
These are the instructions given to the children of Israel right before going in to possess the promise land. Take a minute and get a feel for the uncompromising mindset that Yahweh commanded them to have as they went in to possess the land. Make no deals, show no mercy, and utterly destroy.
Joshua, Moses successor, was a foreshadow of our Christ. Jesus Christ and Joshua actually were called by the same name in Hebrew, Yeshua. Understand that Yeshua leading the children of Israel into the promised land of their inheritance is a direct correlation to Yoshua, the Christ, leading the redeemed church through the salvation of the soul. The children of Israel fought Hittites, Jebusites, Amorites…

View original post 619 more words

Just be yourself…

The problem with the present society is that most people do not want to be themselves, but try to be like the stars and media personalities present themselves.

Most people want to live in a ‘would be’ or ‘wish it were like this’ fantasy world, were they can enjoy all material luxury, but forget the spiritual values which are more important.

To be oneself is often not appreciated by contemporary society, which already prescribes tranquillisers to babies kids and puppies. Yes the beloved pets do not seem to escape the rage of defining Adhd, Asperger and other syndromes.

Many have forgotten that those who dare to wear their own clothing how they want it, use the gadgets they prefer, because they personally like them, do not run with all the others to follow the mainstream, are those who are the strongest.

They are the ones who may be the strangers in our society, but who are the real individuals with their own value to stand strong in the storms, not changing like the wind blows from one or the other site.

It is by just being yourself, not minding what all the rest may do, that you will be able to go through your life finding satisfaction and getting to the point where you want to be. Getting at the goal is by knowing what you want and what you can achieve, no matter how others may disappoint you or try to get you on other ideas.

Know what you want, where to go, and continue according to your own stubborn ideas, hoping to reach the goal worth aiming at.

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Do you want to face yourself being the one who dares to build up and to destroy the self? Are you willing to accept your independent soul, which may be stubborn and headstrong, trying to live with a self-governance? Are you willing not to loose the sense of self, not having to mirror your preferences instead?

Let yourself be inspired to guide yourself to grow, sometimes blindfolded to the edge of the cliff, where  many may be looking from high up, wanting to laugh with you.

Remind than one of Amy’s texts:

You stood at the edge and watched unaware,

amazed at the efficiency of your plunder of me.

Arms crossed, a smug look of satisfaction

crept prematurely across your face,

and the winds stirred and protested,

the earth shook and groaned,

and a deluge burst forth beneath your feet

and that false security was washed away.

When did the emptiness and despair

that dwelled within burn and crumble

and give way to hope,

a yearning to be free?

– from The Art of Diametrical Opposition

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I hope and think this girl has perhaps found strength in her real ‘me’ that was hidden under the surface. She might, like several other people, women and/or men, have their life been impacted by  insidious, cruel, and merciless terror regardless of their education, finances, ethnic and religious background, gender, age, and sexual orientation.

Whatever happens in our life, how much others would like to destroy us. From the Inner-power we have, all having been created in the image of God, we can find the cornerstone to build on and the Guide to help us through life. All of us in search for the self can find the own inner being and the Helper ready to give His Hand.

Even when other humans may get on your nerves sometimes and you can’t understand why they insist on doing the same stupid things, over and over again, then you shall not have to worry you went your own way willing to follow that inner voice. When you want to give an ear to the Strongest Voice in you, silence shall be broken and light will shine in the dark, a Securing Voice calling you. Then you shall not have to get tired of the repetitive stupidity of human behaviour. Better imagine what it must be like for God. He’s been watching this parade a lot longer than many have.

Thankfully He is infinitely patient and able to see our higher selves far better than we are. Sometimes  people manage to forget we even have higher selves. God never forgets and He is in it for the long haul. {insanitybytes22 in The World}

Be it a raging misogynist who is grateful but is convinced that some have utopian visions for a perfect society, let us always do hope that if we start in our own little surroundings and by making more strong personalities who keep believing in their self, we can come closer to a nicer world where we can become respected as our own personality, worth being here.

The ‘I Am‘ Jehovah God created us. In Him we should listen more to the ‘I Am’ in us.

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  I began to find that the more I embraced the I AMs I was given as a child, the more confusing it felt to display the opposite characteristics without often questioning their authenticity. One big one for me was discovering that I AM in fact, not thick-skinned, tough or head strong, as I had been told countless times in my youth.
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  When is this country going to be free from the caste discrimination! To say, we all are Indians but, there are different castes and religions residing here. We are free from Britishers but, when are we going to be free from this discrimination’s done where one Indian will kill another, in the name of a religion! Where has the humanity evaded. Many accused are still freely roaming outside and in search of their next prey, many victims are still awaiting their day of justice today!
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Beatriz Esmer

Are we ever going to fully know ourselves? Aren’t we always changing, always becoming someone new? I think when we start to search for categories to fit in and names to call ourselves is when we really get messed up. Why do we need to be anything at all? I don’t think we really find ourselves, I think we create ourselves. You are a collection of everything that you have ever heard, read, seen, felt, thought, touched… There is no finding, only becoming. Don’t grab at things for no reason hoping it will be something that can define you. Aren’t there things that pull at your soul? Anything at all. Go to those things. Try them and look into them and do whatever you want to do. You are becoming yourself all of the time. Accepting yourself is accepting change. It’s inevitable. You will never be one thing. You are…

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Pieces

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  The day the news came.
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  Emerging when I’m most vulnerable, and least expecting it.

 

Found with Grace

I found a piece of me yesterday
It was my smile
I haven’t seen it for a while since you shattered all of me

I’ve missed that piece of me
Each time I find bits of a missing piece
I get so excited I want to show you
Something you used to see as beautiful and valuable
I hold it out with both my hands open for you to see
With cold eyes you break it again
My hands fall beside me
And I look at the pieces on the floor
Blurry from the tears welling up

You turn your back and walk away
I stand there watching you leave
And collect the pieces from the floor in my arms

It’s OK, I’ll glue them together again and find more broken pieces
But next time I won’t bring them to you.

View original post

A bird’s eye and reflecting from within

Can you imagine flying birds travelling for miles and miles, crossing habitat regions and places where nearly no human being tramples on the ground.

metropolis (Photo credit: jonfeinstein)

From high above those birds can see how those earthlings destroy their own habitat. They see them wanting to live in their own dirt.

Those birds look down at those creatures who so often dream about what they can do and worry so much about the day of tomorrow. They do not imagine the life those people want, though many of them might imagine wonderful things.
Those beings down there spent lots of their time focusing on gathering all sorts of material gadgets. Their world seems to turn more around money than on getting food. Though we must be honest lots of them also focus their intention toward realizing their deepest desires and dreams.

How many of those people dare to go up in the sky and go forward to that one goal, thousands of miles away?

How many would begin to believe those dreams, aims and goals were possible?

A Soul Talk questions:

If you gave your attention to those things in your mind that spoke of your great beauty and talent, would you start to believe and have confidence in yourself again?  If life all around you is simply a reflection of those thoughts you most focus on, wouldn’t you be more careful of what you repeated over and over again to yourself?

When we look in nature we do see that the seasons decide what shall going to happen. The animals do not doubt. They are not going to wait and see if it will be worthwhile to take off or to settle down.

The birds can often see man as a fish which fails to see the water it swims in. They have a brain but use it strangely and are so often more concerned about figuring things out. they all think they are able to make and control their own world. Most of them want to play for God. Everything they do becomes calculated. Modern mind has become more and more calculating.

The calculative exactness of practical life which the money economy has brought about corresponds to the ideal of natural science: to transform the world into an arithmetic problem, to fix every part of the world by mathematical formulas. Only money economy has filled the days of so many people with weighing, calculating, with numerical determinations, with a reduction of qualitative values to quantitative ones. (“The Metropolis and Mental Life” p.412)

They all look for consistent and reliable formulas to how life works. For them formulas are re-assuring, such as

“be a banker/lawyer/accountant/doctor, because these jobs translate into big numbers, and these big numbers mean success”.

Success is something which they can count and measure. They have their eyes focused on those pieces of papers with heads and figures on it, but do not see where they are flying at.

Eddie Tay on Hong Kong lucida writes:

Of course, there are many successful bankers/lawyers/accountants/doctors who lead meaningful lives and who enjoy their jobs. I’m only arguing against the confusion between quality and quantity. Quality cannot be easily quantified. Sometimes we play this soundtrack too readily. {The Metropolis and Mental Life}

Hong Kong Kowloon Panorama Victoria Peak 2011 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For the birds it may look like life for man is oh so infinitely easy, and everything seems to lie at their fingertips. They have their big nests,  buildings which want to compete with the trees and air around, hoping to be the tallest one. They have their educational institutions, in the wonders and comforts of space-conquering technology, in the formations of community life, and in the visible institutions of the state. They offer themselves fantasies and create fro themselves an overwhelming fullness of crystallized and impersonalized spirit that the personality, so to speak, cannot maintain itself under its impact. From all sides they allow ideas coming up to them, in the hope they can become a personality like by the others. From the others they want to receive stimulations and interests. They all are consumed by time.

They carry the person as if in a stream, and one needs hardly to swim for oneself. On the other hand, however, life is composed more and more of these impersonal contents and offerings which tend to displace the genuine personal colorations and incomparabilities. This results in the individual’s summoning the utmost in uniqueness and particularization, in order to preserve his most personal core. He has to exaggerate this personal element in order to remain audible even to himself.  (“The Metropolis and Mental Life” p. 422)

Eddie Tay finds this to be rather depressing.

The modern concern with the uniqueness of our personality emerges out of an anxiety. Now that everything is for sale, we’re compelled to be “unique”, “autonomous” and “individual” so as to differentiate ourselves from other cogs in the giant capitalist machine. “Look at me I’m so unique and interesting,” I tell myself and others, knowing that there are tens of thousands of people around me (and many with blogs like this) saying precisely the same thing. {The Metropolis and Mental Life}

Many more people should be aware that

We are surrounded by things we buy with numbers. And these things, whether tangible or intangible, which we buy and sell, turn us into who we are. {The Metropolis and Mental Life}

Photo from Eddie Tay, Honk Kong lucida

We make ourselves, by what we consume for our mind and for our mind. Stomach and brain take up the food what we present it, we can either make it healthy or poison it. When you look at certain markets, it seems that people can not get enough of material, but also are drowning themselves by it. Too many people forget what impact all those things around them can have on their life.

We all should better take a moment to transfer ourselves in a bird and look at ourselves from way up there in the sky. We should take some distance, now and then, from what we do and want to do, and reflect on what we did, want to do and on what we would like to succeed and which goal we would like to make.

With Spring time we should not only do our Spring cleaning but we could take a new start. You too, can start today to believe that you can impact your external world by placing your focus on images of love, kindness, and joy and you will truly be surprised by what you attract to yourself.

Start today to live in consciousness as to what is happening within you, you will then have the grand opportunity to create what is happening around you in a more remarkable and enjoyable way. {Simply a reflection from within!}

The mother of Soul talk has learned her lesson from the wise song of her toddler which continues to ring true- in the face of adversity “Never give up never never give up!”.

Keep the faith and you shall persevere- I have learned this very difficult lesson recently and can tell you your only choice is to keep the faith and move forward-the alternative is not so appealing- I can promise you that-your biggest break can be just around the corner and if you did not move towards it you would never know. {Never give up!}

Every year again the birds make their nest. They never seem to be tired to do it over and over again. We should also continue trying to do the things we really want to do.

There are millions of people who do not know they have a security key in their own hands. They themselves have been given, by birth, the key to knowledge and inner peace. All being created in the image of the Divine Creator we do have elements from this Eternal Spirit. He acknowledges our being, but we ourselves are not willing to see our own being in relationship with Him. There lies the biggest problem of humankind.

In case we would accept the Creator of our being, and accept that He has to be the Most High Master, than we could find fulfilment and guidance by following His instructions which He has given to the whole world.

In the Garden of Eden He has given man the right to take care of the world himself. But He always was prepared to help those who wanted Him next to them. Those who want His Guidance He is willing to give.

As adults, we build upon the hopes of our parents and the fertile imaginations of our youth. We continue to foster the dreams that were born in our hearts on our first day of life, yet now have the tools to bring those dreams forth into our realities. {With courage, our dreams become reality!}

That is not bad. We all should have dreams and continue to make dreams. We should try to build up our life by dreams coming through. We have to foster our dreams and have to build up courage to see them through.

The courage to step beyond our fears of failure. The courage to meet doubt head on.  The courage to pursue the ideas that were born in us, given to us, to be discovered by us to enjoy the fantastic world that begs for us to explore. The courage to make all our dreams come true. {With courage, our dreams become reality!}

In case we would accept the Guiding Hand of the Creator and dare to ask Him to help us, He will be there for us.

If we ask, believe, and have the courage to act, and begin to receive, the life we have imagined can be the life we are living.  When we start to believe and have faith in all that is possible for us, then we align with the hopes of our parents, the child within who dared to be whomever she wanted to be, and the adult whose courageous acts of faith allow those dreams to become a reality. {With courage, our dreams become reality!}

We often forget just to take some time to be with that Mightier Being. We mostly trust to much those who are of this earth, instead of counting on the one in heaven.

Why not trying to take a turning point? Why not simply taking the time each day to focus on those positive attributes and intentions that give you great happiness? Putting on the right mind shall help us but also those around us, on the right track and bring them in the right mood. When we do take a positive attitude we may rest assured that people and things will start to show up in your life that will greatly add to your happiness.

Let it be said that a person who feels good on the inside will experience that good on the outside.  A person who looks at life with a glass half full mentality, will eventually have their cup runneth over.  Your world is but a mirror of what is happening inside of you. So before you start your day, promise yourself that you will take a moment or two to reflect on what you are grateful for to charge those positive emotions, then set out to experience your own something wonderful  when you start from that joyous place within. If your world is simply a reflection from within, wouldn’t it be in you best interest to make it the best reflection of a well lived life that you could ever imagine!   {Simply a reflection from within!}

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Preceding articles:

Birds, Birds Everywhere

Birds’ Eye

Food for Thought-Birds of Caution

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Additional reading:

1. Searching for fulfilment and meaning through own efforts, facing unsatisfaction and depression
2. The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking places
3. Some one or something to fear #2 Attitude and Reactions
4. God Feeds The Birds
5. Food as a Therapeutic Aid
6. Men as God
7. People Seeking for God 5 Bread of life
8. People Seeking for God 6 Strategy
9. Religions and Mainliners
10. The truth is very plain to see and God can be clearly seen
11. A Living Faith #2 State of your faith
12. A Living Faith #3 Faith put into action
13. A Living Faith #10: Our manner of Life #2
14. A Living Faith #12 The Love for Jesus
15. Some one or something to fear #7 Not afraid for Gods Name
16. Texts, writers, accessibility and willingness
17. Rest thy delight on Jehovah
18. Without God no purpose, no goal, no hope
19. A goal is a dream with a plan
20. A treasure which can give me everything I need
21. Opportunity!
22. Count your blessings
23. By counting our blessings we not only feel good, but we multiply our good
24. Set free from any form of mental torment or self-condemnation
25. A good idea to halt all activity for one hour some day
26. We should use the Bible every day
27. Come ye yourselves apart … and rest awhile (Mark 6:31)
28. God does not change
29. See the conquest and believe that we can gain the victory
30. Not holding back and getting out of darkness
31. A New Perspective
32. The Paradigm of Instinct, Intuition and Intention
33. Being Religious and Spiritual 7 Transcendence to become one
34. Looking for True Spirituality 2 Not restricted to an elite
35. Looking for True Spirituality 8 Measuring Up
36. How long to wait before bringing religiousness and spirituality in practice
37. Points to remember of philosophy versus spirituality and religion
38. Our relationship with God, Jesus and eachother
39. Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal
40. Try driving forward instead of backwards
41. Life is like a ten-speed bike.
42. Suffering produces perseverance

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  I see them every year along the power line corridor, but I hope to spend a little more time this summer listening for their distinctive calls (the male sings all day, even in the heat of summer) and enjoying their brilliant blue attire.
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