Bridge to Success

Life's Like This — A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame others for his failures. I believe it would be safe to assume that we all go through life hoping, perhaps even dreaming of finding success in our life's ambitions. The path to success is often riddled with obstacles and a series of setbacks that keep us from achieving our goals. And with those setbacks, disappointment and depression can occur causing us to doubt if our dreams and aspirations will ever materialize. At times like this, it is easy to give up hope, to throw in the towel and quit pursuing our goals. Quite often, we are quick to blame others for our failures rather than examining our role in our inability to realize our dreams. Once we start down the path of blaming others, we will find increased difficulty in achieving success until we remove the blinders that hinder our personal growth.

Confronting Our Attitude

Life's Like This — To some, life is a breeze and for others it's just one head wind after another. Facing storms and challenges in life is simply, part of life. Many of us wish that we could avoid them altogether, that they would chart a course in a direction that steers clear of our personal lives and all the people we love and care for. But as we grow older and life unfolds, we quickly come to realize that the lessons and challenges of life are not for a select few — everyone must have their share of them to contemplate, to wrestle with, to try to make sense of, and to try to avoid again in the future. While it sometimes seems that others live lives that are free of many of the obstacles you or I are forced to confront, life does not discriminate — it doesn't matter if you are rich or poor, the challenges of life are sure to unfold and must be met regardless of our wealth or social standing. How we meet the challenges we are confronted with will often dictate their outcome and the impact they eventually have on our lives.

Knowing God's Plan

Life's Like This — Sometimes the paths that God sets for our lives are not the shortest, most direct routes, or at least that is how it appears. Quite often, we want to get to our destination on our own time schedule rather than exercising the patience needed to arrive at our destination according to God's plan. Knowing God's plan for our lives and what blessings He has in store for us are questions that many of us seek to know the answers to. It would be nice if we could just give God a phone call, or meet Him for a cup of coffee to discuss questions we have and to learn all the details we need to live our lives fully and in accordance with His plans for us. But God does not work that way; He wants us to exercise faith and trust in HIs Word that whenever we come before Him in prayer, that He will hear us and answer the burning questions we have in His time and in a manner that He chooses. And He wants us to know that He has our back, that He is always looking over our shoulder, keeping an eye on the road ahead, and speaking to us through the Holy Spirit with words of comfort and guidance as we face the trials of life. If truth be told, most of us are not willing to wait on God. We want His blessings now, on our own time schedule, and in a manner or way that we choose.

Keeping The Faith

Life's Like This — Faith is oftentimes a battle, especially in the midst of overwhelming grief. It has been said that nothing on this earth lasts forever, except perhaps the love you can hold in your heart for one of God's creations. Such is the love I have in my heart for my beloved Golden Retriever, Sweety. If ever there was a dog that could capture the hearts of people she came in contact with, Sweety was such a dog. For over seven years, Sweety lived up to her name. Not only did she enrich the lives of my family and friends, but she touched the hearts of countless others with her beauty and loving personality. Sweety was a true blessing from God. On July 5, 2012, Sweety went to “Doggy Heaven” after being diagnosed with Osteo-Sarcoma, a bone cancer that left her lame and with a poor prognosis of leading a healthy and quality life. But while she is now gone, the memories of how she touched my life are firmly embedded in my heart and mind. And for those memories I am deeply grateful. And yet, coping with her loss is a daily struggle, one that I wish I did not have to go through. Sweety was such an integral part of my life. All around me are reminders of things we did together and of the life we shared since she was six weeks of age.

Losing Face With God

Life’s Like This — All too often in our Christian walk, we lose sight of what it means to be in Christ. I am not speaking of the stumbles in life that are part of the Christian journey all of us are certain to encounter, but rather the blatant and willful acts of sin that can cause us to lose face, not only with ourselves, but with God. In China, as in other cultures, losing face can mean that one has lost his dignity, social standing, honor, and trustworthiness with someone that may have once held them in high esteem. In a spiritual sense, when we engage in blatant and willful sins, sins that we know go against God’s Word, we can find ourselves in a quagmire of self-deception where we think that there is nothing we can do that can cause us to lose face with God. But when we adopt that mindset, when we let ourselves get caught up in blatant sins, we can then become so enamored by those sins that we find it extremely difficult to abandon them. It’s not that we don’t know right from wrong, but rather that we choose to engage in willful disobedience to the laws of God and His purpose and direction for our lives. Freeing ourselves from the clutches of sin — finding the will, the courage, and the moral fortitude to break the hold of sin over our lives then becomes a spiritual struggle that we sometimes feel we must do on our own because we think we have lost face with God.

Veterans of Life

Life’s Like This — When you do nothing, you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved, you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better. Life can be so unpredictable. Dreams that your life was built on could be dashed by circumstances beyond your control and leave you feeling depressed and without a purpose in life. There is no way to tell when and if your dreams may be fulfilled. The best we can do is to be prepared for the unexpected and to realize that life happens and that despite our best efforts to fulfill life goals, that sometimes our plans don’t turn out as we had hoped for. And when our dreams don’t materialize, we have a choice — do we give up on our dreams and spend the rest of our lives complaining about what could have been, or do we chart a new course, one that is full of hope for the future and that serves as a springboard for a new sense of purpose for our lives.

Rising Above Our Sin

Life’s Like This — Someone that has truly stood face to face with God in their heart and their spirit, will find it very hard, very nearly impossible, to turn back from that revelation of Him in their life. They may suffer setbacks; they will fail in certain areas of their life; different things can creep in and dilute life at times, and their may be certain times of wavering. But if you look back over a long span of time, you’ll find them always progressing. Somewhere in their heart and in their life they are growing and they are even learning from their failures. I remember as a child, about the age of eight, that I first came to know about Jesus. I did not have an epiphany, as some people do, but through Sunday School lessons, and my mother’s faith, I came to know Christ and the gift of salvation that He gave, not only to me, but to all of mankind. It was a gift that I had accepted by asking Jesus to come into my heart, to forgive my sins, and to help me live my life for Him. But if truth be told, I did not fully understand and appreciate, at that young age, the magnitude of suffering that Christ paid on the cross for my sins. I did not, at that age, even comprehend the significance of sin in my life and the hold it will have on my behavior and the consequences that would follow me all through my life as a result of living a life riddled with sin.

The Bondage of Emotional Pain

Life’s Like This — There are moments, I believe, in most of our lives, where the joy of living is overcome with depression, anxiety, and the fear of stepping outside one’s comfort zone to experience the best that life can offer. Moments in life, where it can be difficult to escape the bondage of emotional pain because we are fearful of letting others get close to us, where we can trust them with our feelings, and where we can let them get to know us to a point where a bridge of understanding can be built and relationships can flourish. Quite often, emotional pain is hidden, deep in a closet of darkness, and tucked away in seclusion where it can languish in solitude. But for others, their emotional pain is quite evident; they seem to carry the wounds of their heart on their sleeves where it is apparent to all that know them. For those of us caught up in a web of emotional pain, we often ask ourselves, when will it all end? Why, despite all the counseling we may have gone through, does the pain still persist? And why must we be held hostage to this pain from which there seems to be no escape?

Sharing Our Faith

Life’s Like This — In an ideal environment, all our relationships would draw us closer to the Lord. However, we live in a fallen world with sinful people. God wants us to influence those who aren’t walking obediently with Him, but unless we’re careful, we could easily end up following them. Being a faithful Christian is a challenge for even the most devoted man or woman of God. But for those of us that are weak in our faith, who lack the spiritual countenance to weather the storms of life, our faith and witness to others can be sorely tested and we can easily find ourselves following the footsteps of those that have not yet come to know Christ. As much as we may want to reflect Christ-like behavior and attitudes toward others, unless we take on the armor of God to shield us from the sinfulness of the world, we will fail in our Christian walk and our ability to influence those that God calls us to lead to Him.

Celebrating Memorial Day

Life’s Like This — It seems that each year, in the face of a holiday from work and the leisure activities it offers, we have to remind ourselves why we celebrate Memorial Day. The day itself is meant to be a reminder of the ultimate sacrifice that America’s men and women have made in the service of their country. Yet, for most of us, the true meaning and observance of Memorial Day has been relegated to the side-lines, one that has been supplanted by trips to the mall for advertised sales, laying out at the pool, picnics, and other events that have nothing to do with the honoring of those that sacrificed their lives in the defense of our country. But for those who have lost loved ones in service to our country; for the millions of veterans who know first-hand the hardships of military service; and for those American’s that understand the emotional toll and personal sacrifice of our men and women in uniform, Memorial Day is about honoring those that gave their lives so that we can continue to enjoy the freedoms we have as Americans.