“A friend is someone who helps you up when you’re down, and if they can’t, they lay down beside you and listen.” Unknown

When is the last time you missed hearing something important because you were so busy? What was the outcome?

My dear brothers and sisters, be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. (James 1:19; NLT)

This came to me a couple of weeks back and I thought it would make a great Friday story. As coaches, we’re trained to listen. Those of you who have known me for some time can remember that listening was not one of my strong suits. Now that I’ve been coaching for a little more than eight years, I’ve made significant improvements, but I recognize that I’ve got a ways to go yet. As Andrew Wommack, one of my mentors, says, “I ain’t there yet, but I’ve left.” This story will likely show you, just as it showed me, that maybe I’m not quite as far along as I thought.

Who is he?

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousand of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

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“The best way to lose weight is to close your mouth…or watch your food – just watch it, don’t eat it.” Edward Koch

How well are you doing with staying active during these winter months?

Because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in. (Prov 3:12; NIV)

Our friend Gary enjoys life to the fullest. He embraces all that he does with great gusto! Last summer he was diagnosed with high blood pressure and was prescribed a common hypertensive drug which he began to take. Gary will be the first to confess that he was also carrying around some extra weight. He made the decision to do something about the excess weight and the high blood pressure.

Gary and his wife joined the gym where Jerry and I work out. He started with a rather vigorous routine on the recumbent bike. Due to a serious knee injury that occurred over a year ago, his knee has some residual damage. Gary needed to be cautious about how and what he did to begin his exercise program. But he was diligent. He worked out in the mornings on the bike and then returned at the end of the day with his wife to work on the weight machines. He also made some dietary changes, consumed less food, and “cut way back on the sodas.” (BTW, he didn’t ask for my advice — he probably knows I would have been a little more firm about his dietary choices.)

Gary consistently monitored his blood pressure, and after a few short weeks, his readings were drastically decreased. He was soon able to decrease and then completely stop the medication. His blood pressure remains stable and “textbook.” He hit a few rough patches in December with his exercise, but he’s been back at it for several weeks now.

Jerry and I also have the pleasure of seeing Gary on Sunday mornings at church. There is less and less of him to see each week. He looks strong, healthy, and smaller! He’s dropped several waist sizes and keeps cinching in that belt. He says he still has a number of pounds to lose, but he’s well on his way. Amazing what a little consistency and determination can do. Way to go Gary! We’re all proud of you.

Prayer Power
Father, we thank You that You are always with us, guiding, directing, and protecting us. We thank You for the wisdom and knowledge that You provide for us.

Link of the Day
Low Glycemic Eating

Blessings on you as you remain consistent with what God is calling you to do.

“Mack, just because I work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies doesn’t mean I orchestrate the tragedies.  Don’t ever assume that my using something means I caused it or that I need it to accomplish my purposes.”  Wm. Paul Young

Why do you suppose some are so drawn to controversy?

So wherever you assemble, I want men to pray with holy hands lifted up to God, free from anger and controversy.  (1 Timothy 2:8; NLT)

I promise to make this my last post on The Shack — at least for now.  But I did want to take one last shot at peaking your interest in this fascinating book.

If you’re drawn to controversy, there’s certainly a lot of that surrounding this book.  I loved what Brandilyn Collins wrote in her blog regarding The Shack, “It doesn’t contain the entire orthodoxy of Christianity, but that’s not its focus. Its message is of God’s love, and it is, in the end, a novel. However, there certainly is some controversy, although the naysayers are far outweighed in number. I do recommend reading the book because so many people are talking about it. It’s not fair to voice opinions without reading the thing.”  I couldn’t say it any better than that.

Kim Gentes writes, “One could argue that the images and metaphors may not sit well with the buttoned-down theocrats, and that, yes, perhaps the allegories aren’t perfect at every level. But the over-arching nuance of Young’s book is not that we need a theology class — it’s that we need to actually live what we say we believe. That God is love. That His efforts towards us have always been completely done in love, and will continue so. That His primary purposeful intent in dealing with mankind is to make Himself and His love completely and gloriously sufficient for us, whilst giving us the freedom to reciprocate that love back to Him in words and lives of praise, thanksgiving, and worship.”

With those two quotes, I will leave you be…at least on this topic.

Prayer Power
Lord, thank You for using a servant like Paul Young to draw our attention back to You.  It will be fascinating to see how all this plays out over the next several years.  What a blessing to be alive in times such as these.

Link of the Day
USA Today report on “The Shack”

Blessings on you as you choose to think for yourself.

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“Caramelized onions make a savory addition to many dishes. Making them is simple–it just takes time.”  www.wikihow.com

How are you doing with your exercise goals you set at the beginning of the year?

We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost — also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic.  (Nu 11:15; NIV)

How many of you enjoy onions?  I know there are some people who really don’t like onions.  I’ve seen people remove them from salads and set them aside.  And I’ve seen people turn up their nose at the mention of a food containing onions.  Others have told me that “onions don’t like them,” suggesting digestive challenges.  (That can be remedied, by the way.)

Today’s recipe is just in time for the big, Super Bowl weekend fast approaching for you football fans.  Onion dip is a popular “appetizer” for the snack food crowd.  However, this recipe is a far cry from the processed, packaged, store-bought kind.  Onions are such a wonderful, healthy food for us to eat.  Onions, like garlic are members of the Allium family, and both are rich in powerful sulfur-containing compounds that are responsible for their pungent odors and for many of their health-promoting effects.

The World’s Healthiest Foods tells us that eating onions on a regular basis can help to lower high blood sugar levels, decrease high cholesterol levels and lower high blood pressure.  Making onions and garlic a staple in your healthy way of eating may greatly lower your risk of several common cancers, including colon and ovarian cancer.

This recipe calls for cooking the onions over low heat for at least 30 minutes.  The onions will actually caramelize.  Caramelized onions are such a sweet treat!  I still remember the first time I had them in a restaurant many years ago.  That night the chef actually came to our table to chat and see how we enjoyed the meal.  I asked him about those delicious onions…what made them so sweet and how did he do that?  He gave me my first instruction on caramelizing onions.

I just now found an entire post on “How to make caramelized onions!”  They suggest using a non-stick pan.  Most of our readers know my thoughts of those — DON’T!!!  A cast-iron skillet or stainless steel pan works great.  I use coconut oil and a little butter for flavor as opposed to using olive oil or canola oil.  The “secret” ingredient in caramelizing onions is TIME.  It takes time, patience and a low temperature to allow them to caramelize and develop their natural sweetness.  But the end is well worth every minute spent.  Enjoy your week!

Prayer Power
Lord, we continually stand in awe of Your goodness to us and in the many ways You bring delight to Your children.

Link of the Day
Caramelized Onion Dip

Blessings on you as you look for more ways to include onions in your diet.

“Relationships are never about power, and one way to avoid the will to power is to choose to limit oneself — to serve.”  William P. Young

How important are relationships to you?  How well does your day-to-day life reflect that value?

Then God said, “Let us make people in our image, to be like ourselves. They will be masters over all life — the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the livestock, wild animals, and small animals.”  (Gen. 1:26; NLT)

Let’s go back to The Shack.  The book has a very compelling story line which embraces a question that is on everybody’s heart, Christian and non-Christian alike.  If God is real and allegedly so good, how can there be so much evil in the world?  (This question is the basis of the theological focus called “theodicy.”  Not that it matters much, but it just might help you win a game of Scrabble some day.)

Does Paul Young answer the question that centuries of theologians haven’t been able to?  Certainly not, but he does offer some refreshing viewpoints that deserve further reflection.  In my mind, the beauty of the The Shack is not in the answers it offers, nor even in the story line, but lies within the ongoing conversations with Mack, the main character of the story, and members of the Trinity.  The book’s strength, to me anyway, lies in its ability to cause me to consider several issues that I thought I was sure of in a whole new light.  As I mentioned last week, it takes grace to a whole new level in my thinking.

Let me quote some of the conversation on one of the central themes of the book–relationship.

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“If we have as much sense as geese, we stay in formation with those headed where we want to go.  We are willing to accept their help and give our help to others…”  Angeles Arrien

Take a look at your four or five closest friends.  Are they headed where you want to go?  If not, what should you do about that?

“Look!” he said. “If they can accomplish this when they have just begun to take advantage of their common language and political unity, just think of what they will do later. Nothing will be impossible for them!  (Gen. 11:6; NLT)

It’s Friday, so I thought a little break from The Shack was in order.  I’ll do a couple more posts on that awesome book next week.

I received a great little video earlier in the week that I wanted to share with you — something to think about through the weekend.  I find it amazing that books have been written on the leadership topic of teamwork which don’t say as much nor are they as memorable as this little 2 minute video.

A little Internet research revealed that “Lessons from Geese” was transcribed from a speech given by Angeles Arrien at the 1991 Organizational Development Network and was based on the work of Milton Olson.  There are lessons here that we all need to learn.

We also received another delightful little video that I’ve included as the Link of the Day.  How about that?  A double feature.  I remember my mother dropping me off at the theater on Saturdays for the cowboy double feature while she went shopping.  Double features are made for weekends…or is it the other way around.  Anyway, make it a magnificent weekend.  Again…it’s your choice.

BTW…Please take advantage of our blog format.  We would love to have your comments on what we write about.  Blogging is supposed to be a social thing.  We encourage you to be a little social.  We had some great comments on The Shack.  Keep ‘em coming!

Lord, open our eyes to see, our ears to hear, and our spirits to receive an understanding of what we can do when we think and act like a team.  Surround and align us with like-minded men and women so that we might all work together toward our respective destinies.

Link of the Day
The Stethoscope

Blessings to you as you choose to align yourself with a group who is headed in the same direction that you want to go.

“Research once again confirms that exercise can help heal and prevent neurological disorders.”  Get Active Magazine

How pleased are you with your memory?

The memory of the righteous will be a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot.  (Prov. 10:7; NIV)

Many people make comments about their memory.  “Oh, my memory is terrible!”  Or, “I can’t remember anything these days.”  Have you heard or even said comments like that yourself?  Or….can’t you remember?

Our readers know how much “brain info” Jerry writes and talks about.  He’s always feeding his brain with information and knowledge and learning more about how our brains work.  Jerry also flexes his muscles at the gym with a daily work-out.  Today’s post is talking about “flexing your brain.”  Exercise boosts brain power and recent research has confirmed that exercise can actually help rewire the brain to work more efficiently to stave off age-related memory loss!   How’s that for incentive to exercise?  Where’s that treadmill?

The Journal of the American Medical Association recently reported on a study done with people 50 years old and older.  The people were divided into two groups: exercisers and non-exercisers.  After 18 months, those who exercised had improved their scores on two key cognitive tests.  One was the Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale and the other was the Clinical Dementia Rating.  Walking was the most common form of exercise in this group.

Another recent study determined that stroke survivors who regularly walked on treadmills significantly improved brain function and their ability to walk normally.  Improvement can occur months and even years after the stroke originally happened.   You’ve heard me say that exercise can benefit our lives in so many ways but improving brain function and memory isn’t usually in the common categories with preventing heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer.  So, the next time you wonder what you can do to improve your memory, work up a sweat!

Prayer Power
Lord, we thank You for our brains and how You so intricately designed us.  May we do all that we can do to have the best memory possible.

Link of the Day
Get Fit, Improve Memory?

Blessings on you as you purpose to “feed” your brain with exercise.

“If anything matters then everything matters. Because you are important, everything you do is important. Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished and nothing will ever be the same again.”  William P. Young

If 10 is total acceptance, how would you rate your acceptance with God on a scale of 1 to 10?

Because it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith; not by anything of your own, but by a gift from God.  (Eph. 2:8; NJB)

Last Monday, I started to tell you about what has become one of my favorite books of all time, The Shack by Wm. Paul Young.  The book is fictional, and would probably fall in the “realistic fiction” genre.  In other words, it’s a novel.  It’s not true, but maybe it could be.  Maybe it’s true, although I doubt it.  But I am sure that much of it is true…the trick is to decide which part is true and which isn’t.  Are we having fun yet?

In some ways, this is similar to the parables of Jesus — made up (?) stories that were given to illustrate a truth.  Today’s link is a great little story from William Young’s blog that demonstrates this kind of writing.  I encourage you not to miss it.  The theme of The Shack is grace and God’s love for each of us.  When you see that as the underlying message, you begin to understand why the book has created such a controversy.  Since the beginning of Christianity, there has not been many theological messages that have created more controversy and division than grace — just ask the Apostle Paul.

In my experience, you don’t find too many churches that truly believe in grace as taught in the New Testament.  Oh, they give it lip service, but then the rules start to emerge.  I was first introduced to true grace about five years ago by a little book written by Bill Gillham, titled Lifetime Guarantee: Making Your Christian Life Work and What to Do When It Doesn’t.  Now there’s a book that truly changed my life.  That particular book launched me on a almost year long study on the topic and forever altered my theological perspective.  So with that as background, my affinity for The Shack and its message should be a little clearer.

Eugene Peterson, whom many of you will recognize as the author of the highly popular Bible paraphrase, The Message is quoted as saying, “When the imagination of a writer and the passion of a theologian cross-fertilize the result is a novel on the order of the Shack.  This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his.  It’s that good!”  I would love to agree, but unfortunately can’t.  Bunyan wrote on a topic far less controversial than Young has picked.

Wayne Jacobsen, part of a team who worked with the Wm. Young on his manuscript for over a year and also part of the company formed to print and distribute the book calls The Shack “edgy.”  He said, “We knew The Shack was edgy enough to prompt some significant backlash, which is why so many publishing companies didn’t want to take it on at the beginning….What is surprising, however, is the hostile tone of false accusation and the conspiracy theories that some are willing to put on this book. Some have even warned others not to read it or they will be led into deception.”

Let me end today’s DG with Jacobsen’s counsel.  He said, “If you’re interested, read it for yourself. Don’t let someone else do your thinking for you. If it helps convey the reality of Jesus to you, great! If all you can see is sinister motives and false teaching in it, then put it aside.”  By now you already understand where I am in all this controversy.  I have suggested to others that this book is a great book to begin to understand the unfathomable love that God has for each one of us.

Prayer Power
Lord, help us to learn that love and humility unifies rather than divides.  Teach us to read and listen to others with Your love and humility.

Link of the Day
Fiction, Truth, Reality and all that stuff…

Blessings on you as you consider the true meaning of grace.

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I understand that the third of a series of articles on Complementary and Alternative Medicine that I’m writing was just published on Ezinearticles.  Here’s the summary:

Have you ever wondered why you remain unsuccessful in resolving a long standing relational, physical, or emotional problem?  The answer is that most are really just dealing with symptoms, rather than identifying the root cause. Sometimes that struggle to change symptomatic behavior becomes a substitute for finding, and dealing with, the real reason for failure.  This article will reveal the actual physical cause and why there’s now hope for a solution.  Click here to check it out.  I believe you will find it interesting.

Oh, and if I may be just a bit presumptuous, while you’re viewing the article, I would be a blessing to me if you would take the time to rate it.  Just go to the bottom of the page and you will see a 1-5 rating scale.

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“Sheep’s milk cheese has a slightly sweet taste and is high in calcium and zinc.”  Gourmetfoodstore.com

What are your thoughts when you hear “sheep’s milk cheese?”

Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.  (Deut. 32:14; KJV)

Perhaps most of our readers haven’t really thought much about sheep’s milk cheese.  I can honestly say that I’ve bought it on occasion though not giving it much thought.  When I worked on today’s recipe, I found freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese made from sheep’s milk.

I’m also reading Jordan Rubin’s latest book called The Makers Diet for Weight Loss.  I’m a big fan of Jordan Rubin and I agree with most everything that he writes.  I wanted to learn how this book differs from his original The Makers Diet.   I’ll talk more about this newest book in later posts.  He quotes a number of startling statistics about our food supply.

He also mentions on several occasions (and I’m only half way through the book) the benefits of sheep’s milk cheese and yogurt.  He says that his favorite dairy products are actually made from sheep’s milk which are easy to digest and more nutritious than dairy from cows or goats.  That was news to me.

According to gourmetfoodstore.com, “sheep’s or ewe’s (the female sheep) milk cheese is a cheese more typically found in mountainous areas where cow rearing is difficult or impossible. It has a slightly sweet taste and is high in calcium and zinc. Sheep cheese can fall into many different categories, such as fresh, soft, veined and pressed, so the selection is incredibly varied. The more traditional sheep cheeses hail from Spain and Portugal (dry mountain regions), but also from Greece where feta is wildly popular.”

So, when and if you make today’s Spinach Artichoke Dip, you don’t have to use sheep’s milk cheese, but something sure made this warm, creamy spread a crowd pleaser…perhaps it was from that “ewe’s milk cheese.”  Make it a great day!

Prayer Power
Father, we thank You that You care for Your sheep and that we a part of Your flock.

Link of the Day
Spinach Artichoke Dip

Blessings on you as you enjoy some Spinach Artichoke Dip.