Is it time to clean the closet?

When it comes to health, we all have challenges. Please challenges are something like having an out of control closet where you've stuffed everything into it. It is gotten so bad you don't even open the door. The space and everything in it has become unusable. The closet takes a life of it's own. You don't even want to go there, I'll just keep it closed. The problem is the closet keeps growing. Stuff will grow in there and it'll move throughout the house. Have you ever been inside a hoarders house. The smell is so bad you can’t stay in there. There is no room to live.

Our health can be like that. If we don't take care of the challenges they can do us in. Health challenges do not go away. Our fear of them will make them larger than they seem. So looking at health from the point of view of the fat-man as a way of looking at challenges we have to meet. There are plenty of stories of courage of people facing life threatening challenges. I know it's scary but take a look at what challenges you. Our personal stories can often be very different. What I have learned or experienced maybe different from what you have gone through. But the principle of the fat Man is to first recognize that a problem exist. Then the next principle is to find out the best things to do about it. Not only are we looking for knowledge but practical strategies and expert support to give us a fighting chance. The third principle of the fat Man is to follow through and put the plan in action. The fourth principle is to make the plan of action work for you. Words like adapting, adjusting, making changes all except the idea that we don't live in a perfect place. Life will continue to happen and we have to be as flexible as we can in facing it. 

We have to take it a day at a time. If we are on the right path, For example if we are taking the right medicine there should be a reasonable time to see improvement. It may take time where we continue to struggle. Sometimes this is unavoidable. When our strategies involve lifestyle changes, what we're looking for is a change of habit. Habits take about five months to develop. Can you be real enough to give something five months. We all are wanting the 30 minutes solution. Life's not a sitcom in change never happens overnight.

If I can give a word of encouragement - last October I did a reevaluation of where I was at. My legs were still healing from injuries from a fall. I knew I had to rethink how to move ahead. I had to find ways that I can exercise without falling. I had to rehab my legs and get a sensible time frame. No more walking on the sidewalk without the use of a walking stick. Learn how to walk with a walking stick. Since my injuries now included back pain it was harder just to dive into something. Quitting or giving up would mean further declining in my heart health. Now this I really rethought. My cardiac doctor told me to go for it. This was not the time to give up. 

So, I introduced biking to my walking schedule. In the last few weeks I posted my online adventures to do interval training and I'm starting to see progress. Adding a recumbent bike is putting my fourth principle in action. The technology they put into the bikes today are a big plus. Learning about interval training in walking and cycling is very encouraging. 

Is it time to clean out your health closet. What challenges do you face? Keep walking

Dealing with difficult emotions, God can Help

I was studying my Bible with Thomas Constable's  Notes (https://lumina.bible.org/bible/John+20) and came up with the following key insights into how the Lord help the negative emotions of grief, fear, and doubt. When you read John 20: 1 to 29, you find the people who benefited by seeing the resurrected Lord who all were engulf with certain human emotions. 

• Mary Magdalene we find her experiencing great grief. With her we see the emphasis of love and our Lord giving her a mission.

How often in our grief do we get a new direction in our life. When I was being treated for depression I received two things I wanted to explore and help others with. 

1. That there is hope today for recovering from depression. 
2. To listen to and encourage others who had stories of their lives to tell.

• We find the disciples locked in a room filled with fear, with them Jesus emphasizes hope and as a result they are filled with joy. 

Fear often makes us withdraw and has a way of limiting what we do. Rightly so the disciples were scared for life, but they didn't know how their shepherd already protected them. When they see the Lord whom had the marks that killed him resurrected He gives them hope that no matter what happens in their life, eternal life is real. There was more to Jesus's story then crucifixion, He was more than man, what he said was true in like he predicted their sadness was turned to joy. 

We are made to run or fight to face's struggles that we encounter. 

Our fears can cripple us, but we can face our worst-case scenarios knowing 

1. that our trials are temporary 
2. life is eternal.

• With Thomas he is overwhelmed with doubts. Jesus gives him a lesson in faith and as a result he becomes a man of faith.

We have come to some sense of reality in our experience. When we encounter things that are different then it that new reality we doubt. I may tell a man in the jungle about things he has never seen. He may doubt it but I have experienced it. I may tell him stories or show him pictures and maybe I even show him a movie. By the way what I'm showing him he may never have seen before. To him these are even more incredible. But if I were to take him back with us and buy a week pass to Disneyland where he can see it and experience it for himself he may say this is unbelievable but at the same time he now believes that. 

We may have the same problem with the realities of heaven. We have been living on this planet for 62 years, but eternity we may only have been given words, the testimony of others who experience it firsthand. We long for that first-hand experience with the spiritual. 

A parable illustrates A earthly truth to show a heavenly one. We understand what happened on earth but the spiritual part we hope to understand. Thomas sees the nail marks on Jesus's hands and feet that happen at the crucifixion when Jesus died. He is now talking to the resurrected Lord. What do you thought couldn't be real is now real and he believes. 

1. When my eyes were clouded over with cataracts and a disease lens was removed and replaced with a clear lens, my eyesight now could see things I never saw better. Just think how many people in the past with cataracts would be amazed at the procedure. Removed at the same time was my stigmatism. I can almost consider it a miracle. Ben Franklin who invented bifocals would be blown away with cataract surgery.
2. Today I walk by faith, but in heaven I will walk by sight. My body will be made for heaven. Life in a new sphere may have similarities with what I know today but there will be drastic differences. There're a lot of ways by reality here on earth changes and in the same way my reality will change in heaven. 

We all experience grief, fear and doubt. In what ways does the Lord love us to lift our grief and give us hope of new possibilities? How does God renew our hope to give us joy to overcome fear? How does God increase our reality to walk in faith to comprehend me eternal life? 

You may have other negative emotion besides what is shared here that you're dealing with, but the Lord can meet them in love, hope, and faith:Keep walking

Trust, Pray, Throw God our worries

Does the Bible condemn Worry?
I was reading an author talking about worry. He considered the question, does God condemn worry and anxiety? I believe God doesn't want us to worry or be consumed by it. But his concern for worry doesn't even come close to condemn. Read for yourself the following verses and I think you see God very much like the eternal counselor working with us through the concerns of our worries. see if you can follow my logic as I present the following Bible verses.
Note His support that works through the worry. See his logic as we trust in the Lord with our cares. Note every day has its own worries in Jesus realizes that himself. He faced fears and anxiety we little understand.
1. See the encouragement not to worry.
2. See the care that God himself insurers to give us as we face our problems. Far from condemning, God invites us to talk to him about it. Remember He Who never slumbers is there we need Him.
John 14:1 “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me." 14:2-4 In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.”
Matthew 6:25-34 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will

drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
1 Corinthians 2:3 I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling.
Philippians 4:6-7 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
1 Peter 5:7, 10 casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you... But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.
If there is condemnation it comes from human sources not God. Worry is negative enough with out listening to some loon ranting and raving. Giving God your cares and trusting Him and getting a good night sleep helps with many of our fears. Fear can be real and based on things we need to fight or flee. Dealing with the worries of the day is enough. Counselors refer to being in the moment. They may have stumbled upon something.
Trust, praying and throwing God our worries are all acts of faith we need to apply. We may not be very good at these skills but they are things only we can do about our worries. Trust God because He is there and loves you; pray because He hears and answers; throw Him the worry, thought, or negative emotion because He is big enough to handle it. As you read the Psalms notice God always hears our complaints and arguments. Keep walking