Our Thoughts and Words Matter

Jesus said, "I can do nothing on my own..."

Let that sink in a moment.

Jesus, the Son of God and the purest of souls who have ever walked the earth said, "I can do nothing on my own..."

Every one of us needs help from time to time. God tells us in Proverbs 3:5-6 to "Trust God with all our heart, do not lean on our own understanding, but in ALL our ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct our paths."

Later in Proverbs 18:21, He tells us that, "Death and life are in the power of our tongue..."

He tells us also that what we think determines our experiences. "As a man thinks, so is he..." (my paraphrase).

Why am I sharing this? Because, we are all members of the same body, and when one of us is struggling, we are all in the same boat and need to come together to help one another out.

Some of us aren't as fully engaged as we could be - just look at the # of blog posts.

Some of us may not be achieving the goals we might have set for ourselves.

Some of us may be feeling like it just isn't worth the effort and struggle to continue.

To all of that I say, "There is NO out clause" We are all here for a reason, and I want to encourage you to recall what your reason is. Did you decide to do this because you thought it would be easy and you just wanted to lose a few pounds, or was your goal bigger than that? Based on what Frank said early on about the screening process, I hedge to bet that your goal was much bigger than the weight of any excuse for giving less than your best.

This reminds me that the word of God says, "In all that you do, do it as if you are doing it for Him!" and that when you do, "He will prosper EVERYTHING you put your hands to."

With these promises backing you up, there really can be no excuse you can come up with to fail to engage and give it your all. The stakes are too high. There are people who God has appointed you to influence through this program and the long-term sustained improvement in your health and well-being. It is a part of His plan for you and me.

A trainer much wiser than me put it this way: "You have to weigh your ego against your goal and find out which one weighs more." This means, even if you only have ONE reason that caused you to apply to this program, no multitude of excuses should be able to derail you IF you were truly sincere about the goal. That is why a goal should never be a specific number of pounds lost, but something well beyond. It should be about the legacy you want to leave, the difference you want to make in the lives of others, the impact you want to have on the people closest to you or even those who are doubters.

In my case, my wife was probably one of my biggest critics, and rightly so. She might or might not admit it, but I would hedge to be that for many years, she viewed me as a quitter. Someone who, when things got too tough, would rather bail that to persist. A big part of my goal for joining BMSW3 was to test myself - to see if I really had faith enough in my God to help me run my race and endure to the very end. You see, I also used to see myself as a quitter, because time and again, I proved it to myself.

Now, 4 weeks into the program, I see how many eyes are on me, watching my progress and rooting me on...and some may even be wondering IF they could do it...

I am hear to tell you that YOU CAN. If I can lean on God and the power of His promises to g

et me through, surely you can too. He said that if we are in Christ - meaning we have truly surrendered to and following Him - nothing we set out to do is impossible. He said we can do ALL THINGS - even complete a rigorous and challenging BMSW program - through Christ (through faithfully DOING what His word says).

I am not a quitter. The bible says, "I believe, therefore I speak." If I can stop thinking about all the reasons I can't do something, surely I can change my mind - He says to repent, which means change the way we think - and imagine that what He says is true, and that I can really do this thing!

To each and everyone of you competing in this program, your biggest competitor is not the rest of us. No, your biggest competitor is you. Convince yourself that enough is enough and there is nothing that can stop you from completing this program strong. Even if the start has been slow and less successful than you would have hoped, know that you can make a new decision right now and lean into God's promises, and He will see you through. He says, "You have not because you ask not". Come on now, if you are struggling to get 100% fully engaged, then now is the time to make a new decision to really trust Him and shout it out loud that, "I AM MORE THAN A CONQUERER IN CHRIST JESUS!"

After all, He said it. So we should believe it, and declare the Amen which means, "So be it!"

As Aimee Mullins said in a recent TEDTalk, "The question isn't whether you're going to meet adversity, but HOW you're going to meet it. Our responsibility isn't to shield our loved ones from adversity, but to prepare them how to meet it well."

Invest 6 minutes right now, watch this video, take it all in, and make up your mind to never quit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-jwWYX7Jlo