"Are you secure?"

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Early one morning recently, while I was getting ready for the day, my wife called me over to our bedroom window.

"Tell me what you see," she said.

So I looked out the window into the woods on our farm. And there, not very far from our home, was a deer. She was lying down.

Then my wife said, "Now watch her eyes."

The doe’s eyes started to close, slowly at first, then all the way together and her chin started dropping until it rested on her chest. She was sound asleep.

Now while I watched the doe falling asleep, our yellow Labs were barking their intruder alerts, kind of like the robot on the old TV show, "Lost in Space."

"Danger, Daddy Faucette, Danger. Intruder Alert!"

But the doe just slept, secure and confident that nothing would harm her. She knew the dogs couldn’t get out of the fence.

Today, there will be dogs barking at you at work or home or the grocery store—somewhere. Choose to rest secure in God’s care for you as you make a life, not just a living today.

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"What’s your attitude?"

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The attitude you choose significantly impacts how you listen to life and make a life, not just a living. If you have an expectant, joyful attitude of "Life is good and while bad things happen, I can deal," then you discover ways to do exactly that. If you have a doomed and gloom, everything’s-a-pain attitude of "Life is bad and good things never happen to me," then you aren’t really listening to life today for what God has to say.

I really like the attitude of a 95-year-old woman. She went to see her new doctor for the very first time. Now she had been to see plenty of other doctors, but this one was new to her.

The doctor examined her and found her to be in good shape…for her age. (Don’t you love when your doctor says that?) Before he left the room, he asked her, "Mrs. Jones, you could have chosen any doctor in town. Why did you choose me?"

"You’re young," Mrs. Jones said. "I’ve outlived three other doctors and I plan to outlive you, too."

Choose a great attitude like Mrs. Jones as you make a life today.

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"Are you stressful or successful?"

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As I speak to business groups and associations, one of my most requested presentations is "From Stress to Success." The second point I talk about in moving from being stressful to successful is to remind yourself of what you can and cannot control about your life.

There are some situations in your life over which you have some control. These I call "concerns." You may not have total control over them, but usually there’s something you can do about it or have some influence over it. For instance, you have unusually high medical bills. You can seek out help from certain organizations and you can earn extra income through a second job or through your current job. The point here is you can do something about it.

There are other life circumstances over which you have no control. These are "worries." There’s really nothing you can do to influence or change the situation so you worry about it. But does the worry resolve it?
Instead listen to your life for the wisdom to change the things you can, accept the things you can’t, and the wisdom to know the difference.

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"Do you delegate?"

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I was talking with a small business owner recently about how she does business.

"What’s one of your biggest challenges?" I asked her.

"Well," she said, "I’m a perfectionist. It’s very hard for me to let go of certain tasks to let the employees do it."

"Why is that?" I wondered.

"Because they won’t do it the way I’d do it," she said quite honestly.

"So what’s more important," I said, "getting the job done or you doing the job?"

Can you relate with my friend? It’s so easy to play the "If you want it done right you have to do it yourself" game, isn’t it?

The purpose of your life isn’t for you to prove your worth to others by doing everything yourself. God didn’t create you to be a human doing, but a human being. And besides the rest of us want something to do as well.

Today ask God to help you release your need to do everything and to delegate certain asks to others who are capable so that you can make a life and not just a living.

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"Are you a judge?"

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I’ll forever remember the first time I saw someone do something that I thought was weird to their food. I sat down to breakfast with a cousin who proceeded to, at least in my mind, ruin my grandmother’s scrambled eggs by pouring ketchup over them. I had never seen that done before.

I had a similar experience recently while coaching a business woman. We were talking about time management and doing those things that are important to us. I mentioned getting up in the morning to walk our dog and pick blueberries. And she said, "My granddaddy loved to eat blackberries with pinto beans and a piece of hoecake." I must have looked at her strangely because she started laughing and then I laughed. It was another ketchup-on-scrambled-eggs experience for me!

So often in life, it seems we look down on those things or people which don’t quite fit our idea of normal. Today, as you listen to life, keep an open mind and accept others as they are without judging them. Decreasing your negativity increases your positivity. Blackberries and pintos, anyone?

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