Tag Archives: growing spiritually

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How to be successful in LIFE!

success!

Wow!  Look at all the delicious fruit on this tree!  Success!  Outstanding crop!   Who wants to produce the same success as this tree?

Remember this tree?

a separate persimmon tree surrounded by an oak

How about that! It’s the same tree!  The tree that “wasn’t going to amount to anything” is loaded with fruit.  It is having a very successful year.  The secret of being successful in LIFE?  Well, in good ole country boy terms here is the secret….  It ain’t what you got, it’s how you use it.  If you are new to wilderness preacher, of if you’ve forgotten about the story of this tree, you can read about it.  Click on the following:        Bloom where you’re planted

So, to be SUCCESSFUL in LIFE you will just like this tree, bear fruit. Producing “fruit” will bring success in your work, your family, your very own life. Not just any fruit, but good fruit.  It can be done.  You’re going to need some help.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Galatians 5:22NIV

When God’s Holy Spirit comes into your life, you now have help in producing your fruit.  You now have help in living a successful life.  But,……….there is a big problem.  It’s in how we view success.

In our “business and work world”, it’s all about the numbers.  We view success in other people as well as ourselves by this numbers game.  How much money was made.  How many sales produced. How much production.  It’s all about me, myself, and I!

In our “religious” world (let’s be truthful and admit it), it’s also about numbers.  Too many times we view success as how many times did I go to church,  how much did I give, how long I’ve been a teacher/deacon/preacher/choir member/etc.  It’s all about me, myself, and I!

How to be successful in life?  Here it is again…. it ain’t what you got it’s how you use it!   You’ve been given God’s Holy Spirit, now use it!  But if it’s all about me, myself, and I then there’s no room for God’s Holy Spirit to work.

To be successful in living requires us to focus on God.  Seek Him, trust Him, follow Him.  This cause us to care less about me, myself, and I.  It allows us to focus on these “fruits of the Spirit”.  We don’t worry about the “barbed wires” in our lives, we don’t fret over where we’ve been placed in this world.  We focus on LIVING in and with God’s Spirit.  We focus on the fruits.  Looking back on my own life the past few years, I’ve not made the “top ten” in money, sales, production, attendance, or amounts of any kind.  But I am living in a world being filled spiritually by a “PERFECT TEN” with peace, love, and joy.  I am using it(God), and He is using me?  Sounds strange?  Yep, but a loving relationship is growing. I am living a successful life.

Now go be successful in life.  With help from the Spirit you too can produce fruit.  Time to share in a pie don’t ya think?

See Ya!  Dan Ainsworth  wilderness preacher

 

 

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Taking the fork in the road (decisions, decisions)

fog

There’s a fork in the road about 40 yards ahead, but with all this fog you would miss it if not somehow made aware. (lots of wrecks happen here.) Experience will save me because I travel this road daily.  How did I gain this experience?

Living on a small farm one of my daily activities was to ride in the truck with my Father.  We had the daily chores of checking on the cows, mending fences, harvesting hay, oh, and occasionally eating blackberries, mulberries, and wild plums growing in the fields.  I was riding with him starting at an early age of about 7 and continuing through my teenage years.

It’s a small farm with cows and hay fields.  What that meant to me was GATES…….. and lots of them.  Barbed wire gates, metal gates, wooden gates, and yes more and more gates.  Some gates would be hard to open.  They were secured by wrapping barbed wire around the top post.  My father’s favorite saying as I was opening the gate was “Squeeze that gate likes it’s your girlfriend”.  And I would….. By hugging the wire gate closer to the loop holding it, it would release and the gate would open.  But most of the time you had to squeeze and hug with all your might.  So, I squeezed her like she was my girl.  To this day I think I squeeze my wife too hard because of this.

Most of the time my father would drive and I would ride “shotgun” in the passenger’s seat.  The cow dog was always in the back.  Whenever we would come to a gate, my father would stop the truck.  I would then look at him and say, “Father, does Thou want me to open the gate for Thee?”  “I will wait for thee to answer me.”  “Thou will be done in the truck as it is back at the house”   C’MON MAN!!!   Are you crazy????  I don’t talk that way with my Daddy.  After stopping in front of the gates on the farm, (probably 15 gates from one end of the property to the other), I just knew!!  Repeat the process of stop the truck, now open the gate.  Well after repeating this a few times, I didn’t have to wait to be told to open the gates, I just knew.  Does this mean I can read my Father’s mind and know his will and what he wants me to do?  More likely it means that I can be taught and I can learn by repeating something over and over.

That’s how I learned to bale hay.  That’s how I learned to vaccinate calves, or mend fences, or work the chicken houses.  I learned my father’s will and direction for my life by repeating stuff over and over.  It’s probably telling off on myself (and I bet you as well), but don’t we learn most things by doing them, repeat, doing them, repeat and doing them again?

How did this teach me to take the fork in the road?  Just like Yogi Berra was always known for saying,  “If you come to a fork in the road, take it”.  As I became older, my Father began to let me drive.  The cow dog still had to ride in the back.  Driving on farm land and fields is a great way to learn how to drive.  People think it’s safe.  But when you are the driver, you constantly have to drive defensively because at any minute, right in front of you, is a stump, or sink hole, or even a baby calf.  So there is the proverbial “fork” in the road.  You learn driving in the fields that a decision must be made and made quickly.  You instinctively learn to drive defensively.  This is valuable experience.  It will save my life many times in future driving.  Do I go right or left?  Most of the time it didn’t matter.  What mattered is that I avoid whatever the problem is right in front of me.  What also mattered is that my father was there in the truck teaching me.  I can proudly say I’ve learned to drive defensively.  How?  By repeat, doing it again, repeat, and doing it again.  Also a few run over stumps and sink holes along the way. 😉  Repeat, repeat, and repeat.  Thankfully no baby calves were harmed in the process.

So turn your attention and seek the Eternal One while it is still possible; call on Him while He is nearby. Isaiah 55:6 Voice

How do you make every day decisions?  How do you make life changing decisions?  My hope and prayer is that you make your choices by “riding in the truck”.  Ride each and every day spiritually with your Heavenly Father driving or either riding shotgun with you. Jesus gave us the key because He is the way, the Truth, and the Life.  No man can come to the Father but by Jesus.  Whether it’s God, or the Holy Spirit, or Jesus taking the wheel, you as a Christian  have them to lead and direct out lives…….. and the choices we have to make.  When you have a close relationship with God,  then you are “in the zone” to live this Christian way of life.  Be ready though.  It involves a lot of repeat, do it again, repeat, do it again. Not much of Thees and Thous goin’ on.  Just a lot of day to day growin’ in your spiritual life.

I’ll never forget the day as a young teenager.  I go to get in the truck to head out on the farm.  My Father is sitting in the passenger’s seat.  There wasn’t any wondering what “his will” for me was.  I jumped into the driver’s seat and I’M DRIVING !!  When my Dad get’s out to open the gate…. yep you guessed it.  I stuck my head out the window and hollered, “Hug it like it’s your girlfriend!”.  The cow dog and I both got a laugh about that.

See Ya!   Drive (and live) carefully!

Dan Ainsworth wilderness preacher

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Enough to make a preacher cuss!

lost keys

lost keys

You got to be kiddin’ me right?  Now what?

It started when I couldn’t find my keys.  What had started as a beautiful day here in the mountains was quickly turning into DESPAIR!!!

Headed out the door, bags packed, everything in order, all chores done, I’m gone.  The adventure begins.   I said “I’m gone” right?  Where are my  keys?  Twenty minutes of torture later, I’m still looking.  I’ve now got Staci helping me look.  Hey, if I’ve got to suffer, then someone else has to suffer too, right?

She realizes my frustration when I bark at her question.  You know the question she asked……. “Where did YOU put them?”  If I knew that, then I wouldn’t have to be looking for them. Duh!!!  Tension has suddenly built between the two of us.  “Check in your bags you packed” was her reply before she stomped out of the room.  She’s usually right, so I stomped over and unpacked my bags.  No keys, but I realized that I also forgot to pack my wallet.  Now to find my wallet,…….. and keys.

My loving wife who I’ve agitated returns with my wallet. “Found this, but no keys.”  I can’t say thanks because the dad gum keys are all that my brain can concentrate on at the moment.  Oh yea, I said I had everything in order.  While looking for my keys, I ran across some paperwork that had not been mailed.  Deadline is today.  Now I’ve got to drop by the post office!

The phone rings.  One of those chores I was to do, well, I had not done.  I’ll take care of it on my way to town.  The guy on the phone probably wondered why I was so short with him.  It was because the keys were all that was on my mind.

This is silly!  My day is ruined because of small unimportant things in my life that have caused me to turn sour and negative.  Not only that, but my actions (and reactions) have caused others to be hurt and bothered by my inability to handle what life is currently throwing at me.

Inside of my own head and hearing all my thoughts is not a good place to be right now.  You’ve been there!   These thoughts are clouding any and all rational thinking. “It’s your fault, Anybody should know where their keys are, but not you………..Why me, Why now…….Can’t I ever catch a break……I’ve got it bad.   I’ve got a case of “Stinkin’ Thinkin”.  It’s enough to make this preacher cuss!  @#**%

Found them.  They had fallen off the countertop under the cabinets.  I bet someone knocked them off.  I need someone to blame to put my mind at rest.  The glare that Staci is giving me from across the room tells me it wouldn’t be a smart move to blame her.  Besides, my coffee mug is the one sitting above where the keys fell.  Well, back to where I was twenty minutes ago.  Bags packed, everything in order, all chores done….. I’m gone…….. to the post office and that final chore……    and then I say it.  And you yourself have said it.   “@#$%, why bother.  My day is ruined”.

Welcome to the local chapter of the “Stinkin’ Thinkin’ “, everyday happening, anonymous Men’s and Ladies’ group.  Pull up a chair.  It’s a crowded organization.  You’ll fit right in.  I know, I know, there are lots of people out there with bigger problems than me, but my situation today, right now, is changing my way of thinking.  It’s causing me to bark at loved ones, strike out at others, be negative.   And don’t tell me “It’s no big deal”.  Don’t say “get over it”, cause there’s not a bridge big enough to calm and redirect this brain of mine.  I lost my keys!  It might as well be the end of the world.  It’s enough to make any and every preacher cuss. Including you!

All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. Matthew 5:37
I don’t think God really is that concerned with those four letter curse words that we let slip out when things go bad.  His concern is more about us becoming bad when things go bad.  I don’t know anyone who is immune to the small things in life causing them to lose control.  But friend, do we have control of anything in this life?  I can control not losing my keys from now on by placing them on the key ring (no matter what) yeah, right.  But what about the traffic, or the weather, or the next time I misplace my wallet.  It’s enough to make a preacher……wait…… realize how “stinkin’ thinkin’ ” comes from the evil one.  And it’s inside my and your head.  It’s a powerful weapon that is used against each of us. Each and everyday.  Hmmm….. now that I am aware of this.  How do I battle against it?
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.  2 Corinthians 4:7-8
Realizing that the “evil one” can get inside my head is a little bit unnerving.  But realizing that God’s all surpassing power is also inside of me and you (the jars of clay) is a treasure that I truly treasure.  I’m gonna always be losing my keys, or my wallet.  I’m gonna always  be facing small problems that become huge in my mind.  I’m gonna always be having things go bad each and every day.  The question for me and you is this……….. Am I going to go bad with it?    Take care.
See Ya!   Dan Ainsworth wilderness preacher