A Leap of Faith

I delivered a book today; my book about living life to the fullest; the one about following your dreams; the book that talks about lessons and gifts; starting and finishing.

I wanted to take this book to Jason Priest, owner and founder of Little Rock Jams, so that I could get a tour of his new studio that opened in August of last year.

I took guitar lessons from Jason for about a year and stopped before he made the move about a half-mile away to new digs. I was a true beginner, and never did progress very far. I determined that my money would be better spent elsewhere, but I could still pick around on my guitar at home.

Jason was a faithful reader of this blog, which was my book in progress, and now as you know has turned into more of a regular blog.

Jason started his first guitar studio as a solo teacher. He began this gig back in July 2006 when he had an opportunity to “early retire” from a telephone company job during one of the mergers or something similar to that. In other words, a window of opportunity happened and he moved with it.

So to know him when — back when he was just about to add a teacher besides himself and then he was looking for a bigger space to add more staff — to know him then and to see where his studio has progressed today was a treat.

He took a step of faith to do what he’s done; what he’s doing. Little Rock Jams is a studio in Breckenridge Village with instruction rooms and an awesome studio for concerts. He’s so busy that Jason’s taking on running the show and letting the other teachers handle most of the teaching.

Going from a one-man-show studio to having numerous teachers, including piano and voice, to what Jason has developed now didn’t happen without a lot of prayer, persistence, faith, determination and I’d guess blood, sweat and tears.

Life is about stepping out of our comfort zones in order to fulfill our dreams.

We rarely get anywhere in life without taking a leap of faith. If you’re one of the few who was handed everything on a seemingly silver platter, if life just comes easy and there’s never a struggle to achieve and get what you want, rejoice in that. Because for the rest of us what we have is what we earned.

We work hard, we pray a lot, we take two steps forward and one back, sometimes we even give up. But for the most part, when we truly want something, we go the distance, we don’t quit or give up, we just keep moving on.

And so the delivery of my book to Jason about living life to the fullest; the one about following your dreams; the book that talks about lessons and gifts; starting and finishing was one that could have been written about him.

He’s already asked to star in the movie, so we know he dreams big.

Jason Priest, congratulations, my friend. Thanks for all of your support as I wrote my book and today as you admired it in your studio. Thanks for living your life as a good example. I know your children are learning the right way to do things.

Visit LittleRockJams.com to sign up for your lessons today!

Faith is Action

“Faith is not trying to believe something regardless of the evidence; faith is daring something regardless of the consequences.”
—Sherwood Eddy

When there’s something we want in our life and we have taken all of the steps necessary to get it we must often wait to see if we will get what we desire or not. We must have faith and let it go. If we have done all we can do to get a certain thing we desire, there is nothing left to do but pray, have faith, and let it happen or not. If it’s meant to be it will come to fruition.

Worrying will not make it happen. Getting stressed about an issue never solves it, although stress and worry may move us to action such as prayer, but the stress alone won’t fix the problem or get our needs met.

Sometimes we have faith as a last resort, and at other times it’s the beginning. Growth requires us to have faith. Believing that there is a Higher Power who cares about us, whom we can trust, give us courage and faith to move forward, even when we don’t get what we want.

We have all not been given the job, relationship, automobile, house, the person, place, or thing we wanted numerous times. Yet we are still able to go to God and ask for help for another thing because we have faith. Sometimes we have to have faith to see why we didn’t get what we wanted.

Having faith is an action. It is a letting go and letting God act. Faith means we believe in something bigger than us who knows what is best and we have assurance that everything we need will be provided to us and there are reasons why we often get an answer of no.

We must practice faith to have faith.

Knowledge of God’s Will

“Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him; praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.”
—Step Eleven of Twelve Step programs

When we pray for the knowledge of God’s will for us, and the power to carry that out, we ought not to then question why certain things do not happen the way we want. We can’t have it both ways. We cannot have our will be done and God’s will be done unless they are in line with one another.

Sometimes even when we think that we are in the midst of something that feels so much like it is an answer to prayer, we find that it wasn’t the particular answer we were seeking. Perhaps it is a lesson to be learned that we aren’t even sure what issue it involves. Maybe it leads to the answer we are seeking, but we just don’t see the big picture — yet.

We just have to keep seeking conscious contact and praying for knowledge of His will and the ability to do it. We won’t be asked to do anything without also being blessed with the gifts and ability to do that. And if we rely only on our will, we will continue to struggle like a fish out of water.

It’s not an easy task to follow God’s will, especially if we don’t know what that is. But if we pray for knowledge of it we will be more aware. There are times that we may not know what the next right thing is, or why something happened, but we can see what isn’t right, and just maybe see that we were very blessed that things did not go the way we wanted.

God does know best and He will not lead us into wrong things. We go there ourselves. He will use experiences to teach us, to help us grow closer to Him, and for us to gain wisdom. If something feels wrong, it more than likely is. God things click, they don’t cause us a whole lot of problems unless we struggle against them.

We more often than not know what’s going on with things in life, although we often act shocked and want to believe that we didn’t. Our intuition is good, most likely because God’s using that to connect with us. When we follow our intuition, when we go with our gut, we seldom are wrong. And this is not to say that we won’t have difficulties, pain, and loss, it just means that we are being led if we would just use the tools we were given to follow that lead.

When we are in God’s will we will know it and feel peace.

Seeing Clearly

God let me hit bottom so I’d appreciate what He sent me.

We often wonder why our prayers seemingly go unanswered. Even while we are taught that God does answer our prayers, when we suffer, and don’t get what we ask for it appears that we are not being heard.

Sometimes we realize that even as much as we thought our prayers were not heard, that there was a reason that our prayers did not get answered the way we wanted and in the time frame that we expected. We may discover this in an instant or over time.

I went through a period of time, actually for years, asking for something that I wanted. And in a series of a few months the thing that I prayed for was presented to me and then pulled away time after time. It hurt and I blamed God, until one day I just gave up. If that’s the way it was going to be then fine, that must be the way He wanted things to go. And within a matter of hours after having let go out of frustration I was offered the thing I had been wanting.

It was, because of the timing, something that I knew was the answer I had been looking for. And had I not been in the place I was when it came to me, I most likely would have walked right past it because it did not fit the mold I had formed. I believe that because I hit bottom I was able to see this as a gift from God.

It takes what it takes to have faith. It took what it took for me to see clearly the answer when it arrived. We don’t understand when we don’t get what we want, when God has something better. And as long as we stubbornly seek what we want that doesn’t work, we will keep getting it, at least until we can’t stand the pain any longer and let God give us what we need instead.

When we hit bottom with pain it’s easier to see the answer from God.

Grow Faith not Fear

“You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith.”
—Mary Manin Morrissey

Fear is a natural part of us; it’s an essential element, in fact. Fear protects us at times, and it helps us to be cautious, keeps us from moving too fast into situations in our lives.

But fear can also be a block. It may block us from love. It can block our success and even attempts at things. And it can keep us from growth. We must recognize fear and allow ourselves to feel it when we know that it’s a healthy emotion at the time. But what we don’t want to do is hide behind that fear.

We may have tried and failed. Perhaps in relationships we have been hurt and we are just too scared to face that again. Or maybe we’ve had a business collapse or failed at a job where we were employed by others. That’s water under the bridge, not reason to give up because we fear we might lose or fail again.

There are a few things that can be very helpful when we are afraid to move forward: prayer and talking about our fears with someone else. God will hear us and help us through and give us courage. Our friends, mentors, clergy, therapists, or family members can help us just by listening and by talking through the issues. They can help us determine what valid things to fear are and what is just an imaginary boogeyman under the bed.

Our self-esteem and confidence will grow each time we walk through our fears. We will see that fear is not something we should empower in our lives. It is there. It may be there often, but it does not have control over us. We can be stronger than our fears and come out on the other side with renewed faith and success at that which we attempted.

Fear will only grow as large as you allow it, just as faith will do the same.

Things Happen for a Reason

“When God closes a door, he opens a window.”
—Unknown

One of the most difficult things to understand is how we can desire something so badly and not get it. No matter how many times we pray, no matter that we feel we deserve something, we still don’t get it. And we get frustrated with God, maybe people too.

Every once in a while we have an experience where that door just will not open for us, or if it does it gets slammed in our face before we know it, but we realize quickly that it was a good thing that we didn’t get “it.”

That’s when we understand the quote above. And maybe while we realized why we didn’t get “it” we also noticed that there was at least one other “it” waiting for us, or suddenly seemingly out of nowhere something better presented itself. A thing we didn’t have to beg for; something for which we didn’t have to sacrifice quite so much.

These are moments in our lives that bring wisdom. They are the experiences and events that nobody can really teach us, but that we learn through the suffering of not getting and the surprise of receiving something else.

Often we are so busy looking at the closed door that we do not see the open window. When we pray for something we ought to pray that we can have wisdom about a thing so that perhaps our desire for something we aren’t going to get will fade more quickly and our eyes will not be blind to that other thing that’s there, just waiting on us to notice it.

If you just look past that closed door you might see an open window.

Following the Lead

“Being led is not an extraordinary event, reserved for mystics and ascetics; rather, it is the normal order of things.”
—Harry McMullan III

Living our lives and including in that efforts of growing spiritually may be a new concept for some. And many of us may have been bogged down in religion in our lives so that in essence the true spiritual connection we sought with God was missing.

But once we begin to seek the connection, and work on it to the best of our ability, there will be times when we will know that we got an answer to prayer, or we were healed of something that needed healing, or even that we are being led to do a particular thing.

As a writer by profession that act of putting words together isn’t a spectacular event in my life. So to say that I felt led to write something, which happened to me in a way that I would never have expected, may not make a large impact on others, but it did on me when it happened.

And while it may not have been an extraordinary event, it was a moment of true spiritual connection for me. When a connection like that happens it cannot be denied. Sharing it with others, putting it in words isn’t such an easy thing, even for a writer. It’s just something that you feel and you know within that it’s real.

And just as surely as you know the sun will come up in the morning, you know there is a Higher Power who is there, who guides you, and listens to your requests. It’s a knowing that can only be found within, but once it’s there it will remain a source of hope and faith for the coming days and years.

We never know what events in our lives will give us this knowing, but I believe that if we are open and willing to receive it, we will get it.

A spiritual connection is ours if we seek it.

Inner Peace

“Do not lose your inward peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.”
—Saint Francis De Sales

There are a few things we can count on in this world and one of those is that sometimes we will have a bad day for no apparent reason, or basically that things won’t always go the way we want them to no matter how hard we try or what we do.

But if we have true inner peace, when the storms of life hit us, we will be able to remain calm in the midst of it knowing that no matter what, we will be okay. We can remain peaceful knowing that no amount of anxiety or worry is going to change a situation.

Having inner peace is something that most likely has to be developed. It’s based on trust and faith. Usually we have it after experiences have taught us that it is possible to be at peace when things get crazy outside of ourselves.

Many times when we feel like we are going to lose control, our temper, or otherwise “freak out,” we can be reminded that it is okay to relieve our stress in healthy ways. That won’t make us lose our inner peace. We can cry and scream if we need to. Maybe we can work our frustration out on a punching bag, or go for a long hike or run.

Prayer and meditation have been proven to be effective means of gaining and keeping inner peace. Self-love — including a good level of self-esteem — and inner peace go hand in hand. We can’t have inner peace if we don’t feel capable of making good decisions or if we are behaving in unhealthy ways.

Some of the other keys to having and keeping inner peace involve forgiveness and acceptance. Knowing that others aren’t any more perfect than we are and allowing them to be that way. We also understand our humanness and allow ourselves to make mistakes without being too hard on us.

Knowing our limits by having the ability to say no when we are overwhelmed and yes when that is a good answer for us will also allow for inner peace. Just as unexpected events can draw on our reserves, so too can things we knowingly put ourselves in the middle of. Being aware of what we are doing, living a conscience life is also essential to having inner peace.

There are things outside of our control and within our control that can take away from or add to our inner peace. It’s up to us to decide if having inner peace is something we desire. If it is we will be willing to do what it takes to have it.

Inner peace takes effort, but so does the opposite.

Fear and Faith

“We must take things one step at a time because we don’t know the whole of a situation. God’s the only one who has the whole picture.”
—Jan Edwards

If we could see into the future and know exactly which twists and turns we would take in life. Or if we knew what calamities would come down upon us. Even if we knew the joys that we would be blessed with. Having all of this knowledge would limit us.

For some of us the unknown is what we fear more than anything. And don’t we turn more to God when we are in fear than we do when we are full of joy? Taking bold steps down our path of life involves fear, faith, courage, missteps, falling down and getting up, and hope. We fear but we have faith that all will work out the way we want and if not, that we get something even better than what we hoped.

Many times we wish we knew why we could not have what we wanted in a relationship, or maybe we wanted a child and were unable to have one for any number of reasons, maybe we missed out on a job or promotion, or we can’t have that nice house across town that we wanted and had to settle for the one we bought instead.

But along that path perhaps something came to us that we didn’t expect. We met a neighbor who turns out to be a wonderful friend that we would never have met if we didn’t live in the house we ended up in. And maybe we ended up going back to school to further our education because we didn’t get the job we desired. Perhaps we now give our energy and love to lots of children since we don’t have our own to care for.

Since we don’t have the whole picture we can never know what the best thing for us is at any given time. We can trust God to know what that is since He does have full knowledge about what’s coming our way. Faith is not an easy thing to have when we want to control our journey, but often it’s the only way we can have any peace since life offers us a rocky path.

One step at a time, one day at a time, we can follow the path that God leads us on in life.