Capturing Your Thoughts

Everyday great thoughts come and go – they escape, and we lose them.

Like a “traffic speed trap” set by police, we need to be on the alert for speeders (great thoughts) and stop and detain them, then arrest them and take them captive. These speeders are the thoughts and ideas that have great potential to help us and others, but they come and go at a time when we think we just don’t have time to do anything else but note they occurred and hope we can remember them later.

From now on, stop them! Step one is KNOW that they WILL be coming and probably at the most inopportune time to capture them.

Next develop a quick way to arrest them and “handcuff” them – meaning take them captive in a temporary fashion. Maybe it is carrying a small 2”x3” notepad in your pocket or purse. Merely jot down a quick note of the general idea, but enough to jog your memory later (temporary captivity). Maybe you have a memo section on your phone, or a small digital recorder, and you quickly make a small memory-jogging verbal notation. 95% of the people will not do this critical step for success, I have found.

Now probably 75% of the people who did take temporary custody of that wonderful idea don’t do step two – move the note from “temporary captivity” to “permanent incarceration.” Daily have a quick method of moving the note from the notepad or verbal message, to a computerized add-to list of GREAT THOUGHTS!

Once you have this computerized master list, you have made it to the elite few in life. From this list great ideas will come for, books, income generating, relational growth, child rearing, business development and so on. Now categorize and prioritize the list as to both importance and timetable for further development.

Last make an appointment with yourself to regularly review this list, asking yourself when is the time to commit to development of that idea – from concept to completion. Do this, and succeed in any avenue of your life!

"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, can I..."

Yesterday, I was on a deserted barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Clearwater Florida with my Sheila and daughter Stacy's family. What a great day of vacation watching two of my four grandsons playing on the island. They ran on the beach searching for colorful shells, swam in the ocean with goggles looking for interesting things, and asking their dad Matt countless questions.

The questions never stopped. If Matt didn't answer their question right away, they kept asking...over and over again...until their dad would answer them.

"Daddy, can I run down the beach that way? Daddy, can I go? Daddy, watch me; can I go? Daddy, are you listening? Daddy, I'm going, OK? D-A-D-D-Y!" Noah's questions were constant and relentless...until his dad answered him.

It was almost comical. Noah and Logan kept asking their questions, until their dad gave them an answer. One time Matt said, "Watch this. Logan will probably ask me 100 times if I don't answer." Sure enough, Logan asked the same question three times within the first 60 seconds. It was hilarious!

Sometime during all this questioning, I was reminded about Jesus’ teaching on how we should effectively pray, found in Luke 11:1-13. In that setting with his disciples, He gave three ways for us to connect to God. The first is commonly called the Lord’s Prayer. But it was the second parable that came to my mind. In verses 5-8, Luke notes:

Then He said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.' Then the one inside answers, 'Don't bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can't get up and give you anything.' I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs.”

Just like my grandsons Noah and Logan, God invites us to be relentless and bold in our pursuit of Him and His answers on the issues we face in life. It is not a lack of faith that we keep on asking on issues of our concern, but rather a true expression of our faith, that if we can merely hear from God in our hearts, then we can make the best choice in our living.

If we are observant, we can learn a lot from children and others around us in our daily life.

Start With What You Know

I have found that if I want to transition out of something and move into something new, many times I feel stuck and immobilized as to where to start. Have you been there? I want to move, but am just not sure how to begin.

So what I have discovered is that a great place to start is to take an inventory of what I already know to be true. During times when I evidence a little intelligence, I write down that list of things I “know” to be true related to the issue at hand.

I did that this morning. I woke at 5:30 with something on my mind pertaining to our printing and publishing business. I started a list of single sentence thoughts surrounding the area in which I wanted to bring some transition. Each line on the paper represented something I have found to be true surrounding the core issue.

As each line was listed and built, clarity of understanding began to unfold. Beginning points and even general solutions started to become evident. Proverbs 17:24 notes: “A discerning man keeps wisdom in view, but a fool’s eyes wander to the ends of the earth.” I need to regularly “keep in my view” or the forefront of my thoughts, those things I know to be true. Also, I must not always be looking for the “newest” thing to focus on all around me, without being somehow still tethered to the wisdom and truth I already have obtained on the subject.

Deuteronomy 30:11-14 says it in a different way: “Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, ‘Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?’ Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, ‘Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?’ No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.” In short, God is saying that He has already made certain things readily available for us to grasp.

So when considering a transition in your life, start with making a full list of what you know surrounding the subject at hand. God has already revealed many things to you that you “know” to be true. From that vantage point, new thoughts can spring to life as a great starting point from which to launch.

Transitioning to Focus on the Important

As I was walking and talking with God this morning, while on vacation in New Port Richie Florida, I felt like God dropped into my mind the phrase – “transitioning to focus on the important.”

The implications are clear. Although what I have been doing to date has been good and maybe necessary, the important things of life have been handled sporadically but not regularly. We all seem to let life lead us instead of us leading life.

Daily necessities occupy most of our time and mental focus. If you have a job, you become consumed in the incidences of our daily grind. If your “job” is taking care of energy-filled children, you are consumed with the seemingly never-ending needs they have. Even if you may be retired, your life may be filled with recreation, your favorite television shows, or chores that take longer and demand more.

In short, the ordinary stuff of life becomes all-consuming. The inverse of that – the extraordinary things of life – are left basically without your focus, time or attention.

The result – an ordinary life.

In most cases, an extraordinary life does not happen on accident, or without focused effort, time and regular attention. However, the ordinary life does happen naturally. Live “naturally” and you can confidently expect an ordinary life.

But, by choice, determination, prayer and unrelenting effort, a person can begin to set a course to become an extraordinary person whose life “naturally” brings forth extraordinary evidence of God’s glory on display.

Maybe for some, this change happens with flip of a mental switch in their brain. But I think for most, it happens through a purposeful season of transition.This transition starts when God illuminates our life and shows us that there is more, and we are settling for less. As “dawn” breaks in our understanding of this reality, we come to the point of decision – go forward, requiring a change in focus and lifestyle, or continue on our natural normal path of the ordinary.