It really is about attitude. Sure people with bad attitudes succeed, but you also know that they will never be content, they will never know trust, promise, they will always be insecure. They know that even if their lives appear to be a “success”‘, that they will never have peace. Peace doesn’t necessarily mean complacency. In fact it seems when the Holy Spirit gives me peace is when I get excited and driven to take on the next challenge. Too often I just really don’t “see” it and can’t get motivated.

This leads me to a bit more of a mundane subject. “in a landmark 1967 study. Australian psychologist Alan Richardson chose three random groups of students. One group practiced basketball free throws daily for twenty days. Two other groups shot only on the first and last days. But one of the no shooting groups spent twenty minutes per day carefully visualizing foul shots. At the end, the non-practicers hadn’t improved at all. No surprise. The hands-on practicers improved 24%. And the visualizers? They improved 23 percent… ”

“…mental training will boost performance. Psychologist Steve Ungerleider recommends regularly sitting in a quiet, comfortable space and spending 20 minutes mentally walking through ever step of your upcoming bike, run, or ski before race day.” – Outside Magazine. P 66 January 2015.

There are times when I am kind of wondering about what the Holy Spirit is leading me to do. Too often what’s anyone’s response? Fight or flight? You either just plunge right in or you pull a Jonah and head west. Seems to me most of the time we need to spend time being guided by the Holy Spirit in how we should do what we are being guided to do. Certainly it will take away a lot of your anxiety, it’s just not going to be as bad as you think. “If I go and talk about Jesus to that person what will happen, how is God helping me to visualize that?” Sure they could just brush me off, but now that I’m visualizing it, it’s really not that bad. But if I keep thinking about hitting those free throws, seeing some genuine trust, hope and promise in the person I’m talking to, wow! Won’t that be so incredible? Win the game, see the Holy Spirit bringing someone to salvation. “jje

Spend some time on what the Holy Spirit wants you to do and how that would look. No, it’s not always going to be what we think we want. The results may not always be enough, at least to our standards. But knowing that it is the Holy Spirit moving, seeing that, mentally and then being there seeing Him work, these are things that we are way to quick to throw cold water on. Spend some time to see it the way the Holy Spirit wants it and follow through.