You are the ceiling or the lid to what God wants to do in you and through you.Take a child for example, all wide eyed and expectant of the dreams they have can come true.  When was the last time someone asked a child what they wanted to do for their lives and they answered, sit in a 5×5 cubical and stare at a box for 8 hours a day.

No, they said they wanted to be something great.

Why, because they haven’t learned to hold themselves back yet, that’s why.

Let me ask it this way; “If fear wasn’t an option what would you do?”

I know it seems like a hard question, but is it?  Here are some thoughts on fear that may help you.

If you listen to your fears you will die, never knowing what a great person you might have been.

- Robert H. Schuller

Our doubts are traitors, and make us loose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.

- William Shakespeare

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold. -Helen Keller

“America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination, and unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.” —Harry S. Truman

At some point in your life you took a detour and allowed fear to move you in a different direction than maybe the one you should have been traveling.  God puts gifts and talents in each and everyone of us, but through our fears we put a lid on them.  We create a ceiling that stops us from reaching the next level.  As the Shakespeare quote states, “Our doubts are traitors.”

My encouragement today, take some time and reflect on your life and allow yourself to see the gifts that you have.  Then get ready to take your first step.  As Martin Luther King Jr. said“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”

 “Are you playing to win or are you playing not to lose”?

The out come of that statement can be the same thing, but it’s the mind set that makes the difference. When we play to win we think in a way that is totally different then when we play not to lose.

Playing to win is an active response to our situation.

Playing not to lose is a passive response to our situation.

Activity takes a few ideas to process.
1. Recognition of the choices we are or are not making.  That’s whats interesting about activity verses passivity they are both choices if you like it or not.
2. Using your God given ability to make a new choice in how you will respond to the situation. That is one thing that separates us from the animals is we don’t live on instinct, but rather by choice.

My encouragement for the day is take an active role in your life.  Stop playing the game not to lose and start playing to win.  Oh and by the way, my nephew’s team came out in the 3rd period ready to play to win and almost tied the game in the last few seconds.  How are u playing?