God Whispers

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Prodding

Prompting

Still small voice

Strong firm voice

Nudges

Urgings

Moments of inspiration

Epiphanies

These can all refer to the “whispers of God.” John 10:27 tells us, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” We learn several key things in this verse: Jesus says that we hear his voice and that he knows us. Then he says that we follow him. As his sheep we want to be obedient to his voice and then we want to follow him. But how do we know when God is speaking to us? Often we take a passive approach to hearing from God. We wait for signs and signals. Perhaps we need to practice active waiting by actively seeking out God’s wisdom and direction through prayer, meditation, reading scripture and talking with Christian mentors.

In his book The Power of a Whisper, Bill Hybels shares five filters he uses to discern whether the voice he is hearing is God’s.

 “God, is this prompting truly from you?”

 “Is the whisper scriptural?”

 “Is it wise?”

 “Is it in tune with my own character or wiring?”

 “What do the people I most trust think about it?”

Hybels says, “God is looking for ‘just say the word’ Christ-followers, women and men who will do whatever it takes to follow the promptings they receive.”

Whether you’ve never really considered that God speaks to you or you listen every day for his promptings, we can all feel reassured by the words in Isaiah 58:11, “I will always show you where to go. I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places – firm muscles, strong bones. You’ll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry.”

Let’s invite God to “whisper” to us this week and then let’s listen – actively!

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world”
C.S. Lewis

Power of Your Personality - Spiritual Life

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Our Personality influences all aspects of our lives, even our spiritual life. In this video learn how each Personality - Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy, Phlegmatic - views God, experiences worship, and grows closer to Christ. You'll learn that Christ has the strengths of all the Personalities and the weaknesses of none.

The Power of Your Personlity - Spiritual Life.m2ts

In this session of Power of Your Personality, Dr. Cathy Robbs Turner shares insights into how our Personality influences our spiritual life. Learn how Sanguines, Cholerics, Melancholies, and Phlegmatics prefer to worship and how they view God.

Power of Your Personality: Emotions

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Each Personality type (Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy, Phlegmatic) deals differently with emotions. See the video below where I describe the traits.

Power of Your Personality - Emotions

Dr. Cathy Robbs Turner tells about the emotional traits of the Personalities (Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy, and Phlegmatic) in Power of Your Personality Session 2.

Power of Your Personality: Communication Skills

Monday, May 21, 2012

Our Personality impacts virtually every aspect of our lives including our communication with other people.

In this video I share the communication traits of each of the Personalities: Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy, and Phlegmatic.

Power of Your Personality: Communication Styles

Dr. Cathy Robbs Turner tells about the communication styles of the Personalities (Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy, and Phlegmatic).

Power of Your Personality Strengths and Weaknesses

Thursday, May 17, 2012

“Can you think of people in your life you’d like to change?” People who are bossy, too chatty, too difficult, too draining? Do you want to get out of a relationship because of communication or emotional issues? Do the people in your world just need to change and then YOUR life would be better?

But are they really the ones who need to change?  Maybe if we understood how we're wired how others are wired, we could improve our relationships.

Understanding our inborn Personality is a good step in learning to live in our strengths, to overcome our weaknesses, and to improve our relationships. This knowledge will help us to do as Roman 12:18 says "Do all that you can to live at peace with everyone" (The Message).

A Personality study doesn’t mean that we don’t rely on God through prayer, Bible study, and discernment to determine who we are and how God wants to use us. It's just a tool to learn more about ourselves and how we can learn to live in harmony with others.

 In The Power of Your Personality Session 1 you will learn the strengths and weaknesses of the four Personalities: Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy, and Phlegmatic.

Click on the link below to view Session 1.

Power of Your Personality - Traits

Power of Your Personality - Traits is the first in a 3-part series about living in the strengths of your personality. Learn the strengths and weaknesses of 4 Personalities: Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholy, and Phlegmatic.

12 More Ways to Be Efficient

Monday, May 14, 2012

12 More Ways to Be Efficient

1. 30 days. Identify a new habit you’d like to form, and commit to sticking with it for just 30 days. A temporary commitment is much easier to keep than a permanent one

2. Cross-pollination. Sign up for something a bit out of your comfort zone. Go to a martial arts, start a blog, or join an improv group. You’ll often encounter ideas in one field that can boost your performance in another.

3. Delegate. Convince someone else to do it for you.

4. Early bird. Get up early in the morning, like at 5am, and go straight to work on your most important task. You can often get more done before 8am than most people do in a day.

5. Glittering prizes. Give yourself frequent rewards for achievement. See a movie, book a professional massage, or spend a day at an amusement park.

6. Intuition. Go with your gut. It’s probably right.

7. Pareto. The Pareto principle is the 80-20 rule, which states that 80% of the value of a task comes from 20% of the effort. Focus your energy on that critical 20%, and don’t over engineer the non-critical 80%.

8. Punctuality. Whatever it takes, show up on time. Arrive early.

9. Randomize. Pick a totally random piece of a larger project, and complete it. Pay one random bill. Make one phone call. Write one page of a book.

10. Relaxify. Reduce stress by cultivating a relaxing, clutter-free workspace.

11. Tempo. Deliberately pick up the pace, and try to move a little faster than usual. Speak faster. Walk faster. Type faster. Read faster. Go home sooner.

12. Timeboxing. Give yourself a fixed time period, like 30 minutes, to make a dent in a task. Don’t worry about how far you get. Just put in the time.

Adapted from stevepavlina.com

Taming the Tongue

Monday, May 7, 2012

Suggestions to tame the tongue.

1. Recognize the signs of unhealthy speech. Determine if your speech involves the sins of the tongue: slander sins, falsehoods, negativity (complaining).

2. If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything.

“Speak ill of no man, but speak all the good you know of everybody” (Benjamin Franklin).

"Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something” (Plato).

3. Know when to stand up and speak and when to sit down and listen. “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen” (Winston Churchill). Stay out of conversations that do not concern you.

4. “A gentle answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger” (Proverbs 15:1).”When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred” (Thomas Jefferson).

5. Think before you speak – Is it true, helpful, inspiring, necessary, kind?

6. Speak the truth in love. But "speaking the truth in love" means you speak with respect, gentleness, and kindness—maintaining the other person’s dignity.

7. Do not listen to or participate in negative talk. Stay away from tale bearing or any conversation that tears down instead of builds up.

8. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide your every emotion, thought, word, and deed. And then OBEY.

9. Think on these things: Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Philippians 4:8

10. When people speak badly about you, take the advice of Plato.
“When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them” (Plato).