Offerings for the Over-stressed

by Andy Wood on August 4, 2015

in Esteem, Executing Your Plan, Five LV Laws, Life Currency, LV Cycle, Principle of Freedom, Waiting

You live in what feels like a constant state of tension. Even your “good stress” is, well, stress. You check the news at least each day to make sure you’re on top of the latest thing to worry about. Your time is stretched so thin that any interruption or change of plans sends you reeling emotionally.

Your credit cards are loaded to the max, and your life feels a lot like your email inbox – loaded with clutter, junk, and unfinished business – some of which is actually important.

Your best sleep comes after 2:00 in the morning. You avoid those medical checkups because you already know what they’re going to say. Unless, of course, you need to get that prescription refilled.

And then…

…then, somebody comes along, usually on a Sunday, and says…

“Let’s worship Jesus!”

And honestly, it just feels like another reason to feel anxious.

What if I were to tell you that if you’re harried and helpless, stressed out or fried emotionally, the Bible actually gets where you’re coming from? If I could show you a way to magnificently worship the Lord Jesus, even when you’re at the end of your rope, would you be interested?

This is an Offering for the Overworked, overstressed, overeating, over-fill-in-your-blank.

Ready? Here it is: [click to continue…]

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Ain’t Got Time to Panic Today

by Andy Wood on July 15, 2015

in 100 Words, Allocating Your Resources, Life Currency, LV Alter-egos, LV Cycle, Pleasers, Time, Waiting

Elephant Foot

When everything’s urgent and demands attention now…

And everywhere you turn invites stress at best, frustration at worst…

It’s hard to think, much less act, positively.

So remember again how you eat that elephant… [click to continue…]

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The Not-So-Secret to an Abundant Life

by Andy Wood on June 29, 2015

in Allocating Your Resources, Esteem, Five LV Laws, Life Currency, LV Cycle, Principle of Abundance, Words

Hidden Clock

In the mood for a little detective work?  Care to uncover a secret that may have right in front of our noses for years?  It certainly was in mine, and I was oblivious.

Would you be interested in mining out some clues if I told you that when you do, you may have discovered one of the most powerful life and success principles known to humanity?  And that if you master this one skill, the transformation in your own life, to say nothing of your influence and circumstances, can be breathtaking?

Am I exaggerating?  No, if anything I’m understating the potential of this discovery.

Getting this – I mean really getting it – can explain why you tend to sabotage yourself after you’ve made progress toward a goal.

It may explain why churches or individual leaders lose their influence, or why they nourish it.

It may explain why you have made progress toward healing, then somehow hit a wall.

It may explain why your relationships go in frustrating cycles – hot today, cold tomorrow… intimate today, lonely later.

Finding this secret is like discovering a clock on your wall that’s been there the whole time, quietly ticking away, pointing to the correct time, but you may have never noticed it.  In one sense it’s obvious – in another, it probably calls for a closer look than you have given it.

Will it help you win the lottery?  Doubtful.  But it could lead you to a place where you never pine away for sudden wealth again.

Will it solve all your relationship problems?  Maybe, maybe not.  But it will position you to gain the most from every relationship you have or want to have, whether others cooperate or not.

I wish I could tell you that this secret has been locked away in some government vault and is now being released to a select few, and that if you pay me $3,999.00 I will share it with you, along with seven free bonus offers.  But the thing is, this secret has been in open view for anybody to see – and it’s free.

Still here?  Ready?  Okay, no more hype.  [click to continue…]

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Maybe It’s Time for a New Banner

by Andy Wood on June 24, 2015

in 100 Words, Conversations, Exploring the Possibilities, Five LV Laws, Insight, Life Currency, LV Cycle, Principle of Legacy

(A Brief Conversation about symbols and change and heritage and hate and other awkward things…)

What’s wrong with it?  It represents who I am.

It also represents some things you don’t want to be.

It’s my heritage!

Some would say it’s hatred. [click to continue…]

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Ten Lessons My Daddy Taught Me

by Andy Wood on June 19, 2015

in Five LV Laws, Insight, Leadership, Life Currency, LV Cycle, LV Stories, Principle of Legacy, Turning Points

Grandpaw and Archer

(My dad with Great-Grandchild #9, Archer Wiley)

 

I’ve been simmering on this for a while, and I figured since I’m away from home this Father’s Day, this would be a good day and a good way to honor my dad.  My daughter Carrie did this for me last year and reposted it again here.   I also wrote this about what I learned from my Mama last year.

Regardless of the many influences and teachers I’ve been blessed by over the years, none of them has taught or influenced me more than my dad. I have mentioned often that I was blessed to have a father who actually wanted to be a dad and influenced me to want to be one.  With 8 grandkids of my own now, I would say that desire has definitely passed through to another generation.

There are many practical things my dad taught me over the years, including how to drive a nail, play dominos, put on a jacket without bunching up your sleeve, ride a bicycle, and bathe the 36 different body parts that need cleaning up every day.

But what interests me most are the ideas that still speak to me today as principles.  These are transferrable to almost any endeavor. I could just as well title this, “Ten Things My Dad Would Teach to Pastors,” or “Ten Things My Dad Could Teach to School Teachers.”

So here, in no certain order, are ten lessons that still speak to me most every day.  I’m sure there are many more than this, but these are for starters.  See if they don’t speak to you on some level, while my daddy says, “Your welcome!” [click to continue…]

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Elisabeth Elliot on Waiting

by Andy Wood on June 17, 2015

in Five LV Laws, Insight, Life Currency, LV Cycle, Principle of Eternity, Waiting

elisabeth-elliot-missionary

Elisabeth Elliot is one of the most impactful writers I have read. She was always on my bucket list of people I hoped to meet one day.  We’ll now have to plan for that in glory, as she went into the presence of Jesus two days ago.  I thought I would share with you something from her book Loneliness about the subject of waiting.  The writing is hers; the editing is mine.  Thank you, Elisabeth, for being one of my lifevestors…

Many times in my life God has asked me to wait when I wanted to move forward.

He has kept me in the dark when I asked for light.

To my pleas for guidance His answer has often been, “Sit still, My daughter.”  [click to continue…]

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What You Can Learn From a Garth Brooks Concert

by Andy Wood on June 15, 2015

in Executing Your Plan, Five LV Laws, Leadership, Life Currency, LV Cycle, Principle of Increase, Turning Points

Garth Brooks

Count me in.  I now know what all the fuss is about.

Went to hear Garth Brooks in concert over the weekend in Birmingham, Alabama.  Definitely a step outside of my routine, but anybody with experience I talked to about the upcoming event told me, “It’s one of the best, if not THE best, concert experiences you will ever experience.”

Yeah, that.

Six of us took a road trip with center-section, row 9 seats.  Close enough to see the sweat and be covered when the confetti dropped.  And as-advertised, it was an extraordinary experience.  In part I felt like an outsider looking in because I didn’t know every word of every song like most of the crowd apparently did.  But on this night it didn’t matter. I was part of something bigger than myself, regardless of my lack of experience.  Garth and his team saw to that.

Now before you “Older Brother” types write me off and resume your search for friends in HIGH places, hang with me.  I’ve had some time to think about what we saw and heard that night. I’ve looked at it through several different lenses.  A leadership lens.  An organization lens. Even a Church World lens. Here are a few lessons I’ve learned that can speak to your world, too. [click to continue…]

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The Truth About Rejection

by Andy Wood on June 12, 2015

in Five LV Laws, Life Currency, LV Cycle, Principle of Increase, Time, Waiting

Sorrow

Rejection is one of the most brutal experiences you and I can face.  To say it hurts like hell may not be far from the literal truth.

Psychologists have learned some things about rejection…

Research tells us that rejection travels the same neural pathways in the brain that physical pain does.  In other words, otherwise-unexplained physical pain may have been triggered by the experience or memory of rejection.

Rejection isolates us from people who didn’t reject us, unless we take steps to reconnect.

Rejection causes surges of anger and aggression (gangs, anyone?).

Finally, rejection makes us temporarily stupid.  It literally lowers your IQ and makes you unresponsive to reason for a time. (Translation:  Don’t make vows or major decisions – especially with the word “never” in it – after being rejected.)

In the biblical story of Joseph, you can find the roots of rejection, as I explored in the previous post.   Joseph lived a very uncertain childhood, marked by the death of his mother and the preferential doting of his dad.  He was a dreamer and, to his brothers, something of a goody-two-shoes. All of this set him up to be the objected of their jealousy and hatred.

What no one knew at the time, however, was that rejection can serve as a trap door, straight into the arms (and plans) of God.  And that’s where Joseph learned the truth about rejection. [click to continue…]

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The Roots of Rejection

by Andy Wood on June 10, 2015

in Enlarging Your Capacity, Esteem, Five LV Laws, Life Currency, LV Alter-egos, LV Cycle, Pleasers, Principle of Increase

Loneliness Concept - 3D

What did rejection look like to you on the school playground?  What about Junior High?  College?

What did rejection look like after you got married, or started a family?  What does it look like today in your workplace or your worship space?

Describing your experience with rejection is like describing an encounter with a snake.  Each experience is a little different, and the beast appears differently in every scene.  But in each case the result leaves a story to tell and an emotional experience to re-live or respond to.

I’ve had my own experiences, of course.  And I’ve seen it played out in countless lives…

Like the 59-year-old woman who said of her then-76-year-old mother, “Just once I wish I could hear my mother say I did something right.”

Or the only-child high school student who was rejected by his friends because he had a helicopter mother before the term was ever invented.  She meddled, and her son, whom she was trying to help and advance, was hated all the more.

Then there was the businessman who was rejected in the business world because he was part of a revolutionary approach to financial services, but was obnoxious about it.

I knew a pastor once who was rejected by the deacons in his church. After years of service, they felt that it was time for a change. So they gave him a deadline and asked him to find somewhere else to go. When he was unable to, they cornered him about resigning, and he turned the rejection tables back on them. Unbeknownst to them, he showed up one Sunday morning with has car packed, he got up at sermon time, explained that he’d been asked to resign, and walked out the door.  Ouch.

It may surprise you to know that some of the most memorable and powerful success stories in history are people whose lives arose from the ashes of rejection.  [click to continue…]

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A Dance of Delight with Your Creator

by Andy Wood on June 3, 2015

in Prayers

Sunset Worship 4

A Prayer for You…

Wherever you may be, and in whatever capacity, my prayer for you today is that you would live, serve, and worship in an ongoing dance of delight with your Creator.  Specifically I pray:

That the Hands that gave sight to the blind would touch you with new capacity to see, to perceive, to recognize opportunity and danger, even as they present themselves at that same open door…

That the Arms that hold the universe would hold you in peace and safety, bringing security and safety to every thought of fear, trouble, or loneliness… [click to continue…]

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