Freedom: 100% Mental. Pro athletes have such amazing physical skills. Years of intense and intentional training build tremendous coordination and deep-seated muscle memory. Hours of drills, techniques, and exercises, reviewing and repeating the same actions with on-the-spot coaching and guidance develop them into athletic machines, permitting them to maximize their potential. Despite all that physical preparation, when athletes get onto the field one very significant physical organ will determine their success. The brain! They say sports are 90% mental. What’s between their ears really determines if they will maximize their physical abilities. What counts are their intellectual, psychological, relational, emotional and spiritual skills and their ability to manage stress. In fact, to develop physical skills at such a high level, many other mental skills are vital to success: perseverance, self-discipline, hard work, maintaining the integrity of the drills without taking short cuts, dietary self-control, studying plays, observation and application, values, purpose, meaning, and learning from mistakes. Life works the same way. Freedom of speech … freedom to choose the vocation we want … freedom to practice any religion. But are we really free? How many of us are actually prisoners of our own hearts and minds? How many of us are “driven” to be something we are not? How often do we sabotage the path designed specifically for us? In an odd paradox, freedom really comes from having only one Master … the only one qualified to be the Master. Most of our troubles come from trying to blend masters (self, world, others, God) for our lives … thus devising and implementing our own game plans while ignoring His. You will maximize your abilities and your life, in other words, achieve your God-given potential, when you realize your life is 100% mental and you humbly let all-powerful and all-knowing God be your coach and authority. That is certainly how your life can really be turned around. Here’s the bottom line. All life comes down to decision-making. First come decisions you make to prepare, practice, acquire skills and develop them. Then come the decisions that are made when real life is going on … how you apply those skills. The reason we push decision-making skills so often is that they are the key to your life and spiritual growth. Today, find freedom by seeking to please God above all else. When you are angry, frustrated, overwhelmed, or experiencing some other uncomfortable feeling, just stop. Don’t act yet. Think of God and His big picture of salvation and eternity. Or ponder Biblical passages that calm you. Let this soothe you. Then get back to the situation that was upsetting you. From this calm state, think through a better solution than the one that initially went through your mind while you were upset. This is how you can be victorious in the mental aspect of everyday living. Concentrate on staying close to Him at all times and humbling yourself to His instructions for your conduct. Whether you put in effort to strengthen the mental part of your life or lazily hope it randomly happens is your decision! Ephesians 5:8-10 (NLT) For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true. Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. Isaiah 42:16 (NLT) I will lead blind Israel down a new path, guiding them along an unfamiliar way. I will brighten the darkness before them and smooth out the road ahead of them. Yes, I will indeed do these things; I will not forsake them.
Posted on: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 17:16:35 +0000
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