Category Archives: Life

Clean Out Your Closet

Career, Family, Life

I was in Albuquerque, New Mexico, back in the mid ’90s working on a hotel we were selling. I was sitting on the bed flipping channels on the TV. At the time, I was deeply in debt with the restaurants, and my financial life seemed to be in free fall. I was at the point where I could not see my way out.

So, here I was sitting in a hotel flipping channels, and you know how it is when you are trying to find something that will hold your interest. There was channel with this lawyer who was speaking at some business event; he happened to be a Christian. So, I would listen to him for a few seconds and flip the channel, etc. After I went back to the channel where he was speaking (about the fifth time), I decided to hear what he was saying. Thirty minutes later, I was crying sitting on the bed because it was exactly what I needed to hear at the time.

The attorney’s name was Bob Deal from Richmond, Virginia, and he was speaking to a large audience, telling a story that simply captivated my spirit. Bob Deal had a friend that was having financial issues, and the friend asked Bob to go have dinner with him and give him some advice on his situation. Remember that Bob Deal was Christian. Before the dinner meeting, Bob prayed that the Lord would give him the words he needed to speak into this man’s life. Here they were at dinner, and the friend was clearly in financial trouble and could not see a way out. Bob was still waiting for the Lord to give him the advice to share with his friend when the dinner was almost over. After the plates were taken away and they were having coffee, Bob looked at the man and said the weirdest thing. Bob said, “Tell me what your closet, dresser and garage look like.” The man looked at Bob like he had lost his mind. Finally, the man told Bob that his closet hadn’t been cleaned or organized in years, the top of his dresser was stacked with stuff, and his garage was so full he couldn’t get his car in it.

Bob Deal looked at the man and said, go home, clean your closet, your dresser, and your garage; during the process of this mental cleansing of the clutter in your life, the Lord will give you the answer to your financial situation. At this point, I was still sitting on the bed in the hotel room, and it was a though he was speaking only to me. The friend of Bob Deal did as instructed, and he developed a new path for his financial situation that worked out for him; he was able to avoid bankruptcy. I also did what Bob Deal told his friend to do, and it was as though it was spiritual therapy for me at that crossroad in life. The cleaning out of the everyday things helped me be more organized in my thoughts and greatly helped me navigate through my own financial mess back in the mid ’90s.

So, I now clean my closet several times a year, and I have one of the most organized garages in the country. Sometimes it’s the simple things that are within our control where we need to start. The first act of faith is to simply step forward, even when you don’t know exactly where you are going. Just maybe the first step or act of faith is cleaning up where you currently live. KT

Questionnaire

Life

You have heard me speak about the value of doing a personal inventory. Sometimes we don’t realize how blessed we are until we compare it to something or someone.

If you ever need a reality check, just go a new doctor. I did it today. The person at the front desk gives you a clipboard with a health questionnaire for you to fill out. I started on this questionnaire with 66 items, and it asked me to circle any conditions that applied. The list covered aliments from heart valve replacement to cancer to bone marrow transplants. Of the 66 items, I was able to not circle a single one. Today, I took an inventory of just how really blessed I am.

There were a few times when our girls were little where we had health scares. One, I remember in particular had shaken me so badly that when the doctor came out and said she was going to be fine, I could hardly drive. I kept saying ‘thank you Jesus.” I will tell what I was NOT thinking about and that was what I had to get done at work. That thought did not enter my mind during that afternoon. When that doctor came out and said she was going to be ok, my world flooded with joy; as I wiped tears from my eyes, I said, “thank you father for taking care of this.”

What I realized today filling out that questionnaire was just how much I had to be thankful for.

Sometimes the quickest path to finding joy and peace in where you are in life is to take an inventory of what is good and right, and you will most likely find a new level of joy in your life. KT

Be an imitator

Life

The Apostle Paul wrote in 1st Cor. 11:1 “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” There are 100 blog posts I could write on that simple verse. You want to have people who are great examples in your life to emulate. Think about your children when they were little; they learned from you because they imitated you and what you did. The question is when people meet you, what do they see, who do they see, and do they see Jesus in how you live your life? KT

The one thing

Career, Life

We all have one primary thing that we know in our hearts that we are supposed to do. In fact,  that we have to do.

The theme, “One Thing,” is common throughout the Bible. In the Garden of Eden, you will remember there were two trees: the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Good and Evil. God told Adam and Eve to eat of everything in the garden except from the Tree of Good and Evil. All they had to do was this one thing. It’s important to note that God placed the tree in the “midst” (in the middle) of the Garden. You ask why didn’t he place it hidden in the corner? Well, it was supposed to be a daily choice for them and one that they had to face every day. It’s that way for us also; we all know there is one part of our life that we need to be careful of and stay away from, and it is a daily choice we must make.

The Apostle Paul in the New Testament spoke of “This One Thing I do” setting aside the weight that holds me back and striving toward the mark, of the calling of the high God.  Isn’t that a great example of what God wants for our lives?

We all know there is one primary thing that we are supposed to do and if we don’t do it, we will miss God’s best for our life. Probably no one will even know if you did or did not do it because we hide behind all types of issues and things in our life so no one will ever really know. I know what my one thing is, and you know what your one thing is. I also know that if I don’t do it, I will forever know that I missed God’s best and perfect plan for my life.

You ask what my one thing is…Well, you’re not supposed to ask. Ha.

See, I stutter and my One Thing is the temptation to have the fear of speaking. That’s right, it’s the temptation to have fear. See, I don’t have the fear, but I know it is a temptation away; once I let it begin, I will never be able to stop it. The temptation is to “pull back” and hide behind emails, conference call, but not really go right at the issue. It’s always easier to “hand off” things to other people, be reserved, and not wade out into the uncomfortable area. God has a sense of humor, I am convinced, because he made a man who stutters a salesman. How funny is that? Couldn’t he have found someone better for the job? Well, he could have, but God put me in that job and said I will be with you.

What’s holding you back from being all you were meant to be? Do the One Thing you need to do. I heard a guy say one time “do something every day that scares you and makes you uncomfortable.” KT

Go back and start over

Family, Life

Funny story. We bought a lake house 11 years ago on Lake Lanier. We bought the house in February of 2003 and got some work done to the house, etc. One of the things we did was get the boat dock fitted with a boat lift for the ski boat. Remember, it’s February. So, when the boat lift was complete, I needed to bring the boat to the house, so I put the boat in the water at the marina a couple of miles from the house. The thought never occurred to me that the lake house and dock would look different from the water side. Well, as you can fast forward and guess, I fired up that Mastercraft boat and blew right by the house and never even saw it. I ended up out of the main channel in the big water and just simply could not figure out where I was. I hate to admit this, but it spooked me just a little. It was cold, and I literally could not get my bearings on where I was. I had to stop the boat in the water, get the map out, look for the marker on the shore, and try to find the same marker on the map. It took me 45 minuets in the cold to figure out what to do. I finally decided to go back to where I started and complete a “do over.”

I went back and got a “do over” and finally found the right destination. I think sometimes in life, it’s that way for us. We look around, don’t know how we got where we are, and can’t find the map markers to get us back. Spiritually, it’s like that sometimes with God, and we just need to go back to where we started and last heard God, and ask him for a “do over.” I find that he is always waiting for us to return, and he is always willing to lead us to the proper destination if we will simply ask him. KT