Category Archives: Life

Race horses and plow horses

Career, Family, Life

My brother in-law Ted Phillips is one smart guy who I respect and love greatly. We were having lunch today and he said something that was very insightful and so very true.

He said you could take a race horse and hook him up to a plow and keep him in that environment and the horse would eventually think he was a plow horse.

The next time you are with the wrong crowd and you know you are with the wrong crowd, let this race horse image be clear in your mind. You need to quit letting yourself become the person you don’t want to be.

On the human side, it is about putting yourself in the right environment in order to reach your potential. I heard a guy say one time that you will be in five years based on the books you read and the people you surround yourself with. That statement is mostly correct, but God can and has done great things in people’s lives even thought they were in the wrong environment. Children have come from bad home situations and went on to accomplish great things and people have been with the wrong crowd and come through that time period to be what God intended them to be.

I remember some years ago that I had a set of friends from church that were not healthy for me to be around. They were complainers, they talked about other people, basically 9-5ers at work and they were lazy. I began to move away from them and began spending much less time with them because I instinctively knew that they were not good for me.

Let’s take it a step further and use some very simple examples we all know. If you hang around people who drink, you will drink. If you hand around people who do drugs, lie, cheat and steal, you will do drugs, lie cheat and steal. It really is that simple in life. This does not mean you can’t have a cup of coffee with a friend who is a bonehead without becoming a bonehead. That is not what I am saying. I am saying that if you desire to spend a lot of time and be around only boneheads, you may just find yourself one day being a bonehead.

Let’s do another easy lay-up. You as a parent are very careful about who you let your children spend time with. Maybe even your parents talked to you about who you were spending time with? It really is a simple thing to understand yet we as adults somehow believe we are not influenced by the people we spend time with. Go figure.

The power of association is a very important area of our consciousness and we all need to be aware of its existence and the quite hold it can take on your life before you knowing it.

It has been said that small minded people talk about other people, average minded people talk about things, and strong minded people talk about hope, plans, and ideas. I believe that is very true.

Ok class, it is time for the quiz on what you have read here today. Ha.

You know what I am saying. Be careful who you let close to you and your family and your children because it is very important to choose to be around people that speak of hope, plans, ideas, dreams, health and being all that God intended for them to be. So don’t look up one day and find yourself behind a plow when you really should have been a race horse. KT

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

Family, Life

The old Baptist hymn, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, was written by Robert Robinson in 1757 at the age of 22. If you Google the title of the song, you can read the history behind the composer and the song.

The song depicts a person asking for streams of mercy to never cease and for the lord to tune his heart to sing his praise. It speaks of his redeeming love. In verse four it says, O to grace how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be, let thy goodness like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee.

The five verse song not only is a great musical masterpiece but it is a phenomenal lyrical writing. Just read the words and you will know what I mean.

The earliest memory I have of the song was one summer when I was at my granny Bell’s house (my mother’s mother) and I was probably 5 or 6 years old. She took me to Peach Orchard Baptist church for bible school. I remember it just like it was yesterday, her standing beside me singing this song and holding the hymnal so I could see the words. I remember her voice and her very presence at that moment and every time I hear the song, I think of her. Granny Bell died young at 63 of a heart condition in 1975.

The point is that this is a great song. The second point is you never know what a simple memory will mean to your children and grandchildren. We get caught up in the hurry of life and don’t realize what little moments mean. This story of my grandmother is a good example. She took the time to be with me that day when she probably had many other more important things to do but it was that moment that stays with me today. She was a dear sweet woman and loved her family with all her heart. KT

Ideals are peaceful but history is violent

Family, Life

Brad Pitt, the actor, is not usually the person to use a quote from, ha, but in the movie “Fury” he made that quote and it was reported that Brad adlibbed and said this quote off script. Once they thought about the quote, they left it in the movie because it was a very true statement.

The statement was “Ideals are peaceful but history is violent.”

If you just take a walk through history you will know that this is true. If you look at the past conflicts and wars such as Vietnam, Koran war, and of course Adolf Hitler and Germany during WWII, Japan during WWII, WWI ,Civil War and all the way back to the Revolutionary war, they are started with a great and peaceful ideology that turned in a bloody war.

Ideology is usually said when the person saying it is safe, warm and secure and it is usually their ideology that they want to impose on the other party.

As I went about my life this past weekend I was reminded of what a price our fathers and grandfathers and their fathers before them paid so we could be safe and live our lives as we decide. Yesterday in Sunday school there was a question if we had ever been persecuted for our faith or not. The answer is that no one in that room has ever been persecuted. You may have had your feelings hurt over faith but nothing that would approach persecution. I am reminded of Hitler who wanted to impose his socialist ideology on all the countries around Germany including the Jewish people. That was persecution. What we have experienced is maybe a little shunning from other people, hurt feelings now and then and the occasional bruised ego.

You think of all the past wars and where they were fought and what the conditions were and the men and women waking up every day not knowing if they would be alive that night. Those soldiers watched their friends die around them and fought with all their hearts to simply stay alive and come home to their families and live in freedom.

The image of being a parent taking your son or your daughter to report for active duty is an image that has played out millions of times for fathers and mothers across America. Thank God I never had to take my daughters to report for duty. I am simply thankful for our lives

My point is the next time you have an easy weekend or a day that is maybe a little stressful, I believe we should all have a reality check on what price was paid so we can go about our lives in freedom. When you see a soldier in uniform, go up to him or her and thank them.

Accross history there has been many people who thought they were leaders and who dispensed their form of ideology. What you will always note from history is that the person wants to be in charge of the ideological setting. None of those people want to be the ones that are controlled by someone else. In every situation they wanted to be in charge.

Sometimes being thankful starts with an inventory of our lives, our families, our safety and where we live. KT

Be Bold

Career, Life

This is something I used to tell my daughters when they were little. I remember telling them this before they would leave for events they were involved in, dates, try outs, sports teams and generally regarding how to live their life. I would even say it as I prayed for them. It seems that the term has become quite popular these days and used often in advertising, retail and even has been made into bracelets.

I was with a good friend one time in Maryland and he had a prescription that he wanted to drop off at the pharmacy to be filled. I asked him if was going to drop it off and come back later and he said “no I am going to get it filled right now.” He told me that many things in life can be handled much better if we act bold and give the appearance of what we expect. I thought about this while he in fact walked into the pharmacy and got his prescription filled within a few minutes. The people at the pharmacy just simply did as he requested. He was bold yet kind and polite at the same time. He just went in with the attitude of expectancy.

This is a fine line of life but a very true and very important lesson. If you have confidence when you start something, it usually sets the attitudes and the way things will go as compared to going in with your head down and shy.

The funny thing is that boldness comes from “acting” bold even though you may not feel it at the moment. It is like when the bible speaks of “calling things that be not as though they were.” It means that the way you actually feel can be changed by how you act like you feel. Let me say that again. The way you actually feel can be changed by how you act like you feel. Therefore even if you don’t feel bold at the moment, by acting like you feel bold somehow changes you to actually feel bold. It is a mental and physical decision rather than an emotional decision.

As many of you know, I stutter when I talk and I have been like this all my life. I have learned that acting bold and acting confident helps my speech. If I let my guard down and go into a meeting with my head down I seem to stutter worst. When I do to myself what I am saying in this blog, I am actually making myself feel bold and confident even though I may not feel that way.

Jesus Christ told us to “imitate” him and I can tell you he was never beaten down or felt inferior and shy. The opposite was in fact true, in that he was always bold and never backed down to anyone. So I guess if you need to imitate anyone, Jesus Christ is the best example there is. It also goes without saying that if you are a Christian, that Jesus Christ lives within your heart, therefore imitating him doesn’t seem like the wrong thing to do.

Be Bold in everything you say and do and be the example God wants you to be. KT

Ruining your life usually takes time

Family, Life

People usually don’t ruin their life all at once. It is usually decisions over a period of time. That said, you can go out this afternoon and rob a bank, and it will pretty much put your life in downward spiral all at once. Most of the time, ruining your life is a culmination of small decisions made over a long period of time.

If you haven’t read the story of Samson in the Bible, this story defines what I am saying. I heard Andy Stanley speak on this a few months ago, and it stayed with me. I won’t go into the whole story as you can read it for yourself, but Samson was a very physically powerful man who was chosen by God. His main instruction was to never tell anyone where his strength comes from (his uncut hair) because if people knew where his strength came from, they could destroy him. He had a weakness for women, and one woman in particular was Delilah. She would ask him where his strength came from and to make a long story short, he toyed with her and kidded with her over this issue and eventually told her his secret. She deceived him and told his secret to the people that were trying to kill him; he basically died a blind and broken man.

He didn’t die because he did one thing wrong. He died because he played with and toyed with the gift God had given him. He died a shameful death because he couldn’t control himself.

He played with that area of his life where he was vulnerable and little by little, it cost him his life. The New Testament speaks many times of “The” sin that so easily makes us stumble, and I believe we all have a “The” sin that we need to be very careful around and to watch very closely in our lives. To some it is eating, to others it is worry, inferiority, fear, sex, drinking, alcohol, gambling and the list could go on and on.

I remember when I was a child how we would watch a scary TV show and how afraid I would be the whole time. I remember my dad Gene would always wait until that precise moment when the bad guy would jump out, and Gene would grab me and scare the living daylights out of me. The more movies a person watches that are scary, the more they get comfortable with them. It is the same with any weakness in our lives. If we keep letting that thing in our lives slowly get to us, we could be putting ourselves at risk just like Samson.

Enough said on this subject. Anyone reading this knows what the point is. We should heed the story of Samson because he lost his life, his purpose, his calling, and opportunity to do something great with his life. KT