Many times people will complain that certain areas of body fat are stubborn and hard to lose. After training clients for almost 20 years I have seen that it can also be hard to gain muscle in some areas of the body. It is like some areas of the body don't respond like they should.

Stubborn body parts are like stubborn people. The more you try to change them the more they resist. Rules, laws, and trying to force them to change doesn't work. There is only one way to get stubborn people to change... grace and doing good for them even if they don't deserve it. The Bible tells us that God's gentleness makes us great. Whether you have stubborn people or a stubborn body part a gentle more graceful approach tends to work better. Be patient and give them time to change. This is what God does for us. 

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The Proverbs 13:22 Book Writing Challenge starts tomorrow. 

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What You May Have Missed

In January we finished the Isaiah 61:3 Fat Loss Challenge.

You can...

The other day after I got the kids home from school we started going through the usual evening stuff... doing homework, cooking dinner, packing lunches, and getting cleaned up. My wife was going to be getting home a little later so it was just me and the kids. 

As I was cooking dinner one of my daughters needed help with her homework, then my other daughter was crying because she was struggling with her homework and needed help. Then the baby pooped and was asking to be changed. All of this was happening at the same time and when I went into the living room to get a diaper it looked like the room had exploded. There were puzzle pieces and wooden blocks from a Jenga game everywhere along with spilled food all over the floor. I began to feel overwhelmed. This wasn't looking too much like an Abundant Life. 

But then I remembered that if I was being stretched it meant there was grace to handle the situation. I took the pressure off of myself and prayed and asked for help. Then...

Last year at my daughters parent teacher conference her teacher mentioned that my daughter had skill in writing. When I picked up my daughter from school I mentioned what her teacher said and my daughter responded with " I have a book I want to write."

I said " Let's do it." So that weekend we wrote the book. She wrote it and I helped with edits. It is a short children's story and when the illustrations are done she will have a published book. 

There are two reason why I encouraged her to write the book. The first is that everyone has good or God ideas but most people never take action on them. Sadly, most peoples good creative ideas are never birthed. Most people never take action because it is not the right time, they don't think they are capable, or they don't think they have the resources. 

The second reason was that I wanted to teach her the process. In anything creative there will always be a process of doing the work, patience, persevering, working well with others,...

People often use the phrase " my plate is full," when they full like they have more going on in their life than they can handle. 

What do you do when your plate is full and it feels like your capacity is being stretched?

If we were to use a nutrition example then the first thing I would say is to make sure your plate isn't full of junk food. Often we can get entangled doing a bunch of stuff that doesn't really matter or help us reach our goals. Step 1 is to make sure that what is on your plate is what you are supposed to be doing. Pray and ask God for help in this area. 

If your plate is full God may be stretching you to expand your capacity. How do you increase your capacity to do more and not get overwhelmed? The key is to pour out. There was a time when my plate was full and God gave me the example of a tea pot that was full. The only way to make more room was to put some cups out and start pouring the tea into them. Once you pour out you have more room. The answer is...

Psalm 78:41 says that people limited God. This is an interesting thought that we could limit God. How did they limit him? They were in the wilderness on the way to the promised land and God had them send spies in to check out the land. When the spies returned they complained that there were giants in the land and that it was impossible for them to take the land. 

What is the learning lesson here? We can limit God when we are not willing to step into what God has for us because of doubt and unbelief. It always takes a step of faith to move into what God has for you. The people thought they looked like grasshoppers compared to the giants in the land. The problem was they were looking at what they were capable of rather than what God is capable of. 

On Monday Feb 10th we are starting the Proverbs 13:22 Book Writing Challenge. For many people writing books seems impossible. If you have stories and testimonies of what God has done these lessons need to be passed on, even if you...

About 10 years ago I was sitting with a group of friends, and one of them was a youth pastor. He was sharing his testimony about what God had done in his life. Then he asked about my testimony. At the time I was a little embarrassed because I had nothing. 

I believed in Jesus, but had no story. The truth was I had no real connection with God. I wasn't seeking him. Then one day I came across a challenge to read one chapter from the book of Proverbs every day. While reading in Proverbs 13 verse 22 jumped off the page at me. It said a good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children. 

That day I made a commitment to start working on manuals to pass on to my kids for every area of life. I did not realize that the commitment to writing and passing on lessons would accelerate my connection with God and lead to finding my purpose. That commitment lead to story after story after story after story of all the things God has done. 

Parents passing on lessons to future...

Several years ago Proverbs 13:22 jumped off the page at me. It says a good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children. 

I started to think about what I wanted to leave for my kids and hopefully grand kids. And the most valuable thing we can pass on is WISDOM. 

After that day I made a commitment to start writing manuals to pass on for every area of life. At the time I didn't have much to pass onto them, but making that commitment led to something bigger. It led to writing several books and discovering the Abundant Life Blueprint. 

On Feb 10th we are going to be starting the Proverbs 13:22 Book Writing Challenge. If you have lessons, stories, or testimonies of what God has done in your life then I believe these are the most valuable things you could pass on to future generations. 

The thought of writing a book may seem overwhelming, but a book is God's chosen form of communication. He gave us a book, and his book is mostly letters. If you can write a...

I once heard that one of the top things that makes wives irritated is dirty dishes in the sink. So, the other day I was doing the dishes for my wife after dinner. We had cooked london broil in the oven and I was attempting to clean the pan. I tried using hot water and scrubbing hard but some of the residue was stuck to the pan and would not budge. So I filled the pan with water and let it soak for a while. After sitting in the water for a little while I scrubbed again and everything came off easily. 

What is the learning lesson? God is trying to clean us up and make us sparkly clean. And  sometimes we pray and ask him to remove things that have been stuck to us for a while. In these cases God could give you a really hard scrubbing or he could just put some water on you and let you sit for a while. In Psalm 18:35 David says that God's gentleness made him great. If there is some bad pattern that you have been stuck in God will take a gentle approach with you, which means he...

A few days ago someone gave me a $20 bill. At the time I was talking with some people so I placed the money in my pocket. A few hours later I began to take everything out of my pocket in order to put the money in my wallet, where I had a few other $20 bills. When I emptied out my pockets the $20 bill was gone. I searched and searched but I couldn't find it anywhere. A few hours later a friend came up to me and said " I found this $20 bill on the ground by the door. Did someone lose it?' 

When I received the money back I was actually more excited than when I had received it the first time. Later that night in my normal Bible reading I happened to be on Luke 15, which has the story of Jesus leaving to 99 to find the one lost sheep, the woman who searches for the lost coin, and the prodigal son. When I saw these stories I suddenly understood.

There are a few learning lessons in the stories. The first is that there is more joy in things that are redeemed, found, or restored than in...

The other day one of my daughters kept snapping at her sister. This was not her normal behavior and I could tell that something was bothering her. My wife talked to her and sure enough she had a test coming up at school that she was worried about. She likes to do well at school and was putting pressure on herself.

After finding out about this I talked with her and told her that even if she got an "F" it wouldn't change the way we feel about her, and reminded her of a lesson we talk about often, which is that everyone does better when relaxed. We talked about how she should study but when it came time for the test she should relax knowing that God put wisdom in her and that he wanted to help 

There are two learning lessons in this story. Number 1 is to take the pressure off yourself. When you take the pressure off yourself you allow God to better flow through you. Just rest in the fact that he wants to help. Lesson number 2 is that if you are interacting with or leading people...