10 things you’d want to be said at your funeral! Have you ever thought about that?

I have. (Yeah, unfortunately, that’s how my mind works.)

My grandmother had a term she used about aging. She called it “the approaching Shade.” That’s so poetic and melancholy.

Sometimes I think about the approaching Shade. Not in a morbid way at all. It’s just a sweet way of realizing that I have more behind me than I do ahead of me, and that’s okay.

BUT – I have zero desire to be leaving this physical plane anytime soon. I have a lot to do yet.

So. 10 things you’d want to be said at your funeral. Coming up with that list can be an enlightening exercise.

Here’s my 10.

1. Tony was my go-to person for all things Disney. By his own admission, his passion for the Mouse was inexplicable. He was a fountain of Disney trivia, he considered Walt Disney World his second home, and if you were planning a trip yourself, he’d put together the ultimate experience for you. I’m surprised he’s not being buried in mouse ears.
2. Tony loved performing magic. He never was all that good, but people laughed and enjoyed themselves. That was more than sufficient.
3. Tony was a more-than-decent cook. He was absorbed by the Food Network. Turn him loose in the kitchen and he was a happy guy. And grilling? Give that boy a spatula, a properly heated and prepared grill, and some red meat, and he was good to go. He was an unrepentant carnivore. Well, actually an omnivore. There was only one food in all creation he wouldn’t eat – coconut. He didn’t like the way it looked, the way it smelled, its texture. He didn’t want to see a picture of it on a box. He didn’t even want you to eat it. He wanted to at least be able to tolerate it before he died. That didn’t happen.
4. Tony loved to travel. There was always somewhere else to go and see and do. He was as comfortable in an urban setting as he was in nature. Well rounded, yes? He’d soak up those experiences like a sponge. He always said he preferred mountains to the beach, but in later years decided the beach was okay. He liked the water. If told, “Here’s a towel. I want you to spread it out on that unbearably hot white dirt and lay on it. I want the sun to cook you to a neon pink,” then he would scream and run.
5. Tony was not vain. He would have like to have been “dapper,” but that involved too much work, and he cordially detested having to wear a necktie.
6. Tony was self-depreciating. He was never hesitant to poke fun at himself, and he never, ever wanted to take himself too seriously. “Contempt” might be too strong a word, but he tended to be annoyed by people who did take themselves too seriously. He believed that many of the problems of the world stemmed from humorless people who couldn’t see the absurdity of their own words and deeds. “Lighten up,” he’d say.
7. Tony’s sense of humor was warped. He loved satire. He loved seeing the high and mighty lampooned. His humor wasn’t vulgar, but it could sometimes be construed as inappropriate. For instance, he loved a good meme dealing with COVID-19. Some folks didn’t get that. At all.
8. Tony was an introvert. A textbook introvert. He loved his own company. He could mix and mingle and engage with the best of them, because he genuinely loved people. But after having to people too much, he’d have to go lay down. Sometimes he’d just get tired of folks. He could engage in small talk, but only in limited doses. When he was with you, he’d try to steer the conversation toward the meaning of life, what you’d observed about the unfolding of the world, and your dreams, goals, and aspirations. He wanted to know what you believed was your purpose in being here. He could do that for hours. He was an INFJ, and took some sort of misplaced pride in being part of the rarest of personality types – like anyone else cared!
9. Tony loved his family with a passion that was terrifying. His wife Teresa was his helpmeet and his pillar. He loved his extraordinarily different kids, Jeremy and Amy, who grew up to be honorable, ambitious young adults, and loved his in-laws, Kathleen and Stone. But those grandkids – Katherine and Levi – would absolutely cause him to lose his mind and all semblance of control. In his latter years those two were the best thing that ever happened to him.
10. Tony loved God. He was a disciple of Jesus Christ and served at His pleasure. The most important words he ever wanted to hear were “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Because of that relationship, Tony felt that his calling was simply to be an encourager.

That, folks, is what I would want to be said at my funeral. What are 10 things you’d want to be said at your funeral?

I have a lot to do to live up to my own desires. But I have some time yo work on that still. Don’t I, Lord?

Be blessed.

Tony’s Question: How about you?? What 10 things would you want to be said at your funeral? How about sharing just one of those below.

Oh, yeah … I’m taking a week-long break from the blog while I do a little vacay action. See y’all later!

Read that again: Want a do-over? You can begin again and finish well.

I don’t know why that statement resonates with me so strongly.

Actually, I do.

I don’t have many regrets. Yes, I’ve made some bad choices and decisions. I have found myself in patterns of behavior that have not served me well at all. I’ve dug myself into some significant holes. None of them have been moral failures or crimes.

Nope. They’ve mostly been just stupid.

You’ve heard this plenty of times: You can’t fix stupid.

If “fixing stupid” means going back to the past and undoing things you’ve done or said, that is absolutely true. You can’t take it back.

Here’s a miracle, though: You can get a do-over.

If you want to try a little exercise, here ya go. Get a piece of paper and a pen, or open any notes app on your device.

You won’t enjoy this, but it’ll lay some foundation for good stuff.

Number your paper from 1 to 5. I want you to come up with 5 stupid incidents in your life that were caused by you – decisions you made, things you said, or habits you instilled in yourself. You won’t have to share these with the class, so be totally honest and authentic. Sugarcoating won’t help. I’ll wait.

Wasn’t that fun? And now, I want you to circle the one out of the whole list that had or has the biggest impact on you.

Guess what? You can’t take it back. And it could have been of such significance that it altered the trajectory of your life.

I hope that little exercise didn’t put you in a total funk. Again – you can’t take it back, and in some fashion you have to make peace with that. It’s done. Over. Finished.

Still. You can start over and finish well. You can get a do-over. We just have to come up with a strategy as to how that can happen.

I don’t want to give you a pep talk. I do want you to think in terms of what’s ahead for you. The reason you aren’t dead is because you haven’t completed what God put you here to accomplish.

Let’s try a do-over, shall we?

1. You’ve identified some events in your life that have hamstrung you. You may be experiencing fear or shame because of them.
2. Claim this thought: “You are never good the first time.” That’s from John Maxwell. Maxwell is a pretty smart guy.
3. Mistakes and failures come to anyone who has a pulse. There’s nothing new there.
4. As hard as it is to believe, those mistakes and failures can and should build character and make you resolute. You can’t learn and grow if things go your way all the time.
5. I say this all the time: Failure is an event, not a person.
6. Don’t wish for a do-over. The lessons you learned the first time were sufficient.
7. Everything – and I mean everything – you’ve experienced is a foundation for the positive things that come next.
   1. Look once more at the number one thing on your list.
   2. Identify the most significant lesson you learned from it.
   3. Ask yourself: If faced again with the same circumstances that brought on your bad decision, what would you do different?
   4. Is there a principle in what you learned that you can apply to other similar circumstances?
   5. If so, what would keep you from modifying your behavior next time? (Hint: Whatever it is, don’t do it again.)
   6. Remember you have total, utter control over the choices you make. It’s not someone or something else’s fault. That gives you extraordinary power and authority.
8. You aren’t too old, uneducated, unlucky, unfortunate, or unable to start fresh. You’ve had experiences that have prepared you to do so much better the next time around. Claim that.
9. Give me an excuse that will convince me that you can’t engineer a do-over. But I wouldn’t work too hard on that one. I will not enable your excuses. You shouldn’t enable your excuses either.
10. Truth: You already have inside you what you need to do to start over and finish well. There is a do-over available to you. There has to be a connection made between what you know you should do and actually doing it. You have the solution to your pr0blems already at your fingertips. So how do you make that a reality? At the risk of sounding naive, here it is: you just do it.

Please, please, please understand – I am a fellow pilgrim and sojourner with all this. I’m saying things I know to be true. But as stated in #10 above, just doing it is a really acute struggle some days.

Ancient script says this: “… I do not practice what I want to do, but what I hate… what a wretched man I am!” For thousands of years, men and women better than you and me have dealt with this awful conundrum. “Who,” said the apostle Paul, “will rescue me from this body of death?” He takes a deep breath and says, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”*

I’m a person of faith. I’m not saying that it is impossible for you to start over apart from God. In my context, though, I acknowledge my inability to experience lasting change apart from him.

At the beginning of 2018, I made the very public statement, “2018 will be my best year ever.” Eight months into 2019, my success criteria has shifted. After dealing with flooding, a parathyroid tumor that really wreaked havoc with my calcium level and my mental capacity, a renal cell carcinoma (kidney cancer, if you please), and a concussion which has caused post concussion syndrome (the worst) … I’m sticking by my statement. 2018 and 2019 have not been the best years in the conventional sense. It looks pretty awful in retrospect, and there are still more challenges to come.

Know what, though? It’s gonna be okay. It always is. Always has been.

I can’t begin to comprehend all the “why’s” in play here. In the flesh, it’d be easy for me to say “the heck with this.”

All these events have put me in a place of starting over with my “new normal.” I don’t know if I would be willing to put effort into a new start had I not been faced with these challenges. It’s all part of a plan that I can’t completely see quite yet. But I have utter confidence in God shepherding me and orchestrating events  all around me in order to fulfill His destiny for me.

That’s what a do-over means.

My story is your story. You’ve had challenges galore. We’ve all made some bonheaded choices. You’ve wanted to blame God, others, circumstances, unlucky breaks, everything to excuse yourself for how you’re feeling and acting. I have, too.

Well, dang it, we are better than that. We are capable of more. Inside each of us is the solution to our ordeals. We need to simply receive with gratitude, and act on what we know the wise thing to do is.

Begin your do-over. Finish well. The world needs a completed and fulfilled you.

*from Romans 7:15-25.

Tony’s question: What’s one concrete, measurable step you can take to rid yourself of regret and get a fresh, do-over start? Share with the rest of us below. 

Let me share 10 traits I value in my friends.

I’d like for this to be interactive. I’d love for you to share yours with the rest of us in the comment section below.

These are in no particular order.

1. Availability. I’m thinking about that 3 a.m. friend, that if I were in a real crisis, I could call them and know they’d come without hesitation.
2. Space. The contrast here would be that I value friends who give me breathing room. I don’t want someone in my face, ever. Don’t hover around me. Knowing you’re there is plenty enough.
3. Humor. Lord deliver me from folks who take themselves so stinkin’ seriously. I’m not talking about a good joke-teller here, although that’s okay. I value that. I mean someone who just simply finds stuff funny, even things other people don’t. My sense of humor leans toward absurdity, and I love satire. My friends need to roll with that.
4. Depth. I can tolerate surface small talk for a while. I can even pull it off in a pinch. But sooner or later, I gotta have those deep, meaningful discussions. Maybe even self-relavatory. If I ask “How are you doing?”, I mean “How are you really doing?” I can go with the theology of creation, or why God made mosquitos, or the most embarrassed you’ve ever been. Wanna talk about the meaning of life? I’m in.
5. Loyalty. All of us have experienced the pain of being “ditched.” I’m too old to let that bother me like it would’ve when I was much younger. Still, it hurts to be betrayed. So loyalty? Yeah.
6. Forgiveness. I simply don’t want to be around folks who hold grudges, much less have them as friends. If you and I are to model Christlikeness, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to withhold forgiveness. We forgive because we were first forgiven. When you forgive, you’re exercising a superpower. I like that.
7. Integrity. Say what you mean and mean what you say. I value consistency as a friendship trait. A synonym could be “authenticity.” Just be real. I can spot a phony a mile away.
8. Encouragement. Prop me up from time to time, okay? I hope that doesn’t display some sort of neediness on my part. If you can sincerely say “Tony, it’s gonna be okay,” I’ll follow you to the jumping off place. You will have made my day. Maybe even my week.
9. Tolerance. Follow me here. I’m not talking about tolerating wickedness or sin. Now, I can be pretty keen on “live and let live.” But that doesn’t mean that you or I either one should turn a blind eye to evil, even if that evil is sanctioned and culturally incorporated. I guess a better term would be “open-mindedness,”  seeing things from the other person’s point of view. Listening. Seeking first to understand before trying to be understood. I like to be around folks who’ll give others an honest hearing, even if they have no intention of being converted to an opposing viewpoint.
10. Faith. I love to see Jesus in my friends. I have friends who are nonbelievers, and that seems appropriate to me. Look who Christ hung out with. But for my besties, I need folks who are examples of “iron sharpening iron.” I know what kind of spiritual laziness I’m capable of. I’m not afraid of being accountable to Christian friends, even though sometimes in the flesh I want them to mind their own business. Faith in God? Yes, please.

I don’t have that many friends.

Don’t feel bad for me. To some extent, that is by choice. It’s an introvert thing, and if you’re an innie like me, you know what I’m talking about.

There’s only so much of me emotionally to go around. If I let you in, then, by golly, you’re in. All in. I won’t invest in you causally.

That’s what I’m about. What are the traits you value in your friends? I’d love for you to share your thoughts below.

Be well.

Been there, done that. Then been there several more times, because apparently I never learn.

I ran across this little piece of painful truth in a meme a week or so ago. It’s pretty funny because I bet we can all identify to some extent.

I’ve been there and done that, and then returned for seconds.

What is it in our nature, I wonder, that makes us want to get muddy in the same hole twice?

I have a friend who, before he finally got around to getting married, went through multiple girlfriends. The last half-dozen relationships had the same trajectory. Meet, get consumed, get serious, crash and burn.

When his future bride came along, his comment was, “She’s just not like my other exes.”

And I thought, “That’s probably why they were exes.”

What said friend came to realize that he was repeating the same formula over and over with what he came to see were predictable results. With women, he’d been there, done that, and it never went well.

Think about putting the breaks on a bad habit. You know what to do to rid yourself of it, you work passionately to dump it, and you end up just as you were.

Weight loss, for instance. Most of us who have fought the battle of the bulge have tried multiple ways to shed pounds. We chased after the latest and greatest no-fail method. And we found out that diets just don’t work. Been there, done that.

Fact is, no one ever ate anything accidentally. Actions are alway preceded by a choice.

You can come up with your own list of lessons unlearned.

The most grievous unlearned lessons are the ones from our souls. We know what to do. We absolutely know what has to happen to change our life trajectory.

And we don’t do it.

The apostle Paul understood this and riffed on it at some length. Here are his struggles as found in Romans 7:14-25:

¹⁴ Certainly we know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. ¹⁵ For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not keep doing what I want. Instead, I do what I hate. ¹⁶ And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ But now it is no longer I who am doing it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸ Indeed, I know that good does not live in me, that is, in my sinful flesh. The desire to do good is present with me, but I am not able to carry it out. ¹⁹ So I fail to do the good I want to do. Instead, the evil I do not want to do, that is what I keep doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who am doing it, but it is sin living in me.

²¹ So I find this law^[c] at work: When I want to do good, evil is present with me. ²² I certainly delight in God’s law according to my inner self, ²³ but I see a different law at work in my members, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me captive to the law of sin, which is present in my members. ²⁴ What a miserable wretch I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵ I thank God^[d] through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my sinful flesh I serve the law of sin.

Yeah, that Paul. He got it. He understood “been there, done that.” Sounds to me he knew exactly what to do and kept going back to the same old pattern of living.

Often, when I’m dealing with some sort of internal struggle – which, on a bad day, can lead to some real self-loathing (NOT healthy), I look back on the times I made good choices. I think about when I was able to prevail against unwholesome patterns and corrected my behavior.

It’s a fallacy to say “you never learn.” You do learn. We just don’t let that knowledge of failure become wisdom.

I know when I’ve screwed up. No one has to point that  out.

So, here’s a little exercise. If you’re really ambitious, you could do this in your journal. That’s best, of course, but even just quietly thinking this through could be helpful.

• What’s the one been there, done that issue in your life that you tend to repeat over and over? You may come up with a list. Just pick one.
• Why is this such a thing? Do you enjoy feeling the way you do about it? Is this something like a favorite sin? (Don’t get so high and mighty and say “I don’t have a favorite.” I bet you do. It just jumped full-blown into your head right then.)
• What have you done in the past to move past that thing and bury it once and for all?
• Why didn’t any of your attempts work?
• Worse, did you even try?
• Now that you’ve isolated that one thing – the one been there, done that thing you repeat over and over – what do you plan to do about it?
• Re that previous point – there is something you haven’t tried, or else you’d be over it. So I’ll ask again – what is your plan?

You’ve probably realized that this isn’t easy. Perhaps you prefer whatever it is that’s dogging you to giving it up.

That’s a spiritual issue. If you know something is wrong and to continue doing it – well, it’ll take divine intervention to banish it. Seeking God to heal and deliver, in other words.

You have to really want that. That’s step one.

Step two is to do what you need to do. That’s as simple as it can be to understand, but extraordinarily hard to act on. You just have to move. Act now.

When Mike Singletary was asked, “How do you account for your success playing college and professional football?” he answered:

“I determined what I had to do to be successful, and I did it.”

There’s a pretty good lesson there for the “been there, done that” league.

Candidly, we all know what we need to do to break the cycle of repeating the same mistakes over and over.

Let God do the heavy lifting. Just be obedient without question.

Tony’s Question: What’s the next big risky step you need to take to end the pattern of “been there, done that, and I’ll never learn” in your life? Share your thoughts below.

Here’s some lifehacks, just for fun. The last two blogposts were kinda heavy. Let’s lighten up.

You want practical? Today I’m giving you practical.

Lifehacks – Being “neat.”

1. Make up your bed every morning. Yeah, I know you’re gonna get back in it tonight. But you’ll feel great because you’ve at least accomplished something, and you can do it in a minute or less.

2. Look in the mirror while you’re getting ready and repeat “I feel TERRIFIC” several times. Then you’ll feel terrific.

3. Get a candle (I like Yankee Candles) or a diffuser with essential oils (Young Living is what we use, and my wife Teresa dabbles in sharing it with others.) I was a late convert, but I’ve decided there may be something to all this.

4. Have a “drop zone” box, like a clothes hamper, where you dump everything and anything that’s not paper. Don’t worry what goes in it. At the end of the day, clear it out and decide where it all goes.

5. Automate your chores. Use a timer and block out 15 minutes. Work like a dog during those 15 minutes cleaning and tidying. Then when the timer sounds, finish whatever it was you were working on and walk away.

6. Set three main goals a day. Don’t worry about prioritizing them – they all could be ranked #1. Don’t overload your to-do list or you’ll hit the wall and not do anything … or at least you’ll put it off when you shouldn’t.

7. Even if one of the items on your list is “brush my teeth,” that’s okay. It’s the little things that motivate you to stretch further. Don’t wait on motivation. It ain’t gonna happen.

8. Have a physical inbox for your stuff, all that random paper that comes your way. Drop it and forget it. (See #4). At the end of the week, sort through it and deal with it. Only once. Don’t revisit it.

9. Fold or hang up your clothes right out of the dryer. It’ll keep you from having to iron so much.

Lifehacks – Organization and productivity

10. There’s this thing called Eisenhower’s Matrix. Popularized by Stephen Covey, it helps you determine what’s urgent and important. You need to learn from this. Google it.

11. Do a little research into the Pomodoro technique. It’s one of the best tools I know to keep you focused and on task, and to help you use your time wisely.

12. Use a planner/organizer! I have a deep meaningful relationship with Michael Hyatt’s Full Focus Planner. I am a Hyatt Bot. His stuff has been a game changer for me. www.michaelhyatt.com. And www.fullfocusplanner.com. But Google Calendar and Apple apps can serve you, too, and a recent favorite find of mine is Moleskine’s Timepage, available for iPhone and Android.

13. Journal. Get it all out of your head and onto paper. It’s easier to deal with that way. You can bullet journal (check Pinterest on this one). I used Moleskine for years, but these days I’m all about the Leuchtturm 1917. Keep your brain contents dumped!

14. Check out Taming the Paper Tiger, online or in book form. Have a folder for your important documents – medical, insurance, bank, etc. At the front of the folder, have a sheet of paper with important info on it.

15. Schedule down time as well as work time. Be purposeful in giving yourself permission for leisure. You need that.

Lifehacks – Money

16. Have a budget. This is not a negotiable. Let me say it again: Have. A. Stinkin’. Budget.

17. Use a money tracker. Mint is a freebie, but for me it’s actually too automated. I purely love You Need a Budget (www.ynab.com). Again, this was a game changer. It’s fun. No, really. It’s such a fresh approach to dealing with money and having a spending plan it was like I moved from darkness to light.

18. Have a “money date” once a week. You don’t want to ever say, “Where did my paycheck go?” You Need a Budget or other tools can make this a rewarding time.

19. Don’t eat out so much. Make it a treat instead of a routine. Pack your lunch or a bag of snacks.

20. Get a zippered bank bag. On Saturday, put a $1 bill in it. The next Saturday, put two $1 bills in it. Third Saturday, put three. Add a dollar each week. Do this for a year. Your last week you’ll be putting $52 in the bag, but you will be STAGGERED when you see how much cash you’ve put aside.

Lifehacks – Food and Cooking

21. Know how to cook some basics – mac and cheese, a chicken breast, veggies, and some sauces. You can save some money that way. BUT if convenience is a value you hold, frozen veggies you can steam in the bag have every bit as much nutritional value as fresh stuff.

22. Simple one-pot meals are a godsend. So is a Crock-Pot or other slow cooker.

23. Get an iron skillet and learn to use it.

24. Cook and freeze. A vacuum sealer machine is actually a great appliance to have.

25. Want to save some money? Buy dried goods – peas, beans, rice.

26. Learn seasoning combinations. Different seasonings, even with the same ingredients, can make a dish into something new and special. You can rule the world with lemon pepper and Lawry’s Seasoned Salt. Just don’t forget that salt and pepper are the foundation for all seasoning.

Lfehacks – Miscellaneous

27. Social media is a black hole. You know that already. It can drain your life. Budget, and if need be, restrict your time on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, etc.

28. Get a first aid kit. Learn to use it. Keep it stocked.

29. Know your OTC pain relief.

30. Keep a book of stamps and standard envelopes on hand for unexpected needs. It happens more often than you’d think.

There’s your lifehacks, just for fun. This should get you started. Be blessed!

Tony’s Question: Do you have any lifehacks that make things easier for you? Here’s an opportunity for you to share with the rest of us. Comment below, and don’t forget to share this blog with others!

“Nobody’s perfect.” You ever said that?

If you have, it’s probably because you screwed up and were trying to justify your failure to someone else. That’s why they make pencils with erasers, right? People make mistakes.

This is the logic: if nobody’s perfect, I shouldn’t worry so much about the times I’ve blown it.

And yet – many people are prone to protectionism. If that’s you, keep reading. If not, maybe you can just pass this blog along to someone who is.

At any rate, we all tend to mentally beat ourselves up when we miss obvious things. Have you ever said things to yourself that, if anyone else said them to you, you’d punch them in the throat?

• ”You are an idiot for messing that up.”
• ”You are a consistent screw-up.”
• ”You’ll never be good at that.”
• ”Why bother? It won’t make any difference.”
• ”Look at all those people who can do that better than you. You’re just outclassed.”

See what I mean? When you say “nobody’s perfect,” you recognize there’s a standard out there that you aren’t reaching. And the harder you try to get things just right, the more likely it seems that you’ll fail.

Perhaps you can identify with:

• regret
• opportunities you turned away from
• choices that were lame in hindsight
• Saying “I should have…”

It’s also a matter of hearing criticism from others that feels like “piling on,” because you’ve already emptied your emotional fuel tank criticizing yourself.

I’d contend that much of what we experience in the realm of personal dissatisfaction has to do with perfectionism. Let me explain.

You’ve probably had the experience of running across a high school acquaintance on Facebook or other social media site who comes across as shockingly perfect. They have the right job, right spouse, right kids; they live in the right place, drive the right car, vacation in the right places. Perhaps you’re a student and you see posts from your classmates, who invariably have it all together. You aspire to that. You so wish you had it together, at least more than you currently do.

You’ve heard me say this a gazillion times: Social media is a great betrayer of the truth, simply because we can only see what others want us to see.

Knowing that as a fact, though, doesn’t always take the sting out of you feeling that you just aren’t good enough. It’s because we get a sense of “who we ought to be,” and that’s informed by what we see in others as filtered through modern narratives.

”Nobody’s perfect,” say you? Then why the self-inflicted dissatisfaction?

Pop culture has us saying things like:

• ”I’m better than I was yesterday.”
• ”I’m good enough.”
• ”I can do whatever I set my mind to.”

Does that even help? Perhaps. None of those statements is inherently false. But you might find yourself stuck in the same state you were in yesterday. Maybe you really aren’t good enough. Perhaps experience has taught you that you can put your mind to something and still fail.

Make peace with reality on this one.

As long as you’re grappling with who you ought to be vs. who you really are, you can expect to be in pain.

Before you break out the torches and pitchforks, understand this: I am not giving you an excuse for not striving. You do want to better yourself. Don’t let contentment cause you to stall out. If you’re a believer, giving up and accepting your state is not an option. Nobody’s perfect in and of themselves, but we are perfected in Christ. (More on that in a moment.)

But that old self? That part of you that keeps coming back to torment you and convince you that you’ll never amount to anything? It’s time for a funeral.

That’s hard.

There is never any excuse for not desiring excellence. You never want to intentionally do a bad job. I hope you realize that without me pointing it out. You want to do better and hold yourself to high standards. That’s not what I’m talking about.

Listen: Sometimes good enough is good enough. And not good enough doesn’t define you. It just means you need to not let perfectionism become a liability that saddens you.

Ancient script says this: “Be perfect, therefore,” Jesus said, “as your Heavenly Father is perfect.”

Want to know a better translation of the word “perfect?” Check this out: Perfect = complete. In other words, you are whole and done because God’s done all in you He needs to.

There are huge implications for us – not the least of which is that we never need to say of ourselves, “nobody’s perfect.” Because you can be made complete.

If God is complete (He is), then if we mirror Him (and we should), then we show the world the character of God. Theoretically, can we be perfect? Because of our weakness and useless striving, we can’t be perfect in the world’s sense. In the spiritual sense, we have grace to overcome our shortcomings and sins. Still, there are plenty of opportunities to sin, and we all tend to take advantage of them. So we aren’t talking sinless perfection here, neither in the spiritual or temporal sense.

”Nobody’s perfect” is a true statement apart from God. But you can be made complete.

I’d suggest that completeness makes perfectionism irrelevant.

Yes, you want to be and do your best. At the same time, you have to understand that God has already done the heavy lifting. He doesn’t exist to serve you. But what He wants to do is for you to recognize who you are in Him, and not who you are in comparison to others who seem to have it together so much better than you do.

May God grant you grace, peace, and the simple contentment of knowing you don’t have to perform for Him or anyone else. You’re complete. Don’t carry around burdens that were never meant for you.

I used to wonder how I’d feel when I’m 64. That always raised questions in my mind.

When I get older losing my hair
Many years from now
Will you still be sending me a Valentine
Birthday greetings bottle of wine

If I’d been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m 64*

It’s because they were thinking about me. Not.

1. I refuse to take myself too seriously. As I’m fond of saying, this adult thing hasn’t worked out well for me.
2. The world is a mess. It’s the messiest it’s been in my lifetime. I heard it thunder, but the way 2020 is going I thought it might be Godzilla.
3. If the world is a mess, God reigns over the mess, and He’ll be doing a massive cleanup one day. Soon.
4. I have two great grown children, two great kids-in-law, and two great grandchildren (not great in the ancestry sense. They’re just pretty wonderful.) I’m always thankful that none of them are ugly.
5. I have the best wife ever. She’s a candidate for sainthood.
6. An incident that takes place in less than 10 seconds can change your life. Ask me about that.
7. I literally don’t have anything to complain about. That doesn’t mean that I don’t complain from time to time, but it’s a useless activity. No one cares about my complaints. No one cares about yours, either.
8. Why worry about the things you don’t have any influence over?
9. Regrets? None, not really. There are a handful of things I’d like to have a do-over on, in retrospect. But I figure my life has coursed the way it has because God has always directed things. And He’s been known to direct things in unexpected directions.
10. I’m wondering about what I’ll do when I’m 65. That’s an age of some distinction.

Now I’m 64.

It doesn’t feel all that different from being 63.

I’ve tried to draw some parallels to what 2020 has been and what turning 64 means in this particular year.

I’m not going to overthink that, because it’s irrelevant.

Here’s what is relevant:

1. I intend to have many more years ahead of me.
2. I’m not dead because I haven’t completed what I was put here to do.
3. I have plenty of dreams, goals, and plans. Maybe I’m just a late bloomer.
4. If I do have a consistent calling, it’s simply to be an encourager. I’ve never been defined by a “career,” whatever that is.
5. God’s got this is a fresh reality every morning. It sure took me long enough to embrace that.

When I’m 64, I used to think, I’d be pushing around a walker, eating all my meals through a straw, and not sleeping well. I was wrong on all counts.

I’m not sure what comes next, but I am content to go along for the ride. My life is like an ocean cruise – I’m on a ship, and I have plenty of choices as to how I might use my time – eat, or hang out at the pool, see a show, or eat some more. But the course of the ship is already charted – I left a port, headed for another destination, and that route is up to the captain, not me.

God is the captain, I am a passenger, and in that I am content.

Be blessed, y’all.

I’m honored today to introduce you to Carol Ghattas. Carol was a student in my first full-time youth ministry a lot more years ago than I care to think about. From Day 1, Carol was a special young lady. God’s hand has been on her all these years. Her story is worth sharing. Read, enjoy, and follow her blog. The link is at the bottom.

I’m what you might think of as a typical Southern, white Christian woman who’s lived anything but a typical Southern white life. I blame it on The Call.

I got mine at the age of ten, and it changed the course of my life.

I’d been a believer for two whole years, nurtured in a wonderful Christian family and strong church home, but it was after hearing a missionary speak that I heard God telling me: “Carol, you are not going to live the rest of your life in Murfreesboro, you’re going to serve me overseas.”

And I did – though not right away of course, but that didn’t mean I was isolated from the nations. Not only did my parents sponsor international college students, but when a group of refugees from Laos came to my town, I got involved in our church’s outreach to them.

After graduating college, I left home to spend two years in Ivory Coast, West Africa. I wanted to taste the life to which I knew God was calling me. My “tasting” became more of a baptism by fire, as I was faced with realities of mission life:

Even with the harshness of the lessons God was teaching me, I could not push aside his call on my life. I was compelled to seek his forgiveness for my pride and sin, while submitting my clay jar for further use. During a prayer retreat in Ivory Coast, his voice was clear that he wanted me to serve among Muslims. I began seminary in the States with the goal of pursuing full-time mission service in the Middle East.

That’s when God joined my call with the call of an Egyptian-American pastor, Raouf Ghattas.

God knew my weaknesses and allowed me the honor of being joined in service with one of the few men who were actually called to work among Muslims. Raouf was the perfect one for me, and for the next twenty years we served in the Middle East and North Africa. This was the fulfillment of that childhood call in ways I could never have imagined, as I witnessed God at work among the nations.

Closed doors don’t mean a closed call.

We had moved many times during those twenty years, but it was ultimately security issues related to a recently published book we’d written that forced our return to the United States. God brought us back to my, now not-so-small hometown to find that Muslims had moved into the area and were building a mosque. The early years of our “retirement” from full-time mission work, became another full-time local ministry to the Arabs in our county. We started a new church for Arabic speakers and began training Americans in outreach to Muslims.

When my husband died suddenly in 2015, I wasn’t sure what to do. I was working full-time as a librarian and serving as administrator and translator at the church. For the next three years, I pressed on, despite the fog of grief, because I knew God was not finished with the church, though he was moving it into a new era, with new leadership. When we hired a full-time pastor in 2019, I knew God was leading me in a new direction.

Let others speak into your call.

It took time to be at peace with what he was saying to me, mainly out of a sense of responsibility and guilt over leaving the Arabic church. Yet, God knows how to help us through the transitions. He kept sending people my way, former colleagues, friends from the Middle East and even family members who listened and served as sounding boards and counselors to help me navigate this new way.

Some of these helped me see that I needed to take time to grieve. I’d lost, not only my husband, but my father as well. Keeping busy kept me from losing control, but I had to admit that I’d lost the joy of service. I dreaded going to church, translating, and keeping up with people. The love that had compelled me was waning. I knew I had to step back and start saying “no” until I could be refilled myself.

Call doesn’t change – though expression may.

No longer at my husband’s side in service, I began to see how God was moving me back to a “first love” in writing. First in journals, then on Facebook, a blog and in books, God began to show me that though my life had changed, my call hasn’t. He’sjust using a different way for me to serve him and share with others. I come home from work at night and cannot rest until I’ve worked on something related to a writing project or blog post. I’m compelled in a new way now, still by his love, still by that love pouring out for others – all, I pray, to the growth of the Kingdom and his glory.

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. (2 Corinthians 5:14-15 NIV)

May you be compelled today to live solely for Christ.

Grace and Peace.

Carol B. Ghattas is an author, speaker, and librarian. Visit her blog at lifeinexile.net.

So I’m doing this giveaway, right? And the question I’ve been asked several times is –

“What is life coaching?”

It’s a trendy concept, for sure. But let’s unpack this.

At its heart, it’s the process of helping you identify specific goals or certain things you want to accomplish, and then guiding you along the journey of reaching those goals. The beauty of life coaching is that it is applicable to any, and I mean ANY, component of your life.

It is driven by you. As the client with me, you develop and hold the agenda. It will be uniquely designed to serve only your success.

This process is broad and diverse. It can cover a whole host of benefits, such as dealing with immediate issues that are keeping you from growing, helping with personal communication and impact, and building a vision and plan against a life’s dream and goal.

This is a good time to share what coaching is not appropriate for:

• People with dependencies such as drugs and alcohol.
• Therapy for people who have suffered abuse
• A shoulder to cry on
• People who are abusing others
• People who are experiencing mental illness
• Counseling

Key point: therapists in some of the above fields deal with events that have happened in the past. Coaching is specifically about the present and the future. Coaches (this coach, anyway) is not qualified to deal with any past emotional trauma that is preventing you from moving forward.

Glad to get that out of the way.

As your Coach I make the following commitments to you:

I will believe in you completely, and I will know that you can succeed in your aims.

I will stretch you, challenge you, and sometimes confront you, but always from a supportive position of service. I will be warm to you, laugh with you and will travel with you as an equal partner in your own success journey.

I will be honest, open and non-judgemental.

I will help you to achieve all that you can be as long as you stay true to your own best interests.

My clients are all ready to create the goals they want in their life, and it is my role to challenge you further than you would normally challenge yourself. My specific purpose is to get you to where you want to be faster than you would do on your own.

Everything that passes between us will stay confidential and I will always stand within the standards & ethics under which I have been trained and qualified.

Sometimes I will offer you an alternative view of what you are saying. I might hear a certain tone in your voice, or I might sense a fear that you have not noticed. I will always tell you when this happens. I will not insist that you address it – coaching is always about what you want. It is my job to help you to see what you want to see, not to make you face things that you are not ready to look at.

Often, I will ask you to consider going further than you initially think that you are prepared to go. You are always in charge of what action steps you commit to between sessions. If I challenge you (and I almost certainly will) to do something extra at some point, you always have the following options:

• You can say, “no”
• You can say, “yes”
• You can negotiate the request up or down.

Be assured that I will be ready for our scheduled meetings; I will be relaxed and ready to go without any of my own circumstances clouding my mind!

So – that’s what I’m about. I’m excited to give this away.

Be blessed in these challenging days.

[giveaway id=2036]

Am I of any use? Have you ever asked yourself that?

This is the tendency I’ve been dealing with in recent days.

If I am to be of any use, I have to “produce” or “perform,” right?

People talk about seasons of life. I know I’m still “Tony,” however you want to interpret that. I also know that every day I’m closer to being old.

With my lifelong tendency to spend way too much time inside my own head, I’ve found myself asking myself that question over and over: “Am I of any use?” Maybe that’s just part of the aging process. I dunno.

There have been reams written about “leaving a legacy,” “making a mark,” “impacting others,” and so forth. Well, since most days I struggle to put on my pants without losing my balance, “leaving a legacy” is often not a high priority.

Still, I’d like to think I made a difference. And I can honestly say that it’s not about me. If there has been positive change from me being on the scene, I don’t even care if folks remember my name. I strive to keep my ego in it’s proper place, like locked away in some dungeon.

I wrote all that. It looks good. Now for the reality.

Sometimes we (I?) think God can’t get by without us.

It’s called being an “assistant to the Holy Spirit.” You know – you have to be available to pick up the ball if God fumbles it. If He’s not responding to a need the way you think it needs to be responded to, then you have to take up the slack.

There may be a byproduct to this – if we are busy about serving the Lord, then we feel better about ourselves.

I have to tread carefully here, but we can be doing God’s work for reasons not exactly honorable. If it becomes about us, then we’re about to get in deep taffy.

So – are you of any use? It’s matter of motives.

If we get all concerned about God “using” us for some great task, we tend to focus our eyes on ourselves, and we become overly concerned about how we walk and talk and act.

This may just be a Tony thing. You’re saying, “That’s fine, Uncle Tony. But that isn’t where I’m living.”

I’m saying we should stop asking “Am I of any use?” and accept the fact that we aren’t of much use to Him.

Here’s the truth:

The issue is not that of being of any use but of being of value to God Himself.

Read that again.

Once we are totally surrendered to God He will work through us all the time.

See what that does for us? The pressure is off. I am useful.

We just need to stop trying to perform.

God’s not impressed.

Be blessed.

And you respond, “Wait a minute. What do you mean God doesn’t care about my plans? He loves me. God has my best interests at heart. He wants to bless me.”

That’s partially true.

Several years ago I was serving a large church as their youth minister. I’d been there a little over five years, and pretty much everything I’d prayed over and wanted to accomplish had happened.

There had been good days and bad days. I’d served to the best of my ability. I wanted to honor God in that place. For the most part, mission accomplished.

Then I was approached by a megachurch.

On paper, it looked perfect. It seemed a great match for my giftedness and passions. And they paid well. (As a friend of mine jokes – “Tony, the Lord is everywhere. Follow the money!” That is comedy, by the way. Don’t send hate mail.)

I’ll forgo the details, but ultimately I turned them down. It proved to be a wise, discerning decision. The gentleman they ended up calling as youth minister was flayed alive. It was awful. I don’t think he’s even in ministry anymore.

Flash forward a couple of months. I was approached by another church. This one felt different. It was smaller than the one I was serving. (And let me make this perfectly clear – bigger isn’t better. Bigger is just bigger. It’s a values-neutral thing.)

So, I talked at length with them. It felt good. I asked all the right questions. They seemed wide open to what I would bring. I resigned my current church. I planned what I would do when I got to the new church.

And I learned … God doesn’t care about my plans.

The short version is that I was seven months at that church before resigning. I’m sometimes asked, “Tony, why were you there only seven months? Answer: I couldn’t get out any quicker. I knew my first Sunday there I’d messed up. Big time.

I could say a lot more. Not today.

Perhaps you can identify.

Maybe there have been times when you’ve made significant plans:

• Where to go to college.
• What to major in.
• What your first job would be.
• Who you would date.
• Who you would marry.
• Where you would live.
• What you wanted for a career.
• How many kids to have.

And so on.

If you took a page out of the Tony Martin Operations Manual, you sat down with paper and pen and wrote down pros and cons. You set a goal or goals. You found your “why.” You broke your goals down into actionable steps. And you got after it.

This is not a bad thing. Actually, it’s pretty wonderful.

So why do I say God doesn’t care about your plans?

He really doesn’t. He cares about you more than He cares about what you plan on doing.

It may be – like me – that there was a time when you were faced with an epic decision, one that was potentially life-altering. You were certain down to your corpuscles you were tracking in the right direction.

And it blew up on you.

That makes you ask the hard questions. My almost-always question is, “God, how could I miss out on what you wanted for me so significantly?”

God doesn’t care about your plans. He doesn’t ask “Do you want to go through this loss, letdown, breakup, or defeat?”

Because – and don’t stop at this truth, because you’ll leave in a funk – in the course of your lifetime you’ll experience very one of those outcomes, and even more. Probably more than once.

It may be that this walk with Jesus you’ve gotten yourself into isn’t what you signed up for.

There is a purpose, though. It might not hurt to say this out loud: “There is a purpose behind what I’m experiencing.”

God doesn’t care about your plans, but He does have a purpose, both for you and for how He is involved in it.

Just as you can experience all the bad stuff, He will see to it that you experience good stuff, too.

How does He determine that? I have no idea.

The stuff that happens to you – both good and bad – is part of God’s grand design for you. In a more expansive sense, what is God’s plan for you meshes perfectly with His plan for the universe. Because, well, He’s God.

How does God want you to respond? He wants you to respond in accordance with His nature that He’s placed in you.

Conventional wisdom states that everything that happens to us will make us evil or more Godly (or, perhaps bitter or better.) Yeah, you’ve heard all that.

Our familiarity with that thought doesn’t make it any less profound, though.

The thing is, how we respond to life depends wholly on our relationship and intimacy with God.

The more intimate we are with Him, the more confidence we’ll have in Him.

I’ll stick by my statement that God doesn’t care about your plans. Yes, we should plan. We should set goals. We should work hard to please Him.

Finally, there is this:

When you can’t find a solution to a problem, it’s probably not a problem to be solved. Rather, it’s a truth to be accepted. God has allowed it, and He knows what He’s doing.

Relax.