Talk about God
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Talking about God has almost been made a taboo subject around the world.
Unless you are in a church or somewhere doing a bible study.
I know that I used to be scared that I would offend someone if I talked about God. Especially at work.
I mean, the media told me growing up that people had been fired just for talking about God. And some people have been sued simply because they shared their faith.
That right there is exactly what Satan wants. He wants to have fear around everything that deals with God.
This is because when we live in fear our emotions and judgment are clouded.
What I discovered was that when I talk about God with others, it GROWS my faith. Then when I chose not to talk about God my faith starts shrinking, and the longer I go without talking about him the more it shrinks.
The more it shrinks the easier it is to start forgetting to pray daily.
The easier it is to not read the bible.
The easier it is to listen to music other than Christian.
It’s a downhill spiral until I make the choice to talk about him again.
One thing that I want you to realize is that when I talk about God I am not pushing others to believe the same way I do.
I am simply saying that I believe that this way.
I feel that’s where most Christians come across wrong. We talk about God and when someone doesn’t necessarily agree with everything we have to say. We shut them down quickly and tell them exactly how they are wrong.
Or even worse we shut them out of our lives.
As a kid, I would spend quite a bit of time in the summer over at my Grandpa Phelps’s. Mom would take me over there, spend the day with us then I would stay with grandpa for a week or 2.
I really admire him for many aspects, and he taught me TONS of stuff. Both religiously and the real world.
He is what I call a STRONG Christian. Every morning he and my Grandma GV would read a chapter or 2 out of the bible.
Every Wednesday they would drive 45 minutes each way just to go to a bible study.
Then every Sunday they would do it again to go to services. The services they went to were not at a church. They were at someone’s house. The small group, maybe 15-16 people, would sit around the circle and talk about what they learned from the Bible that week.
As a kid, maybe 8-13 years, I really struggled with this because I didn’t necessarily agree with what everyone had said.
I also struggled because the only bible that they would read was the King James version. I struggled with reading and didn’t have much confidence in my abilities, so the King James Versions just made it harder because I didn’t really understand what was being read.
He who come into my house.
Even though I enjoy reading different versions of the bible now, it really was tough to understand at a young age.
Between the bible version, and everything else it was overwhelming. And if I am 100% honest it kind of pushed me away from God.
It was not their intention and looking back it would be really nice to find a group of people that Jenna and I could meet with a couple of times a week just to talk about the bible.
I digress.
My whole point here is that you need to talk about God. But you also want to do it in a way that is not going to push others away from him. There is a lot of tact that goes into that.
For me it can be as simple as mentioning him in blogs, emails, and social media posts. Other times when I am meeting with clients or my team it is a simple little comment to see if they are receptive.
Then after I see how that goes it tells me whether I can use it more, or if I need to hold off for a bit.
Sometimes I will swap out the word God for another word like The Universe or Infinite Intelligence.
The first time I did this I felt like I was not really speaking about God and it was hurting our relationship. Then I looked at it differently and observed that they are all the same thing, just with a different name! Either way, God is getting credit and that is 100% my intention to give credit for everything.
I talk about God all day every day.
When something isn’t going the way I want it to I literally say out loud, What are you trying to teach me, God?
Then when things go better than expected I say, Thank you God for these amazing blessings!
You see I don’t say these things to make others uncomfortable (which I think some people do) I say them for me.
Before we break into the take action piece let’s review my 7 secrets for staying close to God.
- Pray, multiple times a day
- Read the Bible daily
- Listen to Christian music
- Look for God’s hand in everything
- Talk about God
- Proclaim your faith publicly
- Surround yourself with believers
Take Action
Today I have one simple thing to help encourage you to talk about God.
Don’t worry about what someone might think of you. Instead, think about the lives you MIGHT change if they see your love for him.
Don’t say things for anyone else’s benefit, say them for yourself.
Now get out there and talk about God!
Prayer
Lord, today we come to you to simply ask for forgiveness. Please forgive us for our sins. (I know that I have TONS of them.) We pray that you help us grow in your light. We pray that you would help us shine your light on others in a way that they can see you.
Help us to live a life where others look at us and say, wow they really know God on a personal level. How can I get that same relationship with him? Or maybe they say, how can I be closer to God? Lord, we know that you are amazing. We pray that you would help us to publicly give you credit for everything you do.
From the sunsets (which I love), to the people you introduce us to, to the things that don’t go as expected. Help us to publicly proclaim that you are the reason and that you are always working for us!
We ask all these things in your precious Son’s name.
Amen.
A Little More
Have you ever heard of the 7 whys?
It’s a thing that I learned about just a few years ago.
What it does is give you the real reason WHY you personally want or need something.
It is extremely simple to do.
All you do is ask the question Why over and over again until you get to the root answer.
Recently I helped someone on our team discover why they really wanted something personal.
Now I’m not going to share their why because it is their personal story, and I’m not that guy.
But I will share one of mine with you.
So if you are ready this is about to get really personal and a little scary for me.
Alright, here we go.
I was trying to figure out WHY I want to grow Eclipse DOT and WHY I want to build DOT Docs.
Let’s get into it
Question: WHY do you want to grow Eclipse DOT?
Answer: Because I want to build a company?
Q: Why do you want to build a company?
A: Because I want to help others and make some $$
Q: Why do you want to help others and make some $$?
A: because I want to be able to provide a GREAT life for my family.
Q: Why do you want to provide a GREAT life for your family?
A: Because I don’t want my wife and kids to see me as a failure.
Q: Why do you THINK your wife & kids would see you as a failure?
A: Because I couldn’t provide for them and they missed out on things they were supposed to experience.
Q: Why do you think they would miss out on things?
A: Because as a kid I missed out on things because funds were tight.
Q: Why do you think funds were tight?
A: Because my parents didn’t have an abundance mindset.
Q: Why do you think having an abundance mindset is so important?
A: Because it allows you to GROW into anything you want and achieve anything we believe is possible.
Q: Why is that so important?
A: Because a life without achievement is not a life worth living.
Q: Why is an achievement so important?
A: Because achievement is how importance is measured.
Q: Why is importance so vital?
A: Because how others see you changes the way your kids see you.
That was more than 7 WHYs. but we finally got down to the root reason why I personally wanted to start a business.
It’s because I want my kids to see my accomplishments as remarkable. I don’t want them to think that I am normal or just like everyone else. I want them to see me as someone who looks out for others and helps them grow. Someone who is truly making a difference in the WORLD.
Personally, I use the 7 WHYs anytime I am about to make a big investment or decision.
Before I bought our plane I did the 7 WHYs several times to see what the real reason was. (to spend more time with family and give them an experience that is different than anything I ever experienced, was the real reason in case you were wondering.)
I’m going to be 100% honest with you here!
Find someone you really trust to do this exercise with.
It has to be someone that you can be 100% open with too. Because there is a really good chance that you are going to shed a few tears. As you work down the real WHY.
You can do this for anything, from why you want to buy that Mountain bike, to why you really want or don’t want to have kids.
This right here is something that you should put into your everyday BIG decision-making skill set and do it for every HUGE decision you are about to make.