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Repent or Drown. Jonah.

Woman in pool
Seriously! When your are in the belly of the fish (like Jonah), you have two options. Repent or Drown!

Jonah thought he could run from God.

He didn’t like God’s plan. What’s true of Jonah is true for individuals today and also for nations. Jonah spent some time in the bile of the belly of the fish. He nearly drowned.

We know the story of Jonah calling Nineveh to repentance, but it looks like Jonah needed a lot of TLC reminders about who is God and who is NOT. Jonah had a need to repent and confess a few sins before he could even be used to speak God’ message to Ninevah. And then even after that, God needed to help him to see the bigger picture. At this point in his life, Jonah was self-serving and bitter. God’s idea of who is “worthy” of salvation did not please Jonah’s unforgiving heart. His heart was hardened and God had to soften it up and give him a few reality checks. God continually is purifying His “messengers”. Have you noticed that?

Frank Sinatra would have liked Jonah

Do you remember Frank Sinatra’s famous song, “I Did It My Way”? God doesn’t see things as man does. You’ve probably noticed that too. God sees things differently.

Society is in the bile of the belly of the fish

We definitely need God’s plan to get us out of this mess that we have created by doing it “my way”. The first step back toward sanity is for individuals to repent, but also—as a nation—we MUST repent or our nation as we have known it, will continue to drown in pride, stupidity and rage. (Many times in Scripture, God says to us: “YOU do this, and THEN I will respond like this.” We are in one of those times.)

Evening prayer

Every evening, at 7:14 p.m., I’ve been praying the verses in 2 Chronicles 7:14 for myself, and for my nation and its leaders. I set my timer to remind me each evening. Will you join me?

In 2 Chronicles 7:14  (Note that there are 4 things for INDIVIDUALS and also for NATIONS to do BEFORE God responds.) (Also note that after we do what He requires, THEN there are 3 things God does in response.)

“IF MY people who are called by My Name, …(It is conditional= “IF”.
AND…This instruction is specifically for God’s “sheep” — His fully devoted followers. His people.)   So, IF they will (it is a choice)…

  1. Humble themselves
  2. And pray
  3. And seek My face
  4. And turn from their wicked ways

God promises,
“THEN…” (God does these three things in RESPONSE to what His followers do FIRST, to prepare themselves for the answers He desires to give!)

  1. I will hear from Heaven
  2. And forgive their sins
  3. And heal their land

We people have made a mess of things. What else can we do? Here’s an idea that has been presented by some leaders and some pastors…Will you join me?

A Corporate Call to Action. Be creative.

When: August 1st through August 21 (and beyond if you desire or feel called to it)

What: 21 days of prayer and fasting for personal and national repentance and revival, if God in His mercy grants it.

Where: YOU decide how it works best for you so you can be consistent and faithful. And also choose whether you will do this alone with God or by phone or Zoom or Skype or FB Live with others.

Isn’t that what we desire for ourselves, our families, friends, and our nation and its leaders (for God to intervene for His glory)? Of course it is!

In addition, will you also join me in praying that the President calls a “Solemn Assembly” for the nation?!?

Daddy, Daddy! Guess What I Saw Today?

From a flock of geese to a dog on a leash, the pages of this winsome little book are filled with things we see around us every day. Pamela A. Taylor takes those everyday items and looks at them through the eyes of a child; making them seem exciting and new while also teaching children how to be grateful for the God who created them. Take a walk with Pamela through the pages of this book and help your little ones see God’s hand in the beauty of life.

Reminder:
Don’t be a Jonah! Repentance MUST come BEFORE Revival. IF we seek Him fervently and IF God—in His mercy—grants revival, to God be the Glory!

Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus!

Let's Connect!Awaiting His shout,
pam_signature-c49a6c

Christian Life Coach
Leading from Your Strengths Mentor
www.loavesandfishescoaching.com

Filed under: Spiritual Life — Pam Taylor @ 7:00 am

Announcing the Publication of My First Book

Daddy, Daddy! Guess What I Saw Today?
I can hardly believe it! One of my huge-est dreams has come true!

After many, many years of writing, dreaming, hoping, and praying, the day has finally come. I am so happy to offer this resource for parents and for all who love kids!

My first published book is now available on Amazon. I first penned Daddy, Daddy! Guess What I Saw Today? in the year 2004. The illustrations were created later. Many of you reading this blog post have asked me periodically over the years, to publish this book. You wanted to share it with your kids, your grandkids, your nieces and nephews, your Sunday School kids, and you had any number of ideas to use it to help encourage the attitude of gratitude in kids and adults alike.

Until this year, I did not see how I could possibly overcome all the obstacles and the details to make it happen. But thanks to Christian Book Academy, I began to BELIEVE it was POSSIBLE. And then, Heather Hart agreed to be my Author’s Assistant and a miracle happened.

This book is written with gratitude for God’s protection, provision, and wisdom along my own journey. I hope to remind you, too, to carry an attitude of gratitude to God with you throughout your day, and that your life will begin to take on that child-like quality the Lord calls you to.

Children model what they observe in adults, and especially what they see in their parents. Jesus tells us in Matthew 18:3 that we must change and become like little children in order to enter the Kingdom of God. Hopefully Daddy, Daddy! Guess What I Saw Today? will be one of many tools the Lord can use to help you towards that goal, refreshing your own view of the ordinary things around you, to regain that childlike joy of God’s creation, so the children in your life, will “catch” that from you. And that you, too will enter into your children’s enthusiasm for God’s Creation, with them. This book is for anyone who longs to be reminded of the beauty, the color, the texture, and life that Father God created for the enjoyment of His children of all ages.

Here’s the Link

“From a flock of geese to a dog on a leash, the pages of this winsome little book are filled with things we see around us every day. Everyday items get a fresh look through the eyes of a child; making them seem exciting and new while also teaching children how to be grateful for the God who created them. Take a walk with me through the pages of this book and help your little ones see God’s hand in the beauty of life.”

God bless you bunches!

Let's Connect!Awaiting His shout,
pam_signature-c49a6c

Christian Life Coach
Leading from Your Strengths Mentor
www.loavesandfishescoaching.com

Filed under: Christian Life Coaching — Tags: — Pam Taylor @ 7:00 am

Finding the Place of Victory Over Self-Condemnation

Fireworks - Freedom and independence

For many years, I condemned myself

I could only see what was WRONG with me. And there was no lack of people to reenforce that mindset. I didn’t know that it was OK that I was different than the people I longed to be like. In fact, it was not just OK but it was a very GOOD thing. It took awhile, but I began to realize that God wanted me to embrace who He made me to be. To be used for His glory.

What is self-condemnation and how do we get victory over it?

Self-condemnation is self-absorbing. Sadly, it prevents us from fully loving others. And that is sad, because that is exactly why we are here. First, to love God, the One Who made us. And then we are to love others with God’s kinda love!

Self-condemnation prevents us from having a God mindset towards others AND towards ourselves.

God’s desire for us is to have self-compassion

I needed to understand that on a deep level. Along the way, somewhere, I heard a story that helped me to change my mindset. And I’m going to tell it to you right now. So that you can join me in that place of victory!!

Before I tell you the story, please find quiet place alone. This won’t take long, but it is more effective if you give this story your FULL attention.

Ready for the challenge? OK…

Here’s we go…

Imagine.

(Pleeeeasssseee…I am serious about this. In order to fully benefit, you have to totally stop everything right now and take a few minutes to truly imagine with me…No multi-tasking :-))

Ok. Ready?

Imagine a time when you’re tenderly and compassionately caring for someone that is ill. You lovingly put her to bed. A little later, you go in to check on her and you are relieved to see that she is asleep. You know that sleep is good for her.

You just stand quietly in the doorway, watching her as she sleeps. Just loving her as she sleeps. She isn’t doing anything to earn your love. You just love her because you love her. And you pray for her to be well again. It hurts you that she is suffering. You will her to be well again. You have deep compassion for her suffering.

Then, she turns over, she looks at you, and you realize…

That person…

You realize that…

It’s YOU!

Now…if you can just purpose to stay in that moment of time until you sense something “shift”, a time of personal healing is waiting for you there!

THAT is exactly how God loves you! He just loves you because He loves you. You couldn’t EARN His love by anything you do even if you tried. Will you. Right now. Accept that love and LET Him love you unconditionally?

Daddy, Daddy! Guess What I Saw Today?

From a flock of geese to a dog on a leash, the pages of this winsome little book are filled with things we see around us every day. Pamela A. Taylor takes those everyday items and looks at them through the eyes of a child; making them seem exciting and new while also teaching children how to be grateful for the God who created them. Take a walk with Pamela through the pages of this book and help your little ones see God’s hand in the beauty of life.

Now take it one step further

Our children model what they see in us. So if we raise “healthy” kids, and we only love them, but we don’t love ourselves, they too will have difficulty loving themselves, because that is what was modeled for them = NOT loving oneself. THAT was their example.

Disclaimer

Of course we are not referring to the model that embraces the thinking that the world revolves around oneself, but rather we are referring to a good healthy love of what the Creator decided we would be. He chose our personality, our spiritual gifts, our talents, and skills. To not embrace who we were created to be, is an affront to our Father. We owe it to our children to know the difference between self-pity vs. self-compassion. And to teach them by example. Ahhh…now there is the challenge, ‘eh?

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this. Have you found this to be true?

Here is what I would like to end with:

I’d love to help you discover your God-given self to love as He loves you. And the best way to do that is through the Leading From Your Strengths process. It was designed to strengthen the Body of Christ by helping each individual person discover what God had in mind when He thought you up. Through the process, You can gain freedom and independence from the discouraging comparisons and learn to embrace the beauty of who you really are.

I stand ready to help…I’m only a click away…

God bless you bunches!

Let's Connect!Awaiting His shout,
pam_signature-c49a6c

Christian Life Coach
Leading from Your Strengths Mentor
www.loavesandfishescoaching.com

Filed under: Christian Life Coaching,Personality Strengths and Weaknesses — Tags: — Pam Taylor @ 7:00 am

Benefits of Positive Persuasion

Three women talking and laughing
I am learning about persuasion and perspective from Scott Adams, author and podcaster. In one podcast, I remember that he shared in an interview about one of his pivotal memories. Here is of what I heard him say…

Dale Carnegie

Scott was in a Dale Carnegie training event. They were all strangers to each other and only knew what had been spoken during the training. And yet, the facilitator gave them an “impossible” assignment to write a compliment on separate pieces of paper, for each member of the class. One person complained that they simply didn’t know enough to compliment each other. Nevertheless, the assignment was required.

It seemed dumb

The compliments could not possibly be sincere, because there was no real knowledge about each other.

The next day

So, they each turned in their packet of compliments (one for each person in the class). Then one day, in the mail, each received the pile of “compliments” from their classmates. He was skeptical, and yet imagine Scott’s surprise that with each one he read (even the surface-y ones), he felt his confidence growing. They each had an impact for good, even though he KNEW they couldn’t be heartfelt because they simply did not even really KNOW anything about each other.

Imagine with me

If all that is possible in a secular setting, imagine with me what is possible with God at the center…

Strengths Coaching

I’m a strengths coach. As a coach, I don’t try to FIX you. And we don’t blame others for how things turned out for you in your life. Rather, we look realistically at today. The past is past. You can never have a better past, so NOW WHAT? Let’s work on what you can do today.

Forward Thinking

I help you discover, through a Ministry Insights, Leading From Your Strengths, assessment, what your God-given strengths are. Then, I help you learn to recognize others’ strengths, (like when Scott’s classmates were looking for things to compliment about each other).

The world wants to beat you down and point out what is wrong with you. The world wants to have you concentrate on strengthening your weaknesses. That is like looking at the world through someone else’s glasses. That just makes us a bunch of unfocused, ineffective, partially successful people. God has a better plan. He wants you to look at what is right and good and noteworthy in yourself. And in others. Through coaching, you can learn how it all fits together like the pieces in a puzzle.

It seemed dumb

In my coach training, and my previous training in counseling, we too did exercises similar to what Scott speaks of in his Dale Carnegie course. I can remember an assignment that seemed dumb. We broke down into twos and we asked each other what was called “the powerful question”. It’s used when people are STUCK and can’t move forward. It seemed dumb because we all knew what the question was, so I remember thinking, it would not work on me. I know others felt the same way. Both in counseling and then in my coaching classes, too. And yet, it worked! What about you?

Are you struggling in an area?

Maybe you just don’t know what to do about something in your life!

The powerful question is:

“So…If you DID know what to do, what would it be?”

That question, should not work, and yet it does! EVERY TIME! It worked when I was being coached and it works now. It works when you don’t know it is coming and it works when you do know it is coming. Just like the “compliments assignment’’ in the Dale Carnegie courses. It should not work, and yet it does! EVERY TIME!

It unlocks the brain

Questions like that actually unlock your brain from what has impacted it negatively by life and disasters and relationships. Your brain has believed it must be different than God’s design. A brain impacted by a kinda scary world gone nutty lately. So, these assignments in positive persuasion have amazing potential to unlock your brain, and to open you up to possibilities.  To inner joy and peace. To embracing who God created you to be.

Because God says in the Bible…

Philippians 4:13 (KJV) “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.”

Mark 10:27b (KJV) “… for with God all things are possible.”

Mark 9:23 (JV) “Jesus said unto him, if thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”

Let me know when you want to find out more about your own possibilities.

Maranatha!
Come Lord Jesus!

God bless you bunches!

Let's Connect!Awaiting His shout,
pam_signature-c49a6c

Christian Life Coach
Leading from Your Strengths Mentor
www.loavesandfishescoaching.com

Filed under: Personality Strengths and Weaknesses — Tags: , — Pam Taylor @ 7:00 am