Secrets of Successful Living

I’m purging my bookshelves.  This is not something that comes easy to me, but hey, life is tough.  I’ve accumulated a small pile of books that I don’t feel need take up valuable space on my limited shelves and have leafed through them and am packing them in a box for my next stop at Value Village.  One of these particular books held my attention a bit longer than the others, probably because it ties in with a lot of the things I have been focusing on in recent months.  Although I found it rather off the wall in parts, and this post is not meant to be an endorsement in any way, shape or form, I thought it might be beneficial to jot down a few of the thoughts that did impress themselves upon me. 

Wholeness is health, unity, sufficiency, and the peace that comes from having enough of everything you need in your life. 

Balance is having the various parts of your life in proper proportion to each other.  The two terms are vitally interrelated.  Success, by definition of this book, is “balanced wholeness.”

The book visualizes the circle of our life as an eight sectioned wheel divided into the following categories in no particular order;

Recreational, Mental, Community, Professional, Material, Financial, Family and Physical with SPIRITUAL as the core of the circle, all other categories branching out from the core on the premise that;

“One is not a human being having spiritual experiences.  One is a spiritual being have human experiences.” 

The book is a “planner”  and states;

“If you simply take life as it comes and never seek to conform your will to God’s will or your ways to His ways, your life will meander without a strong sense of direction, purpose or fulfillment.”

“The Lord isn’t at all against our making plans.  He’s against our worshiping our plans.  And He’s against our making plans that leave Him out.  To be more precise, we must ask the Lord to give us our plans…

We ask and believe that God will reveal His desires to us and plant His dreams in us.  We then make our goals based on the desires and dreams.  We forge the goals into a plan, and we begin to work on the plan and along the way, we continually ask the Lord, “Am I on the right track?  Am I pursuing this as quickly as You want it pursued?  Am I becoming the person You want me to be?” 

It beckons a person to dream. 

“Dreams invite you to see a future that is better than the present.  Dreams compel you to grow and to develop yourself in ways you haven’t thus far.  Dreams give you energy and enthusiasm.”

I love that.  I’m a dreamer, a reacher, a planner, an achiever.  And maybe, just maybe… God made me that way.  May I be all, in a wholesome and balanced way, for His glory. 

 

random notes taken while leafing through “Nine Empowering Secrets of Successful Living” by Denis Waitley.