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Please feel free to use these prayers for your own use in whatever context you feel they are appropriate.
Invocation
Lord,
Help us to remain true to the self-evident truths so long ago proclaimed but existing from the beginning of time, that we are all created equal, and that we are endowed by You as our common Creator with certain unalienable Rights.
Imbue us with a renewed enthusiasm and respect for these, our mutual rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Cause us to know without doubt that from these rights issue forth genuine responsibilities to work for the common good so that all can truly experience the true fullness of freedom.
We pray the presence of Your Power to be within and among us this evening as we seek to manifest these truths within our individual hearts and within the soul of our nation.
We seek Your guidance as we again pledge our allegiance to the timeless proclamation of individual liberty and our uncompromising independence from any tyranny, foreign or domestic, that would seek to deprive us of any of it.
Steady us in these turbulent times, Lord, so that we will never waiver from our reliance on our faith in Your unyielding love for each of us.
Benediction
We now depart in Your love and with Your peace. But we are no longer the people who earlier gathered; we are now the people who leave to live with renewed passion, filled with infinite power and divine wisdom to be co-creators with You to make all things new.
We leave with deeper commitment to embody the words of the one in whose honor we have gathered this evening:
“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in . . .”
Here are seven simple steps you can take to get done what needs to be done – NOW!
1. Organize: Order your time, records and interruptions so that you know what to expect – and from whom.
2. Get it All Together: Gather all necessary information and tools, such as calendar, telephone numbers and to-do lists, in one place. Never put these materials in any other place – ever!
3. Plan: End each day organizing the next day’s appointments and must-do tasks. Nice-to-do tasks should be written at the bottom of your “must-do” list. Do these in the order you’ve written them only after all your “must-dos” have been completed.
4. Prioritize: Set goals and map a strategy to achieve them. List every step to accomplish each goal and then put them in order of importance. Refuse to do the easiest – and the least important – jobs first. In fact, make it a habit to do these at the end of each day.
5. Decide: Do it, delegate it or discard it. For each of your projects, decide how it will be handled and by whom. Write the steps, the timelines, the deadlines and the names of those who will be assigned each task on a planning capture sheet. Do the step at the top of the list (or have it done) immediately.
6. Clear Your Desk: Workspaces littered with notes, files, phone messages, mail, etc. are enticements to procrastinate. You might be able to manage the clutter for a brief period of time; don’t count on it for the long-term, however. Clutter will eventually consume your intentions, cloud your perspective, dampen your enthusiasm and overwhelm even your best-laid plans.
7. Divide and Conquer: When overwhelmed by the enormity of a project, break it down into smaller tasks to get a more reasonable perspective. Deal with only one task at a time. When tempted to wander in your thinking, say to yourself, “Not now!” Then continue your train of thought and action until you can say, “OK, Now!”
After hours of frustration trying to get my drain unclogged, I finally broke down and called a plumber. Upon arriving, he asked where the problem pipe was located. I took him to the bathroom and, pointing to the open doors under the sink, I said, "There's your challenge, right there."
He spent a few moments surveying the situation and then took from his toolbox a simple pair of pliers and gently tapped the entire length of the curvy piping. After just a few minutes of inspection, he wrapped his pliers with a bright red bandana he took from one of the many pockets in his tattered blue overalls. With precise aim, he drew back and struck the pipe about halfway between the bottom of the basin and the point where the piping disappeared into the wall.
It worked! The water flowed freely and all was right with the world. The entire visit lasted a mere five minutes. The plumber wrote on the invoice the following words: "House call . . . FREE; Knowing What to Do (Where to Hit the Pipe) . . . $75.00.
But knowing what and where is not enough. The noted comedian, George Burns, was said to have interrupted a person who was not quite finished asking, "What is the key to comedy?" with his answer: "Timing!" In addition to what and where, you must also know when.
There is such a thing as "putting the cart before the horse:" you wind up having to pull a load you wouldn't have had to were you to have done things in the proper sequence and at the right time. You cannot hope to reap without having sown or to acquire wisdom and solid character without making the daily choices to discipline your baser instincts.
Wisdom comes from understanding what you should be doing with your time. . . right now wherever you are. Getting to the place where your knowledge, skills and experience position you to "move the needle" and succeed faster is the essence of living in peaceful abundance. When you know you know you can make things happen, you become equipped with the power you need to achieve what you want. Furthermore, what you want becomes shaped by what you know you can accomplish rather than merely hoping for something you doubt that you can achieve.
This, indeed, is a peaceful – and powerful – life that emerges from finding your better Self.
The following are comments in response to a standing question I've posed to all readers and participants: "What has been the greatest obstacle you have had to overcome on the way to Your Better Self?"
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If all you are looking at is the obstacles in front of you, then you need to widen your perspective. Zoom out! Look at the bigger picture. Stepping back from the rock lets you see the way around it. I'm lazy, really I am. I am not going to hammer through with a jackhammer when I can step back and go around.
I will admit, though, that I've found that my biggest obstacle is often myself. When working in a group I find this a lot, especially when I'm the leader. I get this, "My way or the highway" sort of attitude occasionally, and I forget that the reason I've surrounded myself with the people I have is because they are the best ones to help me get the job done. It pays to listen to the people around you. I've learned that the hard way many times, and I find myself re-learning it. Here are some things I've written down to remember while working in a group (I've found that they are helpful for working in a group whether I'm the leader or not.):
1.) Listen when someone is trying to express their opinion on how best to get the job done. They may not have the best answer, but all viewpoints let you back up and get a bigger picture.
2.) Plan, then be prepared for the plan to fail. Trust your team members to do what they do best as you all pick up the pieces and start anew.
3.) People won't follow a plan/path they haven't agreed upon. Make sure that everyone agrees, or if they can't, that they agree to follow the leader.
4.) This is a team effort, and working as a team is the only way to get the job done. Everyone's skills, no matter how small in comparison to others in the group, should be recognized.
5.) Don't overextend yourself, if your work suffers the whole team suffers. Your failure can cause the whole team to fail.
6.) Don't be afraid to ask for help. It doesn't make you seem weak.
7.) If you must criticize, make sure it's constructive. Criticizing someone viciously is not the way to motivate them. It's entirely unhelpful.
8.)
Did you notice number eight is blank? Well that is because I just know I'm going to learn more later. Recognizing that fact now will, hopefully, allow me to be more open to learning the next thing to come my way.
The Russian psychologist, Bluma Zeigarnit discovered a concept, appropriately named, “the Zeigarnik effect,” that refers to the phenomenon whereby the recall ratio for tasks interrupted at the middle or latter end of task completion is higher than for tasks interrupted at or near the beginning.
In other words, what you start but don’t finish weighs more heavily on your mind the closer you were to finishing the task when you quit trying. This is the area of memory that constitutes the soul-sighing sadness of regret.
There is an old story of the 49er who dug and dug for months and months looking for the deep and rich vein of gold he adamantly believed was just beyond every swing of his pick. Yet, as strong as his belief was, he finally gave up and left the mine. The next week he learned that another miner who had gone in after he had abandoned his shaft had discovered a thick stratum of gold the likes of which had never been before unearthed. The old 49er was literally just inches from his riches.
There is a Chinese proverb that says, “The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed.” Former Presidential candidate, Ross Perot, a self-made billionaire, commented, “Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success. They quit on the one-yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown.”
Another person who knew a thing or two about the requirements of being successful, Thomas Edison, wrote, “Many of life’s failures are men (sic) who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."
You are mere inches from the riches of the rewards of your efforts to improve yourself and achieve everything you want in your life! Yes, you are. Take one more swing of the pick, strike once more with the force of commitment, the eagerness of positive expectation and the conviction of belief. What will be revealed will stun you – and propel you well beyond the best you've ever done.
I've been rehearsing for a Christams dinner theater for our church. The theme is a "Country Christmas" and involves country music and cowboy/cowgirl costumes. I was presented with a brand new western style snap-button shirt at our last gathering. The director handed it to me and said, "Here, try this on for size."
It fit perfectly. I thought it would but I really couldn't say for sure until I actually tried it on – to see if the size was right (or, perhaps, if I was the right size to fill it out). Whenever you have an idea that you think might be a good one, try it on for size by generating a list (it doesn't have to be a long list) of what you can do with that idea to make it happen. Then prioritize each item on your list and begin with the top one and see if it "fits."
Some ideas fit like an old shoe or a comfortable jacket – others are stiff and not very pliable. But until you "try it on for size" you won't know with any certainty. It is indeed a shame for an idea not to come to fruition simply because you thought is might be too big for you. Try it on for size! You'll find that most of your ideas will fit you perfectly.
Whenever I hear this phrase uttered, I think not of radical railing against the "establishment" but of what people with power actually look like. People with power are people with poise, purpose and peacefulness. When you possess power, you know it; and you also know how to use it, for that is the prerequisite of power – being the one in the room who knows what to do . . . next.
Power originates in perception and manifests itself within the individual. In other words, when you know what needs to be done for the benefit of others and are committed to getting it done, you are perceived to be powerful by others and are then able to empower them to help you accomplish that goal.
We all need power to get what we want for ourselves. We also need power to give what we want to others. Power is experienced when you know what you want to both give and receive and when you know that what you want is worthy of your better Self.
"Power to the people" is really power through a person to the people. Are you that person in your world?
The last three lines are for you to fill in what you know you have personal choice over that are not mentioned in this list. Every choice you have means that the world is yours: you can make it what you want and get from it what you desire – depending on the kinds of choices you make. Choose wisely, choose well.
A young boy found a cocoon. Each day, he held it up to the light to admire his discovery.
One day, a small opening appeared in the wall of the cocoon. He watched the tiny creature within struggle for hours to force its body through the tiny hole. Then it seemed to stop trying. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could go.
So the boy decided to help. He took a pair of scissors and opened the hole so that the butterfly could come out more easily. It quickly emerged. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.
The boy expected the butterfly to take flight at any moment. The longer he watched, the more he realized that the swollen body with shriveled wings would never fly. It was too bloated and weak, spending its pitiful existence floundering on the ground until it soon died exhausted from trying to start living.
What the boy did not realize was what the butterfly actually needed. It needed to struggle to emerge from its confinement because that is the way the fluids of its body are extended to its newly formed wings so it can fly as soon as it frees itself.
Although we may fear encountering them and believe that to have them is to admit weakness, struggles are not the true problems we face in our lives. To the contrary, they are very often the means of our freedom from that which seeks to cast our souls, minds and spirits into melancholic bondage and dispirited living.
The true problems we have are those that are caused by our insistence that we have no problems in our lives, and, if we do, that the solutions be quickly and easily found. When we attempt to circumvent the demanding (and sometimes longer-than-desired) process of honestly dealing with our difficulties, we wind up demeaning the significance of any resolution to those difficulties that eventually may ensue.
Struggling is something you must do in your own time, in your own way and for your own reasons. Always remember that to avoid struggle is to shun victory. There is a time to struggle and a time to let it go and assess the degree of victory your struggling has yielded. When struggling defines your daily living, you’ve lost the meaning of why you’re struggling in the first place. Struggles result in peacefulness or they simply serve to exacerbate existing despair.
When next you find yourself struggling with something in your life, know that it is a process at the end of which is a victory of unimagined proportions and benefits. In other words, “this, too, shall pass” – and it will pass into a state of being that now knows how to fly beyond it’s present state of spiritual and mental confinement. At the end of your struggles await peacefulness and wholeness – the home of your better Self.
Note well: the end of your struggle happens only when you realize that you no longer need to struggle to be your better Self. This, indeed, is good news!
