Where's Your Focus?

     Each morning when you rise from bed, you make a decision about what is going to be your focus for the day. You may do this intentionally, or as I presume the majority of people will get up and their focus is basically created for them just by the sheer magnitude of their thoughts. What we think on becomes our focus, and what we focus on, becomes what we put our efforts into, and what we place our effort into becomes who we are and it also becomes our mark on the world in which we live. Why do people wake up with a dread of the day? My guess and the "focus" of today's Flat Tire Ministries Thought is that they have their minds set on the wrong priorities and for them life has no joy nor fulfillment. This morning you may be the very person this blog is intended for and you don't even realize it. You may be so caught up in the race to buy happiness that you have lost sight on what really matters, but hopefully today's message will help all of us to stop, reflect, and recreate our focus on what truly matters.
     Let's get right to the crux of the matter. In Matthew 16:26 Jesus poses this question, "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" I believe what Jesus was asking His disciples was where is your focus? What motivates you to get up and get out of bed each morning? What drives you to go to work and give it all you got on the job? At the end of the day what measuring stick do you use to validate the results of your efforts for the day? If everything we do is connected to the material world then we will always go away from the day with a lack of fulfillment. If what drives us to be successful is related to a banking account number or a title that we have been given then we will always be in want of more or another title to achieve. Enough will never be enough, and the sad part is those that are closest to you, the ones that you have the chance to make the biggest impact on will not garner the true benefit of what you have to offer them. Your lack of focus on the right stuff, creates a void in the lives of those you are intended to impact with your focus. So what do you gain if you get all the toys, but you lose the very thing that can't be bought in the process? I Timothy 6:7 says it best, "For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." I think that pretty much sums it up if your focus is on the things in life that are temporary, but hold on there is hope!
     If your drive in life is directly connected to what you have instead of what you have to give, it is time to stop and redirect your focus on what really matters. I am in no way suggesting that we shouldn't be striving to provide for our families and those that count on us to do our jobs and bring home the means by which we live, yet I am saying that when that drive becomes our focus we may lose sight of what really matters and what will leave a lasting impact on those we come in contact with on a daily basis or that once in a lifetime opportunity to make a difference in someone's life. I guess what I  am really saying is we need to stop focusing on what we don't have and what we want to have, and start focusing on what we have and what we have to give to others. Here I'm not speaking to material gifts or financial donations, I'm talking about what you have to offer in the way of hope, inspiration, time, and love.
      A simple act of kindness goes a long way, a smile and a word of encouragement make a difference, and a helping hand that lifts someone up can change someone's life. We have so much, too much in most cases and we put all of our efforts into getting more. What if we put at least a small portion of that effort into giving someone else a strand of hope? What if we gave our children our time instead of a new electronic device? What if instead of trying to win the rat race, we stopped to help someone less fortunate than ourselves to finish the race? What if each morning when we got out of bed we took a moment to realize what a gift today is and how thankful we should be that we can even get out of bed, walk to the shower, go to the refrigerator for food or drink, and then make our way out to our car which will in turn take us to the job that provides us all that we need and more? And what if we extended that thought for just one more minute to think about how blessed we are to have just one more day to make a difference in this world. One more chance to make a difference in your coworker's life, a family member's outlook on their world, or maybe if you are as lucky as I am to be an educator you might stop and think about the chance you have today to change the world through the lens of a student's mind. Wow, the potential outcomes are endless, the only barrier to what you can achieve with a positive mindset focus is you.
     When you wake up in the morning instead of thinking about what you don't have or what you have to go do today, stop I mean literally stop and recreate what you will focus on today. When you want to complain about your job, family, life, or whatever it is that you are prone to complain about, stop and put things in perspective. Change your focus from a "me" centered life, to a life that has given you the opportunity to make a difference in a life, maybe a ton of lives, maybe the world! God doesn't make mistakes and He made you so remember that the next time you want to have a pity party about how bad your life is. Get up, get out, and go make a difference in your world you live in today! Once you place your focus on what really matters you will see the world you live in change for the better!
Coach Carter

Encouragement

     I have a page in my "Notes" app on my phone where I store ideas for future FTM Thoughts as they come to me so that I won't forget them down the road. Often the simplest instances provoke thoughts and ideas for inspirational encouragement. A ripple in a pool of water, a disobedient canine on a lead, an ant carrying a tremendous load, or even our flag waving in the sky have all served as thought provoking ideas for my posts. But for today's Flat Tire Ministries Thought I can't say that was the case. During my devotional time and subsequent prayers this morning, the thought of encouragement kept running across my mind, so in obedience I want to share with everyone or maybe with just one reader in particular my words of encouragement today. "Be strong, be relentless, and stay the course that has been set in front of you."
     Be strong, courage and faith don't come without making some sacrifices along the way. You will face opposition when you are doing the right thing, but you have to allow your faith to make you bold and courageous. Muscles become stronger when they are given a workout. The muscle is torn so that it can repair itself stronger and thus be capable of handling more stringent workouts in the future. Your faith is the same way. When you believe in what you are doing and you have sought guidance on what you are doing through prayer and meditation stay strong, don't give in to negative comments or opposition that is certain to confront you. Stay strong and remember as long as you don't give up, as long as you are moving forward, and as long as there is still air in your lungs you can accomplish what you want to do at this moment. Faith = Strength. God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. Psalm 46:1-3. Paul said it best, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" Romans 8:31.
     It's easy to give in, it's easy to make excuses about why something isn't going to work and then just quit. I want to say this to you, don't give up stay the course, see it through, dig in, and grab a hold of something and hold on. The words of the theologian Thomas Fuller are appropriately fitting "it's always darkest just before the dawn". When I think of being relentless I always catch a glimpse of an old poster that hung in one of my teacher's classrooms. The hand drawn sketch was a picture of a bird holding a frog by it's hind leg preparing to drop the frog into it's mouth, the frog has reached out and grabbed the bird's long neck with it's free leg. The caption under the drawing read, "Don't ever give up!". Be relentless, when you think you can't you can, when others tell you it won't work, commit to your cause and show them it will and it can. There's a reason why the Little Train chugged along saying "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!" The more you believe it and the more you dedicate to it the more likely it is that you will see your efforts pay off. Isaiah 30:20 provides this promise, "And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher." Help is on it's way be relentless!
       Stay the course! Columbus faced a world of opposition to his supposition that the world was round and that if you reached the horizon you wouldn't just fall off the flat world. In the face of opposition or when the struggle seems like it is too much to move forward this world tells you to just give up it's not worth the fight. I am here to tell you to push forward. The easy thing to do is give up. Anyone can do that. The tough thing to do is to stay the course. Push forward, and commit when it looks like and sounds like you should give in. Whether it is a relationship, a fight against an addiction, something at work, or a student that you just can't reach don't give up. Don't go it alone, seek help, find resources, reach out to the One that gives us strength and stay the course. "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:6-7. Paul's directive to the church in Philippi are words of encouragement  that each of us need to heed when our bodies or our minds want to give up. Stay the course, you may be at the brink of success and if you quit you'll never know it! Stay the course!
     That's all I have today. I live what I share and I believe what I share. Whether this message is for you today or not, you will or you have just been through something that you had to persevere to make it to the other side. My hope and my prayer is that in some little way the words on this page today may be of encouragement to you and that when that thought of giving up creeps into your head you will keep up the good fight and see it through. It is worth the fight! Press on and keep looking towards the light!
Coach Carter

Just a Little Faith

     Faith- "... is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1.
I enjoy listening to Contemporary Christian music and one of my favorite songs right now is the song "Even If" by  the band Mercy Me. In particular, one verse resonates strong with me:

They say it only takes a little faith
To move a mountain
Good thing
A little faith is all I have right now
But God, when You choose
To leave mountains unmovable
Give me the strength to be able to sing
It is well with my soul

Oh how I desire to build that kind of faith that believes even when things are going "bad", it is all going to work out just the way that God has it planned, and what I have to do is trust that the way it works out has to happen for what happens next to take place. 
      You see the essence of the kind of faith that is referred to in Hebrews 11:1 is that you are clinging to something that you can't see and you are trusting that things will work just as they should. We hope that things will work out the way we have them envisioned, but we place our trust in the fact that regardless of the outcome our faith tells us that everything that happens does so for a reason and we, by placing our trust in our faith, believe that the way things works out is for a much bigger reason than our understanding. We "hope" things work out a certain way and we may even pray that things work out a certain way, yet at the end of the day if we have faith our hope is not just for the outcome to be what we want, but instead our hope is that whatever happens it will impact the life of someone or possibly a group of someones. Faith thus is placing our trust in something we can't see.
     Just like the team building exercise called the "trust fall" in which a person turns their back to their team and then when given the direction to fall backwards the person falls back trusting that their teammates will be there to catch them when they fall. You can't see if your team members are behind you, but you trust that they are there and that they will not let you hit the ground. If your team members really want to test your faith they get nervously close to the ground and catch you at the last possible moment. Just a little faith allows us to trust that we won't hit the ground.
      It would be nice if everyone's faith was so strong that no one ever questioned why things happen like they do or why things don't turn out the way we want them to, but that isn't the way the world spins. In the song above the lyricist laments having only "a little faith" but in reality isn't having a little faith better than having no faith at all? How do you respond when you face a mountain in your life? Do you give up, lay down, or hang your head down and quit? When our trust is tested does it fizzle out or does it stand firm? I don't know about you, but my faith tells me to trust and have faith that whatever mountain stands in front of me I will move it when it is time to move it if it ever is time for me to move it!
     If you have no faith it is easy to give up. Purpose, trust, hope, and persistence are depleted when we have no hope. But there is also good news when we bolster our faith with trust and hope. Romans 5:1-5 tells me, Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ² through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. ³ Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴ perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵ And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. Basically, if you have a little faith it can be sufficient, but just as a muscle you want to develop has to be stretched and torn for it to grow, so does one's faith.
    Those that are grounded in faith are tested and that testing shows up in a myriad collection of ways which are unique to each of us. Just as Paul stated above in Romans 5:3 we have to be strong in our sufferings because those things that don't kill us only make us stronger to coin an old adage. If we have no faith we have nothing to hope for. We are defeated before we start, it is a learned helplessness or hopelessness in this case. If you need hope it is my prayer that you will seek hope. I have found that my hope lies in my faith that there is a bigger purpose for my life and that God has a plan for everything and it is my job to live my life to the fullest, never give up in the face of adversity, and always hold on to the hope that does not fail and does not falter. Got a little faith? That's all you need right now! 
Coach Carter

     
    

The Secret of Success

     I guess it is fairly safe to say that pretty much everyone wants to be successful in life. The definition of success varies from person to person, but I do believe I have an equation that most undoubtedly works for me and I am certain it will work for you as well. It's important to understand that there are many different definitions of what success really is, and how we actually measure success also offers a wide ranging spectrum of opinions and scale models. For me success is when you rise each day and know that what you do makes a difference and that you want to go out and make as big of a difference as possible. Then at night, when your day comes to an end, you can peacefully lay your head on your pillow and rest comfortably knowing you did all you could to make that difference in as many lives as possible. The big question is how do we do this, make a living that will support our families, and still feel like we stayed true to our plan of being successful? Well the measurement of how successful you are is something you will ultimately measure at the end of your life, but whether or not you are successful in life can be summed up by how well you accomplish four daily duties which I firmly believe make for a successful person, in your family, at your work place, on the highway, in the restaurant, and just about any other place you can think. In today's Flat Tire Ministry Thought for the Week I'd like to share my "Four Rules for Success" of what will make you successful in life.
     First rule, Treat everyone the way you would want to be treated in that same situation. We all have heard of the Golden Rule at some point in our lives and we all say that is the way that we should always treat others, but is that the way it is each day everyday in your daily walk? If we mess up we want others to forgive us and not come down on us too hard for our goof up. When someone else messes up and it impacts our life we want someone to pay the price for that mess up. We are quick to seek retribution, yet we are also quick to expect others to forgive us immediately. How about when you are driving down the road and someone cuts you off, what is reaction? Do you blow your horn and curse the person or do you keep your frustration to yourself because you know that the next time it might just be you that makes the driving faux pas and desire a little bit of grace. Give what you would hope to get if you were on the "getting" side. When we treat others the way we want others to treat us we demonstrate understanding, forgiveness, and grace.
      Second Rule, Never ask anyone to do something that you would not be ready to roll up your sleeves and do yourself. Being in any position of leadership creates the necessity of telling others what they need to do and how you want it to be done. Well if you wouldn't want to do it the way you are telling others to, or if something needs to be done and time is crunched, you should be prepared to jump in and do all you can to see the deadline is met. When you do this others will see that you understand the challenges that they face and that you are in it with them to see it through.
     Third, this one speaks to longevity. Stay calm in life's storms and have faith. I was talking with my nephew Bogi yesterday and we were talking about the fact that life is full of ups and downs, trials and triumphs, adversity and peace. I am very proud of Bo and he just keeps amazing me. He was saying he knew things would work out in life he just has to keep living it and I shared this visual image for him to remember as life happens. I told him to think about the mountains. Notice I said mountains plural. Mountains would just be a high range of plateaus if it wasn't for the dips or valleys. We get to enjoy the mountain because the valley exists which we have to climb to reach the mountain top. You may be in a valley, you may have just gotten out of a valley, or you may be stuck in a deep canyon with no view of the mountaintop in sight. Keep climbing, keep things in perspective, and don't ever lose the attitude that you will make it and things will work out the way they are supposed to work out. That's important to understand, we can't question how things turn out we just have to accept and believe that they will work out the way that they are supposed to work out. Not always easy, but always true.
     Fourth rule, Choose to be happy. Each day presents choices from the time you rise to the time you hit the bed. We have the choice to seek pity or we have the opportunity to make the most out of any situation. We choose to work hard and be fulfilled by our efforts and abilities, or we opt out and say that our work does not matter and that our life has little meaning. I don't care what anyone says you are in charge and you make the choice each day. Choose to look at the glass and be thankful for it regardless of how much water is in it. I mean if it is completely empty you still have a glass when you do run up on some water. It's your choice.
     That's my top four, there are a number of other factors that can play into your life being deemed a success, but in my mind if you hit a home run with these four any other factors will fall into place. Live each day like there is no tomorrow, give more than you get, laugh, cry, and respect everyone, the list goes on and on and there isn't any of them that can be measured by your financial portfolio or by the size of your house, or the floor on which your office sits. Life is too short to live it chasing success, success is there you just have to know how to define it!
Matthew 16: 26-27
²⁶ What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? ²⁷ For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.
Have an awesome Labor Day and relax!
Coach Carter