IF I WERE 35 AGAIN- Part 2

   One morning in my devotions I do every morning, God asked me the question: “What would you do if you were 35 years of age again?”  Wow, what a great question to get you thinking and reevaluating!  I wrote in my first BLOG that such a short blog would not allow me to share the list that I created over the following months. However, with many emailing me and requesting me to share with them some of my thoughts, I offer you a few things on my list in this blog that I pray you can use.

   KNOWLEDGE- I would place the greatest value upon WHAT information I would obtain and place inside my soul (mind). Jesus said, “The truth you know shall make you free” (John 8:32). The Bible reveals that we are saved by knowledge and knowledge is the first principle to life (Prov 1). The principle is this; the measurement of knowledge we have equals the measurement of life we shall enjoy.  Ignorance is the key to sin and being lost. If you do not know God, you are lost. If you do not know how to communicate, you will be alone. If you do not know business or economics, you will always exchange a lot of your time for a little bit of someone’s money. 

   Ignorance and deception are the core of every destruction known to man.  Ignorance is the key to poverty, sickness and psychosis. The right kind of knowledge is power. The right kind of knowledge is essential to freedom.  One can know all there is to being a drug dealer, but that will not lead one to a secure freedom.  People possess a lot of wrong or bad knowledge that leads to false beliefs and this has lead many of us to live a strained, hurtful and difficult life. 

   As I look back over the past 20 years and think of the many things I never was able to have or had lost, it almost all had to do with the wrong kind of knowledge which created wrong set of beliefs.  If I were 35 again, I would be very studious and scrupulous about what I allowed into my soul (mind).

   1.) I would take careful time to research and discover my single most definite purpose in life and give myself to study the right kind of information / knowledge that would facilitate my success in that purpose.  I would study to know the right kind of information that would move me towards the ultimate purpose that I was placed on this planet. I would give myself to know the best information for the use of my purpose for the betterment of myself and everyone else I came in contact with. I would not waste my time learning to know information that mattered little to nothing to me nor those around me. 

   2.) I would read the top ten books on any one given subject of my passion and purpose.  We will all have the same life, same conditions and same results of life if we do not increase the quality of information and knowledge.  It has been said, “If we keep doing what we’ve always done, we shall get what we’ve always gotten.” If I were 35 again, I would pick very carefully the time and energy I would invest in growing myself, my mind and my soul in order to become exactly what God had intended on me to become. If I were 35 again, I would not just allow every fly by night junk that the world, television, Hollywood, so-called news, neighbors, associates and friends said I should allow into my mind and soul. (to be continued…)

© 2012 Dr Tim McClure

IF I WERE 35 AGAIN

   I found myself some time ago sitting down by the river doing my morning devotions pondering my evaluating stages I often go through.  I was reminiscing the many opportunities that I had found myself being offered but because of my upbringing, background and training, I either didn’t see it, understand or outright rejected what now I know was God giving me favor.

   Ignorance comes to many of us at a cost that we will never be reimbursed for.  However, if we are so blessed and gifted by grace we can use our failures, mishaps, misunderstandings or ignorance to our future advantage.  I found that on this one morning I had one of those enlighten moments:

   That morning in my devotions I hear the Lord say; “What would you do if you were 35 again?”  Wow, will something like that get your attention or what?  I found myself instantly pulling out things and ideas that I would do and or not do. My mind raced for several minutes before I stopped long enough to start writing down a list of things I would do – if I were 35 again. (I can just hear many of you reading thinking of the questions, “well, what are some of the things would you do?”)

   This short BLOG will not suffice such a list, however, I found myself working with my son, Tim Jr that particular week of which he was going to be having his 35^th birthday in just a few weeks away and I said, “Son sit down, we need to have a talk.”  As we sat there, I told him what I had been hearing God ask me and about my list. Then I pulled it out of my pocket and said, “I want to give it to you.”

   I will never be 35 again, but you’re about to turn 35 and you can use this far greater than I could.  As we sat there talking about ministry, family, finances and the future, I tried in a short simple way to suggest the viability of such a thought and the list.  Yes, Tim Jr started the process of the list and is still working it (to my prayer in a far greater success than I could ever make of it).

   With that thought in mind, let me ask you; “What would you do if you were 35 again?  Perhaps you are 35, 40 or 25.  Can I challenge your emotion today and suggest that you can take this simple devotion and start to jot down a few things and make your own list of what you would love to redo, change or start afresh. 

   What would you do different? What decisions would you have made or not have made? What so called friends would you have avoided or gone out of your way to make? What book would you have read or not read? How would you have spent your time more productive and what wasted stuff would you avoid?  Whatever you would do or not do is merely a thought you may wish to ponder for your future and for your success.

© 2012 by Dr Tim McClure