No one really knows when all this crap will end and life as we used to know it will return back to normal. But, that’s ok! I know there is One that knows the exact date this will all end but perhaps, He doesn’t want things to return back to business as usual. Maybe, God wants us to use this extended time of alienation, separation, and social distancing to fully appreciate the most important asset in our lives which are the people in our lives. This shouldn’t be a shock because He exampled this disposition when He manifested in the flesh, took on all of our sins (past, present, and future), and died on a cross so that we wouldn’t have to spend eternity without Him. Jesus chose to social distance himself from the Father so that through His sacrifice we all would become one with the Triune God (Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit). Watch this; what the enemy don’t want you to know is that families who haven’t talked for years are know conversing again via zoom and other live video platforms, marriages are being restored, friendships are rebooting, families are spending time together, and lives are being forever changed. Yes, God uses the bad things that occur in our lives for the good because nothing He does is bad! Let me put it this way, because of God’s great love for us, Jesus bore not only the judgment of God for sins but also our sickness and disease. Jesus said John 16:33, “…… In the world you have trouble and suffering, but take courage — I have conquered the world.” Tada!! This means that Corona is already defeated! So, today while your practicing social distancing try distancing yourself from the news for at least a day. Reach out to one of your family members or friends and remind them God’s is with us, we will get through this, and His love will always shine the brightest even in the darkest time.

Why do we find ourselves under estimating what God can do? The answer to this question depends solely on the person reading this devotional. Everyone’s situation is somewhat different however, there are a few common reasons we tend to under estimate the power of God. Most common to our nature is under estimating God’s love, faithfulness, forgiveness, compassion, creativity, capacity, wisdom, power, and His presence. Let’s be clear, God can do anything! There is nothing our God can’t do except fail! Not to mention, He will never lie and the Bible inspired by God contains more promises than all of humanity can count on in a lifetime! Isaiah 55:11 confirms, “The word that goes out from My mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” and Psalms 40:45 speaks of God’s awe-inspiring, above-our-understanding ways; “Many, Lord my God, are the wonders you have done, the things you planned for us. None can compare with you. Were I to speak and tell of your deeds, they would be too many to declare.” God is amazing and He is able and will do amazing things in your life, marriage, family, vocation, and relationships! So, let’s rephrase the opening question: Can this very God that longs to call us His friends be the God that some of us struggle to believe, trust and worship? God wants to walk with us, talk with us, inspire us, forgive us, establish us, and encourage us. He loves us and He will always leave us in awe at His love, faithfulness, and goodness. Therefore, in this season if your marriage is falling apart, you have more bills coming in than money, you have a child(ren) gone prodigal, you have been furloughed, laid off or terminated expect great things from our great God and never make the mistake of doubting what God can do with you and through you, all for His glory and your good! Rick Warren said one time: “Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs.” Don’t underestimate God – He can do more than you think. #Periodt

Chew on this for a little bit!

Glory

#HeIsRisen

#ResurrectionSunday2020

Father God, change in me the same change, I want to see changed in others! Holy Spirit , please fix my heart so I can fix my eyes on Jesus! In Jesus’ life changing and perfecting name, Amen!

“So…Why NOT You?”
Author Noel Pinnock, B.S., M.P.A., C.A., CCC
www.noelpinnock.com

  “A lot of people have gone further than they thought they could because someone else thought they could.” This is a profound statement, whose author is unknown; however, the resonating message is that someone else believes in you – your knowledge, skills, and abilities.  This is a powerful notion because our existence is predicated by the way we believe other people perceive us. Even the most narcissist isn’t immune to the power, influence, and phenomenon of the “others factor.” Psychologist refers to this as the self-fulfilling prophecy; whereby, our behavior is influenced by the way we believe others perceive us; hence, the popularized Pygmalion Effect:

– I am not what I think I am

– I am not what you think I am

– BUT I am what I think YOU think I am!

You can see this principle play out well in classrooms to offices across the globe in practically every industry imaginable. In a previous D-mars article, I wrote that Gerry Fusco, CEO of Gerry Fusco Consulting Group, once told me that his father would tell him that he is no better than anyone else and no one else is better than him. This gave him a neutral foundation with everyone he encountered. He was not intimidated by stature, titles, positions, education, etc. He had a general understanding that he could go anywhere and do practically anything that some else did and possibly do it even better. He believed so because his father believed he could but it did not stop with his father’s belief, he had to believe it for himself too. We can find ourselves on a brink of a breakthrough and then doubt enters our psyche and our breakthrough looks more and more like a breakdown and we fizzle out like an extinguishing flame.

So, how do you prevent the fizzle and ignite your sizzle. Well, you have to start with yourself and ask the poignant and burning question, why not me? “Why not me” is self-awareness and inflection question that is aimed at digging deep into your internal belief systems. As you know our beliefs produce our thoughts, our thoughts produce our feelings, and our feelings produce our actions. If you are not taking the action you need to take your marriage, career, business, or parenting to the next level, then I would recommend that you:

1. 1. Conduct a belief self-assessment to determine what’s at the core of “you.” Once you, decide to believe in your imminent success or accomplishment, then…
   2. Develop an action plan that will assist you along the life cycle of this venture, project, etc. but it is all too paramount that you…
   3. Surround yourself around others that believe in your vision and can see the end result with clarion lenses, naysayers are not allowed here. Remember, we innately do more when others believe we can.

Let me say that again, we innately do more when we believe that others believe that we can. I can remember when I was a gymnast and was competing for the gold in a middle school gymnastic tournament at Welch Middle School way back in the ‘80s. I was nervous and the competition was fierce but I can remember my Pershing Middle School coach, Nancy Shrull, who whispered the powerful words of encouragement, “I believe you can take it all.” These words ignited a flame in my heart that solidified my belief that instigated my thought, fueled my feelings that produced the gold medal winning actions. See, it is a cycle and when you know the cycle then I recommend that you enjoy the ride. Be mindful… a lot of people have gone further than they thought they could because someone else thought they could; therefore, I leave you with the resonating question, why not you? I believe you can…so should you

Failure is not Fatal…Failing to Change Might Be!
Noel A. Pinnock, BS, CA, CCC, MPA, CPM
www.noelpinnock.com

Three -time Grammy® award winner, Donnie McClurkin, We Fall Down lyrics are definitely on target with this month’s edition of D-Mars, partly, because he was able to successfully capture the essence of catching, correcting, and learning from the power of failure or the errors of our ways. McClurkin wrote:

“We fall down but we get up…we fall down but we get up, for a saint is just a sinner who fell down but we couldn’t stay there…”

The incomparable William Shakespeare is infamous for saying, “To err is human.” The verb “err” means to do something wrong; to make a mistake is “to err“. “To err is human” because all people (“humans“) make mistakes. Unfortunately, we are programmed at an early age to think that failure is bad and this belief prevents individuals and organizations, alike, from effectively learning from missteps. As children, we learn at some point that admitting failure means taking blame! How can we respond constructively to failures w/o giving rise to an “anything-goes” attitude? Executives when asked, reported how many of the failures in their organizations are truly blameworthy, their answers are usually in single digits – 2% to 5% but when asked how many are treated as blameworthy, they say (after a pause or chuckle) – 70% to 90%. Amy Edmondson and Mark D. Cannon (Harvard Business School) writes:

“It hardly needs to be said that organizations (individuals) cannot learn from failures if people do not discuss and analyze them. Yet this remains an important insight. The learning that is potentially available may not be realized unless thoughtful analysis and discussion of failure occurs. For example, for Kaiser [Permanente’s] Dr. [Kim] Adcock, it is not enough just to know that a particular physician is making more than the acceptable number of errors [in misread x-rays]. Unless deeper analysis of the nature of the radiologists’ errors is conducted, it is difficult to learn what needs to be corrected. On a larger scale, the U.S. Army is known for conducting After Action Reviews that enable participants to analyze, discuss, and learn from both the successes and failures of a variety of military initiatives. Similarly, hospitals use “Morbidity and Mortality” (M&M) conferences (in which physicians convene to discuss significant mistakes or unexpected deaths) as a forum for identifying, discussing, and learning from failures. This analysis can only be effective if people speak up openly about what they know and if others listen, enabling a new understanding of what happened to emerge in the assembled group.”

You see, hindsight is always 20/20 but in order to realize the power that is produced in failure we must first be able to acknowledge it; second, analyze it; and third, learn from it. German theoretical physicist, Albert Einstein once stated, “We can’t solve yesterday’s problems at the same level of thinking we are at when we created them.” In order to get back up, as McClurkin exhorts, when we have fallen down requires a change in our beliefs as well as in our thinking because when we change our beliefs, we change our thoughts, and when we change our thoughts; we change our feelings and when we change our feelings; we change our actions. At the end of the day, top of the morning, it’s about taking action after the error, failure, short fall, opportunity for improvement (OFIs), or whatever word or phrase you find acceptable in your lexicon.  Those that catch, correct, and learn from failure before others will succeed but those that wallow in the blame game will not.

Now that we know now that failure is not fatal, let’s examine what life looks like after one does encounter this inevitable dynamic through the lens of forgiveness. Forgiveness is vital force in the failure recovery process. It is vital because we can’t carry stones in our pockets and expect to run at optimal speeds. Again, Shakespeare wrote, to err is human but he also stated in the same breathe that to forgive is divine. Forgiveness is reciprocal my friends because to receive it one must give it and to accept it is to move your life progressively forward. After all, we fall down but we can’t stay there…we have to get back up but getting back up doesn’t end the process it simply begins the process of catching, correcting, and learning from the force that made us fall in the first place. So, there you have it…get at it and rediscover the power in failure, remembering that FAILURE is not FATAL but FAILING to change might be…

Prayer is our weapon to win every battle in our life. Whether you want to embrace this concept or not is up for you to decide. But as for me an my household (Joshua 24:15) we will incessantly lift our voices to the One that gave us a voice to lift up! I’ve learned, there is power in our prayers simply because we transfer or relinquish our rights and title to worry or fix a problem that’s not in our grasp nor in our wheel house to fix. In other words, we transfer every care, worry, or concern into God’s capable and unfailing hands! Jeremiah 33:1-3 reminds us, “The Lord who made the earth,
the Lord who forms it to establish it, Yahweh is His name, says this: Call to Me and I will answer you
and tell you great and incomprehensible things you do not know.” I can go on and on, scripture after scripture however; the clarion call today is clear and it doesn’t matter if you have memorize zero scriptures or if you have memorized 1,000 scriptures. Today, we need everyone big and small, young and old, to speak out to God to help us, protect us, and heal us! It doesn’t get any more simpler than that! So open your heart and then your mouth; make your request known to God (Philippians 4:6-7)! There is no magic formula to prayer, but we are reminded in 1 John 5:14-15 to have confidence when we come to God in prayer, knowing He hears us and will grant whatever we ask as long as it is in His will. Similarly, John 14:13-14 declares, “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” According to these and many other Scriptures, God answers prayer requests based on whether they are asked according to His will and in the name of Jesus (to bring glory to Jesus). It doesn’t mater if you’re sitting, standing, or kneeling; hands open or closed; eyes opened or closed; in a church, at home, or outside; in the morning or at night—these are all side issues, subject to personal preference, conviction, and appropriateness. God’s desires for our prayers to be a real and personal connection between Himself and us. He already knows what we need even before we ask Him anyway. Therefore, why not ask!! If you do nothing else today, lift up a humble prayer and I guarantee you that it will reach the ears of our Father who art in Heaven……………(don’t stop keep praying)………………………….

Jesus left that borrowed tomb to let us know that He is coming back! So you if have not settled your account with Him; today is a GOOD day to say, “Jesus, I am sorry. Please forgive me for everything that I did that was not acceptable in your sight. I believe that you died and that God raised you from the dead! Come in to my life, I make you my Lord and Savior.” And BOOM…..just like that, you are saved and sealed until the day of redemption! Now, remember salvation is instantaneous but the life of becoming more like Christ takes a lifetime to unfold and achieve. So be tenacious, but most of all be encouraged and remember that God’s plan for your life is always greater than your past! He loves you with a love that is absolutely and positively unconditional! In other words, He loves you even when you don’t love Him back! That’s why His love for His people is best defined as AGAPE!

Why would anyone think they are smart enough to out smart God?

Well, I believe the MSG paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 3:18-20 offers an appropriate response to this question and it reads; “Don’t fool yourself. Don’t think that you can be wise merely by being up-to-date with the times. Be God’s fool—that’s the path to true wisdom. What the world calls smart, God calls stupid. It’s written in Scripture, He exposes the chicanery of the chic. The Master sees through the smoke screens of the know-it-alls.”

Self-deception is the action or practice of allowing oneself to believe a false or unvalidated feeling, idea, or situation is true.

Paul was exhorting the Church not to deceive themselves and to tread carefully in relying on their own wisdom.

Paul was not literally encouraging the people to deliberately aspire to be a fool rather, he is merely saying that the one who is truly wise is the one who realizes that he is a fool. Only that kind of person is able to learn anything. The one who thinks that he/she knows-it-all doesn’t think that he/she has anything to learn.

It’s incumbent upon us not to fall prey to the ignorance of false wisdom. Therefore, it’s imperative that we listen to what Paul has to say here about the foolishness of human wisdom (which is intellectual pride) and the true wisdom that the world sees as foolishness–the wisdom that only God can give. Yes, I know God’s way may look illogical to the world, but God isn’t looking for our logic. He’s looking for our trust. And when we trust God, He will bless us!

#4GIVEN