Author's Note: I posted this on my private Blog on December 31, 2009; It seems here with but several minor

cosmetic adjustments. Appreciate. It would be simple to get up on the ol' soapbox and start pontificating for your New Year, but if I restrain myself I believe I can do this without finding out of hand. I wished to supply up just a little bit of testimony, sort of to allow you to know just a little far more regarding the true me, but at the exact same time, for your sake of time and room, and interest, let's be sincere, I need to just sketch out the outline and not dump all of the details in. If this can make it to the Website page, you are going to judge for yourselves (are there greater than among you available?) how well I succeeded. This in fact starts many years ago, concerning the time in the failure of my very first marriage. I managed to escape alive, barely, but in pretty bad shape emotionally. I started saying and believing some quite awful issues about myself and about lifestyle in general. I would say things like, how old I felt (I was 37 in the time in the divorce, and felt like 50); I believed that I was going to die in obscurity, though why I thought that was important continues to be a mystery to me. (I would say, "Fifteen minutes after I die, nobody will know I was ever alive." And mean it.) I would go over my life and checklist each of the points I believed would have produced me joyful, opportunities I had missed, or projects I had attempted and failed to be successful at, like parenthood, or studying to fly an airplane, and so on. I could compose pages of this stuff, nonetheless it would bore and depress you, and I promised just a sketch. One day, about a year and a half ago, I abruptly realized (I credit the Holy Spirit with this; He has an arsenal of two-by-fours with which to acquire this old mule's interest -- I nevertheless have the headache) that the devil has for many years been speaking curses into my ear, and I've been agreeing with him out of my personal mouth! Speak about self-destructive behavior! As soon as I realized what was going on, I got angry. I was determined to set about changing the situation, and I knew that my initial step was to counter the spoken curses with all the confession of faith. how to draw caricatures. Following some prayerful believed, this is the confession I came up with: "I'm going to die Wealthy, OLD, and Famous!" I am not recommending this confession for any person but myself; these words are meant to counteract and contradict certain curses that I had allowed the devil to infect my existence with. You battle fire with fire. A short time later on, the Lord brought to my attention a passage of Scripture that guarantees specific blessings to the particular person who "fears the Lord and delights greatly in His commandments;" in other words, if I preserve a appropriate romantic relationship with God, I can count on to die rich, old, and well-known. I now had God's Word that the confession I was creating was completely in line with His will for me. (The Scripture, BTW, is Psalm 112.) Side note here: The word "famous" gave me a little of difficulty initially. I was certain in my heart that this was appropriate, but emotionally, it sounded sort of egotistical, if that's the best word. But as I contemplated it, it occurred to me that specific men and women, just like the Apostle Paul, or Mother Teresa, never set out to achieve fame or notoriety, but as a result of their submission and obedience to God, their contributions towards the kingdom of God became so important that they grew to become conspicuous around the world's stage. And there is practically nothing wrong with producing a substantial contribution -- God encourages it, the truth is! Do I need inform you that, due to this confession, this modify of mindset, my complete lifestyle has transformed? I have as a lot of odds to have depressed as ever, but I pass them up. Just altering what comes out of my mouth has created all the variation. And it isn't sufficient just to stop saying the bad things, you'll need to begin saying excellent points. What ever it can be that you simply face on a daily basis, you overcome it first by altering what comes out of the mouth. On a related note, James tells us in his epistle that the winds and waves of existence are what propel us, get us moving, nonetheless it is our tongue, like a ship's rudder, that sets the course. And that's my guidance for you personally, my close friends, as we embark on a fresh Year:

"Grasp the deal with firmly, and allow the adversities of existence to drive you for the destination of the personal picking!" That is the word from St Enoch's Pulpit. God bless you all, Dave