Porque adoração e louvor não é algo que naturalmente nossa carne quer fazer, nós precisamos criar o desejo em nós de fazer isto. E porque não é a primeira coisa que nós pensamos em fazer, nós precisamos decidir fazer isto não importa as nossas circunstancias. 
-- "O poder da mulher que ora" by Stormie Omartian

viva e deixe viver !

by Joyce Meyer - set/2011

Esforcem-se para ter uma vida tranqüila, cuidar dos seus próprios negócios e trabalhar com as próprias mãos, como nós os instruímos. -- 1 Tessalonicensses 4:11

A frase viva e deixe viver significa "você cuide da sua vida, e eu cuido da minha - e vice-versa". E a Biblia confirma que isto é uma boa prática. Eu tenho descoberto que aplicar este princípio me ajuda a me alegrar com a minha própria vida.

Muitas vezes nós entramos em coisas que realmente não são da nossa alçada, e muitas vezes estas ações nos fazem sentir miseráveis. Eu o encorajo a não se envolver (no sentido de tentar resolver) ou entrar na vida dos outros demasiadamente. Seja um bom amigo, mas esteja atento para não se emaranhar na vida do outro. É possível se perder na vida dos outros, e isto não é o plano de Deus para você.

A maioria de nós tem o suficiente para cuidar da própria vida ao invés de tentar cuidar da vida dos outross. Então faça um propósito de cuidar de seus próprios negócios esforçando-se para viver em tranquilidade e em paz. É uma boa maneira de se viver!

losing your joy ?

by Cas - set/2011
... friends who speaks English... pardon my grammar :) 


As I listen to others and review my own life... I realize how true is that quotation from J. Meyer: 'We need to stop losing our joy over other people's bad choices'. She is right. It's not worth it,  extremely fastidious and most important is not our business.

The magnitude of it can strike us, right? But is not our business how people around us conduce their lives, if they don't put us in danger or themselves (sometimes it's nothing we can do either). Because we are the ones who need to deal with the frustration about the third part. It's not enough to have our own problems, delusions, doubts and we want more? Oh, please get a life.

But then cames the realization that is something we can do in a very quiet, relaxing and amazing way. We can always pray about others... and for ourselves too, why not ?! For them, we can pray for wisdom and deliverance from our Savior, and for us to shut up and stop to give advices at wind (or to pigs ?). 

It's a challenge I know. We are so right about everything in other people's lives. We can make everything okay and all the obstacles are gone because we say so. Humpf. Sometimes we forget to just make a intercession for them and remember the 'war out there' is spiritually then the natural stuff. If we start to live with a resolution to just pray about it, it could be much better. And we'll have time to deal with our own lives and listen to God to help who -and if - He wants us to help. 

Don't take me wrong, God called us to make a difference, preach, bless and heal the ones who are suffering... Otherwise is all about us trying to make others to do what we think they are suppose to do. Crazy. 

As one of my favorite preacher - Steve Brown - said in his recent newsletter: 'So I've quit pretending to be better than I am. Insofar as I'm able to pull that off, I've discovered that people are drawn to Christ because nobody loves and forgives them the way he does'. It is our ego who suffers when people don't take our 'good words', advices and our way to live their own lives... well, let's stop trying to be good  and let's live for the Good One only. 

The huge impact is to live through Christ with love, compassion and with a complete understanding that nobody changes because of us... but because of HIM, who gave Himself to this world and has an inconditional love and grace for all... always and forever. 

The rest is history. Deal with that.

Father & Daughter

Rolling in the Deep song of Adele perfomed by Jorge & Alexa Narvaez... my father is my hero, my father is my hero !

by Craig J. Heimbuch

"You don't know the song, but you wish you did. You don't know Jorge or his daughter Alexa, but you sort of want to.
In case you haven't seen it, you really should. It's simple. A young, handsome man strumming an acoustic guitar, his daughter sitting beside him, taking her turns on every other verse. The song is by a band you probably have never heard of, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. It's got a catchy little hook, a great whistle intro and a chorus - "home is wherever I'm with you" - that wouldn't make you stop and think, unless you knew Jorge and Alexa. Unless you knew that he's a full-time student, 24, and recently split with Alexa and her sister's mom. You wouldn't pay attention unless you knew that he sings the song to his daughter every night as a way of helping her deal with the pain of her mom and dad splitting up, to help her deal with having two homes. You wouldn't think much of it unless you talked to Jorge. 

"Every single thing I do is for them," he says. He's on a cell phone, driving to Palm Springs from his San Diego apartment. Going to meet a guy about a thing. There's been a lot of guys and a lot of things, a lot of meetings and opportunities in the last month. He posted the video on December 31, 2010. Three weeks later, millions had seen it. He and Alexa were on the Ellen Show. A German TV station called him for an interview. Univision - Latin America's answer to Al Jazeera - sent a crew to follow him around for a couple of days. He's been on the radio in countries around the world, been offered deals and opportunities. A literary agent has offered him a contract to write a children's book. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros want to meet with him when they get back from a tour in Australia.

A little more than three weeks. A video of a guy singing with his daughter on their couch. No manager. No publicist. No contract. No money. That's how new fame works. Jorge and Alexa have played at her school, where she's become a celebrity of sorts. She's become so well known that he had to pull her out of the Boys and Girls Club where she normally goes after school. She's in private daycare now, just in case. This is all in less than a month. A little girl and her daddy, who spent Christmas unknown to anyone, are a worldwide sensation before President's Day.

Jorge's story is maybe a little familiar. He's young, 24, and has a six-year-old and a two-year-old daughter. It took him a while to find his way. He found love young. Calls the mother of his children an "amazing woman" and part of his "family," but things didn't work out. That happens. It happens a lot, too much to deserve anyone's judgment or criticism. Sometimes things just aren't right. But Jorge doesn't dwell. He's the kind of guy who seems to look forward a lot. It's why he's gotten his life together, gone from a 1.5 to a 3.6 GPA at UCSD. It's why he dreams - of being an influential photographer, of being an academic, of being the best father he can be.

For a guy like Jorge, the first in his family to finish high school let alone dream of becoming a professor, dreams are important. They are landmarks. He may never have dreamed of being on Ellen or getting calls from Germany, but he has dreamed of a better life for he and his daughters. Talk to the guy for more than a minute, have him call you 'bro' and you know there's something about him. But only if you've also seen the video and imagined his life to this point. Because a guy from San Diego calls you 'bro' you think one thing. A guy sings with his daughter, you think another. A guy works hard in school and has plans for the future, you think something else. But when a guy does all these things, you realize even the new fame - the shimmery surface, the undisturbed pond, the taught balloon - isn't necessarily as hollow as you may think.It's easy to assume superficiality. It's easy to get jaded by the kind of fame that makes American Idol look substantive. The Star Wars kid, the Double Rainbow guy,the Numa Numa kid.

It's easy to assume some desperate play for attention, a grab for the new kind of fame. And there's enough of that out there, enough to assume that that's all that's out there. But every once in a while, along comes Jorge and his daughter Alexa and that song, that moment. Pure love. A father's love and his pain. And you get caught thinking that maybe there is something out there, a balloon that won't pop because it's propped up.

Jorge will probably never be the old kind of famous, but I get the sense talking to him that he never wanted to be. He never really wanted to be the new kind of famous. It just sort of happened. And it's nice to see that fame - sudden and fleeting - can happen to someone who wasn't looking for it, some who didn't see it coming. Not even out of the periphery because their focus, his focus, was on the faces of his family and on his future. It's nice to see that even with fame, Jorge's focus remains where it should be. Maybe he's creating something new, a new-new kind of fame."

Photo courtesy of Jorge Narvaez's YouTube Channel.

Craig J. Heimbuch is the editor in chief of ManoftheHouse.com. He is a Barefoot Proximity employee.