In the last INsights & OUTbursts I listed ten actions that will ruin your life. Here are ten actions that will do the opposite; they will save your life.
1. Respect God, love Him and trust in what He has said about Himself.
2. Love people, not just yourself. Act to meet the needs of others and think of ways you can help them attain their goals, not just how they can meet your needs and goals. Don’t treat people as things to be used.
3. Speak the truth about yourself, about others and about situations. Don’t present yourself as better, or worse, than you are.
4. Recognize you are human and that you will sometimes mess up. Forgive yourself. If your error hurt others or you messed things up for them, admit to them you behaved badly, doing or saying the wrong thing, and ask for forgiveness. You cannot apologize your way out of a problem you behaved yourself into. If possible, clean up, pay back, or straighten out the mess you made.
5. God designed us to live and work interdependently with others. Be thankful, therefore, for everything you receive from them and God.
6. Enjoy your relationship with God, enjoy your family, interacting with the people around you, and find things to enjoy in your daily work.
7. Set your life goal to accomplish something that involves God, something that is bigger than you and that will last beyond your lifetime. Work in the areas of your strengths and interests. Develop these through study, discipline and practice to become a skilled expert. Remember that the harder you work the luckier you get.
8. When you fail in some aspect of life, don’t say, “If only . . . .” Instead say, “Next time . . . .” and formulate a plan to succeed.
9. Have an accountability partner, someone who loves you and wants the best for you, whom you invite to critique your work, your behavior and your relationships. List some penetrating questions and ask your partner to ask you those questions regularly. Learn to listen to criticism from others, there just may be some truth in what they tell you.
10. Develop a sense of humour. See the funny things in life. Take your service for God seriously, but never take yourself too seriously. Be fun to live with. Check with your spouse or friends occasionally to make sure you still are.
God gave each of us the power to choose and we use that power hundreds of times a day. Most of the choices we make are trivial. The ten in this list are not. They will save your life from ruin.
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