Our thoughts collect to become our beliefs. When we create negative thoughts or allow them to take hold of our minds, we begin to become selectively perceptive about what we choose to see.  When our thoughts are negative about ourselves and others, that’s what we tend to notice as we unconsciously block-out all of the good that is going on for ourselves, others and throughout the world.

When our thoughts are positive, we tend to become acutely aware of all the good that exists in ourselves and in others.

I liken our minds to beautifully healthy, fertile soil in which we can deliberately plant healthy positive seeds of thought much like we choose to deliberately plant certain vegetables or flowers in our gardens.  If we’re not intentional about what we allow to grow in our gardens, our neglect will cause weeds and toxic waste to infiltrate and contaminate that beautiful space.  I grew up with a fantastic mother who enjoyed spending time in her garden. My mother knew that it was critical to extract the few bad weeds because if she didn’t (or didn’t have her children do it), in time they would take over the entire garden.

It’s easy for us to visually see a couple of weeds among beautiful flowers. We’re aware that the weeds do not belong.  The next best practice is to become just as aware of the negative thoughts – weeds – that you’re not paying any attention to that are polluting your once organically pure mind. Negative thoughts are the invisible weeds that can overrun our once positive minds.

With weeds that we notice in our gardens, we sometimes might think, “there are only a few and I’m tired, I’ll get to them next week”.  Negative thoughts, much like weeds, tend to multiply quickly and spread like weeds. In the garden they might start in a particular section and then end up spreading to the entire garden.  If we don’t eliminate the negative thought or replace it immediately with a constructive thought, the negativity going on in one area of our life can quickly spread and contaminate the other areas.

If we allow negative thoughts to remain and spread, the result can be a downward spiral in our lives in which everything seems to be contaminated and going in the wrong direction.

If you’ve found yourself in this predicament where several things seem to be going in the wrong direction and you’re feeling overwhelmed and like the situation is impossible, please know that nothing is impossible.  Any garden can be weeded, re-seeded, fertilized, watered and fed.  It will take time, but it is possible.

At my ripe-old-age of 48, I have lots of friends, customers and family members who are dealing with several problems simultaneously.  They’re questioning things like

“How will I support my family’s financial needs – education and retirement – in the future?”

“Why isn’t my marriage as good as I thought that it would be? Did I make a mistake?”

“Why am I unhappy and feel unfulfilled at the profession that I’ve had for 25 years?”

“How do I get hold of the weight or alcohol problem that’s taken over my body?”

“What am I going to do with the rest of my life?”

“I’m unappreciated and do not feel respected at work, but what can I do about it?”

Any one of thoughts can be troubling. When we have two or more of them at the same time, feelings of despair can begin to take root if we’re not careful.

We are careful. That’s just how we are.

If the garden of your mind has been overtaken by weeds, it’s time to get into the garden and start weeding and fertilizing.  Dirty, muddy knees is a sign of a weed-free garden. Smiles and bright shining eyes are signs of weed-free minds.

1.  Weed and reseed – Start paying careful attention to your thoughts. The negative ones (weeds) were either created by you erroneously or you allowed someone else’s incorrect thoughts and beliefs to enter and corrupt your mind.  If the thought no longer serves you and your mind, extract it and decide to replace it with a healthy seed of thought.  As an example, if you had a weed-like thought such as, “I’m unappreciated and lacking respect at work”, that’s what you’ll keep on getting if you keep repeating that same thought. Remember, our thoughts collect to form our beliefs.  Extract that thought and replace it with something similar to, “I respect and appreciate myself at work because I always give an effort of 100%”.  Just weeding out all of the negative thoughts will make you feel better. Your garden will be weed-free by pulling out each negative thought one weed at a time.  When you start reseeding your mind with what you do want kind of thoughts, that is the direction your life will take.

2.  Sunshine – The weeds in our minds were created with our thoughts or the thoughts of others. Creation of God-inspired thought occurs in the gaps which exist between our thoughts.  If it’s time for you to allow the mind of God to shed some light and warmth into your mind, start taking a few minutes each day to begin the practice of meditation. One of the goals of meditation is to silence our overworking minds enough to eliminate our thoughts and create space for God’s thoughts in our minds.  When our minds are full of entirely our thoughts (many of which were weeds), we do not allow any space for God’s thought to enter and take root. In step one, you’re weeding out the dark weeds from the soil of your mind.  In step two, we’re allowing the warm sunshine of God’s loving mind to co-create with our own minds.

3.  Fertilize and water – The addition of nutrients, nutritious food and clean water are essential for the growth of healthy seed. They’re essential for the development of the healthiest of minds. Add spiritual food and water with the addition of scriptural and spiritual reading into your daily routine. This is the intentional act of providing nutritious food and water for your mind much like we feed our stomach at least 3 times per day. God’s words fill your mind with faith and hope which will create tremendously positive strength and resolve in your mind.

You might be thinking, “But you don’t understand, my life is way beyond repair!  There are too many bad things going on in my life simultaneously that I didn’t cause and there’s no way that I can fix all of these things at the same time!”

I agree with you 100%.  I need help too. When I am attempting to create and live the ideal life on my own, I am nowhere near as good as I am when I’ve invited God into my mind and life. The recipe above prescribes God’s sunshine and life-giving nutrients to seep into your mind to support, nourish and bring peace to the heavenly garden in your mind.

The big secret is that you and I do not have to deal with our problems alone. The answer to every single problem that you and I are dealing with currently exists, but is currently hidden with weeds.  Eliminate the weeds and create room for growth.

This recipe requires faith. The beautiful thing about faith is that it can be created in an instant with one or two positive thoughts. I believe that there is a creator of this world in which we live and someone or something that provides intelligence, life and order to humans and the entire universe.  I invite the presence of God to be with me in my thoughts today and every day forward for the rest of my life.

“But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.” —Matthew 19:26

Eliminate the word impossible from your life. Replace it with this affirmation:

When my thoughts and actions are aligned with God’s, I know that nothing is im-possible and everything is-possible.

I was recently asked to speak about a topic that I’ve never given a lot of thought to prior to this request. The subject is guilt.

Here is the definition of guilt according to Wikipedia: Guilt is a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes — accurately or not — that they have violated a moral standard, and is responsible for that violation.

Within the world of archery, the term “sin” means to be off-target.   I think that we feel the emotion of guilt when we believe in our own minds, hearts and souls that we’re “off-target” for how we believe we should be acting in our every day lives.

Our internal idea of our moral standards has 3 stages…

Stage 1: We’re born with an internal sense of all that is good.

Stage 2: We learn many dos and don’ts and rights and wrongs from our caregivers – parents, grandparents, coaches, teachers, clergy, etc. These may or may not be the ultimate truths but, when we’re young we frequently take these words from our elders as gospel.

Stage 3: I believe that we begin to create for ourselves our true sense of on-target or off-target by combining our internal morality compass with what we’ve learned from our caregivers with information that we’ve learned as adults. When we’re young and impressionable, we’re overloaded with opinions, beliefs and doctrine that are thrown at us by well-meaning individuals. As adults, it’s our responsibility to acquire enough wisdom and knowledge to accurately determine how we choose to run our lives.

Guilt manifests itself when we’re off-target for how we believe we should be running our lives. It also manifests itself when others attempt to make us feel guilty for not complying with their requests.

Let’s deal with the first situation: In this instance, we’re violating our own idea of what’s good enough. One of my suggestions for us to have happy, balanced and guilt-free lives is for us to have goals for every major area of our life: social, spiritual, financial, career, family, education, health, etc.

When we go through the work of deciding what our ideal life would look like if we lived up to our potential in each area, we begin developing an internal vision of a newer, better self. Smiles usually appear on our faces and in our minds when we start thinking about our potential.

In order for us to improve and begin working toward our vision, we will set-up daily activities that will cause improvement in each area. Examples of daily activities that we might develop to help us realize our goals are exercise, prayer, meditation, reading with our children, daily conversation with our significant other and reading.  Once we set the goal for ourselves and tell ourself how often we’d like to participate in this activity, we’re setting up a plan for how we’re choosing to spend out time in the future.  An example might be that we’d like to exercise for 30-minutes per day 5 days per week.   If it’s our goal, as opposed to someone else’s goal being pushed upon us, we should go after the activity with gusto and use language like love to, choose to and want to when describing this idea to ourselves.  Those word choices reinforce the concept that this activity is my idea.  Many of us use language like I have to exercise.  The improved language would be I love exercising! When we tell ourselves that we have to do something, we trying to coerce ourselves into doing something that we really do not want to do.  If you do not want to do something, stop bullying yourself into doing it.

Guilt may rear it’s lovely head when we’ve made a commitment to ourselves to do something and then do not do it.  I refer to that as self-inflicted guilt which is a result of making a commitment to ourselves and then not keeping it.  Another word for this is disappointment.  We had an appointment with ourselves which we did not keep. In this case, guilt can be a very good thing and be a motivator for change because it will cause us to decide whether or not we’d really like to be the type of person that we had in mind when we set the goal.  If so, we can develop our resolve and continue our pursuit of this vision.  If not, we can take the pressure off ourselves because there are very few have-to’s in this life.  Once we understand that there are very few have-to’s and that there are consequences for every one of our actions and non-actions, we get to choose how we’d like to live our lives – guilt-free.  You’re worthy of an ideal life.  You get to decide what ideal means to you.

Are we more likely to make and keep commitments to ourselves or to others?  When I ask this question in front of a group, the majority of people admit that they are more likely to make and keep commitments to others than to themselves.  Does that mean that we love others more than we love ourselves?  Please give that question careful consideration.

The affirmation that I developed for myself that you’re welcome to borrow is, “I make commitments to myself and keep them because I love myself as much as I love others.”  I chose to develop that affirmation because I was guilty of keeping commitments made to others but, would break commitments that I had made to myself.

Once you’ve set goals for your life, you’ll find that your calendar becomes very full of activities that are related to your ideal life.  When your calendar is genuinely full of activities related to your goals and others ask you to do something in a time slot that you’ve already committed, it makes it very easy to politely say, “I’m sorry that I cannot attend (or help or assist or volunteer) because I have another commitment on that date and time.”  There is no guilt because you DO have another commitment!

It’s very easy to say no to another person when we have another commitment. I’ve noticed that guilt sometimes comes from saying no to a request from another when we don’t have anything else that we’re supposed to be doing.  In those cases, guilt surfaces because of a fabrication (sometimes called a lie). That is another good reason for self-inflicted guilt.

Guilt may also surface because of our feelings of being over responsible. Although you and I contribute greatly to the happiness of others, it is not our responsibility to make others happy. Happiness is the responsibility of each person. Anyone who has ever tried to make someone else happy knows that this is an impossible task. Happiness is a choice. Because we cannot physically be in two places at the same time, we’re required to choose.

Sometimes others try to cause us to feel guilty when a task is not done by us the right way. Maturation allows us to know that there are many right ways of doing something and there is no one right way. You realize that you’re a smart and creative person who may have figured out another right way of accomplishing a goal with the same or better end-result.

Around the holiday season, we sometimes feel guilty for our inability to purchase everything that our children would like to receive.  Holy Days are not about material gifts.  Gift-giving is a secular concept that has somehow replaced the original Holy Day with a secular holiday.  As an example, Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ  and is reminder of His birth and His promise to return to earth again. It’s that reminder that  is supposed to cause us to conduct a self-assessment of how we’re living our lives versus how we’ve been called to live them.  It’s a wonderful time for loving, serving, praying, worshiping and renewing our relationship with God and others.  We can really show our love for others in ways that have much more meaning than material gift giving.

In Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose Driven Life, he tells us that we can spell and live the word love, t-i-m-e.   If we want to communicate our love to the people that we truly do love, we can give them our most precious gift – time.

When we give others the gift of our time, love and conversation, we’re giving them a gift that always fits and will never have to be returned.

When guilt is self-inflicted, we understand that we’re off-target based upon our idea of how good we’d like to be.  This is a great time to reset our internal compasses.

When guilt is thrown at us from others, you can gracefully reject the feelings and emotions that are being thrown your way. No one can make you feel guilty without your consent.

You and I either have a purpose, plan or cause or we become part of someone else’s.

Live life with intention and absence of guilt.

Do you believe in miracles?

They were only capable of being performed by Jesus correct?

The stories that we read and heard about these miracles were pretty cool.  Jesus did amazing things like give sight to the blind, raise people from the dead, cure the sick and multiply a few loaves and fishes to feed hundreds.

Okay, it was fun thinking about what some guy did 2000 years ago but, it’s time to get back to the reality of our every day lives – unfulfilled or no job, family issues, debt, health issues, wars.  You may be thinking something like, “I’m not capable of performing miracles and I’m not even sure that this guy Jesus ever existed”.

What would you say if I told you that most if not all of the problems that you’re facing in your life and that we’re facing in the world would be solved if we were to increase our wisdom (that’s a nice way of saying eliminate our ignorance!)?

How would you react if I said that the answers to our problems already exist but, many of us are blind, deaf or dead to the information?  Sometimes called sense-less.

Would it be easier if I took words like God and faith out of the equation and used another non-spiritual example?

I’ve have access to the information that will cure 99% of the obesity cases that exist in the world today. Through a friend, I have a piece of software (think spreadsheet) that gives every imaginable mix of an individual’s height, weight, body mass index and body fat percentage. The spreadsheet lists a variable such as whether the individual chooses to exercise on a daily basis (burn a minimum of 300 calories per day with exercise) or not.  All the user has to do is enter the information and a very simple two number answer would pop-up. One number would equate to the amount of calories that the individual could consume on a daily basis in order to get their weight to a healthy range when they choose to exercise.  The second lower number would be the number of calories consumable on days that the individual decides not to exercise. The document also contains the calories and serving sizes for every fresh and packaged food available on the market today.

The information already exists. Anyone choosing to get that information can have access to it and solve the problem.  Are people unaware that the information exists or would they prefer to live an unhealthy lifestyle?  There are people who fall into each category.

What would happen if everyone who was struggling with his or her weight followed that simple plan? Obesity would be eliminated.  Are you with me?

Why hasn’t it happened yet?  In some cases it’s lack of wisdom (ignorance). I have immense compassion for people who have not received access to knowledge and information. I was one of the people who had a problem with his weight since childhood who did not get access to the recipe until much later in life. Once I gained access to the wisdom, my weight problem miraculously disappeared.

In other instances, very good people choose to ignore the information and decide not to follow the simple recipe for success.  There are always good reasons (in their minds) why they can’t.

My great friend Greg has a fantastic personal training business that is built upon a recipe for guaranteed success.  Each of his clients receives a team of personal trainers who act as accountability buddies. Each client receives an exact number of calories that they can consume on days that they exercise and another lower number of calories to be consumed on the days that they don’t exercise (what a great incentive to exercise regularly).  Each client receives a handy journal to track the number of calories consumed at each meal throughout the day, a recipe book full of healthy meals and a menu of foods that is customized for them with portions and calories.

If you can read, follow instructions and show up, you will get results.

Have faith in the trainer, follow the process and expect great results.

During the 1:1 sessions, the trainers provide feedback to the clients, give the clients world-class knowledge on exercise safety and proper form with the equipment, offer daily encouragement and make slight modifications to the recipe that will allow the client to reach his goal. Greg has an unbelievably high success rate because there is a recipe for success and because his clients have faith in Greg and his team of physical health experts. The client must have the discipline to track food consumed and stay within the prescribed calorie range.

The process is  foolproof.  It’s 100%  customizable based upon any and every variable that a client might bring .  It doesn’t matter what business were in, every client thinks that he or she is unique.  Any guesses what might cause the process to fail? Yes.  Failure to follow the recipe. Once the wisdom is provided to the individual and the person chooses not to implement, it has become a rejection of the knowledge.

What are the key ingredients to Greg’s recipe for success?

• Faith in the provider of the wisdom and the recipe: lower your ego enough to listen to the expert; if your way was working, you wouldn’t need the trainer
• Accountability to yourself and to someone else: when changing, many of us need to be accountable to another person; the ultimate goal is accountability to self
• Access to world-class knowledge
• Daily encouragement
• Discipline to follow the process: show up for scheduled sessions with trainers; exercise in-between sessions without your trainer; track food consumed (calories) at every meal

Okay, now let’s go back to the original premise that we could eliminate all of our problems as individuals and all the problems facing the world if we were to increase our wisdom.

Let’s apply Greg’s process to the elimination of fear, worry, doubt, anger, anxiety, stress, hatred, war, homelessness and every other feeling and problem you can imagine.

Faith in the provider of the wisdom – God

• God says, “Have faith in me, talk to me”
• “If I take care of the birds and animals, surely I’ll take care of you.”
• “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as your self.”

Accountability to yourself and to someone else

• We’re accountable to ourselves, to God and to our neighbors
• We have a daily check-in conversation where we assess our progress toward our goals
• Our ultimate accountability partner is open 24 hours per day – including Thanksgiving, Christmas.

Access to world-class knowledge

Scripture – It’s in writing in black and white

Daily encouragement

• Scripture reading – Learning
• Meditation – Listening
• Prayer Talking: ask, and it will be given; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you

Discipline to follow the process

• Invite God’s mind into every part of your life
• Prayer on a daily basis
• Talk and listen to God
• Love and serve others

Just like Greg’s process is fool proof for losing weight, God’s process is 100% guaranteed to provide feelings of joy, tranquility, love, peace and serenity for you and for each person in the world.

Inviting God to be a part of every second of our lives because we welcome and want His help is very similar to admitting that we need the help from other experts – personal trainer, psychologist, marriage counselor, accountant, etc.

When Jesus came to show us a better way to live, he provided words that allowed the deaf to hear, the blind to see and the lame to get up and walk.  Those exact words will do the same thing for us today if we’ll follow the process.

The radiance of his personal presence, his loving, positive vibration and profound words of love and peace allowed the blind to open their eyes and the deaf to hear and become aware. For many, it was the first time that they could truly see and hear – even if they were not deaf.

Because of the faith shown in Jesus by the relatives of the dead, the blind and the deaf each of the individuals was healed. What was their real sickness? Confusion, apathy and ignorance.  We all know the truth when we hear it.

The truth spoken by Jesus literally caused people to believe that he was powerful enough to make them see, hear and live.  It was their faith that healed them.

It’s our faith that will heal us.  It is the same faith that will eliminate our confusion, apathy and ignorance.

What type of healing do you need?  What type of healing does our world need?

Faith in God and belief that through Him, all things are possible is the miracle.  When we align God’s mind with our mind we engage in the process of co-creation.  When our thoughts and actions are in alignment with God’s will, miracles do happen.

Miracles are everyday happenings for people who believe in God and the power that is present in themselves and others who choose to align their minds with the mind of God.

When we begin living our life based upon love of God, love of self and love of our neighbors, we bring God to the God-less and make his presence known wherever we’re present.

When we share this wisdom with people who are ignorant through no fault of their own, the outcome will be our actions mirroring the mind of God so our outsides will match our insides and that will result in the earth looking like heaven.

Jesus came to make our insides – our minds and souls – be as clean and pure as our bodies are on the outside after a hot, soapy shower.  When our insides are as clean our skin, then earth will become heaven.

Is this possible?  Yes it is.  All change manifests itself one mind at a time. You create miracles when you welcome God to take permanent residence inside of you.

The knowledge exists.  Will you use it?  Ask and it will be given.

Listen to this Post-
 

My 19-year old son played the organ and sang at 4 masses at church on Saturday and Sunday filling-in for the usual music ministers who both happened to be on vacation at the same time.  When I asked him how he did after the first service on Saturday afternoon, he said that he “wasn’t perfect”. I shared with him a lesson that I learned and implemented a while ago that has allowed me to persist and improve on a daily basis: “We’re striving for excellence, James–NOT perfection.”

If I waited for “perfection” before I ever wrote, spoke or acted, I’d never do anything. It would be a constant state of paralysis!

This philosophy allows us to live and act on a daily (minute-by minute) basis knowing that we don’t have to be perfect.

I’m now singing the song from Human League :

“I’m only human
Of flesh and blood I’m made
Human
Born to make mistakes”

Physical perfection is something that many people I know (self-included) strive for and rarely if ever achieve.  Val Willingham’s article on CNN.com today “Elusive search for cellulite cure continues” illustrates the point quite well.   Val chronicles a woman who is in her mid-40’s who eats well and exercises but, still has a problem with cellulite.

Because cellulite can be genetic, it can still develop “whether they’re thin or heavy, a gym rat or a couch potato, cellulite is one of those things most women face,” says Dr. Howard Brooks who is quoted throughout the article.

What does Dr. Brooks recommend in order to curb cellulite?

• Quit smoking -smoking damages connective tissue
• Watch your weight.  Fat is fat
• Invest in a treadmill and exercise
• Eat smart. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle decreases the appearance of cellulite

One of my favorite pieces about the article was Dr. Howard’s candor referring to two FDA-approved laser treatments and massage: “But unfortunately, this isn’t permanent, and you need a lot of treatments.  There is no miracle.”

Another concept that allows me to smile at myself and others who are working very hard  towards physical health with diet and exercise is the quote from the Bible that says that we were “created in the image and likeness of God.”  Because God doesn’t have a physical body and is neither male or female, it reminds me to focus on what image and likeness of God really means -to live in loving relationships with others, to use my “will” to choose freely the best possible good in every situation and to use my intellect to think in spiritual ways.

If I do these things consistently, my less-than-perfect body somehow doesn’t seem to matter as much!

Our bodies are the temples in which our “image and likeness of God” reside. We should choose to do our best to implement each of Dr. Brooks’ recommendations above: stop smoking, maintain the ideal weight for us, exercise consistently and regularly and eat smart.

I do each of the above and still manage to have scrawny, non-muscular legs, little love handles around my waist and maintain too much fat around my chest.  I’m still striving for excellence instead of perfection in every area of life – including physical health.

I was on the altar with my son at the 9AM mass on Sunday  morning and had to hide my tears of happiness as I listened to him sing and play.  He was EXCELLENT!

After much consideration, outside input and one-on-one sessions with Michael Vick, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell decided in favor of Vick’s return to the league. If he’s picked-up by an NFL team, Vick could be fully reinstated by the sixth week of the upcoming NFL season and also be eligible to play in the final 2 preseason games. I am so happy for Michael, his family, his friends and the NFL.

I’ve been reading and listening as much as I possibly can about Vick’s story, his 20 month prison sentence and his 2 months of home confinement. On sports radio in Boston, many of the hosts and callers did not want Michael reinstated.  “He should be banned from the NFL forever!”  “What he did to those dogs is unforgivable!”

Why?

He was convicted of a crime and served his term. He’s been given interviews with Goodell and has convinced the commissioner that his remorse is sincere. At what point should we forgive another human being and allow that person to proceed with his or her life?

Are the people who are calling into sports radio living lives so perfect that they’ve never had to ask for forgiveness from anyone?  I absolutely love Jesus’ quote, “he who is without sin can cast the first stone.”  Can’t you just visualize the body language of the people with large rocks in their hands as they slowly bow their heads in shame and drop their rocks to the ground. Whenever I even remotely consider judging Michael or anyone else, that quote comes to mind.  Yes, I am a sinner and have been guilty of sin for my entire 47 years on the planet. Yes, I’ve had to ask for forgiveness from family, friends, customers and God.  Thankfully, most of them said the magical three words I was praying for:  “I forgive you.”

I was also very impressed with Goodell’s forecast for Vick’s future: “We are not looking for failure. We’re looking to see a young man succeed.”  Great mentors always hold a better vision for us than we hold for ourselves.  Great mentors get other people to buy into that new, stronger vision and commit to a new level of excellence. Roger Goodell can be one of Michael’s mentors as he moves forward. Goodell expects Michael to succeed. He is showing faith in Vick’s sincere remorse and his commitment to change. Faith and conviction are contagious.

Another mentor for Michael is the former coach of the Indianapolis Colts – Tony Dungy.  Tony has always come across to me as a person of strong faith who exhibits love, compassion and patience for his family, his players and for the community. Part of Dungy’s community service is to share his faith, hope and love with prisoners.  They’re a segment of society that we find very easy to hate, judge and look down upon with self-righteousness. They are a segment of society that most of us have given up on. Tony hasn’t. He’s there to provide them with hope in the present and for the future. Tony has tremendous credibility because he’s successfully coached, mentored and trained some of the best athletes on the planet with his proven formula for success.  He’s capable of giving that same formula to prisoners and to Michael Vick, and inspiring stellar results.

One of the reasons we don’t feel compassion and forgiveness towards others is that many of us aren’t that great at providing compassion and forgiveness to ourselves. We keep beating ourselves up over mistakes we’ve made in the past. At what point is it okay to forgive ourselves?

I know that God forgives me for my sins. If God will forgive me then, I should be willing to forgive myself and proceed with my life free from guilt.  Once I get comfortable forgiving myself, it makes it much easier to forgive Michael Vick, and family members and friends who have somehow offended us.

God doesn’t give upon us until we give up on ourselves!

Goodell has shown compassion and forgiven Michael Vick.  Let’s make forgiveness contagious. Who should you forgive today?

Dungy is going to mentor Michael Vick. Who could use your mentoring today?