Are you Living the Abundant Life?

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Ephesians 6:12
Lately I have been a bit introspective about life (even more than usual) and I have been trying to identify habits that I have that are not constructive to me living a full, happy life.  In meditation on these things, I had a strong revelation on how to identify whether things, people or activities that you engage in,  are serving your higher good or if they are things which you need to remove from your life.

God is the ultimate expression of LIFE.

Jesus was quoted in John 10:10 as saying

“I came that they might have life and have it more abundantly.“

We can therefore define those things that are of God as things that help you to have a more abundant life.  What exactly is a more abundant life you may ask?  Examples of a more abundant life would be love, peace, joy, and prosperity.  Similarly we can look at things that do not manifest a ‘more abundant life’  as those things that are not of God.

I want you to stop and think about that for a minute.  What activities are you currently engaged in, that do not manifest a more abundant life?  If you really were to pause and think about it, I’m sure that you would find many examples of these activities.   Let me give some examples of things that people often engage in because it feels good and they think that they are getting something out of it, but at the end of the day they can look at their results and realize that it lead them down a path away from a more abundant life.

Example: Sexual relations outside of marriage.

The world has established that it is totally fine and acceptable that people engage in sex outside of marriage and it is a pretty popularly held belief in our society.  Because we have fallen into this belief we have seen a number of things happening:

a) More and more children are being born into single parent households where they are often dealing with some type of issue as a result of the father not being there.  This is not to say that a person will automatically have problems if they are not raised in a 2 parent household, but it is to say that they are often very confused about their gender role and relationship identities when relating with the opposite sex. Children who are born to parents who are in a happy marriage are much more well adjusted than those who are not.

b) We have a world epidemic for HIV and AIDS.  Although AIDS has been in existence for almost 30 years, the disease is not being curbed and is spreading like wildfire especially among ‘minority’ groups.  If people were not engaged in  sexual activity with a variety of people, there would not be a way for AIDS to exist.  AIDS only exists as a function of ongoing promiscuity that is prevalent in our society.

c) People are waiting to get married until they get older or they are not getting married at all.  For a lot of people, they feel that they have no need to get married if their sexual needs are being met.  Since sex is given so freely these days, we are running into situations where people are not getting married until their mid to late 30s and beyond and are now seeking to have kids for the first time at 40 years old.  People are finding that they are often no longer able to have kids because they waited so long to get started.

The above scenarios are examples that support my assertion that premarital sex is not of God.  The reason being is that it does not manifest life, more abundantly.  It provides people a temporary outlet of pleasure but on the other side it more often than not leads to various negative consequences.

Premarital sex is just one example, but look at others.

Getting Drunk – person gets on the road an drives and unintentionally kills someone because they have lost control of their sensibilities.

Getting High – lowers your inhibitions so that you may do things or put yourself in situations that you may not have ordinarily done.  (ex. being a lone female doing drugs with  a group of men who subsequently rape you)

I know those are a little deep but lets look at a light example like not eating right or working out.  People avoid not eating right or working out and as a result of that their health suffers, they lose energy and vitality, and they become overweight.  Therefore you can conclude that not taking care of yourself  health wise is not of God – because it does not manifest life more abundantly.

This is a fun and interesting exercise.  Take a look at those things which you enjoy doing and figure out if they manifest a more abundant life.

Thirtysomething Revelation:  Review your friends, activities and habits and see if they are about manifesting the more abundant life.  Make the necessary changes to realize joy, happiness, love, and peace in your life.

5 Reasons Why You’ve Gotta See the Movie Notorious

A few years ago, I started dating younger men.  Throughout my life I have always been more drawn to men who were 5-10 years older than me, but as I hit my thirties a strange thing happened…those youngstas started getting kind of sexy.

Anyway, I guess what comes with the territory when you start dating someone younger is the fact that they are often not going to be hip to the obvious things about life that you just take for granted.

Examples:

Thriller is the best record of all time.

Michael Jordan is the best basketball player of all time.

and

Notorious B.I.G. is the greatest rapper of all time…

I actually had a blow out debate 3 years ago with my tenderoni at the time, and he REFUSED to believe what I told him.  In his mind, Tupac was the greatest rapper of all time because he had more fans, he was an actor and a rapper, and he represented that T.H.U.G. life mentality that so many inner city males can identify with.  We ended up spending about 2.5 hours on the phone engrossed in this debate until finally he admitted that he hadn’t listened to many of Biggie’s songs outside of the radio friendly cuts that everyone knows.  I told him to go research what I’m talking about and hit me up afterward.  A week later, the king was crowned.

For those of you that were not around when Biggie was out or who were too young to listen to him, here are my top 5 reasons why you have to go see NOTORIOUS.

1) Biggie is the greatest hip hop lyricist of our time.  I know, I know…there are a bunch of you who want to debate with me, but upon closer inspection you will find what I am saying is true.

Biggie had amazing delivery and took you into stories that made you visualize what was happening.  In his song Warning, B.I.G. alternates between two different characters as he  acts out  his homeboy warning him of a plot to rob him initiated by some neighborhood cats.  He took us on  an emotional voyage as he talks about  thoughts of  insecurity, remorse and pain in his song Suicidal Thoughts.  His innovative delivery and multiple styles made even the most ruthless things sound dope.  In his song Playa Hater, he channeled a Frank Sinatra era lounge singer and sang:

“You know, we need this money
And you, yes baby you, should just roll with me
Let’s go off, together
On this robbin spree, we’ll make money”

‘Nuff said.

2) The movie NOTORIOUS takes you on a voyage back to the ’80s.  For those of you who were born sometime in the 80s or even (gasp) the ’90s, this movie gives you a unique glimpse into life in Brooklyn, NY in the 80s.  Transport to a time when B-boys walked around the streets with ghetto blasters on their shoulders and every other block had a hip hop cipher where MC’s could battle each other lyrically for street cred.  (Far cry from these days where you get shot in the name of street credibility).

3) You get to see Derek Luke do his Puffy style minstrel dance.  If that isn’t worth the price of admission, I don’t know what is!

4) A lot of people are confused about the dynamic that existed between Biggie and Tupac, but this movie does a great job of breaking down the fact that they were boys before all of the east coast, west coast drama broke out across the country.  The movie highlights the event that caused their relationship to shatter and provides sheds an interesting light on how Biggie felt about the beef.

5) The movie shows us how we need to look beneath the surface in our dealings with others.  If you listened to Biggie‘s lyrics someone might say that he was an angry, violent criminal. However, this movie reveals other sides of Biggie – his loving side, his life struggles and his challenges.  I think that we can all relate to having multiplicity in our personalities.  People are often nice, mean, loving, hateful, vengeful, forgiving…all at the same time.  This movie provides that mirror to show us this phenomenon and the fact that at any given moment we can choose to focus and take another path.

All in all, I say the movie is a must see!  Check it out and see what all the hype is about.

OLD SCHOOL HIP HOP WEDNESDAYS

It’s the leader Quest vision and we got the goods here (here!)
Never on the left cause my right’s my good ear (ear!)
I could give a damn about a ill subliminal
Stay away from crime cause I ain’t no CRIMINAL
I love my young nation, groovy sensation
No time for hibernation, only elation
Don’t ever try to test, yo whattup little kid?
Yo Mr. Busta Rhymes, tell him what I did
I heard you rushed and rushed, AND ATTACKED
Then baby puked then you had TO SMACK
Causin rambunction, throughout the sphere
Raise the levels of the boom, inside the ear
You know I did it
So don’t violate or you get violated
The hip-hop sound is well agitated

Scenario – Tribe Called Quest

My take on why scapegoating Hip Hop & Urban Culture has got to stop…

Happy indeed would be the condition of youth if they had one corrupter only, and all the rest of the world were their improvers. - Socrates as written by Plato in The Apology

Why there is a 80% chance that you won’t achieve any of your goals this year

Statistically, 80% of you will not achieve your goals this year.  (Sorry guys, the above goal included) Some of you have even gotten to the point that you no longer set New Years Resolutions because by January 3rd of each year you have already broken all of them.  For those of you that fall into this category, this post is for you.

I attended a networking function last week that gave me some really good food for thought about life and goal achievement and I thought I would share it with you. The speakers name is Antonio Thornton and he has a site that you should definitely check out it is at www.antonioblog.com.

Anyway, Antonio spoke about how as people we program our subconscious into behaving a certain way over time by how react to the words that we speak.  an example may be when we tell someone that we will call them back in five minutes and do not call them back until an hour later or even the next day.  Or another example may be that ‘I’m gonna stop smoking’ and then you continue to puff away at every opportunity.  These are examples of how you are programming yourself subconsciously to not attach a meaning to the words that you speak.

While all words have creative power either positively or negatively, in the above scenarios your words have the result of creating no power in your words.  As a result when you move through life and say that you are setting goals to do x, y, and z you often fail at your task.  This is because subconsciously you do not believe your own words.  You do not do what you say and say what you mean.  As a result, not only do others lose trust in you, but you lose trust in yourself.

The way to move towards achievement of what you wish to accomplish in life is by moving it into another sphere in your subconscious.  Generally if you speak to someone and ask them if they promise to do something they will think about whether or not they are able (and/or willing) to keep their promise.  An example of this may be when you have a friend that you call to pick you up and take you to the airport.  You ask you friend to take you to the airport and you tell them that you need to be picked up promptly at 6pm.  The friend says “no problem”.  You know that this friend is chronically late, so you take it a step further.  You ask them “Do you PROMISE to pick me up exactly at 6pm?”  The person pauses, takes a breath, and thinks about it and then admits the truth.  “Well actually I can’t be there until 6:10pm.”  Suddenly the truth comes out…

People attach a different weight to promises as opposed to the normal things that they say.  You are a bad person if you break your promises and no one wants to be labeled as a bad person.

The psychological trick for people who want to achieve their goals is to instead make them promises.  If you say you are gonna do something, promise to do it.  Your mind will attach another level of commitment to the item which will motivate you to focus and take the action more seriously.

What are your goals for 2009?  Turn them into promises!