Fixing things is one of my superpowers. I like to joke that I can fix anything with duct tape and a big hammer. Rudy is a German engineer that I used to work with. Rudy believed he could judge a mechanic by the quality of his tools. There is something to that. Knowing the right tool to use in every circumstance and having the right tool is critical to a quality outcome. To a hammer the world is a nail. An engineer is keenly aware of the people who are fixing the things that they designed. They know the purpose of their design and they know the way in which it works best. They know how to keep it working best.
The thing we are going to fix is lack of clarity. Clarity is thinking. It is clear thinking. A lack of clarity means we have to think differently. Not just differently, but correctly. Clear thinking is correct thinking.
I hope that the reason you are on this page is because you clicked the link at the end of the instructions on using the balanced life assessment. If you haven’t taken the assessment please enter your email on the front page of my website jim-harmon.com and I will email you the assessment for free. The assessment has a link to access the instructions which set up a lot of the thinking in this article.
We are so surrounded by toxic behaviors and selfish motivations. Our lives get caught up in what is well known as the rat race. A never-ending loop of busyness. Ask just about anyone how they are doing and they will respond. Doing great. Super busy though. This is not how we were created to live. Something is broken. The designer knows this. The designer is God. God created us for a purpose.
I come to you today with more than duct tape and a big hammer. I have the blueprint. I have the design drawings. The Bible tells us that as a man (human) thinks, so is he. If we want to fix what is broken. If we want to change who we are, we must change how we think. The Bible also tells us that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. This means that as you are, you will do. We want to change what we do. We will accomplish this by changing what we think, which will change our hearts, which will change what we do.
Where you focus is where you will go. This is the case for steering your car when it is out of control or hitting a ball, among many other things. If you look at the ditch you will wind up in the ditch. We are not going to focus on the ditch. We are not going to focus on wrong thinking. We are going to focus on correct thinking and that is how we are going to achieve clarity, even unstoppable clarity.
This is a four-step plan. There are four things that we will focus on. Each of these leads to the other. I want to explain the power of this statement, “each of these leads to the other”. In his book, Turning the Flywheel, author Jim Collins presents a principle he learned by studying great companies and trying to figure out how they accomplished their greatness. He wanted to be able to reproduce greatness in other companies. He figured it out and he calls it the flywheel principle. He used Amazon.com as an example. There are five items and each item lead to the next. It is like a dog chasing their tail. Once it gets going, it’s going fast and you can’t stop it. In the Amazon example the first step is “Lower Prices on More Offerings” this leads to “Increase Customer Visits” which leads to “Attract Third Party Sellers” which leads to “Expand the Store, Extend Distribution” which leads to “Grow Revenues per Fixed Costs” which leads back to the beginning, “Lower Prices on More Offerings. This is the flywheel effect. We were created to experience this same flywheel effect. The flywheel is unstoppable unless one of the steps gets corrupted. You will be unstoppable once you put this flywheel process into motion in your life.
This four-step plan is worth changing your entire life in order to experience its power.
Step 1
We were all made for one purpose and that purpose is to love and receive love from God and His creation. It doesn’t matter whether someone believes in God or what religion they are. God made everything for this purpose. The thing that was made does not have a choice in the purpose that it was made for. They may deny it but as Dr. Phil would famously say, “How’s that working for you?”. We are here to fix what is broken and the thing that is broken starts with a wrong idea of what the purpose of life is. I want to do what I want to do. You want to do what you want to do. This way of thinking has to stop.
Step 2
Make it your one goal in life to fulfill the purpose for which you were made.
How many goals do you have? Now you have one. That mantra about I want to do what I want to do, it no longer fits with your one goal. Jesus was honest in what He said to us in the Bible and so I will be honest with you also. He said in the book of John chapter 12 verse 24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Your old way of thinking must die. Your old goals to achieve riches, or comfort, or power, or popularity or security must die. Think about every time you are worried about something. I venture to guess that the worry is about protecting your riches or comfort or power or popularity, etc. When you give these things up you get a life where you don’t have to worry about them. I’ll continue with the thought about the grain of wheat needing to die to produce fruit. If the seed does die a new seed can come to life and it will bear much fruit. It is not easy to give up your own desires. It is not easy to not have your own self-serving agenda. This will be something that you will have to work at while having successes and failures. That is ok. Don’t give up on this. You can receive an amazing life by giving up the one you have. Another life has already been prepared for you. This step is so critical because it requires you to say to God that your own way has been wrong and you are sorry for living a self-centered life. You must give ascent that God’s way is the right way. I am going to go all out Jesus on you here for a moment. There is a problem with you having lived your life to serve yourself for all of these years. There is a price to pay for this insubordination. Unfortunately, it is a price that we are unable to pay which would be a big problem. You cannot move on to step 3 unless this problem is taken care of. Don’t worry. You know where I am going with this. Jesus stepped in and paid the price so that your failure would not result in you and Him being eternally separated. He died for you as payment for your selfishness because you and nobody other than Jesus could pay the price. Accept that payment by making it your one goal to fulfill the purpose for which you were made.
Step 3
When you accept Jesus’ gift of forgiveness a few things happen. You not only get forgiveness but you also get reconciliation. Have you ever had someone continually act toward you in a toxic manner and then ask for your forgiveness? Forgiveness is giving up the right to punish somebody. You may offer your forgiveness but if you are smart, there will still be some boundaries in the relationship until they have proved to you that they are not toxic. Once you believe that you can trust them, you let them into your life in a process called reconciliation. With Jesus you not only get forgiveness but you get the relationship as a result of reconciliation. This relationship means you have access to God through your prayers, in the guidance of your thoughts and the promptings of your heart. This is an amazing thing but it doesn’t stop there. Something else happens which is like being adopted into a family. You become a member of the family. You become a daughter or son of God. An example that is given is that of a grape branch being grafted into the main vine of another Grape vine. The branch now becomes part of that vine and it gets its life from that vine. Your spirit is now fed from God. God actually puts His Spirit inside of you. It is like you are a new person. This is what the Bible says about it in John 7:38 ““Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit,”. What are these rivers of living water? The book of Philippians says in chapter 5, verses 22 and 23 “but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Your core is now filled with love and you give it with joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. In another part of the Bible it says you give it with boldness too. This is the new you. I think the people in your life are going to like this version of you.
Step 4
Just as Step 2 is a natural result of Step 1, Step 3 is a natural result of Step 2, and this Step 4 is a natural result of Step 3. In Step 2, you decided to make it your one goal in life to fulfill the purpose for which you were made. In Step 3, you are given the Spirit of God to empower you to do this difficult task of being selfless. This results in single-mindedness. Single-mindedness is the definition of clarity. The Bible tells us that a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. A single-minded man is just the opposite. When you are single minded you are stable, in everything. The result of this process is that you will be unshakeable, powerful, and unstoppable. Unshakeable because you are standing on the firm rock of the purpose you were made for. Powerful because you have the Spirit of God inside you. Unstoppable because you are putting your solid foundation with the power of God behind using the most powerful thing in the world, Love. Just like a star is fueled by Hydrogen, you are fueled by love. You are a Superstar.
You now know how to have unstoppable clarity. It starts with having one purpose and then making decisions consistent with that purpose. Your life is not made of the dreams that you dream but of the choices that you make. Make the choice. Say yes to God’s purpose for you.
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