Keeping the Heavenly Vision

By Jesus, speaking in prophecy

Download Audio (6.7MB)

Heavenly vision is like stepping into a planetarium and looking up to see the colossal, limitless, magnified realities of outer space.

To keep the heavenly vision means to focus on Me above all. It means to put the things of the spirit before the things of the flesh. It means reminding yourself why I took on human form and suffered and died for you so that I could redeem you, understand you, and forever forgive, heal, and protect you.

It means putting My Word first in your life and believing and acting on its truth. It means stepping into the temple with Me for quality focus and spiritual feeding. It means claiming My promises no matter how you feel or what your physical surroundings are like.

It means looking to Me and refusing to give up. The best way to keep the heavenly vision is to keep your eyes stayed on Me—to look to Me. That is the essence of keeping the heavenly vision—keeping your eyes focused on Me.

*

An athlete who is training in the hopes of reaching the Olympics must keep that vision, that goal, ever before him. He has the “Olympic vision,” and this gets him through every rough and grueling workout or practice. This makes the lack of time off, the fatigue during the day, the times when he gets little sleep at night, a nonevent.—Because that goal, that vision, becomes more important than any temporary pang of today. In order to survive those years of training, that goal has to be worth it—it has to be worth everything to him. And once he decides that it is, then he needs to fight to remain focused on that goal and to keep that vision before him at all times.

Decide if My Word and My promises for the future are worth laying aside other things in order to obtain that prize. Then, once you've decided, fight to keep that focus, that vision, ever before you.

Many of you have already made those decisions; but now comes the period of tenacity and determination when you fight to not lose focus.

What are some practical things you can do to keep the heavenly vision?

—Fight for your temple time with Me. This is the most effective way to be renewed and to stay reminded of My heavenly vision.

—Obey My Word regardless of how you feel.

—Praise Me often; praise Me consistently. Praise makes My vision come alive to you. Praise opens your eyes to the heavenly vision so that reaching for it, aiming toward it, and fighting for it comes that much easier for you. The vision becomes more real to you, which makes your desire to go after it even stronger and more effective.

*

The heavenly vision, as Paul put it, means “pressing toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God.”1 It means making My will—My high calling—your goal and purpose in life. It's what you're pressing for, eager for—fulfilling My will, to the point that you consider it the prize. Not just a prize, but the prize, everything you could ever want in life!

And just as Paul said, it's “the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Those are key words, “in Christ Jesus.” You find this high calling through Me—through looking to Me, through living in Me. This high calling is ultimately the calling to live for Me. Your aim in life is toward Me, which means you must be looking to Me. You must keep your eyes on Me in order to reach your goal—My goal—for you.

*

You keep the heavenly vision by making those choices that bring you toward Me—the finish line. It's like a runner racing around a track: The runner can only head where he's looking. If he's looking to the finish line, then that's where he'll end up. But if his eyes are focused on other paths leading off the track, then he won't reach the goal.

If you want to keep the heavenly vision in your race of life, then focus on Me, the author and finisher of your faith, of your life course. Keep the vision by staying focused on Me, making those decisions that you know will lead you to a fuller life in Me.

*

Having a strong connection with Me in spirit will help you hold that heavenly vision before you.

You can strengthen this connection through times with Me in the Word. You strengthen your spiritual focus through focusing on My power. You gain this stronger link through faithfulness, obedience, and forward movement. You keep the vision strong by becoming better acquainted with Me as your Husband.

The keys to keeping this vision are found through doing those things that bring you closer to Me; those things that enhance your faith and encourage your spirit; those things that merge you with the spiritual realm and bring the spirit more to the fore in your life. This is how you keep the vision. This is how you stay connected. This is how you will run with patience the race that is set before you—and win!2

*

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.

"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.

"He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son."—Revelation 21:1–73

Originally published 2006. Updated and republished April 2013.
Read by Jerry Paladino.


1 Philippians 3:14.

2 Hebrews 12:1.

3 NIV.

Read More

The Heart of It All: The Holy Spirit The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament

By Peter Amsterdam

As discussed in an earlier article, the Holy Spirit is one of the Persons of the Trinity, and this Person is equally God along with the Father and the Son, Jesus.
Descriptions of “The Spirit of God”

In the Old Testament, the concept of three persons in one God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—had not yet been revealed. It only started to become revealed during and after Jesus’ ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven and the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. While the writers of the Old Testament didn’t understand the concept of the Trinity or see the Holy Spirit as a member of the Trinity, they did write about “the Spirit of the Lord” and “the Spirit of God.” In this sense they saw the Spirit as a part of God, as His power or action.

When they came to Gibeah, behold, a group of prophets met [Saul], and the Spirit of God rushed upon him, and he prophesied among them.[1]

Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed [David] in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward.[2]

The Old Testament speaks of God’s Spirit in a possessive manner, as “My Spirit,” “Your Spirit,” “Your Holy Spirit,” “His Holy Spirit,” again showing that the Old Testament writers saw God’s Spirit as a part of God.

Cast me not away from Your presence, and take not Your Holy Spirit from me.[3]

They rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit … Where is He who put in the midst of them His Holy Spirit …[4]

Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from Your presence?[5]

The Spirit of God is spoken of as being involved in the creation of the world and the giving of life to living beings.

The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.[6]

By His Spirit He adorned the heavens.[7]

The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.[8]

O Lord, how manifold are Your works! In wisdom have You made them all; the earth is full of Your creatures … When You send forth Your Spirit, they are created.[9]
The Work and Manifestations of God’s Spirit

Besides taking part in creation, God’s Spirit is seen at work throughout the Old Testament.

When Moses was leading the children of Israel during their 40 years in the desert, God’s Spirit was upon him. When the burden of leading the people was too much for him, God put His Spirit upon seventy elders of the people.

The Lord said to Moses, “Gather for Me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them, and bring them to the tent of meeting, and let them take their stand there with you. And I will come down and talk with you there. And I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you may not bear it yourself alone.”[10]

When Moses was told that he wouldn’t lead the Hebrew people into the Promised Land, he spoke to the Lord, saying:

“Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the Lord may not be as sheep that have no shepherd.” So the Lord said to Moses, “Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him. Make him stand before Eleazar the priest and all the congregation, and you shall commission him in their sight.”[11]

Joshua was said to have the Spirit within him. Others, called judges, who were to later lead the people after Joshua died, also had the Spirit of God come upon them.

When the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for the people of Israel, who saved them, Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother. The Spirit of the Lord was upon him, and he judged Israel. He went out to war, and the Lord gave [the] king of Mesopotamia into his hand.[12]

The Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon; then he blew the trumpet, and the Abiezrites gathered behind him.[13]

The Spirit of the Lord was upon Jephthah.[14]

The woman bore a son and called his name Samson. And the young man grew, and the Lord blessed him. And the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him ... Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and although he had nothing in his hand, he tore the lion in pieces as one tears a young goat … Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands. And he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and put out his hand and took it, and with it he struck 1,000 men.[15]

She [Delilah] said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And he awoke from his sleep and said, “I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him.[16]

In these instances the Spirit of the Lord came upon people at certain times, but didn’t dwell within them permanently.
Anointing of the Spirit on Israel’s Kings

After the time of the judges, the line of the kings of Israel began. The Bible notes that the Spirit came upon the first two kings, Saul and David. When Samuel first anointed Saul to be king over Israel, he told Saul a number of things that would happen, and said that once those things came to pass, God’s Spirit would come upon him. These things happened as Samuel said they would, and God’s Spirit fell upon Saul at that time, and at other times as well.

“Then the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you mightily, and you shall prophesy with them and be changed into another man …”When they came to the hill there, behold, a group of prophets met him; and the Spirit of God came upon him mightily, so that he prophesied among them.[17]

The Spirit of God came upon Saul ...[18]

In Saul’s case, because of his disobedience, God’s Spirit was later withdrawn from him.

The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul … [19]

The Spirit was given to David years before he was made king.

Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.[20]

The Spirit of God was also mentioned in relation to prophecy within the Old Testament.

Now these are the last words of David:… “The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me; His word is on my tongue.”[21]

The Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him [Moses], and took some of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. And as soon as the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied. But they did not continue doing it. [22]

Samuel told Saul:

As soon as you come to the city, you will meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place with harp, tambourine, flute, and lyre before them, prophesying. Then the Spirit of the Lord will rush upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man.[23]
Others Filled with the Spirit

When giving Moses instructions for building the ark of the covenant, and for the tabernacle (the tent which housed the ark of the covenant), as well as the altar, the priestly vestments, and the many vessels needed in the tabernacle and during the sacrifices, God told him of specific workmen that He had filled with His Spirit, ability, intelligence, knowledge and craftsmanship.

The Lord said to Moses, “See, I have called by name Bezalel … and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft. And behold, I have appointed with him Oholiab ... And I have given to all able men ability, that they may make all that I have commanded you.”[24]

The Spirit of the Lord also came upon the Old Testament prophets. In 2 Peter, referring to prophecy within Scripture (referring to the Old Testament), it says that the prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit.

Know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.[25]

The Spirit of the Lord fell upon me, and He said to me, “Say, Thus says the Lord ...”[26]

They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets.[27]

I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.[28]

Within the Old Testament, the Spirit of God was clearly active in a variety of ways. When the Spirit came upon or empowered people, it seems to have been for a specific instance or for a limited duration.

Author J. Rodman Williams expressed it this way:

The Spirit could “clothe” someone but, like clothing, was not a permanent vestment. Thus the endowment of the Spirit was largely transitory: for an occasion, for a task, or for an utterance. It was not an abiding reality.[29]
The New Testament and Pentecost

God did, however, speak of a time in the future (which we now know was at Pentecost) when His Spirit would dwell within His people, and not just a few of them but all of them—including women, as well as servants, which for that time and in that culture was a strong way to make the point that it was for everybody.

It shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out My Spirit.[30]

I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes and be careful to obey My rules.[31]

During the 400-year period between the last writings of the Old Testament and the time just prior to Jesus’ birth, there is little evidence of the movement of God’s Spirit, especially in the realm of prophecy or guidance given directly from the Lord.

The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels says: The Talmud illustrates this opinion: “When Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, the latter prophets, were dead, the Holy Spirit departed from Israel.”[32]

However, at the dawning of New Testament times, the Holy Spirit is seen once again moving and acting among God’s people in relation to the birth of God the Son, Jesus. Elizabeth and Zechariah, the parents of John the Baptist, were filled with the Spirit. Their son, John, was filled while still in his mother’s womb. The Holy Spirit came upon Mary and overshadowed her so that she conceived Jesus.

When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!”[33]

Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied …[34]

You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his [John the Baptist’s] birth, for he will be great before the Lord. … He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.[35]

Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus. And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.”[36]

While the Spirit of God is seen as being manifested all throughout the Old Testament writings, it is in the life and ministry of Jesus, and in the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, that we see the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit poured forth in an expanded and widespread manner. Subsequent articles will cover this and other aspects of the Holy Spirit.



[1] 1 Samuel 10:10.


[2] 1 Samuel 16:13.


[3] Psalm 51:11.


[4] Isaiah 63:10–11.


[5] Psalm 139:7.


[6] Genesis 1:2.


[7] Job 26:13 NKJV.


[8] Job 33:4.


[9] Psalm 104:24,30.


[10] Numbers 11:16–17.


[11] Numbers 27:16–19.


[12] Judges 3:9–10.


[13] Judges 6:34 NKJV.


[14] Judges 11:29.


[15] Judges 13:24–25, 14:6, 15:14–15.


[16] Judges 16:20.


[17] 1 Samuel 10:6,10 NAU.


[18] 1 Samuel 11:6 NAU.


[19] 1 Samuel 16:14.


[20] 1 Samuel 16:13 NKJV.


[21] 2 Samuel 23:1–2.


[22] Numbers 11:25.


[23] 1 Samuel 10:5–6.


[24] Exodus 31:1–6.


[25] 2 Peter 1:20–21 NAU.


[26] Ezekiel 11:5.


[27] Zechariah 7:12.


[28] Micah 3:8.


[29] J. Rodman Williams, Renewal Theology, Systematic Theology from a Charismatic Perspective, Volume 2 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 160.


[30] Joel 2:28–29.


[31] Ezekiel 36:26–27.


[32] Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight, Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 637.


[33] Luke 1:41–42.


[34] Luke 1:67.


[35] Luke 1:14–15.


[36] Luke 1:31, 34–35.

Read More

Cyprus to sell gold reserves to help fund bailout

BBC, 11 April 2013
Cyprus is to sell off much of its gold reserves to help finance part of its bailout.

An assessment by the European Commission says Cyprus must sell about 400m euros (£341m) worth of gold.

The country has already been forced to wind down one of its largest banks in order to qualify for a 10bn euro lifeline from international lenders.

Even with that bailout, it is predicted that the Cypriot economy will shrink by 8.7% this year.

Cyprus’s total bullion reserves stood at 13.9 tonnes at the end of February, according to data from the World Gold Council.

At current prices, 400m euros’ worth of gold amounts to about 10.36 tonnes of metal.

The sale will be the biggest bullion sale by a eurozone central bank since France sold 17.4 tonnes in the first half of 2009.

Analysts say it is very unlikely that other European Union states will become big sellers of the precious metal.

Portugal holds 382.5 tonnes of gold, worth some 14.76bn euros at current prices, in its reserves, while Spain’s holdings stand at 281.6 tonnes, worth 10.8bn euros.

Italy is the world’s fourth-largest gold holder, with 2,451.8 tonnes, worth 94.6bn euros.

Read More

Surprising facts about charitable giving

By David T. Cook, CS Monitor, April 12, 2013
Just in time for tax season, The Atlantic serves up a fascinating look at charitable giving in the US.

“One of the most surprising, and perhaps confounding, facts of charity in America is that the people who can least afford to give are the ones who donate the greatest percentage of their income,” writes Ken Stern, author of a recent book on charities.

The wealthiest Americans—those with earnings in the top 20 percent—gave on average 1.3 percent of their income to charity in 2011, the latest year for which statistics are available. By comparison, Americans with incomes in the bottom 20 percent donated 3.2 percent of their income.

Wealth helps determine the recipients of charity. The poor tend to give to religious organizations and social service charities like the Salvation Army, The Atlantic says. The wealthy tend to focus their giving on colleges and museums.

What you see around you also influences how much you give, Mr. Stern says. Wealthy people who live where most of their neighbors make $200,000 a year or more give less than those who live in more socioeconomically diverse surroundings and see people in need on a daily basis.

Read More

Study: Religious Schools Perform Better Than Public, Charter Schools

By Napp Nazworth, Christian Post, April 10, 2013
Private religious schools perform better than public schools, and public charter schools performed no better than regular public schools, according to a new study by William Jeynes, professor of education at California State University at Long Beach and senior fellow at the Witherspoon Institute at Princeton.

Jeynes spoke Monday with The Christian Post about the study. He found that religious, mostly Christian, school students were a full year ahead of students who attend public and charter schools.

The results of his research were recently published in vol. 87, issue 3 of the Peabody Journal of Education in an article titled, “A Meta-Analysis on the Effects and Contributions of Public, Public Charter, and Religious Schools on Student Outcomes,” and were presented last month in a speech for Notre Dame University faculty.

Jeynes used a research method called a “meta-analysis,” which utilizes very large data sets by combining the data from many different studies. Most of the studies used test scores to measure student performance, but there were some other measures, such as grade point average and teacher ratings, as well.

The research uses four different models to show how the outcomes might change using different control variables. Some might argue, for instance, that students at religious schools do better because their parents are more involved in their education, not because the schools are better. Jeynes, therefore, controlled for this “selection effect.” Religious schools still perform better, though, even when controlling for parental involvement.

When all the control variables are factored in, the study found that students at religious schools still have a seven to eight month advantage over students at public and charter schools.

Jeynes found that there were several reasons that religious schools do better. At religious schools, the students are encouraged to take difficult courses much more frequently and they have a “can do attitude,” Jeynes explained, epitomized by the saying, “God doesn’t make junk.” Religious schools place higher expectations upon their students and send the message that they have the ability to go to college.

Jeynes also found a greater reduction in the class and race based “achievement gaps.” Additionally, Jeynes found that the differences on behavioral measures were even greater than the academic differences. Students at religious schools were less likely, for instance, to get suspended, get into fights, do drugs, and get involved in bullying. These students also showed more respect for teachers.

Once difference that some, such as Jeynes, believe is an advantage for public schools is that public school teachers are more apt to demonstrate more flexibility with students expressing their own opinions.

Jeynes did not look at homeschooled students for this study, but has studied them in the past. His previous studies have shown that homeschooled students do even better than religious school students. Homeschooled students have several advantages over public and religious schools.

Students in general do better with high parental involvement and small class sizes. Homeschools, obviously, have the highest level of parental involvement and the smallest class sizes. Also, in a traditional school classroom, teachers may have to move on to a different topic before not all of their students have mastered the topic. In a homeschool, the parent/teacher can stick with a skill or topic until the student has mastered it, then move on. That is a “huge advantage,” Jeynes said.

Read More

Getting a Brain Boost Through Exercise

By Gretchen Reynolds, NY Times, April 10, 2013
Two new experiments, one involving people and the other animals, suggest that regular exercise can substantially improve memory, although different types of exercise seem to affect the brain quite differently. The news may offer consolation for the growing numbers of us who are entering age groups most at risk for cognitive decline.

It was back in the 1990s that scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., first discovered that exercise bulks up the brain. In groundbreaking experiments, they showed that mice given access to running wheels produced far more cells in an area of the brain controlling memory creation than animals that didn’t run. The exercised animals then performed better on memory tests than their sedentary labmates.

For the human study, published in The Journal of Aging Research, scientists at the University of British Columbia recruited dozens of women ages 70 to 80 who had been found to have mild cognitive impairment, a condition that makes a person’s memory and thinking more muddled than would be expected at a given age.

Earlier, the same group of researchers had found that after weight training, older women with mild cognitive impairment improved their associative memory, or the ability to recall things in context—a stranger’s name and how you were introduced, for instance.

Now the scientists wanted to look at more essential types of memory, and at endurance exercise as well. So they randomly assigned their volunteers to six months of supervised exercise. Some of the women lifted weights twice a week. Others briskly walked. And some, as a control measure, skipped endurance exercise and instead stretched and toned.

At the start and end of the six months, the women completed a battery of tests designed to study their verbal and spatial memory. Verbal memory is, among other things, your ability to remember words, and spatial memory is your remembrance of where things once were placed in space. Both deteriorate with age, a loss that’s exaggerated in people with mild cognitive impairment.

And in this study, after six months, the women in the toning group scored worse on the memory tests than they had at the start of the study. Their cognitive impairment had grown.

But the women who had exercised, either by walking or weight training, performed better on almost all of the cognitive tests after six months than they had before.

There were, however, differences. While both exercise groups improved almost equally on tests of spatial memory, the women who had walked showed greater gains in verbal memory than the women who had lifted weights.

What these findings suggest, the authors conclude, is that endurance training and weight training may have different physiological effects within the brain and cause improvements in different types of memory.

That idea tallies nicely with the results of the other recent study of exercise and memory, in which lab rats either ran on wheels or, to the extent possible, lifted weights. Specifically, the researchers taped weights to the animals’ tails and had them repeatedly climb little ladders to simulate resistance training.

After six weeks, the animals in both exercise groups scored better on memory tests than they had before they trained. But it was what was going on in their bodies and brains that was revelatory. The scientists found that the runners’ brains showed increased levels of a protein known as BDNF, or brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which is known to support the health of existing neurons and coax the creation of new brain cells. The rat weight-trainers’ brains did not show increased levels of BDNF.

The tail trainers, however, did have significantly higher levels of another protein, insulinlike growth factor, in their brains and blood than the runners did. This substance, too, promotes cell division and growth and most likely helps fragile newborn neurons to survive.

What all of this new research suggests, says Teresa Liu-Ambrose, an associate professor in the Brain Research Center at the University of British Columbia who oversaw the experiments with older women, is that for the most robust brain health, it’s probably advisable to incorporate both aerobic and resistance training. It seems that each type of exercise “selectively targets different aspects of cognition,” she says, probably by sparking the release of different proteins in the body and brain.

But, she continues, no need to worry if you choose to concentrate solely on aerobic or resistance training, at least in terms of memory improvements. The differences in the effects of each type of exercise were subtle, she says, while the effects of exercise—any exercise—on overall cognitive function were profound.

Read More

Six Keys to Being Excellent at Anything

By Tony Schwartz, HBR, August 24, 2010
I’ve been playing tennis for nearly five decades. I love the game and I hit the ball well, but I’m far from the player I wish I were.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot the past couple of weeks, because I’ve taken the opportunity, for the first time in many years, to play tennis nearly every day. My game has gotten progressively stronger. I’ve had a number of rapturous moments during which I’ve played like the player I long to be.

And almost certainly could be, even though I’m 58 years old. Until recently, I never believed that was possible. For most of my adult life, I’ve accepted the incredibly durable myth that some people are born with special talents and gifts, and that the potential to truly excel in any given pursuit is largely determined by our genetic inheritance.

During the past year, I’ve read no fewer than five books—and a raft of scientific research—which powerfully challenge that assumption. I’ve also written one, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working, which lays out a guide, grounded in the science of high performance, to systematically building your capacity physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

We’ve found, in our work with executives at dozens of organizations, that it’s possible to build any given skill or capacity in the same systematic way we do a muscle: push past your comfort zone, and then rest. Will Durant, commenting on Aristotle, pointed out that the philosopher had it exactly right 2000 years ago: “We are what we repeatedly do.” By relying on highly specific practices, we’ve seen our clients dramatically improve skills ranging from empathy, to focus, to creativity, to summoning positive emotions, to deeply relaxing.

Like everyone who studies performance, I’m indebted to the extraordinary Anders Ericsson, arguably the world’s leading researcher into high performance. For more than two decades, Ericsson has been making the case that it’s not inherited talent which determines how good we become at something, but rather how hard we’re willing to work—something he calls “deliberate practice.” Numerous researchers now agree that 10,000 hours of such practice is the minimum necessary to achieve expertise in any complex domain.

That notion is wonderfully empowering. It suggests we have remarkable capacity to influence our own outcomes. But that’s also daunting. One of Ericsson’s central findings is that practice is not only the most important ingredient in achieving excellence, but also the most difficult and the least intrinsically enjoyable.

If you want to be really good at something, it’s going to involve relentlessly pushing past your comfort zone, as well as frustration, struggle, setbacks and failures. That’s true as long as you want to continue to improve, or even maintain a high level of excellence. The reward is that being really good at something you’ve earned through your own hard work can be immensely satisfying.

Here, then, are the six keys to achieving excellence we’ve found are most effective for our clients:

1. Pursue what you love. Passion is an incredible motivator. It fuels focus, resilience, and perseverance.

2. Do the hardest work first. We all move instinctively toward pleasure and away from pain. Most great performers, Ericsson and others have found, delay gratification and take on the difficult work of practice in the mornings, before they do anything else. That’s when most of us have the most energy and the fewest distractions.

3. Practice intensely, without interruption for short periods of no longer than 90 minutes and then take a break. Ninety minutes appears to be the maximum amount of time that we can bring the highest level of focus to any given activity. The evidence is equally strong that great performers practice no more than 4½ hours a day.

4. Seek expert feedback, in intermittent doses. The simpler and more precise the feedback, the more equipped you are to make adjustments. Too much feedback, too continuously can create cognitive overload, increase anxiety, and interfere with learning.

5. Take regular renewal breaks. Relaxing after intense effort not only provides an opportunity to rejuvenate, but also to metabolize and embed learning. It’s also during rest that the right hemisphere becomes more dominant, which can lead to creative breakthroughs.

6. Ritualize practice. Will and discipline are wildly overrated. As the researcher Roy Baumeister has found, none of us have very much of it. The best way to insure you’ll take on difficult tasks is to build rituals—specific, inviolable times at which you do them, so that over time you do them without having to squander energy thinking about them.

I have practiced tennis deliberately over the years, but never for the several hours a day required to achieve a truly high level of excellence. What’s changed is that I don’t berate myself any longer for falling short. I know exactly what it would take to get to that level.

I’ve got too many other higher priorities to give tennis that attention right now. But I find it incredibly exciting to know that I’m still capable of getting far better at tennis—or at anything else—and so are you.

Read More

Start an orphanage in the Philippines at age 80? Of course!

By Gail Wood, CS Monitor, April 10, 2013
It was the last place Lois Prater’s children expected her to go—overseas to become a missionary.

At age 80, Ms. Prater, who had been a stay-at-home housewife all her married life, sold her Seattle-area home, her car, and other belongings to build an orphanage in the Philippines. She became the unlikely helping hand for hundreds of orphaned children over the years.

“She sold everything,” says Bonnie Swinney, one of Prater’s three daughters. “The only things she kept were the things she could use in the orphanage.”

In 1991, Prater, with her own money, bought 12 acres of land covered with mango and coconut trees near Orion, a small town in the Philippines. Three years later, the doors would open to King’s Garden Children’s Home, a 2,000-square-foot, white stucco building, giving orphaned children from infants to teens new hope.

“I can’t imagine at my age going over there now,” says Ms. Swinney, who is 73. “What she did was amazing.”

For 13 years, Prater lived in the Philippines, enduring both physical and financial hardships. She had to overcome a number of challenging physical ailments along the way. And there was the difficult task of living in a foreign country, far from her family. Yet she refused to come home.

Finally, with a new manager in place, Prater retired and returned home to live with her daughter near Seattle just before her 90th birthday. She died in January at age 100.

“I didn’t know anything about business, about building an orphanage,” Prater said several years ago when talking about her decision to open King’s Garden. “All along, I’ve just trusted in God, and He’s answered my prayers. I did what I could do, and God did the rest.”

Just a few years after King’s Garden Children’s Home opened, Prater invested in expansion. King’s Garden tripled in size and started a school. Over the years, an average of about 60 children at a time have lived at the orphanage.

Prater’s unlikely journey began six months after her husband, Galon Prater, died in 1988. While Lois Prater was watching a Christian TV program, Lora Lam, a missionary on the program, asked for people to join her on a three-week outreach trip to China. Prater, who had attended Bible school as a teenager and had earned her ministerial license, felt her childhood desire to become a missionary rising again.

“I said, ‘Lord, I’m too old to go now,’ ” Prater said.

But she went, making three trips, one to China and two to the Philippines, taking part in open-tent meetings. Inspired by her trip with Ms. Lam to China, Prater returned for a second trip several weeks later with 11 other women for a month-long stay in the Philippines. She later made a third visit to the Philippines alone and was speaking at a church when a poorly dressed man came up to her after the service and offered to sell his baby to her for 1,000 pesos, or about $40 at that time.

“That impacted my soul so deeply I knew I had to do something,” Prater said.

So, in 1990 she returned to the United States and sold her home for $65,000. She sold everything she had, determined to build an orphanage.

Prater admitted selling her home wasn’t easy.

“I struggled, but I knew that what I was trying to do was something much more important than hanging onto my faded couch,” Prater said.

At 89, Prater had a physical setback and was forced to step down as the orphanage’s director. She returned home, this time for good. But she made several short visits to her orphanage over the next few years.

The orphanage and school continues to do well today. Monica Jarvis assumed directorship of King’s Garden Children’s Home in 2005 and remains in that position with the support of the Assemblies of God World Missions.

“To think that my mom opened the orphanage at 80 and worked there until she was 89 absolutely blows me away,” says Swinney, who has adopted several children from King’s Garden Children’s Home. “My mom has the biggest heart.”

Each of the children brought to King’s Garden Children’s Home has a heartbreaking story. One of the first children, who had no name, was brought to Prater when he was just nine days old. Prater named him Albert. His alcoholic father was in jail and his mother moved into the jail with him because she had no other place to stay.

One-by-one, Prater took in each of that mother’s four children, keeping them out of jail.

Another child, who Prater named Tommy, was brought to King’s Garden Children’s Home by the police when he was just one year old. Tommy’s ear had been cut off by his father. Heidi, another child brought to Prater by the police, came to King’s Garden with stomach worms and head lice. Many of the children who come to King’s Garden are in need of medical treatment.

The mother and father of a girl named Jennifer died, and she moved into King’s Garden when she was 10. Her step brother brought her to the orphanage because she had no other place to live.

“I feel I’m not talented enough to do any of this,” Prater said while she was still overseeing King’s Garden. “But God enables me. My responsibility is to do what I can. He does the rest. My only regret is I didn’t start when I was younger.”

Prater’s story has been an inspiration to others, including her daughter, showing how it’s never too late to live a life of serving others.

“My mom was such an amazing person,” Swinney says. “She had tremendous faith in God.”

Read More

The Cuban diet: eat less, exercise more--and preventable deaths are halved

Jeremy Laurance, The Independent, 10 April 2013
A country whose citizens collectively succeeded in losing weight and increasing their level of physical activity saw their health improve and death rates plunge.

In a unique natural experiment, researchers have observed how a nation that lost an average of 5kg per head over five years contributed to a halving of the death rate from diabetes and a one third reduction in deaths from heart disease.

The natural experiment occurred in Cuba which was plunged into crisis in the early 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Its experience demonstrates what could be achieved elsewhere if the same changes could be brought about, without an economic crisis.

Food and fuel were in short supply in Cuba from 1990 resulting in millions going hungry and having to abandon their vehicles and walk.

Cars and buses virtually disappeared from the roads as fuel supplies dried up, and farmers had to abandon motorised machines and work the fields manually. The Government issued one million bicycles to keep the population on the move.

Between 1990 and 1995, the average Cuban consumed fewer calories than they expended each day, leading to an average weight loss of 5kg.

Deaths from diabetes began to fall in 1996, five years after the start of the weight loss period, and remained low for six years. Deaths from heart disease and stroke which had been declining slowly since 1980 suddenly went into free fall from 1996.

By the late 1990s, however, Cuba was beginning to recover and as the economy grew so did waistlines. Levels of physical activity fell.

The consequences were seen in a surging prevalence of diabetes and rising rates of heart disease and stroke which, by the mid-2000s were back to their pre-crisis levels.

The international team of researchers from Spain, the US and Cuba, say that the “Cuban experience” from 1980 to 2010 demonstrates that within a relatively short period, modest weight loss in the whole population can have a profound effect.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, they say that although their findings are an extrapolation from one country’s experience, they nonetheless provide “a notable illustration of the potential health benefits of reversing the global obesity epidemic.”

The Cuban crisis was unusual in that it did not occur suddenly, as in a time of war, but developed slowly over a number of years, and was not accompanied by social breakdown. People continued to go to work and school and the Government maintained its strong tradition of public health and continued surveillance of medical trends.

In an accompanying editorial, Walter Willett, professor of nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health, says it is well known that changes in the food supply, such as the spread of fast food outlets, combined with reductions in physical activity, such as increased car use, leads to weight gain and the growth in diabetes and heart disease. But it is rare to see a reversal of the process.

Professor Willetts writes: “The current findings add powerful evidence that a reduction in overweight and obesity would have major population-wide benefits.”

Read More

In Lebanon, a doctor offers comfort and healing to refugees from neighboring wars

By Simon Roughneen, CS Monitor, April 9, 2013
Beirut, Lebanon—It takes him a good 20 seconds to get his bearings, but, sitting up in his bed, Matti Tourrani smiles and says hello, muffled by a drowsy cough. His right leg is swollen—so much that it is now twice as thick as his left. “It’s not so painful; I’m more concerned about my knee,” says the elderly man.

Mr. Tourrani has traveled with his wife, Maysoun, from their small village near Mosul in northern Iraq for knee-replacement surgery, a procedure that would cost more than $23,000 and for which the family mortgaged their house.

Their part of Iraq is still violent: Last week a bomb killed two people just a mile from their home. “We’re used to it by now,” Maysoun says.

But the family is concerned that they might have traveled in vain. Before any knee surgery, the leg must heal more, says Irad Beldjebel, a doctor who works helping Beirut’s unknown thousands of refugees.

The Algerian-born Beldjebel spends his days not only treating refugees, but serves as an all-round counselor—a trusty shoulder to lean on for people who are often traumatized by the past, worried about the future, and unsure about the present. People such as the Tourranis, who are staying in a compound with other Iraqis, themselves long-time refugees in Lebanon.

Dr. Beldjebel is not only treating Tourrani, he is helping the family work through a deadline and a dilemma: whether or not to go ahead with the knee operation.

“Our visas will be out of date in 10 days,” Maysoun says. “Someone said we will have to pay $2,000 each to extend our stay,” she adds with a sigh.

Beldjebel tells her that the figure is suspiciously high. He suspects that the official in question is trying to extort vulnerable Iraqis—people who are in a bind and unaware of the Lebanese law. “We will check out the process fully for the visa issue,” says Beldjebel, trying to reassure the elderly couple.

It is all part of a typical day for the doctor, who has been in Lebanon for four years and now is the sole representative here of the St. Elizabeth College of Public Health and Social Work, based in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Lebanon currently hosts between 400,000 and 1 million Syrians, who have fled the brutal war there. Lebanon’s own 1975-1990 war was prompted partly by an influx of Palestinian refugees, around 400,000 of whom still stay in sometimes-violent camps around Lebanon.

Beldjebel has been “a tremendous help to those people he assists,” says Michel Kasdano, a retired Lebanese Army general who has worked with the Chaldean Catholic Church in Lebanon to provide assistance to Iraqi refugees.

There are around 8,000 Iraqi refugees in Lebanon—mostly Christians who fled after the 2003 US invasion and subsequent ethnic and sectarian blood-letting across the country.

Beldjebel’s history makes him perhaps uniquely attuned to assisting Christians in this region: He is a convert to Catholicism from Islam and as a consequence has not been able to travel home to Algeria to see his parents since 2009.

Sitting in a small, austere apartment above the Mar Elias church in East Beirut, near where the doctor often does his rounds, Nohoud Najib, an Iraqi Chaldean Catholic, is hoping to be resettled to a Western country. She’s in her second stint as a refugee, having fled to Lebanon in 2012.

“Before that, we were in Damascus[, Syria,] since 2009” she recalls. “But when the fighting got closer and the situation became too dangerous,” they had to move.

Prior to Damascus, they fled their home in Baghdad, Iraq, after threats of being kidnapped. “Our neighbor said our son’s name was on a list at a mosque nearby, and that it was no longer safe for us,” Ms. Najib says.

That was in 2007. She and her family spent the next two years in Dora, which was a mostly Christian area of Baghdad but has since seen many of the non-Muslim residents leave.

Now the worry is that Syria’s war could spread to Lebanon. Last week, Syria carried out airstrikes in northern Lebanon, saying that Sunni Muslim rebels were being sheltered there. The Syrian government is backed by Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shia militia that is a powerful player in Lebanon’s complex sectarian politics.

“Fighting seems to follow us around,” Najib jokes. “We just want to go somewhere safe, and where my children can resume their education. We feel like we have been in limbo for years.”

Dr. Beldjebel has been a friend to the family since they arrived in Beirut, with handshakes and banter testifying to the warm relationship.

That type of relationship is one Beldjebel tries to cultivate with all the refugees he treats. His job is not just about diagnosing and prescribing, he says. “We are also here to listen to them. It’s a big part of our time,” he says. “They need to voice out their sufferings and the violence that they have been going through.”

Read More