The Lost Concept of Time

There are often moments in our life where we wish we had the power to go back and change something in the past. We even can reflect on things and wish we could re-create and re-live moments. Fortunately, this is not so. We all know that there is no regression in time. Thus, we are always moving forward… At least we should be.

Unfortunately, even though time is constantly progressing, there are moments when we feel as if time is passing us by. This can gives us the feeling of stagnation. I’m sure many of you know that nothing can be more depressing and more troubling than the feeling of losing time, because in essence, we are losing moments of our life. The question of the week is “what causes us to lose track of the concept of time?”

The answer is very simple yet very complex. It is our thoughts of the past. When we reflect or dwell on things from the past, we are simply picturing an illusion. It does not matter how vivid our reflection may be. It is simply an illusion, which is something that doesn’t exist. In fact, our only thought of the past should be “it is something that doesn’t exist.”

Each time we think more of our past than its inexistence, we create a misconception within us that time is still moving and we are still progressing. When in reality, every moment that we spend thinking and dwelling on the past, time stops within our life. This creates the stagnation that we feel, because for each of those moments, we become thoughtless.

Therefore, time in the real world is still progressing and within our psyche, time stops. Anytime we reflect on the past, our minds become vacant of new thought and filled with feelings and emotions from the past. This preoccupation of past thoughts causes the misconception of time. This causes our present to suffer, because during these moments we lose grasp of the present, which is the only thing there is. As a result, we cannot understand time, in fact, we cannot understand anything because we are absent of thought.

My challenge to you today is that you think new thoughts, so that you may re-establish your understanding of time. Think new thoughts, see new things, and force your life to progress.

Quote:

“When we think of the past, our present becomes non-existent. Thus, our future is hindered.” J. Martin

Is there a change?

In psychology there is a term called the “difference threshold” which represents the smallest increase in energy needed to detect that a stimulus has changed. For example, how much brighter does a light have to become for you to detect a change in the light’s brightness. How many times have you gotten yourself in a situation only to realize that you were too deep to get out of it? That means that the barrier of your difference threshold is too low. You have been desensitized to change. Thus, the only change you recognize is drastic change.

Have you ever felt like a situation crept up on you or caught you off guard? It’s like standing in the ocean and feeling the small waves hitting up against you. You never realize that the waves are carrying you deeper into the ocean until the water gets high on you (you get too deep). Better yet, you may never even notice a change in the size of the waves; until one comes and almost drowns you (a situation overtakes you). This is because as change occurs you adapt to them. This is better known as “sensory adaptation.”

I’m sure by now you’re wondering, “What is he getting at?” However, my reason for bringing this out to you today is that there are so many times negative and positive changes happen in our life and we never notice them. It’s like a bad habit; you never realize you curse too much when you say one word here and there. It is those moments when you are screaming and cursing like a sailor that you stop and say “I need to stop this” or “when did I start cursing like this?” This is because as our behavior progress and gets stronger, we adapt. Therefore, we never realize we are possessed or addicted or even have major emotional issues because we adapt to it and it becomes normal to us. My challenge to you this week is that you examine your character, your actions and even your personality and ask yourself the question “am I harboring something or acting in a way that I don’t think I should?” this very question will lead you down the path of discovering what it is that may be hindering progress in your life.

Quote of the week:

“You may never see your abnormalities, because they are normal to you.” J. Martin

Today is your day to Die…

So many times when one speaks of death it ignites a great fear within many people. Throughout this fear, we never stop to look deeper into what death is. I have heard so many people say the moment you are born… you begin to die. But after each death statement we should be compelled to seek out what death is. As a child I remember the preachers wailing over the pulpit that “this flesh got to die everyday.” After I grew in age I began to actually say some of those same things. My perception of death then was when they put you in the ground so the thought of God telling me to commit suicide everyday was odd… On another not, my understanding evolved to dying in the flesh daily. Today, my understanding of death has evolved again to a new level.

Today I sat down and the Lord said that death does not represent an expiration of time, it represents the expiration of consciousness and thought and the transformation to a higher level of thinking and consciousness. So yes I titled my post today that it is your day to die because each day we should cast aside our old way of thinking and our old way of doing things so that God can give us new thought and elevate us to a new glory.

2 Corinthians 3:18 “…we are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory…”

The only way that we can elevate from glory to glory is by forgetting the past. Past thoughts, habits and situations that we may be able to move forward to a new level of thinking and consciousness. Dying to the old you, the yesterday you allows us to become a new creature each day.

Isaiah 43:18 “forget what happened in the past…” (God’s word translation)

Quote for the week:

“If you want today to be different than yesterday, you must die to your thoughts and actions of the past and evolve to a new way of thinking today” J. Martin

The Harmonious Flow

The definition of the word Harmony is “a pleasing combination of elements in a whole.” When we think of the word harmony we often relate it to music and singing. This gives us a great example of how things flow together when they are in harmony. Several people in the music arena cringe at the thought of someone hitting the wrong note in a song or the wrong key on a piano or organ. This is because it interrupts the intended flow of the selected song.

This same principle applies to our life and our universe. I was taught that God created the earth and man within a seven day time frame. But with each of God’s creations although are separate they should live and flow together. There have been several catastrophic events that have seemed to upset the flow of our lives as humans on this earth. Many people are preaching that it means “the Lord is soon to come.” I however, am not in agreement with that statement.

Several weeks ago I read a book that emphasized how we were all to live together on this earth, but as humans we treat the earth as if it is ours to conquer and if we are the only species on it (Ishmael, Daniel Quinn). We beat it, fight on it, dig in it, and kill its trees and such. Thus, we treat this earth as if it is our adversary. As with any other adversary, it will eventually fight back. Now if we examine each creation, it has the ability to heal itself. Take our bodies for example, if you cut yourself that wound heals up on its own. This would mean that all of our living habits have knocked this earth out of whack. We have deeply cut it and continue to do so. As a result, all of the earthquakes and tsunamis may actually be the earth’s way of fighting back and healing itself.

The only issue is we as a people have not realized that we are causing this imbalance mainly because our individual lives are off balance. We eat all kinds of food and do all types of activities that go against the flow of our lives. We have grown so accustomed to this dysfunction and imbalance that we never notice it until our bodies began to fight back and our emotions are frazzled. When our lives are off balance it ruins relationships, can hinder your destiny, it can even disrupt your finances. Anytime your life seems chaotic… you have upset the natural flow. My challenge to you this week is that you strive to live within the flow of life.

Quote for the week:

“If your actions seem to have the possibility of a negative outcome whether it is short or long term, it is against the flow within your life.” J. Martin

My Anatomy of Love

I hear my friend say it so often that “love is colorblind and comes from the soul, and our souls have no gender” thus love is a force that fuses people together regardless of race and gender. Several psychological studies have concluded that love is the process of losing oneself or going crazy. This concept gives meaning to the statement: when you truly love someone you care more about their needs, as opposed to your own. This can also be validated by the scripture “love your neighbor as yourself.”

During one of my class discussions on love, we concluded that in order for someone to experience love they must first believe in love. Then they have to position themselves to be a recipient of love. But now, we are left with the question “how does one position them self for love?” During this examination process we have to remember that the laws of attraction are in effect. The key component to this law is that you will always attract what is in you. Thus, if you attract bitter people, bitterness is in you. If you attract hurting people, hurt is what’s in you and so on… This law will place us as individual people in front of a mirror every time. Because, we are only able to draw to us, what is within us. Therefore, in order to be positioned to receive love we must first have an all encompassing love for ourselves. We have to deal with all of our flaws and hang-ups and learn to love and embrace them and when we accomplish that we will draw people that are ready to receive and give love.

This is the very essence of love. The bible says “love covers…” this means that whenever love is present nothing else exist. This is why when mothers love their children they fail to see what is considered to be flaws within them. It’s not that they are naïve; they have been overtaken by love.

“Nobody that constantly illuminates your flaws, loves you or has love for you”

Another psychological research stated that we fall in love with people that live out apart of us that we are unable to live. So to fall in love with someone is like falling in love with apart of you. As a child, I was always taught that God is love. This means that to love in any form is to have an experience with God. So whenever we are incapable of loving someone it means that there are areas of our life that we have not surrendered over to God. Remember, because God is love and to love means to love our self. So this places us back in the position of having to admit that there are parts of us that we don’t like and refuse to love. Thus, we haven’t given God (love) access to flow through that part of us. My challenge to you today is that you would love and accept every part of you, so that you may be able to love others.

Quote for the week:

“To love and be hurt is better than not loving at all, because to love in any form is to experience God... God is Love” J.Martin

Consuming Thoughts

Within many professions it is often encouraged that you daily reflect upon your actions and progress throughout that day. But, have you ever taken a moment to reflect and evaluate your thoughts for the day?

The thought evaluation process allows us to not only determine where our minds are but, our hearts as well. The bible states that "as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." Which means that not only does our thoughts have the ability to consume us, it also shows that our thoughts are only a reflection of what is in our hearts. If the majority of your thoughts are what you consider irreputable, then you have to realize that your heart is in no greater condition than your mind.

My challenge to you today is to go beyond your normal thought process and to think beyond your average thoughts.