Brave The Wave

Author: adm785g72

  • Corona, A Gift From God?

    Corona, A Gift From God?

    Corona, A Gift from God ?

    Do you ever look at what is going on with this Covid-19 event and think to yourself, “this seems strange.  Something just seems a little weird or unusual.”  Just two days ago I was watching footage of all the chaos that is occurring in India with all of their homeless population because so many businesses have been shut down. In the large cities in India, the workers live in the factory and are fed by the business. There are millions and millions of employees getting thrown out into the streets to fend for themselves. They are also being prohibited from leaving the city in which they are working to get to their own homes, sometimes hundreds of miles away.  Watching the masses of people in protests moving as waves was startling. It was almost like a scene from a movie.   All I could think about was how much virus was being spread among the hungry throngs of humanity.
    Clearly the hand of God is involved in all of this, but the thing that is so unusual is that the entire planet is being thrust headlong into this problem.  It is a rare global event.  I can’t think about anything in my own lifetime that rivals this kind of disruption to our daily lives that is impacting the whole world. Practically speaking the closest thing I could come up with was inflation or the opec embargo in the 1970s but that didn’t really cause the kind of suffering, pain and disruption to our daily lives as the Corona virus.
    The only thing that could be considered remotely close to this would be World War 2.   Though that lasted for years and the death toll was far greater than what we can expect with this virus.  What about the AIDS epidemic?  It was definitely global, but it really didn’t touch our lives personally because it seemed to impact specific groups. That epidemic had an impact on me personally in my training as a physician because we were in the brunt of that disease when I was in medical school. Half of the patients that I was taking care of in my clinical rotation in Internal Medicine had full blown AIDS and all of them died.   The majority were young men in their twenties and thirties.
    To me the important thing to learn from this that can help us try to get through it is the idea of the sovereignty of God.  Either God is allowing this event to occur or he isn’t.  Either God is in control of  this event or he isn’t.  We don’t choose to believe in God and his sovereignty because it makes us feel better as the atheists and non- believers continually like to accuse us of.   We believe that God is sovereign and he is in control because it is truth.  Truth is the way things really are.   We believe Jesus when he tells us that God’s will and God’s plan is perfect.  He knows what is best for us. He knows the best plan for our lives.  Look at what Pastor John Piper tells us in this quote,
    Therefore, God not only comprehends the coronavirus; he has purposes for it. God does nothing, and permits nothing, without wise purposes. Nothing just happens. Everything flows from the eternal counsels of God (Ephesians 1:11). All of it is wisdom. All of it is purposeful. For those who trust Jesus Christ, all of it is kindness. For others, it is a merciful wake-up call: “Let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price” (Revelation 22:17).
    Kindness?  Yup, kindness.  Think about the most painful circumstances in your life when you learned some of the most important ideas with regard to your spiritual growth.  Most of the time those growth spurts were because of pain and suffering. But you wouldn’t change those for the world and you are grateful for those painful experiences.  I know I am.  If I hadn’t had those painful, harsh circumstances, I would still be wasting, time, money and energy on worthless ideas or pursuits. Things that have absolutely no value. Plus I would have missed out on all the valuable revelations, gifts, impressions and experiences that come from a growing thriving relationship with Jesus.
    God is in control in all of this and his purpose is much bigger than our tiny brains can comprehend. Our solace is in the fact that he loves us. We have faith and we trust in him. This may also be a wake up call to the many who are spending the majority of their time and energy on things that have been totally taken away, like sports or movies or other forms of entertainment.  This is a prime opportunity for everyone to get a better view of the big picture.  The most important things in this life are loving God and loving others, as Jesus told us.
    But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again.  One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”
    Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.  A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
    (Matthew 22:34-37   NLT)
    We have been given a very important and valuable gift. The opportunity to spend time loving God with all our hearts, soul and mind. The world has been given this time to pause and think. The thing that will also help us and will reduce the number of fatalities is to stay socially distant. Being only in a small group. Our families.  We are given a golden opportunity to love and be close to our families and to love them and spend time with them.
    This is a huge gift from God.   But the only way we can see it as such is if we open the eyes of our hearts and see with spiritual vision.

    God Bless You,
    Stay Safe

    Your brother in Christ,
    Johnny Cavazos MD

  • On the Front Lines of This Corona Battle

    On the Front Lines of This Corona Battle

    The World is Crumbling Around Us, is this an obstacle or an opportunity ? I keep hearing that we ER doctors and nurses and technicians and hospital workers are the soldiers on the front lines of this battle with an invisible enemy. Well, if we look at the stats, eighty percent of the people who get this infection will recover without any particular difficulty. It seems a little less scary than a soldier going into battle with bullets whizzing over his head and the enemy hell bent on killing him.  Obviously there is significant concern with this virus and it has wreaked havoc over the entire globe causing a tremendous amount of suffering, fear, panic and pain.

    What is God’s role in all of this?  We are either going to believe that God is sovereign or we aren’t.  He is either allowing this to happen or he is powerless to do something about it.  How you see this event and whether or not you believe that God is in control will be a huge determining factor in your attitude about it.

    The Terrified

    I have seen or heard of people who are absolutely terrified of this virus, mostly people who have underlying medical problems including heart disease or respiratory problems or reduced immunity. Rightfully so.  But there is something else I’ve noticed. Not everyone is so scared. I’ve seen people who are just taking it in stride and just going about their business and doing their jobs in the health care field with very little fear. I have also seen some people who are physicians who are doing everything they can to avoid clinical situations or exposure to the virus because of pure unadulterated fear and anxiety.

     Comfort or Discomfort

    This comes down to the idea of comfort and discomfort.  In my new book on passion, I go over two scenarios regarding comfort, discomfort and end of life scenarios. These are very timely ideas in light of our current situation:

    God expects us to move against our fear because that is a powerful means to learn to trust him. Let me go over an idea about comfort and discomfort to help us as we are going about trying to fulfill our purpose.  Someone once told me a story about an elderly priest who was in the ICU. He was in his late eighties or early nineties and, because of his illness, knew he would die soon. The interesting part of the story was that he was being visited by another priest, and they were laughing and joking like they were waiting in line for a ride at Disneyland. The priest who was dying even made a comment to his visitor, “Ha, I am going to see Jesus before you!!” And they both started laughing. They were both happy, almost joyous. The dying priest was at the end of his life, and he was at maximum comfort, on the verge of being in the presence of Jesus. He most likely spent most of his life being uncomfortable going about the business of doing God’s work.

    Now we contrast that with a story that a hospice nurse shared with me. She told me about a very wealthy patient she was taking care of. She visited him on his yacht twice per week. Most of the time he had a team of advisors and family in the room while she checked his vital signs and examined him. One day he asked that everyone leave the room because he wanted to talk to her alone. She said that he called her over and told her, “Look, I have plenty of money. I can write a check for whatever you want. There must be some cure for my type of cancer that is not available to everyone. Just let me write you a check so that I can get better.”

    Thinking about those two scenarios made me realize something. The wealthy man was at maximum discomfort. He was on the edge of the unknown. He was doing everything he could to stay in his life of comfort, luxury, and ease. This life was the closest thing to heaven for him. 

    If we can look at these two end of life scenes, and then look at our own lives, we can get a good idea where we are as far as our own comfort when it comes to the risk of this virus and how we see our own death.  More than likely it is intimately tied to our faith and whether or not we believe Jesus when he tells us that he has prepared a place for us.

     My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
    (John 14:2-3 NIV)

    This is a prime opportunity for us to look at this situation and examine our own level of anxiety and fear. Are we nervous and worried ? Do we have faith that we can pull out of this financial quagmire?  Are we going to lose our jobs? Can we take care of our families?   We’re all in the same boat.

    Personally, I think that this whole scenario is being orchestrated by God. It is an opportunity to examine our faith and where we are in our spiritual journey. We can talk the talk all day long, but when it comes to death, and financial insecurity and illness, are we comfortable?  Are you comfortable right now?  Are you at peace?

    There is a tremendous amount of power in self-examination and self-awareness, but there has to be an attitude of willingness or desire to improve. We should be asking ourselves the question, “Can I do better?  Can I be better?” If we aren’t asking those questions, we won’t take advantage of a golden opportunity for growth.  Golden opportunity?  Yep. It’s right here staring at us in the face.

    In my book Brave the Wave, one of the main ideas that I talked about repeatedly was that in this life, it doesn’t matter who you are, how much you know, what your religion is, how much money you have or what kind of gifts and talents you have, there will be trials, waves, troubles, obstacles and big doses of pain. It is inevitable.  NO ONE CAN AVOID THEM.

    Perspective and Observation 

    Essentially what I am arguing through out the whole book of Brave the Wave was that we might as well learn something or get something out of these painful circumstances.  It is really all about our attitude and our vision.  How we see the world.  We need to step back and take a look at what is happening and remove ourselves from the situation.  We have to look at things objectively.

    I’m an ER physician. All I keep hearing is people telling my wife, “we are thinking about your husband, he is on the front lines.”   People are scared to death right now.  Rightfully so.  Many people are losing their jobs and they are concerned about taking care of their families.   Many people are afraid of getting sick, especially if they have some underlying illness.  There is work from home and the financial markets are crumbling.

    So what do we do?   We change our perspective. We look at these times as an opportunity.

    Here is another excerpt from my next book on Passion, Power and Purpose.

    This brings me to another story. This one involves Thomas Edison. I read my first biography about him when I was ten.

    At around 5:30 in the evening on Dec. 10, 1914, a massive explosion erupted in West Orange, New Jersey. Ten buildings in legendary inventor Thomas Edison’s plant, which made up more than half of the site, were engulfed in flames. Between six and eight fire departments rushed to the scene, but the chemical-fueled inferno was too powerful to put out quickly. According to a 1961 Reader’s Digest article by Edison’s son Charles, Edison calmly walked over to him as he watched the fire destroy his dad’s work. In a childlike voice, Edison told his 24-year-old son, “Go get your mother and all her friends. They’ll never see a fire like this again.” When Charles objected, Edison said, “It’s all right. We’ve just got rid of a lot of rubbish.”
    Later, at the scene of the blaze, Edison was quoted in The New York Times as saying, “Although I am over 67 years old, I’ll start all over again tomorrow.” He told the reporter that he was exhausted from remaining at the scene until the chaos was under control, but he stuck to his word and immediately began rebuilding the next morning without firing any of his employees. Was there any other viable response? In the new book, The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph, author Ryan Holiday says there wasn’t. Sure, Edison could have wept, yelled in anger, or locked himself in his house in a state of depression. But instead, he put on a smile and told his son to enjoy the spectacle.

    This whole story is about perspective and perseverance. How do you see circumstances and challenges when they arise? Can you see them as opportunities? Edison lost reams and reams of notes and data on his experiments. He just accepted the fact that he would be starting over—AT AGE SIXTY-SEVEN. He did a lot of productive work into his eighties.

    Nothing takes the air out of a room quicker than negativity and pessimism. One thing that is clear is that when we are pursuing our purpose or a goal, if we don’t strongly believe in what we are doing, we might as well not spend time or energy. We should believe that what we are engaging in is exactly what we were created to do.

    One powerful and useful idea to keep coming back to is that our purpose is bigger than our fears, circumstances, trials, and failures. This purpose is built on the framework of our authentic selves. It is bigger than our own selfish pursuits. We were created to do things that are to benefit the world. 

    A Golden Opportunity

    These are tough times, there is no doubt, but can these times be an opportunity? Can we look at these times as an opportunity that is God given to spend more time with our families?  How about opportunities to serve our neighbors who are older and have medical problems?  Can we help them by going to the store and getting food and supplies for them?  How about our neighbors who have small children who need day care or who are out of school and need to be watched while their parents are working?  How about the opportunity to spend time with our own children?  These are golden opportunities for us to love and spend time with our families.

    These are also opportunities for us to be leaders in the family. To show strength, courage, resilience and faith. We can lead by having a positive attitude and by being patient when everyone around is fearful and feeling overwhelmed.

    How about the opportunity to spend time with God in bible reading, prayer and meditation? If you are not involved in any bible reading or meditation, this is a golden opportunity to start this habit.  There is no habit on the planet that has more value than spending a quiet time with Jesus, getting to know him more intimately by reading the Word. Nothing is more important.

    We may have an attitude of pessimism or we may feel down and depressed, but if we can look at this time as an opportunity to love and serve others, we can be grateful. Grateful? Yes. God has given us a beautiful gift.  A time to pause and take a breath and reflect.  An opportunity to love Him and spend time with Him. An opportunity to love and serve each other and spend time with each other.

    THERE IS NOTHING MORE IMPORTANT THAN THAT

    If this has helped you in any way, please forward to others.

    Your Brother In Christ

    Johnny Cavazos MD

    Bravethewaveweride@gmail.com

    Bravethewave.org

     

     

     

  • Control Your Thoughts, Control Your Anxiety

    Control Your Thoughts, Control Your Anxiety

               Control Your Thoughts, Control Your Anxiety

    Where do you feel your anxiety? In your stomach? In your chest? It is never in your head. Why is that ? Well that kind of uncomfortable anxious feeling is coming about because your body is reacting in a way to prepare for some type of threat. But where is the threat?  Believe or not, that threat came from your mind.  Your thoughts created the threat. Most of the time when we are anxious, our lives aren’t in danger at all. That is very true for me. Sometimes our fears bring opportunities. https://bravethewave.org/2020/03/20/on-the-front-lines-of-this-corona-battle/

    There is plenty of anxiety to go around these days even if we the Covid pandemic has winded down.

    We know from statistics that we are still very anxious and stressed.

    • 75 percent of Americans experienced moderate to high stress levels in the past month
    • Stress is the number one health concern of high school students
    • 80 percent of people feel stress at work

    https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/mental-health/stress/stress-statistics/

    What we need to realize is that perception of threat that our bodies are reacting to comes from our thoughts. The idea that we need to understand and embrace is that we are in control of our own thoughts, so in essence, we are in control of our own anxiety. If you can believe that, then we are in business.

    On any given day we think about 30,000 thoughts. For the most part we don’t even think about our thoughts, we just kind of go about our lives focusing on our tasks and sometimes we are at the mercy of our thinking. The problem is that if we look at studies, most of our thoughts are negative. Just by our very nature and because of survival instincts, we think negative thoughts about eighty percent of the time. (1)

    In 2005, the National Science Foundation published an article summarizing research on human thoughts per day. It was found that the average person has about 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. Of those thousands of thoughts, 80% were negative, and 95% were exactly the same repetitive thoughts as the day before.
    We can see that one of the tendencies of the mind is to focus on the negative and ‘play the same songs’ over and over again. (That is called worry, same negative thought over and over in our head.)
    There was another interesting study (Leahy, 2005, Study of Cornell University), in which scientists found that, firstly 85% of what we worry about never happens. Secondly with the 15% of the worries that did happen, 79% of the subjects discovered that either they could handle the difficulty better than expected, or that the difficulty taught them a lesson worth learning.

    The conclusion is that 97% of our worries are baseless and result from an unfounded pessimistic perception.

    Control Your Thoughts, Control Your Anxiety

    Pessimism. Negative thoughts. Uncontrolled thoughts. Undisciplined thinking.

    When you are spending much of the time thinking about your anxiety, you are not focusing on the role you are playing in the game.

    There is only one way to get control of your thoughts and that is by focusing on them. For the most part, we let our minds wander and drift and move toward the negative. We convince ourselves that we are helpless in most situations. Or maybe we feel hopeless or worthless. All of those thoughts are lies. Every single one of them.

    As believers we know that we have supernatural power available to us. We have the power of the Holy Spirit to help us in every battle that we face. If we are pursuing spiritual goals and we are working to bring others to Jesus, that is when we get a good dose of spiritual warfare. That is one area that I have experience in. Let us look at each of the thoughts that keep us feeling anxious and worried all the time.

    Thoughts of Helplessness

    For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.

    (1 Timothy 1:7 NIV)

    This is one of my favorite verses in the bible. It is for this reason that we need to see the Word of God as the ultimate standard for our faith and for our behavior. Jesus talked about the Word in this passage,

    The Jews picked up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?” The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.” Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken—

    So here we have a choice, just like with our thoughts, we can choose to believe Jesus or not. He is telling us that Scripture cannot be broken. It is unbreakable and it is the foundation of our faith life. So if we believe what Jesus is telling us about the Word, then we are really kind of tied to the idea that we don’t have a spirit of fear and timidity.

    If we accept this truth, but we allow ourselves to be controlled by fear and anxiety, we are living a lie.

    Well, what is the truth? We were given a spirit of power, love and self-discipline. The truth is that we are not helpless. We have power, love and we have truth.

    Remember that Jesus is the truth. That is what he called himself. “I am the way and the truth and the life.” If we are being overrun by thoughts of fear, timidity and anxiety, we have chosen to live a life that is inauthentic. We need to understand this basic principle because the spirit of fear and timidity is something that WE CREATED. It is a false self. It is inauthentic.

    My book series is called the Authentic Self series. It begins with a road map on how to move towards authenticity and then focuses on passion and confronting fear. I am finishing the fourth installment that deals with pain and suffering.  In order to understand our “Authentic Self”, it would be helpful to define it,

    Our “Authentic Self” is the person God had in mind when he created us. It is the person we were meant to be, doing the tasks and assignments we were meant to complete, using the gifts and talents we were designed to use, with the love we were meant to share. 

     Thoughts of Hopelessness

    The Greek word for hope is Elpis. This is a little different than the way we think about hope. It is more like eager expectation. Like when you are getting ready to board a plane to fly to your vacation destination. You are in a good mood and you are eager to have time to relax and enjoy your family. It is something you look forward to. That is exactly how God wants us to think about heaven. Here is an excerpt from my book Brave the Wave on hope,

    I’ve come across people in my life who have little or zero faith. I’ve seen the look in their eyes at the death of a loved one. One thing’s missing. Hope. Not the hope of wishful thinking, but the hope of the Bible.
    Biblical hope is conveyed by the Greek word elpis, meaning “confidence” or “trust.” Our hope is to be more like eager expectation. I’ve seen this kind of hope in people of faith when they’re nearing death. Sometimes they’re eagerly awaiting it, almost like they’re in line for a ride at Disneyland. Excitement and eager expectation. Smiling and waiting. They have total confidence in the beauty and wonder of the place that Jesus has prepared. They believe Jesus when he says,

    Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.”

    We either believe Jesus about heaven or we don’t. We either believe this promise or we don’t.

    The people of faith who are excited about dying and being with Jesus believe this statement down to their very bones. You know who else has no fear of death? People who’ve had near-death experiences. The majority of them lose their fear of death. They believe they now know exactly what it’s like, and that’s one of the traits of people who’ve undergone those experiences. No fear.
    We need to decide whether we believe and trust Jesus. There will be trouble, but he’s with us. We’ll die, but he has prepared a place for us. We have the Bible’s brand of hope: eager expectation, not wishful thinking.

    Here again, we have a choice to believe Jesus or not. We have a choice to trust in Him and we can do that by making a effort to control our thoughts. We can choose what we want to think about. We can choose to be more disciplined in our thinking.

    Thoughts of Worthlessness

    The last category is thoughts of worthlessness. Just looking at the cross should remind us that we have value, worth and that we are loved. That is why we should keep a reminder of the sacrifice that Jesus made for us around us at all times. We need to constantly be reminded about the greatest act of love the world has ever or will ever see. We are loved, we have value and we have worth. We should feel confident, powerful and we should have a drive to move towards our purpose.

    My next book on pain and suffering should be coming out in the next month or two. If this blog or email has helped you in any way, please share it with your friends and family. Spread the word. We should be focused and fearless in pursuing truth and telling others about Jesus. That is the call for every believer.

    Your Brother In Christ,

    Johnny Cavazos MD

    Bravethewaveweride@gmail.com
    Bravethewave.org

    1. https://tlexinstitute.com/how-to-effortlessly-have-more-positive thoughts/#:~:text=In%202005%2C%20the%20National%20Science,thoughts%20as%20the%20day%20before.

    Discover Your Passion, Release Your Power: How to fulfill Your Purpose In the Power of the Authentic Self now available for purchase !!!

     

     

     

     

  • The Elements of Passion- Excitement

    The Elements of Passion- Excitement

                 Does Passion Really Matter ? Should We Even Care ?

     

    “One person with passion is better than forty people who are merely interested”  -EM Forster

    Should we even care about our God given passion ? Do you believe you have a God given passion ? In my upcoming book, Discover Your Passion, Release Your Power,  we will be going over this idea in detail. I believe that we have a God given passion and a God given purpose. Both are essential in helping us to maneuver in this world full of land mines and distractions.

    It isn’t difficult to see that with four hundred channels of cable  and the life watching that is going on in social media, it is easy to get lost in other peoples lives.  There seems to be a focus on watching other peoples lives and knowing all the details of everyone else’s life but our own. The reason this is a dangerous habit is that we are going to be held accountable for OUR lives, not anyone elses.

    Just yesterday I was listening to a presentation  by Christian apologist Frank Turek. He said that one sure way to be successful at life is the skill of learning to read and interpret the bible. Why?  So we don’t waste our lives.

    I believe God grants us a passion that is unique to help pursue and fulfill our purpose. There is value in discovering our passion and our purpose because they not only set us on the course that God has in mind for us, they protect us from veering off into directions that may harm us.  Passion and purpose protect us from bad decisions and bad choices. If we are parents, there is real value in instilling this into our children.

    The Elements of Passion

    If you have made a decision that there is value in discovering your passion, one important clue is excitement. Excitement coupled with emotion.   What gets you excited? What gets your heart rate going just a little faster? When there is passion, I believe there has to be some emotion involved. We are human beings with many different types of emotions. Emotions add spice to the sauce that is our life. They also give us direction and guidance when we are looking to get closer to our authentic selves. They are there for a reason.

    Excitement and emotion are two primary attributes to look for when you are trying to discover your passion. When you are excited and have emotion involved in any pursuit, there is energy. There is a buzz. There is some measure of power.

    No Passion, No Energy

    We know from statistics that currently about seventy five million people in this country would change jobs in a heartbeat if they could maintain their income and their lifestyle. That number is about half of the one hundred and fifty million people that make up the working population.  I am unashamedly one of those people.

    If we have no passion for our jobs and we don’t get excited about getting up and going to work everyday, that is a big weight across our shoulders that we are carrying around with us. It leads to misery, drudgery and a total lack of joy.  Do you believe that God wants us to be walking around with no energy and no joy?

    Christian musican Rich mullins wrote the song “Awesome God”, a big hit in the Christian genre in the 1980s. Here is a link to that song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w2b033DXCw

    Rich said, “This may be a cheap, but I’ll do a misquote of Frederick Buechner who says our calling is that place where the world’s greatest need and our greatest joy intersect. That God has designed each of us with gifts, with personality, with character. We’re each a unique person. And the world, we meet the world where there is a variety of needs, a variety of problems. And there’s a place where we intersect. There’s a place where my greatest joy and the world’s greatest need meet, and that Frederick Buechner would say was your calling. And I think that’s a pretty good definition of a calling.”

    Clearly Rich is saying that there is a divine plan. God wants us to meet the needs of those around us, but in the power of our unique gifts and personality.  Our greatest joy. Notice that he doesn’t use the word happiness. Joy is a spiritual gift. Our passion resides in the spirit. It is a supernatural gift. It is meant to be discovered, not determined. Just like purpose and identity.

    An Assignment of Energy,  An Assignment of Love

    Here is an excerpt from my second book on power and passion:

    Ask yourself, “what activities make me the most excited?” Pay attention to what you are talking about. That is an important clue. Are you talking about anything with a tone of excitement or buzz? That is where passion lies.
    We all have been given a heart for something. A passion or interest in something. It is God given and it is there. If you have no excitement in your life, you may have a dormant gift or passion that is buried deep in your heart. Have you discovered it?
    There are many clues to your own unique innate passion. If you know what your unique passion is, have you spent any time, effort or energy on cultivating it? Are you determined to develop your passion? Your passion will not grow and develop by itself. Effort is required.

    The whole impetus to writing my second book came out of a conversation that I had with my friends at lunch. All I asked was, “what is your passion? Where does your passion lie?” The responses had such an impact on me that I started the book the next day and it was finished in about eight or nine weeks. The most important driving force to write the book was the idea that there are people who believe that there is no time to pursue passion and that pursuing it was a luxury.  “I’m too busy working. Pursuing my passion is a luxury.”

    Is that true? It made me think, “how many people in this country are living their lives totally ignoring their passion and their purpose?”

    How you see your passion will determine your destiny and it will outline the value and importance of your purpose. Your God given assignment. When we ignore our passion, in essence we are ignoring our purpose. If you have read “Brave the Wave”, you know that I mention near death experiences or NDEs.  One question that is repeatedly mentioned when people have a near death experience is, “what have you done with your life to show me?”

    In my second book,  I go over the idea that  people who have undergone a near death experience tell us that at birth we are given an  “assignment of love” and “assignment of energy.”

    One other reason that this has personal implications for me is that I see this every day in my job as an emergency room physician.  “Doc, I don’t have any energy.  I’m tired all the time.”  You wouldn’t believe how common this complaint is.

    If you love your job and you could describe it as being your “dream job”,  God bless you.  My advice? Be grateful. Be grateful that you have a job that you love to show up early to and don’t mind staying late for.   The statistics tell us that you are in a group that comprises about 14% of the working population. (1)

    When we think about our passion and  purpose, they are assignments of love. God’s love for us. He doesn’t want us miserable and with no energy. He wants us using our gifts, talents and personality, in the power of our passion, pursuing our purpose.

    The whole idea is that when we are living in authenticity, our lives our powered, driven and motivated by our passion. It isabsolutely required to discover and release our Authentic Self, which is the entire premise of the Authentic Self series.

    What is the “Authentic Self”  ?       How do we define it.  Well, it is the person or self that God had in mind when he created you. It is the person you were meant to be, doing the tasks that you were meant to do, using the gifts and talents you were designed to use, with the love you were meant to share. 

    If you can believe and incorporate those ideas into your own life, you are on your way.

    If you know anyone who  seems to have no joy or energy, or who you think could benefit from discovering their unique passion and purpose, please forward this to them.

    God Bless,

    Have a Great Day !!!

     

     

    Here is a link to a podcast interview with me and Dr Joe Martin  that was just released on Real Men Connect,

    https://www.realmenconnect.com/podcast/episode/c5a4abaf/422-how-to-discover-your-authentic-self

    1. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-work/dream-job-most-u-s-workers-want-to-change-careers-poll-idUSBRE96015Z20130701

    Discover Your Passion, Release Your Power: How to fulfill Your Purpose in the Power of the Authentic Self now available for purchase !!

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • The New Year: From Can To Must

    The New Year: From Can To Must

                                 From Can To Must

     

    It’s a new year. That means New Years Resolutions. As some have said, “New Years Solutions.” Think about the word Resolution. The root is resolve. Resolve means “to decide firmly on a course of action.”

    Studies tell us that most people give up on their resolutions within six weeks. That doesn’t sound like these resolutions are “firm decisions”.

    This is a list of common resolutions that were compiled by a study looking at Google searches. They are taken from an excerpt from my new book on Passion, Power and Purpose.

    “Making a New Year’s resolution is a great way to make a positive change in your life, whether it’s going to the gym, waking up earlier, or saving your money. But, it’s very rare to keep your resolutions for the whole year. According to U.S. News, approximately 80% of resolutions fail by the second week of February, so the odds are against you.”

    This tells us that a huge majority of people are giving up on their resolutions, WITHIN SIX WEEKS. That means no perseverance, determination, focus or resilience. Those are only four elements characteristic of our unique, innate, God given passion. When we are looking at energy, power and purpose, the source of our energy is passion. Everyone has a passion for something.

    There are going to be critics who say, “yeah, but New Year’s resolutions have mostly to do with losing weight. Everyone knows how hard that can be.” I’m going to leave the weight loss idea alone for right now, because that is something I have studied and have experience with. Let’s look a little closer and focus on passion, purpose and energy.

    Let’s look at what are the most common New Year’s Resolutions and see if we can decipher an explanation as to why there is so much failure.

    This is from an NBC news report. These numbers are derived from Google searches so there is power in this data. These are the most common things people are looking to do to improve their lives.

    According to the data pulled from Google by iQuanti, these are the most popular New Year’s resolutions:

    1. Get Healthy: 62,776,640 searches,

    2. Get Organized: 33,230,420 searches,

    3. Live Life to the Fullest: 18,970,210,

    4. Learn New Hobbies: 17,438,670 searches,

    5. Spend Less/Save More: 15,905,290 searches,

    6. Travel More: 5,964,130 searches,

    7. Read More: 4,746,560 searches,

    Grand Total: 159,031,920,

    If we are to examine these resolutions carefully, are they things that people “must” do? If you can come up with one resolution right now that you knew you were guaranteed to reach, what would that be? Looking at that resolution or idea in your mind closely will help you realize that it really isn’t a resolution, it’s a wish. Just like the resolutions listed above. You could put “I wish I could..get healthy, get organized, lose weight, eat healthily etc.”

    From Can To Must

    When we are focused on our own innate God given passion, it moves from the “I wish” category to the “can’t not” category. It moves from  “I can” to  “I must.”   This transition releases real power.

    Is there anything in your life that you “can’t not” do? Is there anything in your life that you “must” do and if you don’t, it affects your own sense of well-being? That is passion.

    There are several examples of people who lived their lives engaged in their passion every day. They had to. There was no choice involved. Pablo Picasso created art and was constantly working on something. Stephen King writes every day, including holidays such as Christmas. Virtuoso violinist Itzak Perlman practices the violin every day, eight hours a day. These are examples of people engaging in their passion. They have no choice. It has moved from a can activity to a must activity.

    When it comes to writing books or attempting to write fiction or non-fiction, the best advice I’ve heard is “only do it if it has moved into the realm of the “can’t not”. Kind of like breathing. You can’t not breath and live.”

    That is what is incumbent on each of us as we are going about the business of our lives. Finding our passion and our purpose. We all have both.

    If you feel sluggish or listless, are you engaging in any passion at all? Is there anything that you are involved in that brings excitement and energy into your life? As a practicing physician, that is one of the complaints that is common to many people. “Doc, I just don’t have any energy. I’m weak and tired all the time.”

    My Job Is To Dream, But I Am Not In My Dream Job

    We know that only fourteen percent of the population are actually working in what they consider to be their “dream job”.

    “So much for a dream job. Only 14 percent of U.S. workers believe they have the perfect job and more than half want to change careers, according to a new poll released on Monday.”

    If we are in the majority, and we are not in our “dream job” and our career is not bringing the kind of fulfillment or joy that we are seeking, then we should make a resolution. “I am going to find my passion. I am going to find my purpose. I am going to decide firmly on this course of action.”

    This is consistent with the idea of the authentic self. When we are pursuing passion and purpose, we are moving toward what God had in mind for us when he created us. If we believe that he loves us, why would he create us to live without joy and passion? Why would he create us to be sluggish and miserable?

    He wouldn’t. We were created and gifted with a unique passion. As unique as our fingerprint. That passion is the energy that will drive us toward our purpose. We know that we are on the right track when we experience, joy, love, peace and fulfillment.

    And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

    Romans 8:28

    Discover and develop your passion. Seek your purpose. You won’t regret it.

    You can listen to Dr. Cavazos on the brand new Discover Your Authentic Self Podcast!

    https://www.realmenconnect.com/podcast/episode/c5a4abaf/422-how-to-discover-your-authentic-self

     

     

     

     

     

  • The Key To Unlock Peace

    The Key To Unlock Peace

    The Key To Unlock Peace

    What is the one thing that you think could solve the majority of your problems? I remember talking to a friend who was having difficulty with his business and trying to get new customers and he was very stressed out. I remember asking him, “If I gave you a million dollars right now, would that solve the majority of your problems?”. He sat back and thought about it for a few seconds and said, “Yes, yes it would.” Then I said, “then your problems are pretty small.”

    If we stop and think about our own individual situations, we are truly blessed. Just living in this country we are blessed. Half of the world’s population is living on two dollars a day or less and we are complaining about how bad we have it in the United States. We spend a lot of time thinking about what we don’t have rather than what we have. Therefore, we wallow in want and envy. That is a problem.

    As an example,  do you know what we have in this country that you don’t see in other countries? Storage businesses. Look around on your way to work and count how many businesses there are to store our excess “things”. We complain that we don’t have enough whatever. Money, time, clothes, cars, luxuries, vacations. Name it. If we stop and think about it, we are a nation of whiners.

    We are also very anxious. Very nervous. Very worried. Hey, I am part of it too. I worry about my business. I worry about paying the bills. Paying for college. Paying taxes. All of it. I’m in the same boat as everyone else. Where do we find peace? Well one place we can start is our own thoughts.  This blog gives some great suggestions. https://bravethewave.org/2020/03/12/control-your-thoughts-control-your-anxiety/

    Our Best Days

    One of the things we can do to help is as we are going through struggles is to remember that we are believers. We have faith and we are looking forward to the promises of Jesus. We tend to get bogged down in the day to day struggles of survival and we can’t  fully believe that we have an eternity of peace and joy and love to look forward to because of the grace of our salvation.  Jesus said,

    My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?

    (John 14:2 NIV)

    Look at how he ends that statement, ” if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?”  It is our choice. That is the essence of freewill.  We can choose to live by believing in Jesus and holding onto his promises or we can ignore them.

    I was listening to a book by Pastor Mark Driscoll, “Win Your War: Fighting in the Realm You Don’t See For Freedom in The World You Do”,  and  he presented an idea that really caught my attention.  As believers in Jesus, as we are pursuing our purpose, this life and the struggles, trials and pain we encounter will be the closest we get to hell. It won’t get any worse than this. Our best days are ahead of us because we look forward to an eternity in heaven. We relish the idea of spending time with Jesus in unimaginable joy, peace and love. This is an empowering idea. One key to peace is to always remember, OUR BEST DAYS ARE AHEAD OF US.

    Sometimes tough times are actually opportunities. Golden opportunities.  https://bravethewave.org/2020/03/20/on-the-front-lines-of-this-corona-battle/

    For unbelievers, this life is the closest that they will get to heaven. Their best days are the ones they are living now. Everything going forward is just going to get worse than the life they experience on earth. This is a sobering idea.
    It reminds me of an interview I saw with atheist director Woody Allen. Waking up terrified every day, he lives in a constant state of fear because he believes that life has no meaning. He believes that the concept of heaven and hell is just “nonsense”. Life is like a train ride and we all end up at the “same station”.   Once this life is over, there is nothing else. He lives in constant fear and he deals with it by making one movie per year. This view of the world brings terror and misery.

    When we can live in light of eternity and understand that our best days are ahead of us, we can be grateful.  Gratitude brings peace. It also bring love and joy.

    The Power of Gratitude

    There is only one way to get to peace and that is through the Prince of Peace. There is no other way. He is behind the door but the door is locked. The key is gratitude. When you use the key of being thankful for everything you have, it unlocks the door to his presence, His power and His peace. We should start by being grateful for Jesus. Grateful for our salvation. Then we can be grateful for the gifts of our family and friends. They are a gift from God to teach us how to love. If we aren’t dealing with chronic illnesses we can be grateful for our health. We really take that for granted.

    I myself just went through an episode of chronic back pain that lasted for months. Unrelenting pain. That was a real eye opener and I pray for any of you going through chronic pain. That is tough. If you are pain free and free from any physical ailments or disease at this time, I would get on your knees and thank the Good Lord. Don’t take your health for granted.

    The Prince of Peace

    There are two places on this planet that I know when I go there, I feel blessed. I need to expand the number of places where I feel blessed. We all should expand and grow the number of places we can go to and just sit and be grateful. Sit and be with Jesus. Sit and thank Him and love Him. Thank him for our families and our health and that we have abundance in this life.

    Unlock the door.  Remember that our best days are ahead of us. Be grateful. Then bask in HIS PEACE.

    You can listen to Dr Cavazos in the brand new Discover Your Authentic Self podcast!

    https://www.realmenconnect.com/podcast/episode/c5a4abaf/422-how-to-discover-your-authentic-self

     

    Discover Your Passion, Release Your Power: How to Fulfill Your Purpose in the Power of the Authentic Self is now available for purchase !!!

     

     

  • The “Only I” Guide To Spiritual Growth

    The “Only I” Guide To Spiritual Growth

    How often do you ask the “only I” question?

    “If you didn’t go work on Wall Street, would someone happily take your place? Probably. But what about moving back to your hometown and helping revive it? Maybe only you can do that. Plenty of other people can write clickbait, but only you can speak your truth.

    The wise, whether they’re Epictetus or Peter Thiel, know the real race is between mimicry and uniqueness, and most of all: purpose. When setting out on some new endeavor — building a business, producing a creative project — the question has to be: Is this something ONLY I can do?”

    – Ryan Holliday   13 Questions that will change your life

    I’m a big Ryan Holliday fan. His book “The Obstacle is the Way” is fascinating reading. It actually has many direct applications that apply to me as far as work, because in the emergency room, there are many obstacles.

    The thing that really struck me here was the idea of the “ONLY I” proposition. That is a unique idea to me because we rarely think that whatever we are working on is an “Only I” activity. We just go about whatever the task is and we really don’t ask ourselves the why question much. From personal experience, I know that I never ask “Is this somethat that “Only I” can accomplish?

    Our Unique Assignment

    Looking at the books that I am working on at this moment, there are examples and quotes and scenarios there that came from situations, research and study, and life experiences that I myself went through. Is it possible that “Only I” could write a book about passion that illustrates certain points and emphasizes certain ideas? I would argue that the answer to that is an emphatic YES.  I also strongly believe that there are tasks or assignments that “only you” can do.  Not only that, that assignment was given only to you. These assignments are linked to spiritual growth.

    This idea is exactly consistent with the what I have talked about in “Brave the Wave” and is also being discussed in my second book. When we view our tasks and our purpose and our passion, these are all “ONLY I” ideas. Your passion is unique to you. Your purpose is unique to you. Most importantly, your eternity is unique to you.

    When you have a Christian worldview and can see things from God’s perspective, you realize that you are special and unique and you have an assigned task to complete. In my second book on passion, I talk about how NDEs or near death experiences help us to understand that we each have an assignment to complete in the power of the gifts and talents that we were born with.

    Everyone has unique gifts and talents. Everyone. Therefore, we are responsible to discover and develop those talents and use the power that is granted to us through those gifts to fulfill our purpose.

    Here is an excerpt from Brave the Wave where I describe what Jesus told Howard Storm in his NDE,

    “The world is like God’s garden.  God made you and everyone else to bloom in that garden. And to be beautiful. And God made every one of you unique and special to be beautiful in your own way.”

    You have a purpose to fulfill and complete that is an “Only I” task. It is critical to your existence. It is absolutely crucial to your sense of fulfillment, joy and the realization of your authentic self.        Is there something out there that ONLY YOU can do?      I bet there is.

     

     

     

     

     

  • Becoming Everyone Else

    Becoming Everyone Else

    Becoming Everyone Else

    Where do we find our authentic self? How do we know if we are getting closer to authenticity. Just yesterday I was listening to a question and answer forum and one of the speakers made a very interesting comment. He said, “if you get a group of one hundred people and each of them is becoming more like Jesus as they begin to grow spiritually, they become less and less like each other as they move forward.” That is the essence of authenticity, it is moving away from becoming like everyone else.

    First we must realize that the only way to true authenticity is through our creator. God had a picture in his mind before he created the world of what we were to look like and what gifts and talents he was going to bestow on each of us. This picture is our authenticity. But it is through Christ that we reach that goal. There is no other way.

    “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

    (Ephesians 2:10 NLT)

    The Power of Self Examination

    How do we know that we are pursuing authenticity? How do we know that we are on the right track ? There is a simple way to look at this. Look at how we spend our time and our money. These two activities, spending time and spending money, give us a clear indicator of what we value in this life.  It gives us a clear outline of our motives and what we consider to be important.

    “The life unexamined is not worth living.”              -Socrates

    Constant self examination entails looking at our motives, our actions and our interactions. If we want to compare  our lives and our actions there is only one standard to go to. We go to the truth. Jesus.
    He is our standard. How are our lives measuring up to his perfect standard? We don’t look at ourselves and expect perfection, but we can all ask ourselves, “can I do better?”

    Are we devoting time and energy to serving others and using our gifts and talents in a way that help other people? We can look at the idea of fruit. Spiritual fruit. Is there any evidence of love, joy, peace,kindness, patience, goodness and self control in our lives?

    “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”
    (Galatians 5:23 NLT)

    We can look at our own lives and examine our motives, our actions and our values. The last line from the verse tells us a great deal about what we are to avoid. We are to avoid being conceited, provoking and envying each other. When it comes to being conceited we are thinking about our self and our own glory and pride. When it comes to envy and jealousy, this excerpt below sums it up very nicely.

    “Envy, for example, does not aim to merit anything, but it is the product of a heart that thinks it merits more than it is getting. Jealousy is not calculated to earn any pay, but it is the product of a heart that expected to be paid what went to another. In other words, the kind of heart that produces these vices is a heart that thinks of itself as creditor and everyone else as its debtors. The flesh is convinced of its own merit and expects God and man and nature to pay dues by giving the satisfaction it desires.”

    John Piper

    https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/walk-by-the-spirit

    A World of Clones

    We can look at our own lives and see if there is envy for the life that others have. We can look at jealousy and see if we expect to be paid something that was given to someone else. Both do not lie in the realm of authenticity. We are focused on becoming more like everyone else.

    If we go back to the very first idea and recognize that when we are pursuing authenticity by becoming more like Jesus, we become more and more like the individual that God had in mind when he created us. We become less and less like everyone else.

    When we are focused on our own idea of what we consider to be a “better version” of ourselves, and we are pursuing a false or inauthentic self, we become more and more like everyone else. We easily assimilate into a group of people that think and act exactly alike. Most often pursuing the same kind of goals that are worldly and fleshly and in the end, have no value. We become clones.

    In this group we focus on ourselves and we become engulfed in a world of  conceit, envy, jealousy, comparison and provoking.

    Just look at social media.   It’s all there.

     

     

  • Dying While Vying For Attention

    Dying While Vying For Attention

     Dying For Attention

    People are dying for attention.  If we look at our own lives, we are engaged in continual, uninterrupted, relentless distraction. That is what we are dealing with in trying to raise our children. It is constant bombardment. Social media, advertising, television, reality shows, and movies. The competition for our attention is mind boggling. Now we have individuals all seeking attention on you tube, instagram and other social media sites. So instead of a few television shows and three networks as we had in the 1970s, we now have literally millions of tiny little reality tv shows in the form of you tube channels and instagram accounts with people posting enticements and excitement and the best pics they can find. People are literally dying while vying for your attention.

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2019/05/22/why-you-take-selfies-and-how-its-dangerous/3691366002/

    How do we contend with this in our children?  If we practice observation, we see adults and parents are getting sucked into the vortex of this phenomenon. I  see whole families at a restaurant all looking down at their cell phones not interacting on a personal level because they are enthralled with whoever they are “following”.

    Addiction or Harmless Activity ?

    This is a huge grand social experiment that no one has any idea what the repercussions will be. If someone suggests that they have a notion of the consequences of this experiment, they are lying.   No one knows what the outcome of all this will be.  We have to be honest with ourselves. If we stop to think about our own history, there probably hasn’t ever been such a focus on vying for the attention of other people in the history of our country. Can you think of any?

    In this grand social experiment, we have created a world where everyone is an entertainer. Everyone. If everyone becomes an entertainer, then there will be no one left to be the audience.

    The Power of Focus

    I was watching a documentary on Warren Buffet a few months ago and he was telling a story about how Bill Gates’s father sat Bill Gates  and Warren Buffet down and gave them a piece of paper. He told them, “write down the most important factor in your success, but don’t show each other what you wrote down.”  What was fascinating to me was that they both wrote the same word. FOCUS.

    When we think about our own lives and the successes we have had, most likely focus was involved.  If we are just bouncing around moving from one mindless activity to another, we lose focus. When we lose focus, we lose power.

    Why is this such a problem? Because prayer, meditation and our spiritual growth all require focus. Who smiles when we are distracted ? Only Satan. When we are constantly trying to get everyone to look at our lives, that circumvents our own pursuit of our purpose. It is subtraction by means of distraction. We lose our passion and our purpose when we are so busy observing and being entertained by the lives of others. We should really look at the value of blowing time watching other people’s lives.

    All who make idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Those who would speak up for them are blind; they are ignorant, to their own shame. Who shapes a god and casts an idol, which can profit nothing? People who do that will be put to shame; such craftsmen are only human beings. Let them all come together and take their stand; they will be brought down to terror and shame.  The blacksmith takes a tool and works with it in the coals; he shapes an idol with hammers, he forges it with the might of his arm. He gets hungry and loses his strength; he drinks no water and grows faint. The carpenter measures with a line and makes an outline with a marker; he roughs it out with chisels and marks it with compasses. He shapes it in human form, human form in all its glory, that it may dwell in a shrine.                                                               (Isaiah 44:9-14  NLT)

      Could we be making our cell phones an idol? If we are devoting on average 6 to 8 hours a day to it, it would be hard to argue that it isn’t.  This is where self examination comes into play. Where is the value in following the activities or lives of others? How do we benefit and how do our children benefit from know the details of the lives of strangers?  That is an important question.

     

     

  • Teen Suicide and Depression Skyrocketing

    Teen Suicide and Depression Skyrocketing

    Teen Suicide and Depression Skyrocketing

    This is a major problem and it is just beginning to get noticed. Teen depression and teen suicide rates are skyrocketing. When children see suicide as a solution to a problem, that is a huge problem. I have seen it myself working in the emergency room. Sometimes it is impulsive behavior in the form of taking a handful of pills. One big problem is that we think an act of suicide, whether successful or not, is an impulsive event. It’s an act of impulse. We know that we don’t get good impulse control until we get to the age of around 22 to 25 years of  age.

    https://www.npr.org/2016/04/15/474348291/why-teens-are-impulsive-addiction-prone-and-should-protect-their-brains

    What we are seeing is an increasing isolation due to a huge social experiment. That of social media.  We are seeing more interaction on cell phones rather than face to face relationships and support systems. Social isolation is a problem. Coupled with bullying and a sense of not belonging is a powerful trifecta that leaves teens feeling lonely, depressed and saddled with low self esteem.  It leaves them with few options.

    Rising rates of youth suicide and psychiatric disorders come as the health care system has started to focus on the effect of loneliness on mental and physical health. Young people, seemingly the most connected of all through social media, are being hit hard, San Diego State University psychology professor Jean Twenge reported in a study in March. 

    Teens whose face time with friends is mostly on their phones are the loneliest of all, but even those who mix real-world socializing with social media still are increasingly isolated, Twenge found. The share of high school seniors who said they often felt lonely increased from 26% in 2012 to 39% in 2017.

    An NBC News/Survey Monkey poll out today places much of the blame for teen mental health challenges on social media. Nearly a third of about 1,300 parents of 5- to 17-year-olds blamed social media for mental and emotional health problems in children. Bullying and stress were the next most frequently cited problems in the poll, part of the network’s Kids Under Pressure series this week. 

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2019/05/20/teen-suicide-depression-soar-but-treatment-hard-find/3679364002/

    Solutions ?

    When teenagers and children spend most of their time on social media, they are instilled with a vision or an idea, that everyone else has a better life than they do.

    This is what Selena Gomez said about socal media. Keep in mind that she has 150 million followers.

    “Gomez said too much screen time on Instagram made her “kind of depressed looking at these people who look beautiful and amazing, and it would just get me down a lot, so I just think taking breaks is really important.”

    Look at her comment, “it would just get me down a lot”.  This is someone who is beautiful, talented and famous. How are our teenagers supposed to feel? The antidote to lonliness and isolation is relationships.  Family and friends that are there for support. From thirty years of experience in the emergency room, I can tell you we know who is at highest risk for another attempt of suicide after discharge from the hospital. It’s those with very limited social support. Few family members. Few friends.  One way to counteract this growing trend is to emphasize the importance of friendships and the family. The family is the laboratory of love. The classroom of love. We should emphasize spending time with friends and developing close strong and supportive friendships with classmates or teammates. This is what God had in mind for us as believers.  There are fifty nine mentions of “each other” in the New Testament.  Love, support, encourage, pray for, take care of each other. How many mentions do we need?

    Why is this a subject that bothers me so much?  Personal experience. I knew someone back in high school who had everything you could want as a teenager. He was popular, athletic, smart and he drove a cool car. He had his whole life ahead of him. He committed suicide.  I always think about what Jesus told him when he stood before him.  I think that Jesus may have said, “I gave you all these gifts to use in this life. Everything that anyone could ever want. What did you do with this life to show me? Did you love and serve others using the gifts that I gave you? How much time did you spend seeking your purpose while in this life?  Did you use the time, talent and gifts in this life to fulfill the plan I had for you?

    Our Life, One Millimeter

    I think about something that I just heard this week.  Eternity is like a rope stretched from California to Japan. Our lives are like the first one millimeter of that rope. That is all we have.  One millimeter.  What we do in this time has an impact on that long rope.  As we age,  time seems to be  speeding up.  It feels like we are running out of time. Then I think about the teenagers who contemplate suicide.  They are going to have to explain their act to a higher being. If we approach life from a Christian worldview and we believe in the phenomenon of NDEs, we know that we are going to be held accountable for what we did in this life.

    I use the story of this high school friend of mine with my children and I have told this story often because I want them to embrace the idea that our time on earth is precious. We only have a set amount of time while we are here, so we must live our lives in a way that is consistent with wisdom. That means thinking the way God and Jesus think.

    I tell my children that God had a plan in mind for them before they were born. He has a purpose for them to fulfill that is unique. He has also given them the gifts, talent, time and energy to fulfill that purpose. We get to that purpose by striving to grow closer to our authentic selves. The selves we were created to be. The only way we get through that narrow path is by a growing thriving and healthy relationship with Jesus. He is our path to authenticity, power , peace, fulfillment, joy and salvation.

    “The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.”

    (John 10:10 NLT)