Listen to Can You Get Up? by Pastor W. Eric Croomes on #SoundCloud

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2 Corinthians 5: 17 KJV).

What a blessing newness is! Our newness in Christ is “renewed” daily – and it never wears off!

Human beings do not live in a bubble. There really is no such thing as ‘I’m just doing me.’ From the very second we open our eyes in the morning to the minute we close them at night, we are pummeled by a relentless assault on the senses, some of it directly, most of it indirectly.

Here’s the key: in our sensory-inducing world, we are always in a state of becoming. The process never ends. The good news is that we can play a part in that process if we keep alert to the four vital signals.

Throughout our day, our ability to meet the demands of our physical environment depends largely on variables that we can and must control.

We become what we watch. We become what we listen to. We become who we hang around. We become what we put into our body.

We are constantly being melded by these four (among others) conscious markers. Here’s how.

We Become What We Watch

On average, American adults are watching five hours and four minutes of television per day, according to studies. Four and a half hours of that total is live television (or television watched when originally broadcast).  That’s nearly a quarter of one’s day crunched mainly into the evening, post-work hours.

If we become what we think about, then surely we become what we watch. Let’s face it. Network and cable programming do not give us a healthy mix of viewing opportunities these days.

Watch what you watch! Learn to moderate the murder, mayhem and misery constantly streaming from the tube these says. Your spirit will thank you for it.

We Become What We Listen To

Closely related to watching is listening. What are you listening to? What music fills your head? Music can be empowering. Plato wrote, Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. Not only listening to music is empowering, but listening to nature can be just as liberating an act. Do yourself a favor. Just go to a park one day, sit on a bench and just watch listen. Listen especially for the sounds of children at play; listen for the birds; listen to the sound of water running through a creek, or the huffs of runners as they wind through the park. If you do this, I guarantee the one sound that you will hear loud and unequivocally will be the sound of your own soul.

We Become the People We Hang Around

How many dreams have been assassinated, how many aspirations scuttled due to toxic, negative people? Who are the people you hang around with? Where are they headed in life? What are their dreams?

The fact is, in terms of goals, strategies and motivation, we are the sum total of our five closest associates. Birds of a feather do indeed hang together. Pick your ‘friends’ wisely; you inhale their dreams, just as you inhale the space they occupy.

We Become What We Put Into Our Body

What you eat privately you wear publicly, goes a well-known adage. It’s true. People are essentially walking advertisements of what they eat. Show me an overweight individual who eats bad and I will show you a lean person who eats clean.

What we put into our body goes far beyond the pounds that fret us on a daily basis; it also determines our mood, energy level, attitude and the range of endurance we move about on any given day.

In Christ, we are always in a state of becoming. Our newness never wears off. What a blessing newness is!

Pastor W. Eric Croomes can be reached at pastorcroomes@outlook.com or on Facebook at Pastor W. Eric Croomes

Listen to Our God Power by W. Eric Croomes on #SoundCloud

Much emphasis has been given to the subject of wellness in our culture. More and more people are endeavoring to create lives of motivation and meaning, searching for ways to deepen their existence through such practices as meditation, proportioned meals, mindfulness and flexibility training, to name a few.

What does it mean to be well? There are many definitions of out there, but my favorite is the one is cited by the National Wellness Institute:

Wellness is a conscious, self-directed and evolving process of achieving full one’s full potential.

The key is ‘potential’. The fact is wellness is not some destination we arrive at, it’s a journey we are always on. That is to say, to be ‘well’ is to continuously seek ways of expanding our meaning, our value and the pursuit of the life we cherish.

The Bible is not a “treatise” on exercise; believers are not instructed on the intricacies of wellness. But because we serve a God is above all and in us all, we know that God desires our wholeness – God wants us to be well in our body, mind and spirit! The Apostle John intimates this in his letter, “Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health, and that all may go well with you, even as you soul is getting along well.” (3 John 1:2 ESV).

The question is how do we optimize our wellness as believers?

Several key factors play into this optimal pursuit, but its point of departure is God.

One, optimal personal wellness seeks to achieve a type of life experience in which the user is less reactive and more responsive to one’s environment. In short, we master our environment; our environment does not master us.

Two, optimal personal wellness is the regaining of choice and personal freedom; it is no longer feeling restrained by the constant presence of religious liturgy and practice, which can act to limit one’s self-expression and sense of belonging.

Lastly, optimal personal wellness reminds us we are not changeless and immutable. Time has dehumanized us, turning us into robotic spectacles that move from experience to experience rotely – never learning, never gleaning its inherent value. The pursuit of wellness reconnects us to our organic nature. The result is more love, more value and more meaning.

For wellness to become an ‘optimal’ experience, it must govern the way we think about our lives, about our bodies and about relationships. It’s not how long we are in relationships; it’s not how often we workout and it’s not about the quantity of relationships we’ve involved with. It’s about quality. Either way, that quality begins with a relationship with God.

Transforming longevity into meaning is the end game of optimal personal wellness.

I recently polled a small sampling of readers who were asked:

“Which is more desirable? A meaningful relationship or optimal personal wellness?

Surprisingly, most respondents chose the latter. Why surprising? Because the human need for companionship and affection runs at a much deeper level than the desire for flexibility, mindfulness, clean eating and sustained concentration. Broken people inhabit broken relationships.

We want to be loved for where we are and who we are as opposed to who we may become. Most people want to be accepted for “who I am”.

Witness the individual with little to offer materially but a lot to offer – as they see it – it terms of love, understanding and affection.

This somehow bucks the negative realities that may exist financially, vocationally and otherwise. We may love powerfully, we believe, in spite of where we are economically and otherwise.

In the ideal world, both of the aforementioned virtues exist in a perfect symmetry. Optimal personal wellness and a meaningful relationship share a common spirit. We find both of these commonalities in our relationship with God.

How to achieve such a utopia is the question. The answer, I believe, is accepting where and who you are, and to push along through life with a dogged determination to become the best expression of what and who you may become in Christ. And know this: God has plans to prosper you and not bring you harm (Jeremiah 29:11).

Be well.

Pastor W. Eric Croomes can be reached at PastorCroomes@Outlook.com or on Facebook at Pastor W. Eric Croomes

Recently I tuned in to a special broadcast by Les Brown, one of my favorite speakers. Just thirty seconds in, Brown dropped this amazing bomb. He said our lives will be governed by three things in the New Year: habits, fears and the opinions of others.

I immediately took out a pen and pad and wrote this essay to guard against this likely assailant on my peace of mind in 2020. I am sharing this piece with you so that we as believers may stand in the vanguard and that we may live in the miraculous! After all, that is our sacred space, according to Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.”

Habits

General Colin Powell writes, If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude. My attention hangs on the word ‘prevailing’; it means “having the most appeal or influence”.  A prevailing period of one’s life is often where habits are nourished. It is the thing we do best when we are at our best.

Take your best habit and weigh it against your worst. Which one prevails? I’d bet that your best habit was something minute, barely noticeable; something you did with your eyes closed. Your worst habit, though? Likely it was raiding the ice box at inopportune times of the evening and seeing the pounds add up as a result.

Do not be governed by bad habits in the New Year. Endeavor to do the small things until they end up as big differences.

Fears

Remember those immortal words of Marianne Williamson of a generation ago? When she wrote: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frighten us.

Those words have held sway for a reason: they resound with truth.

Our dreams wilt and die not because we fear our dreams will fail, but rather because we fear the success they will become. The truth is our greatest ignominy is fear of success; that we cannot and will not be able to handle success. It is why we talk but are slow to act. It is why we dream but fail to put feet under those dreams. It is, regrettably, why we end up blending in with the excuse crowd as we pitifully attempt to rationalize why we didn’t publish that book, open that business or enroll in that course at the local college.

In 2020, step into the final frontier and destroy your fears.

Opinion of Others

Pay attention to the person who has always talked about it but failed to be about it. There’s a lesson that person brings to life every day. I guarantee you that that person took a poll of his or her dream among their closest five associates. They took their dream, their ‘baby’ to “others”; asked for their opinion and guess what? Four of the five had negative feedback; one said it couldn’t be done; two said it could be done – just not by you! The fourth one never got the gist of the dream and just nodded in approval. Just one person in five – on average – will see your dream.

What will cause you to live defeated in 2020 is listening to the overwhelming naysayers in your life about your biggest aspirations and goals.

One of the last things the venerable Steve Jobs said before his death was this: Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life…don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.  Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

Let’s work together as not to be governed by our habits, fears and opinions of others in the New Year. Let’s live in the miraculous 2020!

Pastor W. Eric Croomes can be reached PastorCroomes@Outlook.com or Pastor W. Eric Croomes on Facebook.