Author: Merlin Erb

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New To Me: Two Worthy of Note Definitions Followed By Scriptural Perspective For Your Eternal GPS.

Mainstream Job is Disinformation

“The job of mainstream media is not to inform, but to misinform the public, making it harder for people to make informed decisions about things that impact their own lives, and that of their families.

Mass media is used to divert public attention from important issues and changes that are decided upon by the political and economic elites, through the technique of derailing important facts or information through the continuous flood of distractions, mindless entertainment and insignificant information.”

Reading upon awakening this morning from Evening June 11 dailylightdevotional.org The Isaiah 65:17 verse led to reading the entire chapter well into the next book of Jeremiah providing future assurance. Be not mocked today by the Prince of the airways mentioned in “Is AI ah” 65:25 “…but snakes-they’ll get dirt! Neither animal nor human will kill hurt or kill anywhere on my Holy Mountain,” says God. Relish in the reality His Spirit provides you today from these verses… Just thinking… Is AI ah really an Ah-Ha moment? Sorry. Just my humor. But I’m deadly serious about the “lateness of the hour! Remember the ten foolish & the ten wise? Why the oil? Blessings as you go forth today. And tomorrow too.

Behold, I make all things new. Rev. 21:5

Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. John 3:3

If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. II Cor. 5:17

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. Ezek. 36:26

Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump. I Cor. 5:7

The new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Eph. 4:24

Thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the LORD shall name. Isa. 62:2

Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. Isa. 65:17

Seeing … that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness? II Pet. 3:11

And now for the CLINCHER

Isaiah 65:1-25 (MSG)

  1. “I’ve made myself available to those who haven’t bothered to ask. I’m here, ready to be found by those who haven’t bothered to look. I kept saying ‘I’m here, I’m right here’ to a nation that ignored me.
    2. I reached out day after day to a people who turned their backs on me, People who make wrong turns, who insist on doing things their own way.
    3. They get on my nerves, are rude to my face day after day, Make up their own kitchen religion, a potluck religious stew.
    4. They spend the night in tombs to get messages from the dead, Eat forbidden foods and drink a witch’s brew of potions and charms.
    5. They say, ‘Keep your distance. Don’t touch me. I’m holier than thou.’ These people gag me. I can’t stand their stench.
    6. Look at this! Their sins are all written out— I have the list before me. I’m not putting up with this any longer. I’ll pay them the wages
    7. They have coming for their sins. And for the sins of their parents lumped in, a bonus.” God says so. “Because they’ve practiced their blasphemous worship, mocking me at their hillside shrines, I’ll let loose the consequences and pay them in full for their actions.”
    8. God’s Message: “But just as one bad apple doesn’t ruin the whole bushel, there are still plenty of good apples left. So I’ll preserve those in Israel who obey me. I won’t destroy the whole nation.
    9. I’ll bring out my true children from Jacob and the heirs of my mountains from Judah. My chosen will inherit the land, my servants will move in.
    10. The lush valley of Sharon in the west will be a pasture for flocks, And in the east, the valley of Achor, a place for herds to graze. These will be for the people who bothered to reach out to me, who wanted me in their lives, who actually bothered to look for me.
    11. “But you who abandon me, your God, who forget the holy mountains, Who hold dinners for Lady Luck and throw cocktail parties for Sir Fate,
    12. Well, you asked for it. Fate it will be: your destiny, Death. For when I invited you, you ignored me; when I spoke to you, you brushed me off. You did the very things I exposed as evil; you chose what I hate.”
    13. Therefore, this is the Message from the Master, God: “My servants will eat, and you’ll go hungry; My servants will drink, and you’ll go thirsty; My servants will rejoice, and you’ll hang your heads.
    14. My servants will laugh from full hearts, and you’ll cry out heartbroken, yes, wail from crushed spirits.
    15. Your legacy to my chosen will be your name reduced to a cussword. I, God, will put you to death and give a new name to my servants.
    16. Then whoever prays a blessing in the land will use my faithful name for the blessing, And whoever takes an oath in the land will use my faithful name for the oath, Because the earlier troubles are gone and forgotten, banished far from my sight.
    17. “Pay close attention now: I’m creating new heavens and a new earth. All the earlier troubles, chaos, and pain are things of the past, to be forgotten.
    18. Look ahead with joy. Anticipate what I’m creating: I’ll create Jerusalem as sheer joy, create my people as pure delight.
    19. I’ll take joy in Jerusalem, take delight in my people: No more sounds of weeping in the city, no cries of anguish;
    20. No more babies dying in the cradle, or old people who don’t enjoy a full lifetime; One-hundredth birthdays will be considered normal— anything less will seem like a cheat.
    21. They’ll build houses and move in. They’ll plant fields and eat what they grow.
    22. No more building a house that some outsider takes over, No more planting fields that some enemy confiscates, For my people will be as long-lived as trees, my chosen ones will have satisfaction in their work.
    23. They won’t work and have nothing come of it, they won’t have children snatched out from under them. For they themselves are plantings blessed by God, with their children and grandchildren likewise God-blessed.
    24. Before they call out, I’ll answer. Before they’ve finished speaking, I’ll have heard.
    25. Wolf and lamb will graze the same meadow, lion and ox eat straw from the same trough, but snakes—they’ll get a diet of dirt! Neither animal nor human will hurt or kill anywhere on my Holy Mountain,” says God.
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A Changeless God In A Senseless World

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. James 1:17

No matter how dear your friends are, they can fail. No matter how much money you have, you can go broke. No matter how diligently you exercise, you can get sick. Even your most trusted walking stick can break. Your dearest dream can die. Life is as uncertain as the clouds that gather and scatter, and as fickle as the waves on a beach.

That being said, we oldsters today are experiencing losses that are not easy for us to verbalize among our peers and especially, our genetic down-line. We, who were birthed during the 30-40 year period from just prior WWII until our nation’s 200th birthday, largely experienced the cultural dimensions of hope and prosperity as communicated to us by our parents, family, close-knit communities and the relevant stable institutions, etc., providing us in the USA, at least on the surface, a mostly invigorating world view, even though we usually knew much of the world’s populations were struggling for adequate water, sustenance, shelter, and especially, physical and emotional health and its subsequent well being.

Fact is today, the hopelessness formerly experienced in either third world or strife or war-torn countries during our first 30-40 years of life has now come home to roost in Europe and North America, and more than a few of us are increasingly, viewing our current culture and living conditions at their best, kindly spoken, simply as “senseless!” The evidence is now in plain sight even with the switch & bait games, with such as the Covid fiasco & lock-down (who knows, perhaps to be repeated again by the Moderna bird flu jab and it’s subsequent lock-down), the Ukraine War, Trump trial, Israel Gaza conflict, the disintegration of our inner-connected global economies, fragmented dysfunctional homes & families, evil now called good & good now called evil, rampant impairing addictions cutting across all segments of populations, etc., etc.

And we of the group birthed in that 30-40 year window, are now being smartingly irritated from this descending & prevailing cloud of senselessness. So, often we simply choose not to meaningfully communicate with those born since the eighties including now too often even those labeled progressive oldsters because the conversations between all of these media purposely polarized generations just doesn’t seem to go so well, or for sure, not end well. 

And so, we oldsters too often simply withdraw, at the very moment in our personal history of destiny, that we are most needed to be lovingly engaged with the younger crowd, to come alongside them while they are being pawned or hawked by media outlets, so as to draw out their questions, concerns, frustrations, conclusions, as well as their dreams, goals and aspirations during these darker senseless days that are oppressing them relentlessly without evidential access to His hope from us, virtually to their fatal demise, that being, of course, the bottom line for Satan and his crew. Seriously, think this through!

Some of you may well recall your emotional darkness during the Berlin wall going up, the Cuban missile crisis, the three assassinations (Kennedy’s & King, Vietnam atrocities, Cambodian bombings, etc. And, as traumatic as these events were for us, I now consider everything we experienced in our first forty years of life as rather trivial and insignificant compared to the cultural, moral, emotional, spiritual and physical nuclear blasts figuratively speaking being unleashed on the younger generations today. And to think we oldsters are off busying ourselves elsewhere thereby avoiding our responsibilities rather than even directly refusing to engage with them (ignorance is bliss?) during these horrific world and cultural events for whatever be our excuses; shame on us!

For example, just observe how pervasive the mothering instincts is in nature with its young; thus serving or confirming the biological basis for that truth. Fact is physically and emotionally, our infants and children, even youth, are the most vulnerable of all God’s creation while in their preparation to achieve their life’s destinies; and are we content to just sit back and watch them struggle without the benefit of our experience, hopefully wisdom, and His love, within a Cultivating Anchored Community?

Isn’t it sad for us with such a rich spiritual heritage that we are actually allowing ourselves to be held hostage now in this senseless world since we are literally ignoring our changeless God? Especially so, when we actually do have a God with whom there is no variation nor shadow of turning. He doesn’t have shifting moods, bad days, “oops” moments, momentary breakdowns, or changes of mind or heart. He’s as consistent as a plumb line, as steady as a rock, and as unchanging as eternity. He is as He has always been and always will be. Forever He is enthroned in the highest, and forever His Word is fixed in the heavens.

BOTTOM LINE: Even though our culture’s actions, sights, sounds & smells may at times overwhelm us, take strength in the fact our forefathers chose to walk with God the best they could, and so can we, and most assuredly, so can our children. God’s provisions for us are the same in every generation. His promises cannot fail, His presence cannot dim, His power cannot wane. We can trust Him completely.

“False christs and false prophets will rise and show signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. But take heed; see, I have told you all things beforehand.” Mark 13:22-23.

It is not wise to be overly confident dogmatic as we try to interpret current events. The twists and turns of history are under God’s providential control, and it’s best to watch prayerfully so we can take advantage of open doors for evangelism while awaiting our Lord’s return. We must live every day with confidence and excitement that no matter how dark or senseless the news reports, our sovereign Lord is in control.

This quickie admonition I tweaked from David Jeremiah’s Discovery April 21 several paragraphs is much too long, but you are well aware by now, if I’m inspired, brevity is not one of my virtues. And adding insult to injury, I’d be remiss if I’d not share yet, for those of you with more time and interest, the nugget I found in today’s, June 6, dailylightdevotional.org in it’s Evening’s 8th innocuous verse from Ephesians 2:14, “He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us.” Since that was unclear to me, I read it in the Message and that really opened up the gates! So simple, so plain! And yes, FYI, I am aware today’s theme of we oldster’s stepping up to the plate that was was also hit on earlier in the conclusion of the Eat Move Sleep Finale post. Perhaps there is a reason. Be aware though, my scribblings are written first to me.

In fact, I suggest at some point you all read the whole chapter to get a vision for God’s big picture. Such will serve you well considering the senselessness all about us! Here it is from The Message Version, for your ready comprehension. The scholarly translations have their place BUT hopefully not to complicate Truth for the masses. I include the verses here because too many readers are yet without a copy. Most thrift stores in our area have copies for cheap. Better, keep a supply yourself to give away when appropriate.

NEXT UP: Since this turned out to be something of a weekend edition, the next post will be short & sweet.

Ephesians 2:1-22 (MSG) 

  1. It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin.
    2. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience.
    3. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us.
    4. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love,
    5. he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us!
    6. Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
    7. Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus.
    8. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish!
    9. We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing!
    10. No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
    11. But don’t take any of this for granted. It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God’s ways
    12. had no idea of any of this, didn’t know the first thing about the way God works, hadn’t the faintest idea of Christ. You knew nothing of that rich history of God’s covenants and promises in Israel, hadn’t a clue about what God was doing in the world at large.
    13. Now because of Christ—dying that death, shedding that blood—you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything.
    14. The Messiah has made things up between us so that we’re now together on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders. He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance.
    15. He repealed the law code that had become so clogged with fine print and footnotes that it hindered more than it helped. Then he started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.
    16. Christ brought us together through his death on the Cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility.
    17. Christ came and preached peace to you outsiders and peace to us insiders.
    18. He treated us as equals, and so made us equals. Through him we both share the same Spirit and have equal access to the Father.
    19. That’s plain enough, isn’t it? You’re no longer wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You’re no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home. He’s using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is building.
    20. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he’s using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone
    21. that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God,
    22. all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home. 
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Producing Fruit Is All About Union, Communion & Timing…

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself…. Neither can you, unless you abide in Me. John 15:4

Missionary pioneer Hudson Taylor worked so hard in China that his health was impaired. One day a letter came from a friend who wrote about the joy of abiding in Christ. The letter said, “Abiding, not striving nor struggling; looking off unto Him; trusting Him for present (perhaps power…. This is not new, and yet ‘tis new to me.”

Reading this at his mission station at Chin-kiang on September 4, 1869, Taylor’s eyes were opened. “As I read,” he recalled, “I saw it all. I looked to Jesus; and when I saw, oh how the joy flowed!” Writing to his sister, he said: “As to work, mine was never so plentiful, so responsible, or so difficult; but the weight and strain are all gone. The last month or so has been perhaps the happiest of my life, and I long to tell you a little of what the Lord has done for my soul.”

This became known as the “Hudson Taylor Spiritual Secret.”

BOTTOM LINE:

Proclaiming the Word is not something we do for Christ but something He does through us as we abide in Him.

“The branch … rests in union and communion with the vine; and at the right time, and in the right way, is the right fruit found on it.”  Hudson Taylor, sometime after his 9/4/1869 revelation.

NEXT UP:  A Changeless God In A Senseless World

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Comparisons Can Be Huge Counterproductive Distractions!!

During the 2012-2013 season, the Miami heat won twenty-seven consecutive basketball games.

The all-time NBA record for consecutive victories is thirty-three, by the Los Angeles Lakers during the 1971-1972 season. Naturally, there was great interest to see whether or not Miami could break this record, which they didn’t, but the interest didn’t stop there. No. We had to know, for instance, if that Miami was really“as great” as that prior Laker team. Where did that Miami team rank historically? Would the streak have become meaningless if the Heat hadn’t capped the season with a championship? It was a rare thing during that time to hear someone say, “Gosh, this winning streak is really a wonderful achievement,” without moving immediately to someone trying to categorize just exactly how wonderful it was.

Perhaps we are tempted to do the same thing with our Christianity? It just not enough to be a Christian, is it? We must immediately know how good a Christian we are. Most of the time, we do it subconsciously, when we think that “so-and-so is such a faithful woman of God,” or that “he is such a prayerful man.” It seems we make it such a steep slope for example, for the prodigal son “coming home” to then, “becoming a qualified & quantified Christian,” as we then, at least if we’re honest, resort to, as did the Heat / Laker basketball fans, by getting consumed with determining their comparable proficiency as a winning streak BB team, or more importantly for we, as either new or old followers of Christ, and our works or maturity. Ouch! That is SO not the point.

Remember that line from John Newton’s classic: Amazing Grace”? ”How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed!” The implication is clear: it’s easy for us to forget how precious grace felt and how much we needed it at the beginning of our Christian lives. And then, the moment we feel safe or that we’re getting better, grace starts to become less amazing to us. Are we being tempted to assume we needed grace a lot more at the beginning, but that as we grow and improve, we need it less and less. Ouch again! Big mistake.

The fact is, we never outgrow our need for grace. Growth is always growth into grace, not away from it. And the good news is that God’s grace is inexhaustible. It was there for us at the beginning, it will be there for us at the end, and it is there every moment of every day in between.

BOTTOM LINE: Are we not to live continually empowered and assured in the Light of His Spirit, free of our self-inflicted earthly fleshly comparisons, or even our well-meaning spiritual companions .

BB Update: In their last two games 11/6/23 and 1/03/24, the Miami Heat beat the LA Lakers 108-107 & 110-96. And the significance today of their past consecutive wins, whether 43 or 11 years ago, is fading fast for any relevant BB predictions or comparisons. My 3 -pointer exactly for us today spiritually. Run the drills. Ignore those distracting comparisons!

Source: It Is Finished. 365 Days of Good News June 4. (slightly tweaked)

Next Up:   Fruit is all about Union, Communion & Timing

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Fear Is Thrown Away

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment.” I John 4:18

When a child is frightened, he needs comfort more than courage, consolation more than logic, and compassion more than proof. He needs the caring arms of a loving adult to be wrapped around him until his fear melts – finding consolation in the presence of someone who cares.

That’s exactly what God does when we are afraid!!! He longs to wrap us in his loving arms. He wants us to know Him intimately as our wonderful, protective Father. The closer we draw to Him, the more we can trust in His perfect love. We can’t really fathom what perfect love means, because our best attempts at understanding God’s flawless love are marred by our sinful nature!

The apostle Paul reminds us that God’s perfect love is indeed difficult to understand as he writes in Ephesians 3:19, “That you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes (far surpassing mere) knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (erb now: words such as these in 3:19 able to comprehend with all saints; width, length, depth & height; may be filled with all the fullness of God, plus yesterday’s song “The Love of God,” continually inspire me to greater heights of intimate trust & commitment.

Learn to write your hurts in the sand and to carve your blessing in stone… David Jeremiah   Discovery 04/17

Today let His perfect love throw away your fears. As you do, you will feel His loving arms wrapping around you with His comfort, consolation, and compassion.

Fear knocked on the door. Faith answered. No one was there.  Anonymous

NEXT UP: Implications from the historic Miami Heat vs. the Los Angeles Lakers winning streaks….

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Could We With Ink The Ocean Fill?

You are an epistle of Christ … written not with ink but by the Spirit of the Living God. II Corinthians 3:3

This may be a far-fetched illustration, but let’s give it a try. According to MSNBC, The British Medical Journal recently reported the case of a 76-year-old woman who visited her doctor complaining of stomach problems. When the scans came back, doctors were amazed to see a long object in her stomach, it was a pen! The woman remembered having put a pen in her mouth 25 years ago. She lost her balance, fell, and swallowed the pen. Her doctor at the time didn’t believe it, and the x-ray equipment of that day didn’t detect it, so nothing was ever done about it.

Now here’s the remarkable thing. When surgeons removed the pen, it still worked. Sometimes we feel we’re like being swallowed up in troubles, trials, pressures, and problems. But our God watches over us as He watched over Jonah in the belly of the whale. Trials produce testings, but from testings come testimonies. We never lose our message. We never run out of ink. Because of Christ, we never lose our ability to write the words: “Great is Thy Faithfulness!” Discovery: Experiencing God’s Word Day by Day.  2012 Feb 24 David Jeremiah.

Think about it. Most of the world around you doesn’t read the Bible. So … God gives the world a living epistle – you! Kay Arthur. As Silver Refined 1997)

And Now For the Rest of His Story while couched in our history… This time from Keith Miller

Last Sunday at our local Mennonite church, we sang the “The Love of God,” a hymn I’ve always enjoyed  for its wonderful third verse, with its convoluted syntax.

Could we with ink the ocean fill,

And were the skies of parchment made;

Were every stalk on earth a quill,

And every man a scribe by trade;

To write the love of God above

Would drain the ocean dry;

Nor could the scroll contain the whole,

Though stretched from sky to sky.

By a weird coincidence, I got an email from my dad the next day, commenting on the origins of the verse. He’d learned about it from my uncle, who goes to church with Jeremy Nafziger, a writer interested in church music. Here are Jeremy’s comments (used with permission):

Frederick Lehman, the author and composer, sounds like he should be a Mennonite, but alas, he was a Nazarene minister. Early in his ministry (around 1900), he heard a preacher end his sermon with lines similar to the third verse of this hymn. The lines had been found scribbled on the wall of an insane asylum after the inmate’s death; Lehman says that “the general opinion was that this inmate had written it in moments of sanity.”

Lehman later used the words, slightly altered, years later as the third stanza of “The Love of God.”

It turns out, however, that the lines from the asylum wall came from a long poem written in Aramaic in the 11th century by a Jewish rabbi in Worms, Germany. (Note—the author was Rabbi Ben Isaac Nehorai, in a poem called “Hadamut,” written in 1050.)

And that may not even be the original—the Koran, written in Arabic four centuries earlier, contains this passage: “And were every tree that is in the earth (made into) pens and the sea (to supply it with ink), with seven more seas to increase it, the words of Allah would not come to an end; surely Allah is Mighty, Wise” (XXXI:27).

And you can go further back than that, to the Gospel of John, to find another similar passage. In the last verse of the book, we read: “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”

BOTTOM LINE:
So in this one hymn, we see the story of ALL God’s children signing the covenant that “shall forevermore endure.”

Keith Miller March 31, 2012. See millerworlds.blogspot.com/2012/03/love-of-god

NEXT UP: Fear is thrown away>>>>>

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The Eat Move Sleep Finale!

Small Choices Change Everything

Making better choices takes work. There is a daily give and take, but it is worth the effort. The vast knowledge we have to prevent cancer, heart disease, and other chronic illnesses is staggering. Every day, I read about new ideas that could help someone I care about live a longer and healthier life.

Over the last decade, I have dedicated a great deal of time to organizing this virtual sea of information in a way that can benefit others. What I look for are simple and proven ideas. I read a wide range of academic studies and research-based articles — from medical and psychological journals to in-depth books — and try to extract knowledge that can help people make better decisions and live healthier lives.

Let me be clear. I am not a doctor. Nor am I an expert on nutrition, exercise physiology, or sleep disorders. I am just a patient. I also happen to be a researcher and voracious reader who loves to extract valuable findings and share them with friends. In this book, you will find the most credible and practical ideas I have found so far.

What I learned from all this research influences my countless daily decisions. Every bite of food either increases or decreases my odds of spending a few more years with my wife and two young children. Half an hour of exercise in the morning makes for better interactions all day. Then a sound night of sleep gives me energy to tackle the next day. I am a more active parent, a better spouse, and more engaged in my work when I eat, move, and sleep well.

What seem like small or inconsequential moments accumulate rapidly. When your good daily decisions outweigh your poor ones, you boost your chances of growing old in better health. Life itself is a big game of beating the odds. Take, for example, these four largely preventable diseases: cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and lung disease. Combined, they kill nearly 9 in 10 people.

Researchers have estimated that 90 percent of us could live to age 90 with some simple lifestyle choices. What’s more, we could live free of common diseases that make our final years miserable. Even if you have a family history of heart disease or cancer, most of your fate is in your control.

A recent study suggests you do not “inherit” longevity as much as previously believed. Instead, the sum of your habits determines your life span. How long you live is more about how you live your life and less about how long your parents lived.

I am a living testament to the fact that lousy predispositions can be encoded in your genes. Yet even in this extreme case, my decisions affect the odds of new tumors growing and my existing cancers spreading. The reality is, the majority of your risk in life lies in the choices you make, not in your family tree.

No single act can prevent cancer or guarantee you will live a long life. Anyone who promises you something that absolute is a fraud. What I will share in this book are some of the most practical ideas to improve your odds of a longer, healthier, and more fulfilling life.

30 Days to Better Decisions

As you read this book, I hope you find ideas that work for you and test them over the next month. From my own experience and from observing others, I have noticed that making better choices often becomes automatic after just a couple of weeks. However, it takes some initiative — on your own, with a friend, or as part of a group — to take the first step.

Each chapter has three research-based findings and concludes with three ideas for how you can apply them in your life. (See the Table of Contents at the bottom. Please take a minute to notice how each chapter addresses a specific component of eat, move, & sleep) Challenge yourself to use at least one idea per day for the next month. Write them down. Post them somewhere in your home or office. See if you can make good decisions automatic.

If one of these strategies works for you, stick with it. If not, move on to the next one. It’s up to you to determine which ideas make sense and can improve your life the most. No one can do everything in this book, period. But you should be able to add at least a few ideas into your daily routine. On the book’s website, www.eatmovesleep.com, you can:

•​Create a personalized Eat Move Sleep Plan based on your needs and behaviors •​Use the Reference Explorer for direct links to more than 400 academic journals, books, articles, and notes

•​Download the First 30 Days Challenge and other tools to use with friends, groups, and teams.

Have fun. The key is to create a plan that works for your unique situation. If you apply some of the ideas with at least one friend, you can greatly increase your odds of building new habits. Or, if you prefer to test things as you go, keep moving at your own pace. Creating a few new patterns in the next month will lead to healthier choices for years to come.

The Eat, Move, Sleep Equation

Starting your day with a healthy breakfast increases your odds of being active in the hours that follow. This helps you eat well throughout the day. Consuming the right foods and adding activity makes for a much better night’s sleep. This sound night of sleep will make it even easier to eat well and move more tomorrow.

In contrast, a lousy night of sleep immediately threatens the other two areas. That bad night of sleep makes you crave a less healthy breakfast and decreases your odds of being active. In the worst-case scenario, all three elements start to work against you, creating a downward spiral that makes each day progressively worse. This is why the book is structured to help you work on all three elements together and not broken into three parts about eating, moving, and sleeping.

New research shows that tackling multiple elements at the same time increases your odds of success, compared to initiating a new diet or exercise program in isolation. Eating, moving, and sleeping well are even easier if you work on all three simultaneously. These three ingredients for a good day build on one another. When these elements are working together, they create an upward spiral and progressively better days.

If you eat, move, and sleep well today, you will have more energy tomorrow. You will treat your friends and family better. You will achieve more at work and give more to your community.

It all starts with making decisions like tomorrow depends on it. 

CONTENTS

The New Edition and Welbe App

 Eat Move Sleep

1 The Three Building Blocks

Forget Fad Diets,

 Forever Make Inactivity Your Enemy

Sleep Longer to Get More Done

2 Big Changes Through Small Adjustments

Every Bite Is a Net Gain or Loss

Step Away From Your Chair

Sleep Makes or Breaks a Day  

3 One Good Choice at a Time

What Counts More Than Calories

Use Product Placement at Home

Work Faster While You Walk

4 Forming Better Habits

Sugar Is the Next Nicotine

Substitutes Are a Nicotine Patch

Take Two Every Twenty

5 Giving Your Immune System a Boost

Judge Food by the Color of Its Skin

A Vaccine for the Common Cold

Quality Beats Quantity in Bed

6 Lifestyle Choices That Count

Wear a New Pair of Genes

Measuring Makes You Move More

Target 10,000  

7 Arranging Your Day More Energy

Be Less Refined

Family Style Is Making Us Fat

Burn Calories After Your Workout

8 Why Timing Matters

Empty Stomach, Bad Choices

The 20-Minute Meal Rule

Move Early for a 12-Hour Mood Boost

9 Quick Fixes

The First Order Anchors the Table

Move With Both Sides

Fight the Light at Night

10 Making Smarter Decisions

Prioritize Your Protein

Stop Buying Junk for Friends

Find Your Motivation to Move

11 Staying Healthy While You Work  

Keep Work From Killing You

The Danger of Desktop Dining

Working While Intoxicated

12 Going Cold Turkey

The Throwaway Foods

Help a Quitter Win

Hit Snooze and You Lose

13 Myth Busting

The Butter Is Healthier Than the Bread

Don’t Eat Your Meat and Potatoes

Be Cold in Bed

14 Health Starts at Home

Small Plates, Smaller Waistline

 Staying Active Starts at Home

Make Sleep a Family Value

15 Planning Ahead

Don’t Be Fooled by the Decoy

Structure Exercise for Enjoyment

A Night to Remember

16 Staying Sharp

Avoid a High-Fat Hangover

Take Your Brain for a Walk

Try Exercise Instead of Sleeping Pills

17 Rising to Expectations  

Create Barrier Labels

Organic Does Not Equal Healthy

Go Public With a Goal

18 Good Nights

Feast at Sunrise, Fast at Sunset

Television Shortens Your Life Span

Protect Your Final Hour

19 Rethinking Things

Dried and Juiced Is Fruitless

Don’t Judge a Box by Its Cover

Make Noise at Night

20 Fine-Tuning Your Routine

Less Heat, Better to Eat

Driving to Divorce

Sleeping in Only Sounds Good

21 Living in the Now

Buy Use It or Lose It Foods

How You Move Matters

Keep Stress From Ruining Your Sleep

22 The Ultimate Anti-Aging Solutions

Get a Tan From Tomatoes

Look Younger With Each Step

Sleep to Impress

23 Giving Healthy Choices a Chance

Eat the Healthiest Food First

The Right Way to Get High

Sleep Your Way to a New Day

24 Holding Yourself Accountable

Grab a Handful

Take Five Outside

Pay for Peer Pressure

25 Preventive Measures

Eat to Beat Cancer

Get a Prescription for Exercise

Know Two Numbers by Heart

26 Clearing a Path

Buy Willpower at the Store

Clean Your Brain and Bowels

Sleep On It

27 Creating New Habits

Save the Cake for Your Birthday

Indulge Less to Enjoy More

Take Credit to Make It Count

28 Being a Trendsetter

Broccoli Is the New Black

Stick With Coffee, Tea, and Water

Tame Ties and Tight Pants

29 Everything’s Connected

Fight Risk With Food

Gain Sleep With Weight Loss

Eight Is Enough

30 In a Nutshell

Every Meal Matters

Put Activity Before Exercise

Invest in Sleep for Your Future

Concluding Thoughts

BOTTOM LINE: I estimate my readers are averaging 60-70 years of age and quite frankly, are already experiencing the major health setbacks the years of ignoring the eat-move-sleep truths in this book are now inflicting on us. We oldsters with this later in life experiential wisdom now being front and center, have some difficult choices to make, and quite frankly, they will be even more difficult than those we should have made in our thirties with kids had we read and implemented eat-move-sleep then while in our prime.

Now as “matured experienced seniors,” we have the opportunity to read this book, much as we do our Bibles, and become ambassadors for both of them to those in our spheres of influence. I do believe as we seek His guidance He will provide us the action steps when sharing from either the spiritual or the physical perspective, by always, absolutely always, being loving, inviting, compassionate, humble, with the demeanor of a servant but the assurance of being a child of the King. No excuses. No fear.

Face it folks, I believe our generation is so “turf absorbed” that we literally can’t converse over the fence, over coffee, in SS class, and especially with our kids, on the hot-button meaningful concerns of our hearts and minds. And it’s not at all that we have all the answers, but we do suspect the younger generations do not fully grasp what the future questions might be, are, or even their implications for today, tomorrow, whatever, whenever… But hopefully, we all know absolutely Who does and in His Assurance, we do indeed rest until our future arrive.

Just perhaps this quick & easy eat-move-sleep read will inspire you to try at least to impact the future physical health of your kids and the grands…. and break the ice to discussions beyond… I’m not blowing smoke here. Last evening we were all in Barnes & Nobles ( likely 5-8 years since I’ve last visited) looking at children’s books and I got so hung up on the display of the Golden Books (not so golden anymore, more like propaganda) and such as Simon & Schuster’s This Little Rainbow: A Love is Love Primer, and that was as far as I got in 30 minutes… Appalling is the word that comes to mind. But why am I so naive to be appalled considering the hour?

Next Up: “Could We With Ink the Ocean Fill?”

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Absolutely the Best Honest Candid Concise Collection of Wisdom to Steward Your Daily PHYSICAL Daily Activities anywhere out there….

No joke folks. You’re in for an adventure the next three days. I was reminded by my eldest son Ben while getting our visas in Panama last month that it was he who had suggested I read Tom Rath’s book, Eat, Move, Sleep: How Small Choices Make a Big Difference. I’ve promoted it to all the the associated health professionals I encounter since introduced, and I may have mentioned it briefly prior in several of my 312 prior blogs, but now, I’m literally compelled to PROMOTE it to you, as I do believe we are in for some changes very soon that we are not at all prepared for that will affect us in every known, even unknown, dimensions of life monumentally, simply by the way we eat, move, and sleep.

So here goes. And the clincher I maybe should throw out here is, Ben did retire at 41 from the only employer he actually ever had beginning in his second year at University of Cincinnati while Co-oping with Great American. He tells his brothers though he’s fortunate to be able to live now on income from former investments so he could leave the corporate race, and that he is really more of a starving artist in that he and Jill are working together on another future income producer. Actually, his first job began with me when he was five by closing bottles and placing labels on thousands of bottles in the milk testing lab, in order to buy his first bike, and continued in various capacities through his first year at Wayne College prior to co-oping. The upshot of it all is I’m still working PT in my micro lab at 75, though it too, is my choice.

I recall only loaning two people my copy of Eat Move Sleep. I am waiting on the first person to spontaneously with out me asking, continue the initial conversation after reading it which had prompted him making the decision to discontinue a hobby business that he was really enjoying BUT, it was damaging his health… A month ago I gave a copy to a local fellow after I noticed he had a desk like mine that you can adjust its height to either stand or sit at. He was primed already. I’ve been back twice to see him and he’s never at his desk! I just ordered two more copies so I can prospect more readers in person. It’s just who I am. Enjoy.

Eat  Move  Sleep

Introduction

Choices count. You can make decisions today that will give you more energy tomorrow. The right choices over time greatly improve your odds of a long and healthy life.

No matter how healthy you are today, you can take specific actions to have more energy and live longer. Regardless of your age, you can make better choices in the moment. Small decisions — about how you eat, move, and sleep each day — count more than you think. As I have learned from personal experience, these choices shape your life.

A Personal Perspective

At age 16, I was playing basketball with friends when I noticed something wrong with my vision. There was a black circle in the middle of my visual field. I assumed it would go away. Instead, it got progressively worse. I finally told my mom, who immediately took me to an eye doctor.

That black spot turned out to be a large tumor on the back of my left eye. The doctor said it might lead to blindness. As if that was not enough, I needed to get a blood test to rule out other medical problems. A few weeks later, my mom and I went back to the doctor’s office for the results.

The doctor told us I had a rare genetic disorder called Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL). While VHL typically runs in families, my condition was a new mutation that affects just one in every 4,400,000 people. This mutation essentially shuts off a powerful tumor suppressor gene and leads to rampant cancerous growth throughout the body.

I still vividly recall sitting on one side of a large wooden desk as my doctor tried to explain what it would be like to battle cancer for the rest of my life. It was one of those moments when your stomach sinks and your mind races for an alternate explanation. My doctor then described how I was also likely to develop cancer in my kidneys, adrenal glands, pancreas, brain, and spine.

While the thought of losing my eyesight was tough, these longer-term issues were even more daunting. That conversation with the doctor forced me to wrestle with much larger questions about my life. Would people treat me differently if they knew about my illness? Was there any chance I would get married and have kids? Perhaps most importantly, I wondered if there was any way I could live a long and healthy life.

Doctors tried everything to save my eyesight, from freezing the tumors to cooking them with a laser. But the sight in my eye never returned. Once I got over this loss, I turned my attention to learning everything I could about the other manifestations of this rare disease.

I quickly realized that the more I learned, the more I could do to increase my odds of living longer. As new information emerged, I discovered I could stay ahead of my condition with annual MRIs, CTs, and eye exams. If doctors caught tumors early, when they were small, the tumors were less likely to spread and kill me. Learning that was a huge relief. Even if it required some difficult surgeries, there was something I could do to live longer.

I have had annual exams and scans for 20 years now and currently have small tumors in my kidneys, adrenal glands, pancreas, spine, and brain. Every year, I “watch and wait” to find out if any of these tumors are large enough to require surgery. In most cases, they are not.

Waiting around for active tumors to grow may sound nerve-racking. It could be, if I dwelled on the genetic condition that is beyond my control. Instead, I use these annual exams to stay focused on what I can do to decrease the odds of my cancers growing and spreading.

BOTTOM LINE:

As each year goes by, I learn more about how I can eat, move, and sleep to improve my chances of living a long and healthy life. Then I apply what I learn to make better choices. I act as if my life depends on each decision. Because it does. 

NEXT UP: More of the same..

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Perhaps GRACE is not so much an “if-then” kind of statement, but rather, a “because-therefore pronouncement & unconditional promise. Think about it!

Even those of us who have tasted the radical saving grace of God find it naturally difficult not to put conditions on grace (e.g., “Don’t take it too far, keep it balanced”). The truth is, however, that a “yes, grace, but” posture is the kind of posture that perpetuates slavery in our lives and in the church. Grace is radically unbalanced. It has no “but.” It’s unconditional, uncontrollable, unpredictable, and undomesticated.

As Doug Wilson put it, “Grace is wild. Grace unsettles everything. Grace overflows the banks. Grace messes up your hair. Grace is not tame….  Unless we are making the devout nervous, we are not preaching grace as we ought.” Graces scares us monumentally in every way because it wrestles control out of our hands. However much we hate of are uncomfortable with law, we are more afraid of grace.

Gerhard Forde, in his wonderful book Justification by Faith: A Matter of Death & Life, says that “the gospel of justification by faith is such a shocker, just an explosion, because it is an absolutely unconditional promise. It is not an ‘if-then’ kind of statement, but a ‘because-therefore’ pronouncement: because Jesus died and rose, your sins are forgiven and you are righteous in the sight of God!”

BOTTOM LINE:

Contrary to what we conclude naturally, the gospel is not too good to be true. It is true! No strings attached. No buts. No conditions. No need for balance. If you’re a Christian, you are right now under the completely sufficient imputed righteousness of Christ.  Have you shared this good news today?

May 25 It Is Finished: 365 Days of Good News Tullian Tchividjian

NEXT UP: We’re leaving Thursday 6 AM for Amherst MA for our grandson’s second birthday returning June 10. I’m planning to do a three day post of Tom Rath’s candid & personal examination of the way we invest or steward our physical daily activities in the introduction to one of his books, Eat, Move, Sleep: How Small Choices Make a Big Difference. And, I’m not planning on including any scripture for you budding atheists, agnostics, etc, a trifled annoyed at my persistence. This blog is all purely invitational, you can unsubscribe anytime. Email me directly, if you experience difficulties unsubscribing. Or, on the hand, if you enjoy the venue and know others who may also, share the address. We’re always seeking to lengthen the table, or broaden the porch and the surrounding patio. Time is short. Focus. Blessings everyone.

PS: A few minutes ago, @4:40 AM, dailylightdevotional.org led me to Hebrews 4:11 about resting; I’d be remiss not to include this scripture as it is so appropriate for this post. As is Utmost today titled “Yes-But…! “Trust completely in God, and when He brings you to a new opportunity of adventure, offering it to you, see that you take it.” Also, in today’s NIV One Year Bible, the OT details events while King David is exiting the palace for Absalom, the NT details Peter’s thrice denial and Pilate’s lines “What is Truth?” and “What I have written, I have written.”

Go forth today under THE influence!

Hebrews 4:4-16 (MSG) 

4. Somewhere it’s written, “God rested the seventh day, having completed his work,”

5. but in this other text he says, “They’ll never be able to sit down and rest.”

6. So this promise has not yet been fulfilled. Those earlier ones never did get to the place of rest because they were disobedient.

7. God keeps renewing the promise and setting the date as today, just as he did in David’s psalm, centuries later than the original invitation: Today, please listen, don’t turn a deaf ear…

8. And so this is still a live promise. It wasn’t canceled at the time of Joshua; otherwise, God wouldn’t keep renewing the appointment for “today.”

9. The promise of “arrival” and “rest” is still there for God’s people.

10. God himself is at rest. And at the end of the journey we’ll surely rest with God.

11. So let’s keep at it and eventually arrive at the place of rest, not drop out through some sort of disobedience.

12. God means what he says. What he says goes. His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey.

13. Nothing and no one is impervious to God’s Word. We can’t get away from it—no matter what.

14. Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers.

15. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin.

16. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.

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The Poor Rich Man

Matthew 6:21 “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

A certain Muslim lived on a cottage on a hill. Every week he rode his camel to a little stream, And, every week as the camel stopped to drink, it nosed up the pebbles in order to make a deeper place for drinking. Again and again, the Muslim picked up the bright stones the animal uncovered and took them home with him.

One day a traveler told the Muslim of the easy comfort and riches that certain men in the city enjoyed; the traveler filled the Muslim’s eyes and heart with discontent. So, he sold his cottage and wandered the earth looking for money and such treasures. Finally, he died in rags and poverty, and was buried. The man who bought the cottage found the stones and preserved them.

One day a merchant came to his home and discovered the well-preserved stones were diamonds. The owner of the diamonds immediately became a millionaire. Note, the first man unknowingly possessed great wealth, but being ignorant of it, sold it and traveled the world looking for it. The second owner of the cottage simply made use of what he had.

BOTTOM LINE:

All people have eternal life at their disposal. Some people respond to this treasure like the first man, some like the second.

A few minutes ago dailylightdevotional.org guided me to Hebrews 2:17-18 for a rooted perspective to the above parable. I’ve included Chapter 3. Try KJV or NIV as well. Reflect on the gift to us beyond mere pebbles…

Hebrews 3:1-19 (MSG)

  1. 1. So, my dear Christian friends, companions in following this call to the heights, take a good hard look at Jesus. He’s the centerpiece of everything we believe,
    2. faithful in everything God gave him to do. Moses was also faithful,
    3. but Jesus gets far more honor. A builder is more valuable than a building any day.
    4. Every house has a builder, but the Builder behind them all is God.
    5. Moses did a good job in God’s house, but it was all servant work, getting things ready for what was to come.
    6. Christ as Son is in charge of the house. Now, if we can only keep a firm grip on this bold confidence, we’re the house!
    7. That’s why the Holy Spirit says, Today, please listen;
    8. don’t turn a deaf ear as in “the bitter uprising,” that time of wilderness testing!
    9. Even though they watched me at work for forty years, your ancestors refused to let me do it my way; over and over they tried my patience.
    10. And I was provoked, oh, so provoked! I said, “They’ll never keep their minds on God; they refuse to walk down my road.”
    11. Exasperated, I vowed, “They’ll never get where they’re going, never be able to sit down and rest.”
    12. So watch your step, friends. Make sure there’s no evil unbelief lying around that will trip you up and throw you off course, diverting you from the living God.
    13. For as long as it’s still God’s Today, keep each other on your toes so sin doesn’t slow down your reflexes.
    14. If we can only keep our grip on the sure thing we started out with, we’re in this with Christ for the long haul.
    15. These words keep ringing in our ears: Today, please listen; don’t turn a deaf ear as in the bitter uprising.
    16. For who were the people who turned a deaf ear? Weren’t they the very ones Moses led out of Egypt?
    17. And who was God provoked with for forty years? Wasn’t it those who turned a deaf ear and ended up corpses in the wilderness?
    18. And when he swore that they’d never get where they were going, wasn’t he talking to the ones who turned a deaf ear?
    19. They never got there because they never listened, never believed.

PS: The vital relationship which the Christian has to the Bible is not that we worship the letter, but that the Holy Spirit makes the words of the Bible spirit and life to us. Oswald Chambers The Psychology of Redemption, 1066 L

NEXT UP: Perhaps GRACE is not so much an “if-then” kind of statement, but rather, a “because-therefore pronouncement & unconditional promise.

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