The heart of the matter.....

The universities, then, directly and indirectly, dominate the world; their influence is so pervasive and total that whatever problem afflicts them is bound to have far-reaching repercussions throughout the entire fabric of Western civilization.

~Dr. Charles Malik

The True Measure of Greatness

A young student once asked his old teacher, "Teacher, what is the true measure of greatness?" The teacher looked far away into the mountains and gave the following reply:

"Some measure greatness in height and weight, but great people are never so tall as when they stoop to talk to a child or bend their knees to help a hurting friend.

Some measure greatness in physical strength, but great people are never so strong as when they shoulder the burden of the downtrodden stranger.

Some measure greatness in terms of financial gain, but those who show generosity to their family and friends, they are the ones who are truly rich.

Some measure greatness in applause and accolades, but those who seek opportunity to serve in the quiet places of the world, theirs is the higher reward.

Some measure greatness in commitment to achieving in material ways, but those who spur others on to reach their goals is great indeed.

Great people have vision and do not keep the truth to themselves. Great people have passion for life and are not ashamed to show it. Great people expect the best from others and give the best of themselves. Great people know how to work and how to play, how to laugh and how to cry, how to give and how to receive, how to love and how to be loved. There are many people who are by the world called great, but those who bear honor in their hearts, who can, in the evening hours, lie upon their beds and peacefully close their eyes, knowing that they have done all that is within their power to live their lives fully and fruitfully, those are truly great people." 
~ Randall S. Weeks

If you win the whole world and lose the mind of the world, you will soon discover you have not won the world. Indeed, it may turn out that you have actually lost the world.....Responsible Christians face two tasks - that of saving the soul and that of saving the mind.
~Dr. Charles Malik

It is so hard to really know that the direction you have chosen to go in your life is the best choice....the choice that you were meant to go....and that will be the choice you will look back on your life and realize was what you were created to be. We get all mixed up with what our parents want for us, our friends and family want for us and even what our culture wants from us.

This past weekend I received a newsletter from some friends that Jack and I have known for 33 years. They have surrendered their lives to true greatness....and that has not always looked like what the world would call greatness. When we first met them we were in college and they were committed to caring and loving college students. I, for one needed a LOT of that as I was so lonely and depressed in my college experience. I was lost in the masses of the University of Texas and felt friendless and hopeless. The friendship and love that Jack and Diane Parker shared with me was a lifeline of hope that began to pull me out of the pain of that sea of despair I was in. Through the years I have watched them leave their homes and country to go and love others around the world. They have just returned from living in Eastern Europe for the past 25 some odd years, loving college students in Hungary who are much like I was....back to a college campus here in the US, where they can love another group of people....university professors!

Jack and Diane are truly great people.....they have exhibited a commitment to greatness all the years I have known them. They have been role models to my life without ever saying or teaching anything to me beyond the choices that they consistently make. They have 4 children who are now grown and are making strong and great choices for their lives. I am so looking forward to seeing them more often than the one day every 4-5 years we usually get to be with them....and getting to know them again on a deeper level. Welcome home, Jack and Diane!!!!!!

As I listen to my own daughters and their experience at college....I am reminded of the many other young lives that are being shaped by that same experience. Their minds and their hearts are being shaped.....yes, that "thinking brain in the heart" is being challenged and questioned in every area of life. Small incremental decisions are being made, in both the mind and the heart, that will affect not only their own lives but the world. What a perfect place to be....

Within minutes they were bickering over who of them would end up the greatest. But Jesus intervened: "Kings like to throw their weight around and people in authority like to give themselves fancy titles. It's not going to be that way with you. Let the senior among you become like the junior; let the leader act the part of the servant.

~Jesus in Luke 22:24-26 ( The Message)

 

Extreme Dreams, LLC
Kathy Douglas
President
10603 Grant Rd. Ste 110
Houston, TX 77070
Office - 281-890-5034
Fax - 281-890-0300
Cell - 713-398-7304
www.extreme-dreams.net/
www.exdevents.com

kathyd@extreme-dreams.net

"Helping people enjoy the Journey as much as the Destination"

Visit my coaching journal at:

http://extreme-dreams.blogspot.com/

 

 

The thoughts and ways of the heart....

Today, see if you can stretch your heart and expand your love so that it touches not only those to whom you can give it easily, but also those who need it so much.
~Daphine Rose Kingma

 

You have heard that it was said, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy."  But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
~Jesus in Matthew 5:43-44

 

Wealth and want equally harden the human heart.

Theodore Parker

 

All the days of the oppressed are wretched, but the cheerful heart has a continual feast. Better a little with the fear of the LORD than great wealth with turmoil. Better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fattened calf with hatred.

~Proverbs 15:15-17

 

 When you have read the Bible, you will know it is the word of God, because you will have found it the key to your own heart, your own happiness, and your own duty.

 ~Woodrow Wilson

 

When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart's delight, for I bear your name, O LORD God Almighty.

~ Jeremiah 15:16

 

There is lots of talk these days about the heart, it's the "new thing" in the human research and personal growth arenas.....and yet, God has been talking about the heart....both man's and God's heart for thousands of years! Now there is an entire website and non-profit research organization centered around the "brain in our heart"!!!! http://www.heartmath.org/  Actually I stumbled across this site last year looking for quotes to use in this journal. This past March I learned more about some of the amazing research that this organization has done concerning the physiological aspects of the heart and the "thinking" connection it has to our brains!

 

We all seem to recognize on some level that our hearts are truly part of our emotional thinking process, but for most of my life, I was taught that it was a figurative word used to signify the seat of our emotions. And yet, as I look through a LONG list of references to the heart in the Bible http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=heart&qs_version=31 I am amazed at the number of references to God's heart....and man's heart from a position of decision making, speaking and thought. And it occurs to me that the scientific research of the past 20 years has only proven what the Word of God has been revealing to us for these many long centuries, the TRUTH of God's wisdom, creation and our own likeness to Him as He created us in His image.

 

Taking the pure research information provided by the Heartmath Institute...... independent of the references and applications to evolution or religion or the various worldview perspectives of the writers and researchers.....we can begin to recognize the reality of the God's clear and straightforward motivation in communicating to us through the writers of the Bible......that we are "intricately and wonderfully made" and we can not ignore our hearts or our thoughts or  our souls or our spirits.....they are each real, and integrally connected whether or not we BELIEVE it! Our belief or disbelief does not change the facts, nor make it true or untrue. Science has once again proven what the Bible has said for thousands of years.

 

As I talk with people, I find that so many seem to be ignorant of the encouragement that God gives us in the Bible to do the same things that the Heartmath Institute is teaching people to do......choose to think and act in a compassionate, loving and caring manner.....and don't get consistently and overly angry, anxious and worried.....because our hearts tell our brains what to think, feel and act based on the consistent and regular state of our choices to think in either manner.....which are most of the times directed by the past experiences and memories that we have stored up in the brain cells of our hearts!!http://www.heartmath.org/research/our-heart-brain.html

 

Because of some of these very real past experiences and memories, many have come to a perspective that God is a heavy handed "rule maker", ready to slap our hands every time we get out of some arbitrary line and ultimately send us to eternal torture if we mess up one too many times.....and how many of those mess ups constitutes "one too many" is up for EXTREME debate....leaving everyone in a foggy fear of unknowable failure and seemingly unfair retribution......rather than experiencing the loving and graciously merciful forgiving God revealed in the Old and New Covenants.  Removing God from the picture all together or at least relegating Him to an impersonal force in the universe that can be manipulated through various disciplines, seems to provide some short-term sense of relief from this impending fear - based perspective in people who hold this perspective. Personally, I think that most of us have had this perspective at least at some point on our lives.....or.like myself, fall into it by subconsciously forgetting the truth that God has done everything possible and even "impossible" in order to demonstrate His great love for us and desire for us to know Him and love Him.....even telling us throughout the ages and demonstrating it through the very personal death and resurrection of Jesus....calling to our hearts to surrender to His great love for us.

 

And I begin to wonder why I am just now finding these scientific truths out....and how I can look at applying them to my own life in ways that bring me closer in my personal relationship with God and in my relationships with others. To follow the only "rules" that Jesus told us God has laid out for us.....to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and spirit and to love our neighbor as ourselves......and the only ones that bring us true joy on this journey.

 

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

~Proverbs 4:23

Extreme Dreams, LLC
Kathy Douglas
President
10603 Grant Rd. Ste 110
Houston, TX 77070
Office - 281-890-5034
Fax - 281-890-0300
Cell - 713-398-7304
www.extreme-dreams.net/
www.exdevents.com

kathyd@extreme-dreams.net

"Helping people enjoy the Journey as much as the Destination"

Visit my coaching journal at:

http://extreme-dreams.blogspot.com/