Fruit and Passion

This is not a post about a store (sorry ladies!). It's about faith.

How do you know if a Christian is close to God? I was asking someone this the other day and they told me they thought it was excitement. Passion, in other words. I have heard this answer many times. "Wow, that guy is really pumped for God!" or "Wow, that girl is really on fire!" The more excitement shown the more spiritual the person. And if you don't have passion, look out. Something is definitely wrong! For many of us passion = spirituality.

We all desire to have passion in our relationship with God (I know I do). But I wonder, what if we changed the question a little and said this: How do you know if a Christian has become "mature," "fully grown," etc? I don't think the answer would be passion. The way I read the Bible the answer would be fruit and obedience:

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." - Galatians 5: 23-34

In my mind fruit is much more important then passion. Passion (or zeal) by itself is not good (Rom 10:2). Now I'm not saying it's a bad thing. In fact in Romans 12:11 we told to "Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord." You can be zealous without being obedient. And you can definitely be zealous (or passionate) without having fruit.

Fruitless passion . . . sucks. We have all seen and experienced it. Zeal without love does so much damage. Passion without joy is downright scary sometimes. Being on fire but not having self-control eventually leads a person to very bad places. I find myself quick to judge my fellow Christ followers sometimes and I need to be careful of that. So many of the external things I treasure (like passion) become super important and the most important things (fruit and obedience) are minimized and ignored. Imagine if we hired and followed our leaders, not based on their passion but on the spiritual fruit that their lives displayed? Fruit doesn't lie and you can't fake it (at least for any length of time). Look for the fruit in yourself and others. This is what I'm learning right now.

Story: The Mexican Fisherman

I really enjoyed this story when I read it in The Four Hour Work Week recently:

An American businessman was standing at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish.

“How long it took you to catch them?” The American asked.

“Only a little while.” The Mexican replied.

“Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” The American then asked.

“I have enough to support my family’s immediate needs.” The Mexican said.

“But,” The American then asked, “What do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life, senor.”

The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds you buy a bigger boat, and with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats.”

“Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the consumers, eventually opening your own can factory. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But senor, how long will this all take?”

To which the American replied, “15-20 years.”

“But what then, senor?”

The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO (Initial Public Offering) and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.”

“Millions, senor? Then what?”

The American said slowly, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos…”

Book Review: The Four Hour Work Week

Book Review: The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris

This is a crazy book written by a crazy man. But I liked it.

There is outside of the box thinking and then there is really outside of the box thinking. Tim Ferris is beyond even that! His book is a slap to the American dream - a new dream for people who wish to experience life before retirement. Yes, he really does show you how some people can live like kings and only work four hours a week. For someone like myself I wouldn't be able to remain a counselor and only work 4 hours but I could certainly cut the amount of time I work down substantially by following his crazy principles. Speaking of which after I'd read the first 60 pages I was so in shock by the radicalness of his ideas that I wondered if I was open minded enough to accept that they could be possible! That does not happen often for me. Ferris teaches:


•How he went from $40,000 per year and 80 hours per week to $40,000 per month and 4 hours per week (yes he actually did this and shows you how).
•How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want (almost anyone can afford a virtual assistant - even me).
•How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs
•How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist (even the greatest skeptic in the world would benefit from his super radical time management techniques)
•How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and frequent “mini-retirements” (this is maybe the most amazing idea)

This is a guy who questions everything and does the opposite. His approach to life is simple and can be used by employees and entrepreneurs alike. Using the acronym D.E.A.L. he talks about:

(D)efinition: Figure out what you want, get over your fears, see past society’s “expectations”, and figure out what it will really cost to get to where you want. It can be surprisingly cheap, costing less than what you’re paying now.

(E)limination is about Time Management, or rather about NOT managing time. Instead, apply the 80/20 rule to focus only on those tasks that contribute the majority of benefit. Also apply it ruthlessly to all aspects of your life to eliminate the small minority of factors that waste 80% (or more) of your time. Forget time management, focus instead on getting the really important and results-producing tasks done. There’s a difference, Ferriss says, between efficiency and effectiveness - choose to be effective!

(A)utomation is all about building a sustainable, automatic source of income. This is a section that is, practically speaking, about Business and Business management. The trick is to avoid is building a business that requires your presence, because that just burns up all your time. Ferriss made that mistake once, generating lots of monthly revenue but ended up being chained to the machine to keep it working. Ferriss now has hundreds of people working on his behalf through multiple outsourced vendors, all operating under specific instructions that are designed to not create headaches for him while depositing those lovely monthly checks.

(L)iberation: Once you’ve successfully automated your lifestyle, liberate yourself from your geographical location and your job. It’s a lot easier than you think, once you’ve gotten through the previous three steps. With mobility comes the ability to leverage economic advantages across the world. Living in a tropical paradise and eating at 5-star restaurants everyday can be cheaper than watching TV in your house back.

I certainly don't agree with everything in this book but I plan to start using his principles for elimination starting next week and will try some of the other principles in the new year. The biggest thing I got out of this book was that "work hard for 40 years then retire and live off your savings" is not the best way to go about life. Time is more valuable then money. You don't have to be a millionaire to have freedom and flexibility in your life now. To enjoy those things now though I will have to not do what everyone else is and try something different. This realization is both incredibly freeing and a little scary as well (I'm pretty sure I terrified Jobina as I read selections from this book to her). This book is not for everyone and the author is occasionally a bit crude but it was absolutely fascinating and mind blowing. With that in mind, I rate it 4.6 ninja stars out of 5.

Slow Dance

S L O W D A N C E (David L. Weatherford)

Have you ever watched kids
on a merry-go-round?

Or listened to the rain
slapping on the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?

You better slow down
Don’t dance so fast

Time is short
The music won’t last

Do you run through each day
On the fly

When you ask “How are you?”
Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done,
do you lie in your bed

With the next hundred chores
running through your head?

You’d better slow down
Don’t dance so fast

Time is short
The music won’t last

Ever told your child,
We’ll do it tomorrow?

And in your haste,
not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die

‘Cause you never had time
To call and say “Hi”?

You’d better slow down
Don’t dance so fast

Time is short
The music won’t last

When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift….Thrown away…

Life is not a race.
Do take it slower

Hear the music
Before the song is over.

Alternative Investing Opportunity

Ah, the wacky world of investing! For anyone in the Winnipeg/Manitoba area who has an extra $5000 or more kicking around with nothing to do and you'd like to earn 24% annual interest on it, I know of an opportunity that you might be interested in learning about. It's an alternative investment in a company that is expanding its operations and is looking for some capital. Your money is locked in for one year but you get interest cheques every three months. Essentially you are loaning them your money for a year and they are agreeing to repay it every three months (so 4 times per year). The interest they pay is 2% a month, so you would get cheque for 6% of your principal once a quarter. Some examples:

$5000 investment = $100 per month (or $1200 after 365 days)
$10000 investment = $200 per month (or $2400 after 365 days)
$50000 investment = $1000 per month (or $12000 after $365 days)

Like most alternative investments it's a limited time offer and the broker I use expects it to be filled up by the end of the year so if you'd like me to get you more info then leave your email in the comments or if you know my email you can contact me directly.

Alternative investments are one of several great places to park your "pay yourself first" money. Investing such saved monies is crucial to a) avoid spending it when your will power gets low & b) letting it grow exponentially to serve yourself/others. Of course there is risk in any kind of investing but I would argue that there is more risk in not investing as you will someday need that money. You can't afford not to take some risks! I used to be quite closed to investing in anything but real estate but now I'm open to much more. Stay tuned for an update at the end of the year on my stock investing experiment.

Tecnical Optimism

Book Review: When The Game Is Over It All Goes Back In The Box

Book Review: When The Game Is Over It All Goes Back In The Box by John Ortberg

Whew, what can I say. This book hit me hard. I'm not sure if it would hit most people that way, but without being overly dramatic lets just say this book restored my moral compass. Seriously.

The book uses a metaphor of a game to describe how to play the game of life successfully in God's eyes. It's a difficult book to describe as it hits alot of interconnected topics. I think in many ways it would be a good book for any extremely driven person or those who struggle with trying to impress people, materialism, or confusion about their purpose. Ortberg is an amazing storyteller and while none of the concepts that he gave were really new to me they were presented in such compelling & well chosen stories that they felt like a breath of fresh air to me (or alternatively a slap to the face - either way it woke me up).

I have been reading a lot of books on financial matters recently and this book helped to not just balance them but put them in their place. I highly recommend this book. There are three chapters that by if you could read just one of them it would easily be worth the cost of the whole book. I suspect that this book hit me so hard because of where I'm at in my deeper life, but I found I couldn't read more then a chapter a day as I wanted to reflect on each important point that Ortberg shared. For shock value make sure you read the chapter on The Shadow Mission - prepare for awkward looks if you read it at your co-ed small group. I rate it 4.9 ninja stars out of 5 for it's big picture excellence and easy readability.

To Honor The Self

The following is an excerpt from Honoring The Self, a book on self-esteem by Nathaniel Branden:


"Of all the judgments that we pass in life, none is as important as the one we pass on ourselves, for that judgment touches the very center of our existence.

. . . No significant aspect of our thinking, motivation, feelings, or behavior is unaffected by our self evaluation . . .

The first act of honoring the self is the assertion of consciousness; the choice to think, to be aware, to send the searchlight of consciousness outward toward the world and inward toward our own being. To default on this effort is to default on the self at the most basic level.

To honor the self is to be willing to think independently, to live by our own mind, and to have the courage of our own perceptions and judgments.

To honor the self is to be willing to know not only what we think but also what we feel, what we want, need, desire, suffer over, are frightened or angered by - and to accept our right to experience such feelings. The opposite of this attitude is denial, disowning, repression - self repudiation.

To honor the self is to preserve an attitude of self-acceptance - which means to accept what we are, without self-oppression or self-castigation, without any pretense about the truth of our own being, pretense aimed at deceiving ourselves or anyone else.

To honor the self it to live authentically, to speak and act from our innermost convictions and feelings.

To honor the self it to refuse to accept unearned guilt, and to do our best correct such guilt as we may have earned.

To honor the self is to be committed to our right to exist which proceeds from the knowledge that our life does not belong to others and that we are not here on earth to live up to someone else's expectations. To many people, this is a terrifying responsibility.

To honor the self is be in love with our own life, in love with our possibilities for growth and for experiencing joy, in love with the process of discovery and exploring our distinctively human potentialities.

Thus we can begin to see that to honor the self it to practice selfishness in the highest, noblest, and least understood sense of that word. And this, I shall argue, requires enormous independence, courage and integrity."

The greatest command it to love God with all our hearts, soul, mind, and strength. And the second is to love our neighbors as ourselves. May we all have the courage to do so.