Rebuke the Wind and the Sea will Appease

The account of Jesus calming the storm is told mentioning a detail in particular in the Gospel of Mark: that Jesus didn't rebuke the sea, but the wind (Mark 4:39). This is because the wind was what provoked the big waves that covered the boat. In other words, Jesus dealt with the cause of the problem and not just with the problem itself.

The disciples weren't afraid of the furious wind but of the waves, because the waves swamped the boat (Mark 4:37) and they could sink and drown. The disciples looked at the raising waves and how they fell on the boat and their hearts filled with fear. They didn't looked at the invisible force behind the raising of the sea waves, but their focus was on the sea. Jesus didn't only deal with the problem (the waves), but also with the cause of it (the wind).

Check what Mark 4:37 says in the New King James Version, "And a great windstorm arose." Jesus knew what the real essence of the storm was: the wind. The disciples didn't. They thought that their only problem was the sea waves. They didn't realize that if Jesus didn't rebuke the wind and just said to the wind to be calmed, it was just matter of time for the waves to raise up again. That's why He rebuked the wind first, and then calmed the sea.

Have you recognize what is the real essence of the storm you go through? Maybe you're only watching "the waves that fall on your boat" which fill you up with fear, but don't see what provoke those waves. Maybe you say:
- My problem is my son's nightmares, but you don't focus on what causes those nightmares.
- My problem is my debts, but you don't focus on the bad habits that cause those debts.
- My problem is the estrangement with my spouse, but you don't focus on what causes that estrangement.
- My problem is that I'm sickly, but you don't focus on your eating habits and lack of exercises that cause those sicknesses.
- Etc., etc., etc.

Proverbs 26:2 states that causeless curse doesn't come. Rather than bury yourself in the symptoms, deal with the cause of them. Stop wasting time and energy solving the same problem again and again, and rather use that time and energy to deal with the causes of that problem.

Maybe you've been dealing for long time only with the problem, but not with the cause of it. That's why it constantly appears! If you want to get rid of that problem once and for all, ask for help to your heavenly Father so that He may help you to recognize what you are doing or maybe what you are expose to, which provokes the problem, and of course, ask wisdom to finally get rid of it.

Hope this may helped you!

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I'm sure that these following links about more faith and grace teachings will help you:

• Believe that You'll TAKE it, and it'll Come: Learn how to receive what you are asking God for.
• Rest from Yourself: Learn that we should stop trying to win our good Heavenly Father's favor, and just rest.
• Focus on what your Heavenly Father Does: Sometimes we think that God is solving the problems that the devil makes, but it's actually the opposite way: the devil is trying to ruin the blessings that God has created for you.

3 Steps to Become a Good Failure

I want to share to you three advices that, no doubts, will take you to failure. Remember that all good failure people do regularly what successful people almost never do. All good failure person make excuses, listen to everybody and plan nothing. Therefore, if you want to be a failure all your life, don't stop keeping this advices!

1. Make Excuses

Not all is your fault, so why do you have to take responsibility of everything that happens to you? Do you make the decisions of the government? Did you plan that bad thing that happened to you, that marked you and that prevented you emotionally and/or physically? Is it your fault that that man, woman, boss, coworkers, are the way they are? Of course not!

Stop listening to those that encourage you all the time because it's for sure than they didn't go through the things you did. You are the sorry, poor and pitiful person that deserves the help of all! They don't! Surely they grew up favored by destiny and will never understand your situation.

So, every time you got the chance to improve in some area, remember that you have the right to make an excuse for not to do so. What you have to do is to wait for the perfect conditions so just then to do something.


2. Listen to Everybody

Unless you want to be a hermit and exile yourself to a desert island, you have to start to compare yourself to everybody. Don't be self sufficient and proud to think that you are alright. Why to listen to only wise people, to the ones that care for you and to the ones that have obtained success? What kind of discrimination is that? This isn't a monarchy nor a dictatorship. We live in democracy!, and in such everybody deserves to be listened.

Therefore, you have to start listening to ALL your critics, to all of those that like to opine comfortably seated in their seats but they'd never be willing to play in the field, to all of those envy people that love to have what you have, to all those socia media trolls that spend five hours daily behind a screen applying their gift of criticizing others. Listen to them all!, unless that you believe that you are better that them.

And, of course, try to please everybody. Stop being selective about serving Jesus! Jesus said that we have to love are neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:39) and that we have to do good to all (Galatians 6:10), didn't He?


3. Do not Plan

Plans are the modern invention of the self called "leadership and motivation masters" to maintain you slaved, and God wants you to live in freedom! (Galatians 5:13).

Short, mid and long-term plans? What's it for?, you won't fulfill their deadlines anyways and the only thing that this will be useful for is to make you feel bad and condemned, and then you'll be buying books about how to be free from condemnation, surely written by the same authors!

Living in freedom, guided by the Holy Spirit to where He wants to take you is much better! Leave now those plans to loose weigh, those goals to learn another language, that exercise routine and all of those planning nonsense that the only thing they are good is for taking your freedom.


Keep it up!
If you've been following these advices, surely your life heads to failure. Keep it up! Don't Stop! And if you've not followed them, surely your life is becoming into one of those weird exceptions where, in time, everything turn out well. But, why do you want to be the exception? Why do you want to live alone? Join the great family of failure people of all around the world and I promise that "loneliness" is something that you'll never feel!

PD: Yeap, I was being ironic =), but with much love!

Do exactly the opposite and you will surely obtain success in all the areas of life!

Hope it helps!

The best way to stop doing the wrong

Do you want to change? Do you want to stop doing the wrong that you know you have to quit doing? Surely you've tried for long time to quit that addiction, that bad habit, to change that personality trait that has brought you so many problems, but without good results. I'm gonna give you now the way to stop doing the wrong thing: Do good.

No kidding! The best way to stop doing wrong is doing good!

It's not about of just trying to stop doing wrong things, but of doing good things. That bad habit has to be replaced by other in order for it to disappear, and what's better than by a good habit!

This is not about of just resisting doing bad things. Waiting for that moment of anxiety to come wherein temptation already started to take over the will, just to start saying: "I won't do it! I won't do it! I won't do it!", is an 100% inefficient way. The best way is NEVER ALLOW THAT DESIRE TO START GROWING.

If you analyze the daily life of a person with a bad habit, you'll note that it's all designed for that bad habit to appear and to flourish. That bad habit or addiction didn't just all of a sudden appear out of the thin air with no reason, but it flourished because it's fed by the many decisions that are made in a daily basis. That's why that the best way to be free from that wrong habit is creating a new one.

It's not about to stop doing wrong, but to do good.

It's not a new decision you have to make, but a bunch of it. You have to re-design your life style. It's nonsense to think that doing the same thing you'll obtain different results. That's why your decisions have to aim to create a new life style. For example, make the decision to practice a sport, to create a new group of friends, to take classes of something new, to assist more to your church, to be part of a small group in it, to actively participate in the events it organizes, etc. This kind of decisions will be changing your life style, using the time you used before to cultivate that bad habit to create a new and good one, you'll be surrounding yourself with people that will naturally help you to go to that new direction because they are going to that same direction!

By doing so, in time, you'll realize that you won't be worrying for not doing that bad thing, but for doing new good things. You'll note that bad thing you used to do will be a past thing, you won't remember how you quit doing it, because your focus will have changed, because you won't be worried on destroying the bad thing, but on building a good one.

I hope this may helped you!

Focus on what your Heavenly Father does

Your heavenly Father isn't trying to catch up the devil; it's the other way around. It's the devil that is trying to catch up your Father! There is no contest between them. Jesus already won!

What do I mean? We usually think that when we have problems, our heavenly Father has to do something to solve the situation, that's to say, that the devil attacked first and then your Father comes to solve the problem, but I think it's the other way around. It's your heavenly Father the one that is already doing something to bless you and the devil is trying that you don't receive it, and that's why he attacks!

Those problems just are the devil's attempts for you to not receive what your heavenly Father is doing for you.

Your Father isn't with arms crossed seeing how you go through trials and waiting for you to ask Him for help so He just start doing something about it. Not so! He has started doing something even before the foundation of the earth and has finished all with Jesus, and it is the devil the one trying to lie to you so you don't take the blessings that belongs to you.

So that, when you go through many trials, take them as a sign of the devil's desperation that tries to do something so you don't receive what your Father has already sent. Don't be discourage looking only the problems, because that's exactly what the devil wants. Many times we focus more on what the devil does than on what our Father does, and that's why we get discourage and don't take our blessings.

When Jesus was born, the devil tried to do something to kill him (Matthew 2:16-18). The same happened when Moses was born (Exodus 1:22). For the people back then, that time was the darkest, and because of their discouragement, they didn't see the blessing that'd been born, and that already was among them.

I encourage you to open your eyes and see what your heavenly Father is doing. All those trials, many of them inexplicable, are just the devil's attempts to get you discourage, to get you think that your Father hasn't done anything, that He's forgotten you, so that you decide not to take what's yours.

When the Bible says that the earth is filled with His glory (Isaiah 6:3), or that He loads us with blessings that each day (Psalms 68:19), or that you're already blessed in Jesus (Ephesians 1:3), isn't a lie so you may feel better, nor a motivational trick so you may see the glass half full instead half empty. It is the truth!

Be strong and courageous and dare to look only at what your heavenly Father is doing, and you'll see that you'll get encourage, you'll start to see what He's doing and you'll note the opportunities and blessings where you hasn't seen them before!

Hope this may blessed you! 😀

An Advice that will help you to get your goals this 2018

If you divide what you want to achieve in 365 parts, I assure you that it'll get much easier. The problem that many people face when they resolve to achieve something is that they see what they want as a whole, and obviously what they see is an impossible-to-achieve goal.

What do you want for this 2018? To loose weight, a better relationship with your kids, with you wife, to be free from an adiction? Whatever it may be, you'll get discourage if you think that achieve your goal consists of just one step. Remember this: NO ACHIEVEMENT IS GOTTEN WITH JUST ONE STEP.

Any feat you want to achieve (or that has been achieved) will require time, sacrifice, care, discipline, perseverance, planing, etc., and obviously you can't apply these on just one day, unless, of course, that you know a person that in one day has lost weigh, gotten a dream marriage, restored his/her children relationship, been free from an addiction, etc.

Just in case, there is no magic pill that will make you to loose weigh without exercising and eating healthy food, and those persons that say to the ones with a great marriage, "how lucky you were to get such a beautiful marriage!", don't know what they're saying, they're wrong, because it cost them YEARS of learning to give in, to forgive, to understand and to sacrifice.

So, more than a goal, see what you want to achieve as a direction for YOUR DAILY STEPS to aim, and these DAILY STEPS, these do have to be your goals! EACH DAY AN INDIVIDUAL GOAL, which altogether will take you to where you want to get.

Learn to find satisfaction in achieving these daily goals, in the little ones, each and every day. Learn to be happy:
- Not only when you got your ideal weigh, but you finished a day of eating healthy and exercising.
- Not only when somebody tells you "how great marriage you have!", but when finished a prayer for your spouse (which is one of the many little steps to get to marriage restoration).
- Not only when you "feel free" from your addiction, but when your day is up and you didn't fall.

Doing this you not only will enjoy the process until you get where you want to go, but also you'll realize that doing exploits isn't something for a few people, but YOU also will feel that can do your own exploit, and you'll know there's nothing you cannot achieve.

A prayer for 2018

Heavenly Father, I thank you for 2017 that just finished, because I know that You've been with me all the time. Maybe many times I didn't realize that You were there, but that doesn't mean that You weren't. And for this same reason I know that You'll be with me this year 2018.

I ask you to help me to see You all this starting year. I don't want to be led by my feelings, but I want to learn to live by faith. I know there will be problems, situation that will make me stumble and maybe I'll turn my eye off of You, but help me to put my eyes back to You rapidly, knowing that You won't condemn me for not having trusted You, but You'll be ready to receive me, hug me and help me to solve that problem.

Thank you for I know that you don't seek perfection in me. You don't ask me to be a perfect son, because You know that that is impossible for me. Rather, thank You because You gave your perfect Son so He may die for my imperfections, and thanks to Him, now You see me perfect, holy, pure and spotless. Thank You because that gives the confidence that in 2018 I can go forth for new challenges without the fear of being wrong before You, because I know that You won't be disappointed of me, that You won't get weary of my mistakes and sins, but You'll always be willing to help, correct and direct me with love.

Thank You because Your Word says that You go before me (Deuteronomy 31:8) and that You prepare the way for me (Ephesians 2:10). This means that 2018 isn't new for You. I don't know the things I'll face this starting year, but You do. And I know that, in Your faithfulness, You already ensured that any situation I face has a way of escape, so I'll be able to bear it (1 Corinthians 10:13). So I'll walk confident that You've already been to where I'll be and that You prepared everything for me.

I won't be afraid of the bad news that 2018 brings, because my heart will be steadfast trusting You (Psalms 112:7). You won't abandon me in anytime, move away from me nor leave me alone, but You'll ALWAYS be with me (Matthew 28:20). I decide to see your goodness (Psalms 27:13), and to believe that the earth is filled with your glory (Isaiah 6:3), and that includes my family, my business, my church and my country. My mouth will declare Your good news and not the bad news I'll hear. The physician doesn't have the last word, neither my boss, the president, the authorities, nor the things I see in my family. I decide to believe that You have the last word. I decide to believe Your Word and fix my eyes only on You.

Thank Father because You love and You will always do, and that love is the anchor that soul needs. I feel safe in You.

Amen

Bye 2017: You got to the other side

What a year!

Many things happened in 2017! It started with a very hot summer which was alongside with an even hotter politic situation: interpellations, accusations, debates for the gender ideology, ex-president Toledo's capture order, among other things. Right after that, mudslides in different parts of Peru leave desolation and pain for whatever they went, whose consequences are still far from being restored.

Then a tragic fire touched many Peruvians because it revealed the slavery situation that many young people endured. The politic world didn't stop getting tense. In the middle of the year the ex-president Toledo and his wife were put in custody. Thousands of students were afraid to loose the school year because of the constant strikes of their teachers.

The interpellations to the state secretaries continued and corruption accusations reached the current president of Peru. The cabinet fell. The year crowned with the request of presidential impeachment.

And this is just in Peru. I have said nothing about Venezuela, the Middle East, the fear of a nuclear war, the earthquakes devastating different places, slaughters and shootings, etc. And of course, all of this is just the frame where all our personal problems took place.

But, you know something?, 2017 finished and we're still here. We got to the other side. The marks that 2017 left you are not of failure, but the prove that you got to the other side.

I explain it to you with this story: One mom watched over her kid from afar while he played in a river. Suddenly, a crocodile appeared, grabbed the boy's arm and started taking him inside the river. His mom run to him with all her strength while crying out loud for help. Surprisingly she got just in time to grab her other son's arm. The boy was pulled in one side by the crocodile, and in the other side, by the her mom. Thanks God there was a hunter in the area that heard her crying out for help and quickly approached to help and killed the crocodile with his weapon. The boy was taken rapidly to the hospital.

Once the boy was out danger, his mom allowed a journalist to interview him. The journalist asked him: "What do you think when you see the marks that the crocodile left you?" The boy answered: "Those marks mean nothing to me". Then he showed her his other arm and said: "This marks are the ones that do have a great value to me, because they represent that my mom didn't leave me and saved my life".

Maybe this 2017 left you with some marks, but those marks aren't of failure, because if it was so, you wouldn't be here. But you are here! You got to the other side! Those marks are the ones left by your Heavenly Father because He didn't let you go all this time. It was hard, but you got to the other side. And your Father promises you that He will be with you in 2018 no matter what it brings! Will there be difficulties? I'm positive that there will, but you won't be alone, He will keep holding your hand, and you can be sure that NOTHING will make Him to let you go.

The best moment to destroy your enemy

We all have fought (or we're currently fighting) against a worst enemy: an addiction, sicknesses caused by wrong-feedind habits, marriage problems, financial problems, etc. For many of us, it was very difficult to overcome it; others, sadly they're still fighting. But all of us have committed this mistake: we've let our enemy to grow.

Our enemy hasn't always been so strong. For most of us, there was a time when this enemy was weak, and because of we thought that is was harmless, we let it live with us and we let it grow. It was then that:
- "It was just a try, everything will be fine!", turned into stealing your own family to by drugs.
- "I don't have to tell my wife everyday that I love her, we are very happy this way!", became into an unbearable marriage situation caused by indifference.
- "We're just taking, besides she needs my help, my wife will understand", turned into adultery.
There are many example of this.

Psalms 137:9 says: "Happy is the one that seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks". It is for sure that the psalmist claimed this hard-to-hear words at seeing the atrocities that Babylon did to his people when they captured them and took them into captivity, but the Holy Spirit let them recorded in order to take advice from it. What is the advice? The best moment to get rid of your enemy is when he is small, that's to say, when you are still stronger.

Now, in this moment of your life, maybe you are living with your worst enemy, but he is still "a child", he's small, you are still stronger. Maybe you've already recognize him, but you're underestimating him, or maybe other people close to you recognized him, but you're not listen to them, you think that they're exaggerating. Do yourself a favor and get rid of your enemy now that you can! Do not let him become stronger! Attack him and destroy him completely once and for all! Because if you don't do it, your enemy will grow stronger, and he will destroy you.

Hope it helped you =)

Gadol's Nugget: His main problem

Gadol, the main character of my novel, went through many terrible hardships, but he didn't realize that his main problem was found in his mind. That, in the long run, would be the main cause of the suffering he would go through.

Gadol is like many of us. Everybody has to face many problem, but the main problem is not found in the problem itself, but in how we handle our problem. Our attitude when we face our problems determines if we prolong the problem or if we find an answer.

How are you facing your current situation? Remember that complaining, lamenting, blaming others, etc., DO NOT RESOLVE THE PROBLEM, on the contrary, IT MAKES IT BIGGER. But if you take responsibility (even though it hasn't been your fault), ask for advices, seek help, make plans, etc., sooner or latter that problem will be something of your past, and you will be coming through strengthened rather than destroyed.

Hope it helps!

Do problems strengthen you?

I personally think that problems don't strengthen you, and in this post I want to explain why.

If problems strengthened people, all of us that go through problems would be strengthened because of them. But, as you already may know, it doesn't happen that all the time. In fact, in most cases it happens exactly the opposite: people end up stressed, worried, depressed, etc.

"But I know this guy that came out strengthened out a big problem", you might think. It is a mistake to make general rules from particular cases, even if there are many cases of the same point. I could also say: "But I know this guy that came out completely devastated out a big problem", and we can fall into an endless argumentation to know who is right, when the error resides in miss-focussing the reasoning.

"The problem by itself does not destroy you nor lift you up, it just reveals what is inside of you" (Dr Edwin Louis Cole). Your decisions are based on what is inside of you.
- If you've been filling yourself up with negativism, laziness, lack of preparation, bad examples, etc., it is almost for sure that when you go through a trial you will get discouraged, frustrated, full of fear, or something similar.
- But if you've been filling yourself up with positivism, discipline, preparation, good examples, etc., it's almost for sure that when you go through a problem you will not quit, you will look for good advices, you will feel challenged, or something similar.

The problem just REVEALED what there was inside of you.

You allow what enter inside of you.

As christian, I am not agree to those that say things like: "God made me go through this problem in order for me to learn this." They think that it was God the one that made them go through a problem so that they may learn something from it or they may be strengthened by it. Biblically speaking, God does not send problems to anybody. They are already there: sometimes other people cause them, sometimes we ourselves cause them and sometimes they are there because we just allowed them to be there. What your heavenly Father does, instead, is to help you to prevent them or to get you out of them.

"Ok., God didn't send me that problem neither made me go through it, but He did use it so that His Word may be applied." Not true either. God doesn't use problems so that you may apply His Word. On the contrary, He has prepared you before hand with His Word and His presence. These two, His Word and His presence, are the only two ways in the Bible that our Father uses to teach us something.

You can be taught by your Heavenly Father directly or indirectly. It is directly when you yourself are studying the Bible, reading books, listening to teachings, and also seeking His Presence, and it's indirectly when you're being influenced by other source: a friend, a relative, a testimony, etc., which it is just the Word of God made flesh in other person, the Word in action, the Word working, but it's still the Word of God.

"He trains my hands for battle" (Psalm 18:34). Your heavenly Father is the one that gets you ready for battle, He is not the one that prepares the battle. Many battles in the Old Testament were already there; fighting them was inevitable to take to promise land. That's to say, if you want to take your promise land, battles will be inevitable, they weren't send by you heavenly Father; they were already there. But your Father will help you to overcome them!

Other people say: "If you ask God for patience, He sends you a problem so that you may obtain patience." Do problems produce patience? No, they don't! Problems do not produce anything at all, neither good things nor bad things. That patience inside of you came by other good things you were filling yourself up with in the past.

It is because of this reasoning that many people thank God for problems, others aren't determined to get out of their problems because they believe they're fulfilling a God's purpose, others are waiting for God's time to get themselves out of them, etc. A wrong believe produces a wrong behavior.

"God didn't send me problems, but He did allowed them for some reason. We must trust Him!" In order for you to trust your heavenly Father, you have to base on what His Word says. Do you find Biblical base that supports that? I'm not talking about two or three verses, but supported teaching from the beginning to the end of the Bible. You know what, you won't find it. Therefore, I recommend you to not believe it. It's not enough that you have heard it from your favorite preachers. You have to see it yourself that is supported by the Bible.

It is different to say that God turns something bad that happen to you into something good from saying that He sent that bad thing and then He turned into something good.

If you decide to believe that your heavenly Father didn't send you the problem you are going through, but He did allow it for some reason which you can't understand now, but you will later, then you will be accepting that problem in your life instead of fighting it. Remember this: God does not give you weapons so that you fight the enemies He sends you nor the ones He allows. Someone may think: Wouldn't be much better that He just doesn't send any problem in the first place!

If you're going to a problem, you have to know that your heavenly Father did not send it; instead, He will strengthen you, help you and guide you to come through victoriously from it. Do not say again: "If it hasn't been for this problem, I wouldn't obtained that blessing." Rather you say: "If it hasn't been that my Heavenly Father helped me in the middle of that problem, I wouldn't obtained that blessing."

I hope it helped you!