May 7, 2016 by Catherine Joy

Your 3 Verbs

I’ve talked before in a past post on how to create a personal mission statement for yourself. Part of that process includes choosing three verbs that are most meaningful and exciting to you, three verbs that you believe will help you accomplish your core value. I shared that my three verbs came out to be Encourage, Inspire, and Support. I believe that these verbs, these actions, will help me achieve spreading my core value of Influence.

What do these verbs mean, and what do they mean to me or you? Verbs are a specific form of action. By choosing three certain verbs, they represent specific actions that we choose to focus on. Focusing our actions gives way to better and faster results. It achieves more specific results. If you’re determined to accomplish a certain goal, or simply spread a certain value, it is highly effective to hone your actions.

So what are your three verbs? If you don’t know what your core value is, more than likely choosing three verbs that inspire you the most will shine some light on it. It helps to begin with a big master list of verbs to pick from (courtesy of “The Path” by Laurie Beth Jones):

accomplish acquire administer adopt advance affect
affirm alleviate amplify appreciate ascend associate believe bestow brighten build
call
cause
choose
claim
collect combine command
communicate
compel compete complete compliment compose conceive

confirm connect consider construct contact continue counsel create
decide defend delight deliver demonstrate devise
direct discover discuss distribute draft
dream
drive educate
elect embrace encourage endow engage engineer enhance enlighten

enlist enliven entertain enthuse envision evaluate excite explore express extend facilitate finance forgive foster franchise further gather generate give
grant
heal
hold
host
identify ignite illuminate implement improve improvise inspire

integrate involve
keep
know
labor
launch
lead
master mature measure mediate model
mold motivate move negotiate nurture
open organize participate pass perform persuade play
possess practice praise prepare present produce

progress promise promote provide realize receive reclaim reduce
refine
reflect reform regard
relate
relax
release
rely remember renew resonate respect restore return
revise sacrifice safeguard satisfy
save
sell
serve
share

speak
stand summon support surrender sustain
take
tap
team
touch
trade translate travel understand uphold
use
utilize validate value venture verbalize volunteer work worship write
yield

If it’s hard to pick three, start with nine, and then eliminate. Give it a try 🙂

February 20, 2016 by Catherine Joy

A balance of Faith thru Action & Faith thru Waiting

Faith-confidence or trust in a person or thing; belief that is not based on proof.

What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead….Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect?…For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
-James 2:14-26

Wait for the LORD; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the LORD.
-Psalm 27:14

For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness.
-Galatians 5:5

I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint. And the Lordanswered me: “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.
Habakkuk 2:1-3

Everyone, and not just Christians, have different ideas and discuss what faith entails. When I think of it in terms of action, I remember this one activity at youth camp called “Leap of Faith,” in which one or two people stood on a very narrow wooden post (which often shook like madness), some 10 or 15 feet high, with harnesses of course, and had to jump from it and grab onto a pole approximately five or six feet away. It was a leap of faith because, even though the harness rope would catch you eventually, you really did fall for a few split seconds unless you successfully grabbed that pole. When I think of faith in terms of waiting, I think of Job from the Bible, who had his entire life practically taken away from him, but he stayed passive and did nothing but continue to trust and worship God. It was a very long and strenuous time of waiting. Then everything plus some was restored to him.

More often than not, the “waiting in faith” concept is more commonly practiced, either intentionally or unintentionally. There is certainly faith in living by “I give it to God and he will take care of it.” But if that is your method year upon year, and nothing changes, then it’s either lack of balance or, sometimes, honest-to-goodness laziness. At the same time, if you constantly live by “walking it out in faith” and take leaps of faith at every corner, you’re more so taking personal initiative and forgetting to stop and listen to God, and, though boldness is an admirable trait, it is possible to be a little too bold. You’re basically throwing caution to the wind.

Throughout our lives, we encounter events and decisions that force us to choose waiting in faith or stepping out in faith. I have had so many moments when I waited longer than I needed, and in result it made me miserable and frustrated. Other times I took action too soon, and it fell through. The success of our decisions is based on whether it’s God’s timing or not. And I believe that God gives us equal amounts of waiting and taking action. He’s a God of balance, after all. So how do we know which kind of faith to operate in at each specific time? Listen to God, and by that, pay attention to the signs. Your heart will tell you, your closest people will tell you, and doors will open or shut. If doors seem to keep closing, then it’s time to wait. If doors seem to keep opening, then it’s time to take action.

The most important thing is, with either, it will always involved having faith in God. When you’re waiting, you’re believing that God will bring about the solution outside of your own effort. When you’re stepping out, you’re placing a dependence on God that is beyond what you could achieve if you were standing still.

What are some personal stories of your journey with these two kinds of faith?

January 16, 2016 by Catherine Joy

5 Moments that gave me an Inspiration Surge

We can’t easily forget those moments, when something or someone so deeply inspired us that it birthed an idea in our minds or changed our way of thinking or made us take action. I’ll bet you can name one significant event. Let me share five.

The day I watched The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. I saw the first Chronicles of Narnia movie when it came out in 2005 before I even knew about the books. It was thanks to my brother who expressed enthusiasm for this unbeknownst story, and his insistence of me reading the books. I saw the movie, and I fell in love. “What is this story?” I asked my brother. He gave me his big fat copy of all seven books when we got home, and that was the start of a lifelong infatuation with Narnia and C.S. Lewis. And this was all before I discovered I wanted to write just like him…
The first day of seventh grade English. My teacher, still a good friend and inspiration to this day, welcomed us to her class, and then ordered us to take out a pencil and paper. We were to write in silence for five minutes. We couldn’t stop, and we couldn’t erase. If we had nothing to write, then we wrote I don’t know what to write over and over. When the timer began, I was thinking about The Legend of Zelda. I would watch my brother play the games, and he had recently finished Ocarina of Time. So, in those five minutes, I wrote a short story about Link and the little MarketTown of Hyrule. That was the story that, at the end of the five minutes, I leaned back from and stared at with a tingling sense of awe. It was the moment I realized, I loved that.
When I heard my fourth grade teacher had said, “she’s going to be a writer.” My fourth grade teacher (who was also my second grade teacher) was another teacher that made a mark on my life. She saw the gift in me first, years before it came up on its own. I didn’t know she said this until years later, because she wrote it in a letter to my mom. It was confirmation to me, and a surge that kept me going.
After I cried on the bathroom floor while healing from a broken back. There was a point during that season when I feared that I would never run or dance or climb ever again that I broke down in the bathroom. My mom found me and prayed over me. Something changed after that day. My attitude toward my injury shifted. I began to see the opportunities that lay in wait. And when God let me know, “Even if you were paralyzed, you’d still be able to fulfill your purpose,” it was all different after that. I thanked God I wasn’t an athlete.
December 31, 2015. I made the decision to quit a previous position this day, and though the process was hard, I relished the feeling of a fresh start when it came to pass. It was a great way to launch the year of Independence with a reassuring message that I can move my feet and not make an earthquake if I didn’t want to. I can move my feet and make a path appear.

What are some unique significant moments that inspired you and made a little change in your life? What event gave you a surge of Inspiration?

May 7, 2015 by Catherine Joy

What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?

It’s very likely that you’ve heard this phrase before. Thus, it probably just whisks by in our brains without much thought. But, honestly truly, would you have an answer if you did think about it, and I mean really think about it?

In this alternate reality, what would you go for? I know for myself, I would straight up go for every dream that’s on my heart, the ones I’ve been chipping away at to make happen. There’s much chipping happening because I want to be prepared so as to not fail. But in this world, I would do everything right now. Maybe, perhaps, even go for the things I’m afraid of.

Is that it, then? We would go for the things we’re afraid to do? Makes sense. Why else do we hold back from doing things? Because of fear of failure. Now, yes, we all know that kind of reality of never failing isn’t possible, but perhaps we should live as if it were.

As JK Rowling said, “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.” There is some good in being safe than sorry, in waiting, in preparing yourself, but there’s even greater good in taking risks, in trying and failing, in experimenting. Whenever someone tries to explain to me why they haven’t gone for something yet, I usually say, “Well, at least do something.” Depending on the action, wisdom just might be to wait on the right timing, but if that’s all you ever do, then nothing will happen. And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have something going on in my life then get stuck in limbo. Yes, even if it’s not such a good thing, because I can always grow from it.

So, what would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail, hmm? One thing I would do is ask my best friend if I could pray a prayer of salvation with her and lead her to the Lord. What would you do? Share about it in the comments.

April 30, 2015 by Catherine Joy

What is Inspiration?

in·spi·ra·tion
ˌinspəˈrāSH(ə)n/
noun
-the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.

What is Inspiration?

It’s one of those concepts that has dozens of definitions, interloped with the definitions of terms like motivation, stimulation, creativity. It’s popularly associated with the lightbulb metaphor. You know, those moments when a “lightbulb goes off in your head.” The question “What is inspiration?” is quite an abstract one, then.

Inspiration is, in the basic, when something clicks and makes you go. If something did not move you into action, it wasn’t necessarily inspiring. Inspiration is the beginning of a chase. Being inspired is the state of mind where everything makes sense, and anything is possible. Knowing that’s not always true, those moments are priceless to our existence.

So what is inspiration? Inspiration is, literally, anything. You can extract moments of clarity and possibility from anywhere. The key is to be looking for it. Have you ever read The Chronicles of Narnia? Or at least seen the movies? In Prince Caspian, Lucy sees the lion Aslan, but her siblings don’t believe her because they didn’t seem him too. “Why didn’t I see him?” Peter asked. “Maybe you weren’t looking,” Lucy said. That little girl was always looking for Aslan, at every moment. She was always determined to find him again.