Tag: get up

I Can’t…

Jennifred Jones

Saturday morning at the ice-rink a boy about 7 years old kept falling down.

The instructor would help him up and he’d fall again. When she got him up he only wanted to hold on to her. He didn’t want to try to stand or skate alone.

I could see the look on his face. Total frustration, almost red-faced anger at his young age. The instructor would help him time and time again – even getting down on the ice and showing him how to position his feet and legs so he could get up by himself like all the other young skaters were. Everyone was falling down and eventually getting back up all by themselves. This little boy was not really trying. He’d look like he tried to get up and then fall again and squirm until someone came to ‘help’ him. The instructors were looking back and forth at each other wondering how many times to ‘help’ him – when he would not help himself. He was not incapable – just not-capable because of his thinking. Somewhere along the way, he had given in to the ‘I can’t’ mentality. I imagine it was more than just on the ice.

The reason I could see it so clearly is that had been me at different times in my life…Algebra and math. I just ‘couldn’t‘ (I thought). Or meeting new people. I was too shy (unwilling to step out of my security box). I put off learning computers for years – thinking it was a passing fad. ‘I can’t‘ trying to rule me again.

Many times, teachers have learned…allow the student to struggle until they are hungry enough to learn. Then they will.

Back to the boy on the ice. He wasn’t ready to learn. Not yet. Give him a little more time, or maybe find something else he is interested in. Don’t nurture the ‘I can’t’.

In our mind, if we will remove the ‘t‘, it will spell, ‘I can‘. The first step is begin to recognize all our ‘I can’ts’

Where can I begin today?

Don’t Give Up, Get Up!

Jennifred Jones

It’s so easy to give up. All you have to do is do nothing! What more could you do?

But the law of sowing and reaping says that if you sow watermelon seeds, you’ll get watermelons, if you plant apple trees, you’ll get apples, and if you plant nothing, you’ll get nothing.

There’s a certain something about working for what you get that has a way of rewarding you that nothing else can. No free handout, no check from the relatives feels quite as good as obtaining it by your own two hands! God said He would bless the works of our hands, so we do the work, and He will bless and prosper it, to cause increase so our needs will be met…whatever need it is that needs to be done or had at the moment, whether it’s getting the bed made, your garage swept, your closet cleaned, or your  resume updated.

Of course, the Bible says, “the poor you shall always have with you”,  yes, there are some who are unable to help themselves for one reason or another and we need to help them, and feel for them, and pray for them, but for the rest of us, we can be confident that whatever God has given us capabilities to do, He will bless them and provide for us through them, and even have left over to help meet the needs of others….remember the story of the little boy’s lunch of fish and bread that Jesus prayed over and divided to feed not just one small boy, but over 5000 men, plus women and children!  And then they had baskets and baskets of food left over. Jesus was not stingy! Jesus did this twice to prove He cares about people, their hunger, their needs, their lunch, as well as their spirit.

If we can get a handle on how much Jesus really does love us, not only in word, but in deed, it will revolutionize our thinking and we won’t be among the ‘giver-uppers’, we’ll belong to the ‘get-uppers’!

Because if God will help us and grant us success, we just won’t want to give up. Once we get moving and start seeing good fruit developing in our lives, and progress being made by our own two hands, we won’t want to remain seated any longer!

Let the excitement begin!!!