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Inner Strength

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G0010193.JPGThe strength to overcome what you know is not right.  The strength to face powerful opposition without giving up.  This is not physical strength, it is inner strength.

Like physical strength, we must exercise our inner strength it if we want to improve it.  We use our inner strength in both good and bad experiences throughout our lives. Most of our victories in life are the result of putting our inner strength to work, and it is tested in tragedies and turmoils that are never far from those times of triumph.  There is no escape from pain, so we must use the hard times to grow our inner strength.

When it comes time to develop our inner strength, it is easier to be more like water than steel.  We find the path of least resistance and head that way. I’m here to encourage you to take the difficult path instead.

It is often said that life is what we make it. I have come to learn that there is a lot of truth in that statement.  If we wake up and believe that this day will be bad, it very likely will be.  On the other hand, if you think of all the positive that will happen during your day, even a bad day can turn out pretty good.

Your inner strength has the possibility to change both your circumstances and your attitude.

Can you fight on after being dropped flat on your back? Can you not only stand back up, but finish strong? Can you decide to change and then follow through with it?  If you can, you have great inner strength.

If you feel your inner strength needs work, start by realizing and admitting your weaknesses.  Own your weaknesses, and work on them.  With dedication, you can turn them around into strengths.

I thought I had great inner strength, but it turns out I was fooling myself.  I realized just how weak I was in many ways once I surrendered my will to God’s.  I had viewed religion as a waste of time, and I had viewed myself as “in charge.”  Today I look forward to the quiet time when I can pray and connect with God.  My relationship with God gives me the inner strength to make the right choices, because he provides strength when I am weak. The best part of this? His strength is available to anyone who believes.

John 1:1-51

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

2 Peter 1:5-8

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Titus 2:12

Training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,

Small Steps in the Right Direction

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Beekeeper Kenji

If you watch the news or log onto Facebook, you have probably heard it said by now that nothing is your fault.  Anything negative was brought upon you by an outside influence. Once you start the blame game, it’s easy to forget that we all have free will.  

Personal responsibility has the potential to turn our nation around. We live with more freedoms than any citizens in the history of the world, which gives us more responsibility in determining our own futures.  We have no nobility, no ruling class – each one of us has the potential to become whatever we wish in life.

As free people in a free society, our lives are the sum of the decisions we make.  I know many people will disagree with me on that.  Most will insist on pointing to one bad thing that happened to them, which they blame for changing their life.  In reality, life is the culmination of many small decisions made over a long period of time that shape our lives.  When we don’t like who we are, it can be very hard to accept that we are to blame.

Think about where you are at this moment in life and trace it backwards. If you are honest with yourself you will see that your past actions determine where you are today.

The great news is that nothing is permanent.  You can change your life by changing the decisions you make on a daily basis.

It is up to you, and only you, to change the behaviors that have caused you to be where you are. When changes are made, the outcome will reflect those changes.

If you try to change everything at the same time you are less likely to change anything in the long run.  Zero in on one thing you want to change, and start with that.  Take baby steps, all aimed toward the same goal.  Successful people know where they want to go, and what it takes to get there.

I see this concept of the importance of the small things in nature.  This year I started to learn beekeeping as a beekeeper’s apprentice. We began in the spring with two hives.  After a couple of months we got a phone call about some bees swarming at a nearby home, so we went and picked up a third swarm and put it in a hive.  One of the three hives flourished and grew strong, but the other two were just getting by.  We combined the two weak hives to make one bigger hive.

After the bees worked through the spring, summer and early fall, we checked on their progress.  They need to have enough honey to last through the cold Illinois winter, so it would not be unusual if there was not enough extra honey to harvest any the first year of keeping bees.

Each hive is made of wooden boxes called supers and each super has eight frames hung in it.  The bees make honeycomb on each frame and fill the honeycombs with honey. When we checked the hives, they had each produced and stored enough honey that there was enough extra to remove one super from each hive.

From the two supers, we ended up extracting 27 pounds of honey, which ended up being over two gallons. Each teaspoon of honey represents a dozen bee’s life of work. That means 18,432 bees devoted their lives to make the 1536 teaspoons of honey we harvested. That is a lot of small steps that add up to a big accomplishment.

My own life began to change when I stopped and thought about my long-term goals.  What would be the honey harvest of my life?  I used to make snap decisions without thinking.  I would go off and do what looked exciting or fun.  Once I directed my energy towards a long-term outcome and forgot about the short-term distractions, I began to see real change.

Change is hard.  That’s why it’s so important to keep your eyes on your goal, not on how you’re feeling at the moment.  As Christians, we often quote the verse “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength (Philippians 4:13).” This can be taken out of context to give the impression that life is not hard with God is on our side.  The truth is far from that. Paul, when he was writing that, was in prison.

God doesn’t say anywhere in the Bible that he won’t give you anything you can’t handle (as Pastor Arol preached so clearly this past Sunday at Minooka Bible in his sermon about Jonah).  Life is tough.  God promises he will be with us, but he never promises it won’t be hard.

This is not limited to changing yourself, although that is where it all begins. In order to transform the world, you have to transform yourself first.

Ephesians 4:22-24

22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self,which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness..

A Warm Welcome

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In California I had slipped into that comfortable pace of life where I was not doing as much as I should or could have been doing.  So we decided to leave Los Angeles behind, took a leap of faith and headed 2072 miles away, to a farm I had never even visited before.  I have lived in big cities all my life.  The times I had moved away from California in the past to live in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Fort Lauderdale, I had always kept a California home to return to.  This time was different.

We arrived in Illinois a few days before the moving truck.  In my travel bag I had a mouth guard and some training gear – gloves, shin pads, mitts.  It had been a week since I had trained last at Fortune Gym in Hollywood, where I had trained 6 days a week for over 5 years straight.  We started looking up nearby gyms where I could begin training in the Midwest.   Jiu Jitsu, boxing, kickboxing, and MMA are all a way of life for me.  Though I had left behind my gym and training partners, I had not lost my passion for staying active as a fighter and would need to keep growing as an athlete and training regularly with people who could improve my skill.

The first gym I found online in a nearby town looked promising.  We drove over and met the owner mid-morning.  I introduced myself as Kenji, and we talked about the gyms I had trained at and the professional fighters I had trained with, and who we might know in common.  He invited me to return later that night for some sparring when his MMA fighters would be there to train.

I came back for a class that evening and waited on the side of the gym for him to finish with a kid’s class he was teaching.  He finished the class and began walking around talking to other people, avoiding me.  After waiting another thirty minutes, I went up to him as he was talking to some people, and he asked me to wait and he’d be with me in a bit.  He had me wait over an hour before he would speak to me. I was new to town, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt.  As I waited, I talked to some other fighters who were warming up in the gym.

Eventually, he walked off the mat and I tried to speak to him again. He was angry and raised his voice, asking me my name.  I told him my name was Kenji, as I had told him earlier.  He said, “Kenji GALLO?” I answered yes – as that was the name everyone I had trained with as a fighter knew me by.  We hadn’t discussed last names, but I wasn’t trying to hide anything from him about my past.  Kenji and MMA trainer from Los Angeles, who used to teach at Fortune Gym and Reign Training Center is not too hard to find on Google.  He told me to leave, accused me of lying to him and trying to trick him, and added that rats like me weren’t welcome in his gym.  I thanked him for his time and left.

What a welcome to Illinois!  I really missed my California gym and friends at that moment.

The way I reacted to the owner of the gym was not natural for me.  In the past, I always thought I needed to teach somebody a lesson when they were out of line.  That never worked out well for me. You can not fight every perceived wrong. This is part of life, and you had better get used to it because it will happen often. All you can control is how you react to a given situation.

When I walked away, it was amazing how at peace I felt.  His goal had been to punish me for who I was, yet I realized that in reality, he had done me a favor.  The funny part of the evening was how worked up my wife was – the normally calm and collected one.  She had waited with me and witnessed this all unfold.  I told her I knew this was not the right place for me to train, and that God had something better in store for us.

The next gym I decided to try in the area was just the type of place I like to train – and I have been there ever since. The people are professional, I have made friends and I have become a better fighter.

The good news is, no matter how bad your past is, God knows every detail of your life and still welcomes you with open arms.  He is capable of changing you for the better, and has a great future in store – regardless of the difficult people you will run into.