A little birdie told me…
Sometimes God intervenes in strange and unusual ways. Yesterday I was out on my deck, injoying the warm Colorado sunshine. My younger son, Tim, 12 years old, came out to talk to me and saw a little woodpecker sitting in the sun on the steps of the deck and pointed it out to me. Woodpeckers don’t usually sun themselves. They’re usually busy pecking away at our Ponderosa pine trees, getting bugs, chasing other woodpeckers…doing woodpecker-y things…NOT sitting in the sun.
Noticing that the bird stayed on the step, we took a closer look. There was just something wrong about it. It didn’t look wounded or stunned. But it sat strangely in an upright position, motionless, not even stirring when we came close. Its head barely moved. You could see that it was still breathing but it didn’t flap its wings or dart its head around like a healthy bird. It didn’t fly away when we approached it.
We’ve seen dead birds before on our forested property. And we’ve witnessed the death of several wounded birds we tried to rescue. This one was dying…but in a very peculiar fashion. It was almost like it was placed before us to witness its demise…quite bizarre.
Prompted to pray, I stayed over on my side of the deck and prayed for the little bird, declaring life over it. I asked Tim to place a dish of water in front of it. He did so, placing the dish on the step, right against the bird’s chest. The bird didn’t move or try to drink and never did take advantage of the fresh water we thought might help restore its strength. I continued praying for the bird, asking God in His mercy to see this little one, to heal and restore it.
Though perhaps I should, I don’t have the habit of praying over dead and dying animals. We live out in the country, on a somewhat busy road and dead racoons, foxes, skunks, deer, squirrels, bunnies and birds are not an uncommon sight. But there was something different about this…like an assignment, or an opportunity.
Like most families, we’ve had difficult times…some wins…many losses. And there are areas of our life that have seemd almost doomed to death lately, like this little woodpecker I saw in front of me. The heaviness of certain situations is like a suffocating blanket hovering over me. It can feel like an effort to breathe…at least in my heart, where I feel the weight of it.
As time ticked on and the bird looked like it was about to breathe its last breath before falling over, something like hope arose inside of me. I felt prompted to ask God to make this a prophetic declaration over our lives…to intervene with His power, with His compassion, with His unique life-force. “Father, would you please use this as a prophetic declaration that, though certain situations may seem doomed to death, YOUR power will break through and heal, deliver, and make us whole again,” I pleaded with God…using my small faith to petition my Heavenly Father.
I sat across from the bird, about 25 feet away, not watching it…afraid I’d see it die…but praying, breaking off any curses the bird might be carrying (yeah, that might sound weird, but it was important). Feeling a bit silly, I even blew a strong breath in its direction, saying aloud, “I breathe God’s breath of life into you.” I asked for God to send healing angels to bring God’s touch into the situation. I verbally broke the power of death and all demonic forces against the bird. I asked for God to shelter this one under His wings (a metaphor used several times in Scripture to describe God’s care and protection and power to hide from evil).
I prayed out loud off and on as the bird just sat barely moving at all for more than 25 minutes. Kids came and went, intrigued by our visitor, with no reaction from the woodpecker at all.
Suddenly, as if coming out of a stupor, the bird twitched his head, shook a wing, then took off into a nearby tree where his mate was. The other bird seemed to push it away for a moment, unsure. Our little revived woodpecker started moving along the branches, upside down and along the limbs near its mate. Then they both took off for another tree, as if nothing were wrong.
As I stood up to watch the birds, it seemed like the air around me was full of the residue of a momentary explosion of life. Over the next few seconds, a mountain bluebird hopped up towards the deck. A cotton-tailed bunny scampered across the grass near my raspberry bushes. A hummingbird swooped in to check whether we’d replaced the feeder we’d taken in earlier. The aspen leaves quaked in the breeze. Even nature seemed to recognize and resonate with the intervention of the Creator in those moments.
Gratitude flooded me as I started recognizing what had happened and heard in my spirit God’s message for me through what I’d just witnessed. “I will not die; instead, I will live to tell what the LORD has done,” declared the Psalmist in Ps. 118:17. It was an unusual reminder of God’s message of hope. And today, a little bird was the carrier of that message.
In this life, there is suffering. In fact, in John 16:33, we read that Jesus said, “in this life, you will have tribulation.” God’s promises of faithfulness extend to always being with us to help us through difficult times. He doesn’t always prevent hard things. It’s part of the mystery of life and God’s involvement in His creation, even as we have assurances of His love and desire for us to live abundantly, joyfully, with contentment, as we take dominion for His Kingdom in the sphere He has placed us.
We live between Heaven and Earth, citizens of 2 dimensions…of 2 realities. On Earth, there is life and death, beauty and ugliness, holy and profane, good and evil, justice and injustice, peace and violence, compassion and slavery, freedom and oppression, brilliance and madness, laughter and tears. In the Heavenly realm, there is only truth, goodness, ecstatic joy and intimacy, breathtaking holiness, righteousness, justice, purity, magnificent beauty, complex creativity, and things we often only have glimpses of on this side of eternity.
For the moment, “we see through a glass darkly.” We see things imperfectly, partially. I don’t know why God moves astonishingly in some situations, healing sick people, raising the dead, delivering from demonic oppression and debilitating poverty, and at other times seems to be just a Divine Observer and Companion as we struggle through loss and tragedy. These are timeless questions we carry, ponder and wrestle with.
YHVH says: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jer. 29:11) When we are disappointed with God and despair of any hope and future, despite His promises, it’s easy to get into agreement with the enemy and rail against what appears to be the futility of faith.
There is much I don’t understand, but I refuse to side with the devil who only seeks to “steal, kill and destroy.” (John 10:10) In the same verse, Jesus proclaims His mission to give us abundant life. That doesn’t apply just to the “by and by” but to the “here and now.”
So today, as I ponder the miracle I witnessed yesterday, and what I truly believe God was saying about a particular situation in our life, I choose to be in agreement with God. Bringing life into our dying situation will take a miracle of God-sized proportions. I choose to put all my faith toward praying and acting in accordance with what I believe God will do, even though I don’t know HOW He is going to accomplish this miracle.
Had I not obeyed the prompting of the Holy Spirit when I saw that dying woodpecker, I am certain it would be dead now, instead of flying around, annoying me from time to time with its pecking at the tree near my bedroom window. And, since God’s uses the prayers of His people to accomplish certain things, in this case, I obviously would have missed God’s Word of encouragement to me in a difficult situation. I would also have missed the opportunity to breathe God’s Living Breath into YOUR situation.
You might not have witnessed a miracle in your world this week…yet. But there are miracles waiting for you to be open to, for you to declare into your reality. Proverbs 18:21 says: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.” That verse implies that if you will take seriously the fact that your words have enormous power, and value that and use it strategically, you will reap the benefits of that truth.
Breathe God’s life into the difficulties of your life. Pray in agreement with God’s will to move the mountains that are closing in to crush your spirit and your circumstances. Declare God’s goodness over your life. Don’t believe the death of something the devil declares over you. Ask the Holy Spirit, your Comforter, your Guide, your Counselor, what God wants to breathe into today and cooperate, participating fully in what He wants to do in and through you through the power of prayer, prophetic declaration and faith in the One who enables YOU to move mountains.
God can breathe life into your marriage, into your relationship with your parents, your kids, your boss, your employees; God can restore your finances; God can restore your body, your mind, your spirit, your emotions; God can restore your future and redeem your past; God cares about you. A little birdie told me…
What You Need to Know About Internet Marketing. Part 1
Internet marketing is a real profession and anyone who tells you it can be mastered by just pushing a few buttons and doing 5 clicks to get your bank account overflowing is lying to you. Wait…don’t stop reading yet! There’s good news too! 
Success in online marketing requires a pretty big learning curve, but its potential payoffs are enormous. Perhaps your goal in learning internet marketing is
- simply giving your family some financial breathing room
- creating an additional stream of income
- accumulating assets through online real estate (income-producing websites you own)
- becoming a professional internet marketer so you can quit your job and dictate your own schedule
- developing “top-of-mind” status as a person of influence in your niche and advance your cause or sales of products and services…
All of this and more can be done, and is done by many, through a dedicated focus to marketing through the world wide web. But you need to clearly identify your goals, your methods and strategies and what you’ll need to know to hit your target.
People spend months and years online learning blogging, article writing, product creation, membership site creation, email marketing, social media marketing, PPC, CPA, press releases, etc…without taking the time to clearly put a system together that fits their online business goals, develop a daily method of operation and publishing calendar for their content, and test and track their marketing efforts and sales.
They learn and learn and learn, moving from internet guru to internet guru…not quite sure what they are missing and not seeing that this lack of focus is directly responsible for their lack of income and success online.
Between the fantasy that you can have overnight internet success and the reality of many spending waaaaaay too long before they get to real income from their online marketing efforts, there’s a space where you finally strip down all the hype to what’s really needed and you decide to focus, learn, work, test, track; focus, learn, work, test, track (wash…rinse…repeat).
Like the farmer, you don’t just sow seeds to the wind. You sow them in the right soil, you nurture them as they grow, you give them the right amount of water, shelter and light, and, in due season, you reap a bountiful harvest. The analogy between farming and internet marketing works because it does take significant work to build your foundation before a harvest can be expected.
Our goal at 7 Spheres Media (sponsor of Kingdom Business Insights) is to truly equip you for whatever God has called you to, by teaching you how to leverage the power of the internet and the super-powers of social media.
If you:
- follow the blog (subscribe in the form in the sidebar)
- connect with us in social media (follow the icons in the sidebar)
- download, study and implement our free pdf mindmaps (you get them when you subscribe, with some webinars, with some of our emails, surprise bonuses, etc…)
- take our courses
- attend our webinars
- consider products and services we recommend…
you will be way ahead of the aimless masses looking to get rich overnight with their imaginary online ATM. You will be on your way to a Kingdom Business with impact and influence on the ones God has called you to serve. Let’s get going!
Are You One of God’s Least Likely?
Ever been through the pain of waiting to play a team game where players are chosen by a “team captain”? Remember your stomach in knots, hoping you wouldn’t be the last kid to be picked this time and wondering if you’d even be chosen at all?
In the game of life, it almost seems that God has deliberately picked the “least likely” for greatness on His team. In the Bible, and witnessed throughout history, we have example after example to show us that God truly does work through people who face big challenges, enabling them to overcome great personal failures and equipping them strategically along with way with increasing skills, character and influence.
The Biblical Witness
Throughout the panorama of Scripture, the Bible’s heroes and heroines are portrayed as real individuals, with the good, bad and ugly described for us in graphic detail as we view their process of “being transformed into His image and His likeness” (II Cor 3:18). If we just skim these stories, it can look like these people are just an embarrassment to God and it’s easy to look down our noses at them in superior judgment. But as we read the rest of their stories, we see God’s hand shaping them into greatness.
Moses (“3rd culture kid”/murderer/hot-tempered/not a good speaker/disobedient) was raised in 2 cultures. During a time of genocide against the early Hebrews, God used the daughter of the king of Egypt to preserve Moses’s life. As the adopted grandson of this Pharaoh, he was raised within royalty and would have been familiar with Egyptian religious beliefs and practices as well as the sorcery used by the Pharaoh’s court magicians. As a Hebrew child whose own biological mother was brought in to be his nurse and caregiver, Moses also knew the God of his people, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
When the hot-tempered young man killed an Egyptian who was bullying a Hebrew, he fled into the Sinai desert and lived among the Midianites (also descendents of Abraham through his wife Keturah) for 40 years before being given an opportunity, a calling to lead the Hebrews out of the oppression of their Egyptian slave masters.
Despite his supernatural encounters with God, feeling that he lacked the abilities of an outstanding speaker, Moses had more faith in his shortcomings than in the provision of God and asked to have his brother Aaron be his spokesperson, a request God graciously granted.
Because of disobedience to God, Moses was refused entrance to the land God promised to the Israelites. But through many years of leadership of God’s people, Moses remained faithful to God. His legacy is eternal and thousands of years later, even the Jewish martyr Stephen, in his great speech before being stoned, spoke respectfully about Moses, calling him powerful in words and deeds (Acts 7:22). Thousands of years later yet, we are foolish if we don’t heed the words of Rabbi Yeshua Himself, appealing to the authority of Moses’ writings, stating that if we really believed Moses, we’d believe in Him, because Moses spoke of Him in the Torah (John 5:45-47).
In spite of Moses shortcomings, he remains one of the most influential writers in the history of mankind, credited for writing the Torah (1st 5 books of the Bible). He spoke “face-to-face” with God and witnessed and took part in countless miracles. He was the man God shared His personal name with (YHVH) and whom God entrusted with the “apple of His eye,” Israel.
Ruth (wrong nationality/ethnicity/poor widow) Ruth, the Moabite widow of a Jewish man (not a Jew herself but with a deep respect and love for her Jewish mother-in-law), decided to follow her mother-in-law Naomi into a new land.
In that time, a husband was a woman’s only chance to be provided for and there were strict rules about who could and should marry a widow. Naomi’s wise advice led her to catch the attention of a prosperous Jewish farmer named Boaz, one of her husband’s distant relatives, while gleaning in his fields, something only the poor did. Boaz was so impressed with her that he instructed his servants to purposely leave behind more grain than would normally be left behind during the harvest, so she would have more than usual when she gleaned.
That attention led to more wise counsel from Naomi on “how to catch a good man” in that particular situation. Ruth eventually married Boaz and is in the lineage King David, and thus that of Messiah Yeshua. This poor widowed foreigner married into the messianic line and had a significant part in God’s preparation for the salvation of mankind.
David (the invisible child/adulterer/murderer) was not the one his own father would have picked to show to Samuel as potential King of Israel. In fact, David was so “least likely” that his father didn’t even bother to call him in from the fields where he was tending sheep to meet with the great Prophet Samuel. It was only when God made it clear to Samuel that the one He had chosen to be King was not among those sons of Jesse presented to him that he asked for David to be brought in.
David went on to become King of all Israel, doing a few things along the way that would make any prayer support group in our days wring their hands with anxiety, wondering if there was anything God could really do with the man. David committed adultery and then murder to cover it up. He is a less-than-shining example of fatherhood. His excesses are known but so is his passion for God that seems to really have moved the heart of God.
When God chose the scruffy shepherd boy as the next King of Israel, He was looking at Him through the lens of the future. Not only did God see leadership ability and the warrior within David, but He saw a heart that was so in tune with His that David is called “a man after God’s own heart” for all of history to read about and learn from.
Esther (lowly status) was an unknown young girl from an ethnic culture (the Jews) considered of lowly status by the general culture of Persia she and her people were in. Brought into the competition to be the next queen by God, using her uncle Mordechai , she spent a year preparing for her interview with the King. Her favor with the king’s eunuch (custodian of the women) and his knowledge of what the King liked to see in a woman gave her an advantage in how she prepared and presented herself.
When she was chosen to be his Queen, she kept her ethnicity as a Jew secret and that wisdom enabled her to reveal it at the right time and save her people. Because she trusted God in spite of her “least likely” status, she was used by Him (“for such a time as this”, as her uncle suggested) to save the Jewish people from a genocidal maniac in a powerful political position. Esther’s “least likely” status prepared her to come into the royal court “under the radar”, unopposed, into a position of great influence with the King whose heart she had won, saving the people through whom the world’s Messiah was to come.
Peter (big mouth/presumptuous/public failure) Peter, a simple fisherman and one of Rabbi Yeshua’s followers, was quick to proclaim his undying devotion and loyalty to Him. But when tested, he failed quite publicly.
After the resurrection of his Master, there was a new humility and confidence that changed Peter into one of the most influential men of the early Jewish sect of followers of Yeshua, eventually called Christians by many. His spiritual authority grew to such a point that it was said that even his shadow passing over the sick had the power to heal them. And his writings have influenced the world as he describes his special calling to spread the Gospel to the non-Jewish cultures of the world.
Paul (murderer/hated the Jewish followers of Jesus/one of the elite/educated/super-spiritual) Paul was an educated, zealous Pharisee, a religious leader who studied under the famous teacher Gamaliel. Witness to the stoning of Stephen, the first Jewish martyr for the faith in Yeshua, his passion for holiness and for the dogma of his faith was such that he really felt it his duty to apprehend and kill followers of Rabbi Yeshua.
His renown spread to such a degree that when his supernatural confrontation with Yeshua on the road to Damascus (now the capital city of Syria) led to his conversion to that Jewish sect as a follower of Jesus, the Believers he had been persecuting were afraid to believe that it had been a true conversion.
This devout follower of tradition was transformed by a relationship with the risen Messiah that changed his life forever. His writings about that encounter, his travels and his passion to encourage and teach the early Messianic congregations have become over 30% of our “New Testament”, a collection of books about God’s renewed covenant with mankind through His Son’s shed blood and resurrection power.
This “least likely” man left a position of power to throw in his lot with a group of people looked down upon by the established religious elite. However, his influence is still felt worldwide some 2000 years later!
Every person mentioned as an example above is long gone and written into the pages of history. But their influence lives on and we are the fortunate recipients of their legacy.
Modern-Day Overcomers
In modern history, many others continue to inspire us with stories of success after defeat and overcoming unusual odds against them. Quotes from their writings and speeches are very telling about the richness of their character and the fruit of their thoughts and actions.
People like…
- Abraham Lincoln (inspired man of faith, failed at many things on his way to being voted President, though the real story of his successes and failures is a bit different from folklore about him) said: It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong.
- George Washington Carver (born into slave family, gifted scientist who loved God) said: “When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.”
- pro-life feminist Susan B. Anthony (abolitionist/ardent advocate of voting rights for blacks and women) said: “Sweeter even than to have had the joy of children of my own has it been for me to help bring about a better state of things for mothers generally, so that their unborn little ones could not be willed away from them.”
- Colonel Harland Sanders (late bloomer…Kentucky Fried Chicken entrepreneur) said: “I made a resolve then that I was going to amount to something if I could. And no hours, nor amount of labor, nor amount of money would deter me from giving the best that there was in me. And I have done that ever since, and I win by it. I know.”
- Nelson Mandela (1st black president of South Africa after spending 27 years in prison/powerful leader) said: “There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”
- Nick Vujicic (born with no limbs/preacher/motivational speaker) said: “If I fail, I try again, and again, and again. If YOU fail, are you going to try again? The human spirit can handle much worse than we realize. It matters HOW you are going to FINISH. Are you going to finish strong?”
- Joyce Meyer (abused as a child/divorced/remarried/preacher/writer/writes a lot on the power of your thoughts and your words) said: “God’s word spoken out of your mouth regularly produces a powerful, victorious life!”
And the story continues with you…
You and me…”least-likely”?
Your story…my story, is still in process. No matter where you are in your journey, there is yet time to finish well, to believe what God says about you, instead of the voices of the naysayers…well-meaning but misguided friends and family, wishing to help you avoid disappointment; critics who don’t want you to succeed and would shrug with indifference if you did; the voice of the Enemy trying to prevent what God has prepared you to do to serve others; even your own voice stuck in defeats of the past and present difficulties and challenges…
Do you HAVE to have overcome lots of challenges and suffered much failure to be picked by God? Do you HAVE to have been rejected and misunderstood? No, but setbacks might help. You see, according to Proverbs 3:34 and James 4:6, God opposes the arrogant but gives favor to the humble. Humility (not to be confused with timidity) is the character quality that makes students WANT to learn from their teacher. Humility clothes a good leader with compassion, forgiveness, empathy…all qualities necessary to convey an idea to a willing audience. For the Kingdom Believer, humility, combined with vision, courage and determination, keeps us submitted to God and willing to do great exploits for Him. For some of us, the developing process that grows humility can be close to humiliating! But it’s certainly not terminal…
Humility is certainly not what Charles Dickens’ wicked character Uriah Heep in David Copperfield represented by going around gloating verbally about how humble he was. His smarmy affirmations were full of arrogance and fooled no one, drew no one to him. In contrast, Proverbs 22:4 affirms the principle that “The reward of humility and the fear of Yahweh (YHVH) is wealth, honor, and life.”
In his brilliant book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t, Jim Collins mentions the importance of real humility. Humility, which includes the ability to remain modest even in the midst of success and accomplishment, leaves room for the greatness of others to manifest, without chipping away at our own security, significance or value.
In the letter to the Hebrews (11:6), God says that without faith it’s impossible to please Him. Perhaps His enlisting us in spite of weaknesses and shortcomings is one of His ways to test our faith and polish our character with humility.
Do we really believe according to Philippians 1:6, “For of this I am confident, that He who has begun a good work within you will go on to perfect it in preparation for the day of Messiah Jesus”?Zechariah 4:10 admonishes to “not despise the day of small beginnings”? Are we willing to obey the admonition to “Whether, then, you are eating or drinking, or whatever you are doing, let everything be done to the glory of God” (I Cor 10:31)? Can we simply trust that God knows what He’s doing when He picks us, assigns us and aligns us?
If nothing else moves your fearful heart, ponder this: “Now all glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” (Eph. 3:20)
In the parable of the talents (specifically referring to coins of the time but applicable to everything God has given us stewardship over, including our own selves), in his own harsh judgment of God, fear of God’s harshness and fear of loss caused the one who was called a wicked servant to be punished for not even trying to invest what he had. Plant the seed you have, water it, fertilize it…let God bring a great harvest from it.
Maybe you were one of the popular kids in school and you’re still sought out at the country club. Maybe you’re you don’t appear to be one of the “least likely” on the outside, but you know your heart enough to know that you wouldn’t naturally be God’s first pick either.
Maybe you find yourself in one or more of these stories of real people that God hand-picked to do great things. Whatever your situation, He has hand-picked you. Are YOU one of His “least likely?”
“All creation is groaning for the manifestation of the Sons of God.” (Rom 8:19) Even the earth is groaning for you and for me to step up to the plate…to see what God can do, and what God is yearning to do through His “least likely.” If you feel like one of the “least likely,” I have good news for you: God wants to use YOU to impact the world for His Kingdom. Get up. Get ready. It’s going to be a bumpy ride. But God has equipped you and will continue to prepare you as you trust him and advance in the assignment He’s given you. Lead on!
Strategy vs Tactics: Which should you focus on when developing a marketing plan?
You just read that social media is taking over the world and you’re excited because you finally have facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. What should you do next? Just start tweeting and adding friends and connections?
Well…not so fast! While social media IS taking over the world, that doesn’t mean you should just jump in without a plan. You have to know WHY you’re wanting to use social media. Not only that, but you need to be able to differentiate between long-term strategy versus short-term tactics.
So, first of all, what are you trying to accomplish by using social media: increased visibility as a thought leader, increased traffic to your website, increased network, increased sales of products and services, or “all of the above?” Each of these goals can take a different strategy. And each strategy can be accomplished with various tactics and tools.
Secondly, your strategy should determine your tactics. Here’s an example. An author trying to connect to publishers, editors, and others that could help get a book published would have a different strategy than an entrepreneur trying to sell information products and ebooks. While the author might want to focus on creating relationships with specific individuals and widen his industry network, the entrepreneur would probably work more on driving traffic to a good website with high converting sales copy or a special offer to increase her subscriber list she could send multiple offers to.
Once the strategy has been determined based on your goals, then and only then should you be thinking about tactics like:
- How many times to tweet per day?
- How many Twitter/facebook/linkedin friends to add per day?
- How much blog content (articles/videos/audios) do you need to develop every week to promote through social media to drive traffic back to your site?
- How to get fans for your facebook fan page?
All of these are important considerations, just keep first things first and you won’t get lost in the maze that can be social media.
