2011 Life Vision Casting

 Habakkuk 2:2-."Then the LORD answered me and said, "Record the vision And inscribe it on tablets, That the one who reads it may run"


Ecclesiastes 3:1- "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven"


Proverbs 29:1- "When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the law is joyful."


Jeremiah 29:11- "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."


Most of us spend more time planning a menu or entertainment than we do our lives. It is amazing the way people wake up and just bumble through life day after day and only a crisis or life running off the rails gets our attention and makes us examine how we're living. May I encourage you today? First, pray and invite God to help you through this task. It may not be easy and may invoke some pain (which is why people avoid it). Once you've prayed, spend some uninterrupted time examining your last year of life in these areas: relationships (with God and others), work, finances, spirituality, physically and mentally. Write down what comes to you and how you feel about each area. Looking back will help you realize your history is doomed to repeat itself without intervention. Planning or vision casting is the best way to intervene in your life not coasting or being on autopilot. 


Here's how to vision cast---remember, what you celebrate will increase so as you've reviewed the good things in those areas of your life spend some time thanking God and praising Him for those things. Seek to know what did you do repeatedly to get there and see how you can maximize those efforts this next year of life?  If you're unhappy with any area of life what do you need to do to gain change in that area? Write those things down in steps. For example, finances is an area where many of our lives are off track. We need to live within our means and use the right methods and tools for us and our priorities to manage our finances. What do you need to do to learn your money style, how you earn it, spend it, save it and what can help you in doing those things better? Once I've done my written history and cast my vision for the next year, I then like to get visuals for these things and create a vision board with just the pictures and one sentence for my goals/plans under each picture. Record these things in a way that matters to you because you'll be changing and  it will be evolving all year long because we know the only thing constant in life is change and the best laid plans do get changed rather we like it or not but that should not keep us from planning our way, amen?




Once you're done with this process let's pray again and invite God to approve, remove and show you the motivation behind each of the things you've written down. Use this list all year long, set an appointment on your calendar to review your vision board (weekly, monthly) to move your life along in a way that recognizes time is the only thing you don't get a "do over" with--once time is gone, its gone, so use all the time you're given living a life that matters. Beloved, I'm praying with and for you!

Please feel free to forward CEENOTES with Cheryl Carr to friends and colleagues, but please forward in its entirety. CEENOTES with Cheryl Carr is written and distributed by Arete1 International.


(c) Copyright 2010 Cheryl Carr and ARETE1 International.

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FILL HER UP!

Ephesians 3:19 (New International Version)

¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Jeremiah 20:12 (New International Version)

¹² LORD Almighty, you who examine the righteous
   and probe the heart and mind,
let me see your vengeance on them,
   for to you I have committed my cause.

Psalm 26:2 (New International Version)

² Test me, LORD, and try me,
   examine my heart and my mind;

How diligent are you at examining your life? Not from a crisis standpoint either--its usually only then that we will examine ourselves and usually that's a little late...but, how often do you look over your life to see exactly what is in it--the good, the bad and the ugly? Personally, I like to get silent and in solitude and put my life under a microscope regularly with the Lord. Its not time-consuming nor is it discouraging. Its the best thing I can do for myself. It is a check-point to see the course of my life and encourages me to empty out what's not good for me and fill up with what IS GOOD for me. I've found in my life if I don't spend time doing this I get on auto pilot, taking on a lot of good sacrificing the best, accomplishing things daily but not really moving forward and most of the time forgetting God/our relationship in the process.

When I coach people to perform this simple act self-examination, to get silent and in solitude over the course of a day or a weekend most often they will throw up lack of time, can't get alone and/or they flat out don't think its necessary. They will claim to know what's going on in their life full well. Trust me I tell them, "no, you don't or you wouldn't have these lingering and consistent issues." Truth is silence and solitude terrify most people. The need for noise to drown out reality, distract and entertain ourselves is rampant in society. See, what you won't confront you won't change. Not really. You may temporarily adjust behavior around a crisis but until you empty yourself of the root causes of your behaviors you're doomed to repeat and repeat and repeat. Its of vital importance to ask God to examine you, to probe your life and pull out the root causes of situations and circumstances that are causing your life to stay off track. He will, you know? Sadly, most of us want to keep the people and things in our lives because of comfort or perceived loss (losing what hurts you or isn't for you isn't really loss, its really gain).


As 2010 comes to a close I encourage you to not follow the usual path of new year's resolutions and only looking over your life/goals when there is a crisis. Resist gradualism, be deliberate and sit silently for a minute and make a list of what is going on in your life by issues most important to you. Once you have that list bring it before God, read scriptures, listen and pray. Make decisions and decide how you will manage those decisions. Take action and be proactive in your life so its full of good and empty of that which causes you stress/is bad for you. It won't just happen, you will have to do something! Beloved, I'm praying with and for you.

Please feel free to forward CEENOTES with Cheryl Carr to friends and colleagues, but please forward in its entirety. CEENOTES with Cheryl Carr is written and distributed by Arete1 International.


(c) Copyright 2010 Cheryl Carr and ARETE1 International.