Thrive (verb): (1) to grow luxuriantly: flourish; (2) to gain in wealth or possessions: prosper
Thriving is something that we should DO. It should be a part of who we are everyday.
This is my prayer for all of my readers:
I want you to grow luxuriantly, which means that I want you to grow abundantly; productively;richly. I pray that all of you reading this grows in your knowledge, your finances, and in all of your possessions.
This is the whole reason for starting this blog. I want to help grow you through all of my resources and the knowledge that I have. I believe that we all have the responsibility to share what we have so that others can begin to thrive like the green leaves. This is how we impact our households, our community, and our world.
I wrote a book back in 2016 called, “Thrive Like a Green Leaf” and I want to share the acronym I created from the word Thrive to give you some motivation to start to thrive right where you are so you can begin to help others to do the same!
Trust:
“Those that trust in their riches will fall, but
the righteous will thrive like a green leaf”. - Proverbs 11:28
We want to strive to be people that trust in God and His plans for us. We are to write the vision and make it plain, but it is the Lord that will establish our ways. Why wouldn't we want God to guide us when He made us and made the way that we are looking for?
Trust can be so hard for us when we have been abused, misused, and mishandled by people, but the only way to love and learn to trust again is by trying again. But this time when you try to trust again, ask God to rightly align you with the people, places, and things that are meant for you. I believe one of our biggest problems is that we don’t pray about ALL things as we should. I am willing to bet that you did not pray about your connections beforehand; do it this time. Even if it scares you to death to trust again, in the words of Christy Wright, “Do it scared.”
I love how she talks about fear in her book, “Business Boutique”, where she explains that sometimes fear is a sign that you are doing something new, not that something is wrong all the time.
We can trust in the fact that we will not fall when we rightly align God in our lives everyday.
Health:
Above all things, God’s desire is for us to prosper in all that we do and be in good health while doing it (3 John 1:2). With everything that is going on in our world and in our nation concerning the COVID19 virus, I truly believe God is alerting us about this topic. Many of us take our health for granted, and we don’t do the things that we should, like sleeping on a schedule, exercising regularly, making better eating choices, fasting to rid our bodies of toxins and so forth. Let the pandemic spark your awareness for yourself and for your family because let's face it. we can't do what we love if we are sick and weak.
As a people, we hate discipline, and it’s the very thing we hate that has the power to save our lives. There are little baby steps we can take to take care of our health like:
Picking up fruit instead of picking up junk
Working up a sweat in the house instead of taking up hours looking at TV. You can look up beginner workout videos on YouTube to get things going, or you can just come up with a routine of stretches.
Being more intentional about eating just one more helping of veggies.Personally, I love to just cut up cucumbers and carrots and eat them raw. Celery,too!
This is a huge one: Practice not letting your TV put you to sleep! Turn it off and if you are like me and play instrumentals, or rain sounds on your phone to fall asleep, turn the ringer and notifications off, and turn the phone over so that the light will not keep you up. Light sends signals to the brain that it's time to wake up or stay awake; Darkness does the opposite.
Buy a blood pressure cup and keep it in the house: keeping regular tabs on your blood pressure can prevent many other health problems, and prevent having a stroke. It is important that you keep your blood pressure controlled. This is not an old folks problem, it’s an “everybody” problem so take control of your health.
We can’t touch on health without touching on mental health. Taking care of our mind is just as important as any other part of our health. So many people deal with mental health issues alone and you don’t have to. I encourage you to look into your insurance and see what kind of mental health services they cover. Medicaid also covers mental health. I always related a therapist with taking pills and it’s far from the truth. Holistic approaches are available, and somebody to talk to is really all some of us needs. Not to say that medication is a bad thing, because some of us need that too. But it’s not the first option, just be aware of that.
Responsibility:
Our own consciences will either accuse us or validate that what we are doing is right ( Romans 2:15). Responsibility is being able to distinguish between what’s right and what’s wrong. Responsibility is the obligation to respond and react quickly in a matter. Responsibility is also understanding that the blame game is not acceptable and that we must take accountability for our own actions. There are many religions and “spiritual” people that will tell you there is no right and wrong. “Do what thou wilt” is the lifestyle they adopt, but we just simply can not take on this way of living our lives if we are doing the first thing, which is Trusting in God. Ignorance is not a good enough excuse to do things as you have always done them, or to keep on doing something you know is wrong or better yet, you can’t afford to keep doing something that is yielding the same terrible and fruitless results. The same way we learn things, we can unlearn them. It takes some time, but it can be done! The one thing I know we have in common is not wanting to fail.
“Ninety-nine percent of all failures come from people who
have a habit of making excuses” - George Washington Carver
Let’s break the habit of making excuses!
Incorruptible:
Honesty is so foreign these days. The lack thereof is the reason for so much distrust. That’s why it’s important that we all do our part in trusting again, and putting God where he belongs in our life, which is at the head of everything we do. We should be that change we want to see on all levels to other people. We should be so rooted in God that we are incapable of being a lying tongue or a mean heart to people like they have been to us. We should all take moral inventory so we don’t end up being like the people that have done us wrong.
I love how James E. Faust talks about honesty. He says, “Honesty is more than not lying. It is truth telling, truth speaking, truth living, and truth loving.”
Let us all be more than Incorruptible; let us practice being the truth.
Vulnerable but Vigilant:
I should've put the words together to read “ vigilantly vulnerable” because that is exactly what we should be, no guards up that will hinder our worship, but on guard and alert when it comes to temptation trying its best to overpower us. Since this pandemic has taken place I find myself worshiping like I used to when I first found Jesus. I have found a new love and a new respect for God. I have a creative juice that tends to flow out of the blue. Being vulnerable opens us up for creativity to be downloaded into our spirit from the Creator Himself. That is one of the upsides to this whole staying in the house thing right now, I have found my creativity again.
How to Stay Vulnerable?
Say I’m Sorry, start with…”Please forgive me” in your prayers
Believe that you are worthy of receiving and giving love
Show kindness by saying “thank you” and writing “thank you” notes for people you really appreciate
Help others whenever you can
How to Stay Vigilant?
Guard your heart, eyes, and ears from anything you have fought hard to get rid of
Ask God to direct the day to keep unnecessary anxiety and chaos at bay
We won't always prevent things from happening. We can become an analyst in our own right and understand what could’ve been done better to go about things differently next time around. The key is to have a better outcome.
Endure & Execute:
You want to make a plan, pace yourself, and stick it out to the very end to see the results.I know that fits perfectly into a sentence, but it may be torture trying to make it a reality in your life. Enduring things are hard enough, but actually executing what you have planned to do can be a challenge, trust me I know. Life just happens and distraction sets in big time. Life can be so cruel to us and take all our strength away. But when you find your back against the wall, that’s when it’s time to go to war.
When you are distracted, you have to force yourself to find traction. You’ve got to make yourself get back on track. Duly note that when you find yourself weak in certain areas or in all areas, you’re being attacked because you are on the verge of producing something great! The enemy always attacks when greatness is involved so if I am the first to tell you this let me tell you, you are on the verge of producing something
ground-breaking! Something that the world needs from you and only you! If you don’t produce it, we won't have it! That’s how valuable it is.
The most important thing to have is recovery time. I am not telling you to be like the energizer bunny and keep going and going, but what I am saying is that when you find yourself in a low spot, you can’t afford to stop. You have to have that recovery time, and then you go full throttle again.
I’ll use a basketball analogy to help you understand recovery because that’s my favorite sport. Picture a really good game where the score is tied. Someone gets fouled and now that team finds themselves at the free throw line about to shoot two shots. While they are preparing to line up to let the shooter shoot their two shots, everyone is trying to catch their breath. They use that little time to relax, but their minds are still in the game. Those couple of minutes is just enough time to gain focus and their breath to go on to the next play!
Keep your head in the game at all times, even if you have a little down time.
Always be thinking about your next plan, your next move. Endure the pain of it all to accomplish all of your goals!
T.H.R.I.V.E. IN ALL SEASONS OF YOUR LIFE STARTING NOW!
I love you and I am rooting for you every step of the way!