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Confidence By Design

March 4, 2012 in God, Life with 0 Comments

Over time, I have come to gain an in-depth understanding of how I’m wired. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t know ALL there is as I still struggle to grasp my reactions to certain stimuli. What understanding I do have has come from a myriad of sources from formal assessments (recommendations at the end of this post) to just good ole time on the planet. And what’s amazing is that with greater understand comes greater confidence.

My friends over at dictionary.com define confidence as: full trust; belief in the powers, trustworthiness, or reliability of a person or thing.

Confidence to me is being able to walk into a given situation and believe you will succeed ahead of time. Confidence puts a swagger in your step and it allows you to hold your head up high. It also helps to calm nerves and allows for clearer thought and action.

Two Truths

May 20, 2011 in God, Life, Love, Philosophy with 0 Comments

My friend Matt and I, from time to time, engage in friendly chatter regarding the core truths of the Christian faith. I love it because he is very grounded in his faith and seems to be able to filter out the noise pretty well. Also, he’s pretty much the only one who will actively comment on anything I say online, which wins him an extra cookie in my book.

The last go around was between two topics and it was a very short serve and volley:

THE SERVE [Matt]
Justification = just as if we never sinned & just as if we had always obeyed

Read it again because you might miss the profundity in the brevity. Now read it one more time. Isn’t that wonderful and so absolutely true!

Whenever I see the term “Justification,” I immediately hear the word “Sanctification” in my mind. It’s like when I hear the name “Marsha”, I hear, “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha…” from the Brady Bunch. So, I replied with:

THE VOLLEY [Me]
Sanctification = Proof positive that there’s always room for improvement

Now I sometimes say things to gauge the reaction of someone – especially in church circles these days, but this isn’t one of them. I truly believe that our justified lives are one big work in progress that has no ending point this side of heaven.

The point is that everyone around you is some sort of work in progress. And your Christian friends are being worked by the Creator of the Universe, who can be trusted to finish that work. May the Grace and Love of Jesus abound in how we engage those around us.

Let Us Love…Really

May 19, 2011 in God, Love with 0 Comments

I desire a fundamental and wholesale change in approach to how we care for the needy. When we ask the question, “How are you caring for the needy?”, it is being interpreted by most people to be, “Give me your list of activities so I can determine whether or not you measure up.” It’s a loaded question because of how the church reacts when people don’t have an answer. So, I will make sure I can rattle off 3-5 ways that I’m caring for others just so I won’t be judged by the people I want to impress. Do you see the dysfunction in all of that?

That’s not love and that’s not what Scripture teaches us that Christ wants from us. Instead, let’s start digging into and teaching people about how to love God, which begins with a deep understanding of how God loves us and goes all the way back to Genesis 1 and the chasm that Jesus bridged to bring us back into a right relationship with our Heavenly Father.

It’s harder and takes much longer, but the sustainability for real-world impact is far greater than maintaining a list of activities that can be recited at the drop of a hat.

Hear me on this – I absolutely believe that caring for our neighbor is the best and most effective form of expressing the love of Christ, but if we do it in order to check a box on some list rather than out of love, we have become noisy gongs and our efforts honor nobody. If we are going to hold people accountable to something, let it be love.

‘Change your Heart, Change your Life’ by Gary Smalley

October 18, 2010 in Books, God, Life with 1 Comment

I was turned onto this book by a dear friend who happens to be a psychologist. Our conversation that night was around why people do what they do. I was fresh off some training with some Franklin Covey guys where they used an illustration (Fig. 1) that shows our behaviors are shaped by our beliefs and those behaviors produces results that either reinforce or challenge our beliefs. Belief Behavior ResultsThe point is that if you want to see change in your life, just changing what you “do” won’t produce any sustainable results unless we also change what we believe.

That’s when my friend said I should read Gary Smalley’s book, Change your Heart, Change your Life. He went on to tell me that it was a book about just what the Franklin Covey guys illustrated and was, in part, a personal testimony of this life-change technique in Smalley’s life.

So, I picked up the eBook for my iPhone and started reading it, but I didn’t read it alone. I invited a friend to read it with me (HINT: accountability technique was just disclosed). In the very first chapter, I was hooked. If the rest of the book delivered on just half of what Smalley claimed to do, I would be a better man for it.

In essence, the book walks you through how to both identify the beliefs that shape negative behavior and how to replace them with Scriptural Truth and in essence transform your life into one that is described as “abundant” by Jesus.

In just a few short weeks, I was indeed thinking and believing things differently as was my reading buddy. We both saw how those new beliefs had an internal and external impact on our lives. I highly recommend this great little book that can help unlock the potential for the life God desires for us all.

In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that this book contains the techniques and principles needed to kick that nagging behavior that is stealing life from you over and over. It is a must for men and certainly won’t be a waste of time for women.

New Skill: Google SketchUp

September 27, 2010 in God, Info with 0 Comments

I’ve been tinkering with Google SketchUp and have been really impressed with how easy it is to pick up and create some very cool and quite accurate drawings. So, I’m officially adding Google SketchUp design services as a marketable skill to be included in the Manatt Web suite of offerings.

Before you bombard me with requests and lots of money, I should warn you that it takes me an inordinate amount of time to do these things and I charge by the hour. So, if you’re OK with that, I’m too. Just head on over to www.manattweb.com and click the big GET STARTED button and we’ll be in business.

No big announcement would be complete without a few examples of my work. I’ll show two for now just to whet the ole appetite:



This will be some cabinets I build in our office. The top will eventually extend and become a desk and the entire unit will fill one of the walls. It is deep enough to add bookcases above and will also have doors added to the front to conceal the junk…I mean, valuable treasures we need to keep there.


This monster is a wheelchair ramp that we’ll be building in a house for CityFest. I will feature a gate and steps at the end of the first leg of the ramp (v. 2.0) to accommodate able-bodied people. The construction material will be pressure treated dimensional lumber. This project will also feature replacing the front steps and a wheelchair “boardwalk” from the carport to the mailbox as well as some basic landscaping and all around care.

If you’re in Central Arkansas on or after Oct. 2nd, come on by at the corner of Hwy 10 and Russ St. and be sure to bring your gloves and a hammer or two. You won’t be alone as literally thousands of people from the area churches will be out in force that day loving on our cities with the sweat of their brow and the work of their hands.

Game Changers Should Be Free

September 16, 2010 in God, Marketing, Philosophy with 1 Comment

I saw an ad the other day promoting a video series that touted to be THE way to bring the Christian church back to what God intended. It was a beautiful video – very emotionally engaging and fired me up…until I saw the “Purchase” button at the end.

I’m a staunch capitalist and believe that the fundamental basis for prosperity in America relies on producers to create goods and services that people want to buy. Included in that is a protector from monopolies because competition keeps commerce honest. BUT – that’s business, not church.

If the video’s claim is true, why not ensure every Christian in the world gets it? Why charge $12? Is that what it’s worth? The claim makes it sound so much more – even to the point of absurdity.

My point is this – all too often it seems like Christians are hocking the secrets of the universe and reminds me of the merchants at the temple that got Jesus all fired up. Does it cost money to produce videos and publish books – yep. Do we have to follow the same rules the world has to make sure those costs are covered – absolutely not.

If this video or that book can change the world – get it funded through donations and then give it away. Let the impact of the message determine it’s viability to get funding. One thing is for sure – there will be a lot less clutter on our church bookstores…heck – there won’t even be a bookstore because everything in it is free.

Let’s not take the maturity of God and sell it for trinkets – let’s make sure that life-changing message is heard.

Who’s with me???

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