Mon.6.29.15...Without Wood a Fire Goes Out...Prov.26:17-28

The story goes of a man who comes into his North woods cabin from the winter cold. He is shivering and says to the old wood stove, "Give me heat!" To which the stove answers back, "First, give me wood!" Our verse today says, "Without wood the fire goes out." Herein lies an obvious life principle, yet so often people get it backwards. For example, the employee says to his boss, "I'd like a raise." The employer says, "First give me a reason to give you a raise." The student says to the teacher, "I want a better grade than this!" The teacher says, "First give me better answers." The single man says, "I want to marry this wonderful woman I met." The wonderful woman says, "If he was wonderful, I'd gladly marry him." (First be the one to have the one.) The husband says to his wife, "I want more romance in our marriage." She says, "First, give me a reason to feel romantic towards you." The parent says, "I want you to stop whining and throwing temper tantrums. The honest child would say, "First, train and discipline me to do so." The teenager says, "I want more privileges." The parent says, "First, give me more honor and obedience." The guy looks at his pudgy body in the mirror and says, "I want to be in shape." The talking mirror says, "First, give me better food and exercise." The brother says, "I want to be strong spiritually." And you say to him, "Then start getting into a GREAT spiritual workout with us in M3.":) This is known as the "Great Exchange Principle." A lot of people whine over what they don't have, instead of working for what they want. The young man might whine that he is stuck in a low paying job. Instead of whining, he needs to work to develop the knowledge, relational and technical skills to land a better job. 

This "great exchange principle" also works well for eliminating or reducing things you don't want. For example, do you want less conflict in your marriage? Then don't add fuel to the fire of a growing conflict. "Without wood a fire goes out; without gossip a quarrel dies down" 26:20. We could rightly also say, without a cutting comment a quarrel dies down. Without yelling a quarrel dies down. Without giving excuses and being defensive a quarrel dies down. Without staying in the ring (by taking a time out) a quarrel dies down. As fresh charcoal is to burning embers and as wood kindling is to fire, so is a quarrelsome man for kindling strife (expanded translation of 26:21). So don't add fuel to the fire; then the quarrel will die down. Just as a tall man overlooks little people, so a big man overlooks little people's insults. "A prudent man overlooks an insult" 12:16. Is that easy to do? Of course not. "Though the tongue weighs very little, it's very hard to hold." That's why taking a time out is so wise. If I stay in the ring, I am apt to give her a piece of my mind, which I can ill afford to lose. Retreat to advance. For lack of wood a fire dies down.

1a.- So what do you want more or less of in your life? (You are among supportive friends, please share.)

1.b.- Now list a few practical steps you could take to have more or less of it. If we don't work at improving such, then remember the definition of insanity- it's doing the same things over and over, yet hoping for different results. 

2.- Read Prov.26:17-28 and share one verse or phrase that grabbed your interest along with some of your thoughts regarding it. 

Announcements
Hey it's Monday, so please remember to go right from the blog to the scoreboard and put up your points for the weekend. Thanks! 

We will also be going to the July tab on the scoreboard, since most of this week in July. 

Notice: We are now combining the MP3 points in the G column. So not only give yourself the point for blogging in the G column, but now add your MP3 points in that same G column. (Now we truly have a GREAT scoreboard, not a G,MP3,REAT scoreboard:)

10 days ago I wrote the following: "Prayer is so important that we have asked each man when he started with M3 to get at least two prayer partners. Some of you have, others have yet to do so. Go to the Contacts tab at the bottom of our Scoreboard sheet and include the name(s) of your prayer warriors and their email addresses. I will be sending out a prayer warriors monthly newsletter the beginning of July, so please have that completed by then. I'm sure you believe that it's important to have people praying for you in this spiritual battle that we are in, so I'm only asking this for your benefit. (You can thank me later:)" Please have this done by the end of tomorrow.

It was so enjoyable reading Friday about how so many of you have been handing out our Greatest Mini-movies cards. Phil shared the following- "After a Narcotics Anonymous meeting I was outside talking to a guy and I handed him one of our mimimovies cards and told him, 'Yo, check it out, there's some super powerful short videos on there.' Well 2 other people overheard me and they both asked for cards as well." Way to go Phil!

Drum roll please! Here are the points from this past week's scoreboard. As you can see, many of you were U= Unstoppable this past week. And most of you scored 25 points or more. Well done! I'm holding my breath that this week will be the one that everyone is unstoppable and scores 25 points or more. Let's have that underwater breath holding competition:) And congratulations to Team 5 for top scoring! Again, the weekly average scores do not include those of your fire team captains. They are focusing on helping each one of you succeed. Please make sure to return their calls promptly as well. Thanks! 

Fire Team 1			0	29.28		Fire Team 4			0	31.66
Eddie Morales	U	R5	56			George Rabiela	U	R1	94
Phil Raymond	U		16			Rich Guardiola	U	R1	48
Alex Dyckman	U		25			Dave Heidekruger	U	R1	30
Ismael Andrade	U	R2	39			Chuy Cervantes			17
Luis Ortiz	U		36			Fire Team 5			0	38.8
Gary Remson		R1	18			Jack Rogers	U	R4	85
James Schmidt	U		36			Andre Vargas	U		30
William Dyckman	U		35			Armando Hernandez	U		60
Fire Team 2			0	33.5		George Doherty	U	R1	28
Sam Vargas	U	R3	41			Jose Billegas	U		18
Oscar Nunez	U		40			Roger Vinlasaca	U	R1	58
Israel Fuentes	U	R1	32			Fire Team 6			0	28.8
Flo Juarez	U		16			Dave Garratt	U	R?	86
Lou Ojeda	U		46			Horacio De La Torre	U		55
Fire Team 3			0	37.4		Ed Lake	U		27
Robert Roman	U	R1	132			Dave DeBoer	U		53
Guillermo Baez			61			Mark Estrada			0
Vince Diaz	U	R1	35			Rick Barrera			9
Antonio Palomar		R1	22
Nic Palhegyi	U		23
Osiris Alday	U		46