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What I Love about Sunday
By karen | March 4, 2007
We have a Sunday ritual at my house. I know many people get up on Sunday and put on all their finery and they are off to church or worship services. At my house we tumble out of bed, get breakfast for the girls, grab a cup of coffee and turn on the T.V. to channel 71 (yes, I am thankful for cable T.V.) to watch Joel Osteen. We watch our favorite pastor in our jammies.
I was not really familiar with Joel Osteen until about a year ago. My husband visited some friends in Arizona for some business and he called and told me how great this T.V. preacher was. I wasn’t really into watching any preacher on T.V. but this guy came totally recommended. So we watched.
We watched the first week after my husband came home and the second week and the third week and every week now for about a year. Joel Osteen is very good at what he does. He’s uplifting and inspiring. He preaches about how God wants us to “have our best life”. He even wrote a book “Your Best Life Now”. I am a fan of Joel Osteen. Apparently there are millions of fans of Joel Osteen. The Lakewood Church where he preaches meets in the Compaq Center where the Houston Rockets used to play. One time I saw Avery Johnson, the head coach of the Dallas Mavericks, sitting in the audience (Yes, my family loves basketball. So do I).
We watch Joel every week but last week and this week Joel seemed to be speaking directly to me. So much so that I might even have to purchase the CD’s to listen to again and again and again. Last week Joel talked about “How to Handle Criticism”. This week Joel talked about “Don’t allow Critical Voices to Steal your Dreams”.
If I have issues with anything it is with just that subject, criticism. It goes back to my childhood. My private writings go into detail. I won’t here.
But if Joel is talking about it I know that I am not the only one with issues about it. Joel is right. If you know what you are doing is what is truly in your heart and is what you want to be doing, then shake off criticism. We will always have our critics but you and I should not let it stop us. God put dreams in our hearts and talents in our souls for a reason; we should not let other people stop us with their negativity. Why do we let them?
I can’t answer that question.
One thing I am trying to implement is not to join the critics with my own brand of self-criticism. Perfection doesn’t exist. If I am doing the best I can I want to feel good about myself and move on.
So I have a goal, a dream, an unpublished manuscript. It’s time to move on.
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Topics: Living the Power, Personal Development |
July 29th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Joel Osten is awesome. I own the “Your Best Life Now” CD set, and I love it. My favorite parts the power of your words, and the part where he talks about eating cheese and crackers.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:01 am
I may be a critic but Osteen is not biblical. Christianity is not easy it’s hard. It’s not using God for prosperity. Osteen is diminishing what Christ did on the Cross. Christianity is marked by sufferering not by our Westernized Christianity loving our stuff over God.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Well, Josh….
(I may be a critic but…) it sounds like your Ego is controlling you rather than your heart and soul.
You may disagree with Osteen and that is okay but if you were coming from your heart you would “allow” others to believe and think as they wish without your criticisms and without you saying your way is better, the only way etc.
Personally I don’t want to believe in a “hard life” in a “Vengeful God” and in “Pain and suffering”
and I don’t believe that “Westernized Christianity” loves stuff more than God….
But I can allow you your beliefs, I just want the same privilege given back to me.