How to overcome frustration

Posted on June 9, 2021 by Steve Simms

Walk the woods.
There’s no frustration there.
Trees don’t resist the wind.
They bend.

Frustration sees obstacles as threats. Hope sees them as guideposts.

When life offers you a buffet of frustration, turn down the offer. Be like a perspective-changing video clip and look at frustrating situations from various view points.

The best cure for frustration is often a change in your own attitude. You create frustration by focusing on what you don’t have. You create gratitude by focusing on what you do have. As long as you maintain the right to choose your own thoughts, feelings and desires, you can create a wonderful attitude about life.

Frustration only exists inside you. It’s both an attitude and an emotion. It’s not a physical reality. Much frustration is self-induced by insisting on our own desires and emotions instead of learning from our circumstances.

Uncontrolled desire eventually produces frustration and disappointment. Unfasten frustration and buckle up to fascination.

When frustration sets in, gratitude goes out. Delay and disappointment can lead to frustration or to innovation, depending on how you respond.

To avoid frustration, find and focus on the good fortune in your life. It’s there waiting to be discovered and appreciated.

Let frustration lead you forward to creativity and improvement, not backward to blame and anger. Failing the same way over and over leads to frustration. Trying new ways to succeed leads to creativity and hope.

Self-focus feeds frustration. Frustration isn’t easily controlled, but we can choose whether or not we feed it and let it grow.

It’s important not to ignore the point of view of your conscience. It is the gravitational pull that keeps your life in orbit. Without your conscience you’ll crash. Going along with a feeling or desire makes you an accomplice to it.

We have the right not to be offended or frustrated, but the government can’t give it to us. We can choose compassion instead of taking offense. People often disagree with each other on where to draw moral lines, but almost everybody does draw them.

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The gods of human nature are deceptive

Posted on June 8, 2021 by Steve Simms

The gods of human nature are deceptive. When the impulses of the conscience are shut down, the gods of feeling and desire have free reign. Feelings and desires work better as our servants than as our gods.

When we exalt and serve our feelings and desires, rather than aligning them with reality, they become our gods. If you’ve ever been wrong when you sincerely thought you were right, you’ve experienced the deception of the gods of human nature.

Christ-followers are called to be led by the impulses of God’s Spirit, not by our human nature. Check your impulses. If none of them are from God, you’ve cut yourself off from His voice.

When something flashes into your mind that is good and wholesome and not what you want to do, it might be God speaking to you. Try listening to His voice instead of your desires & feelings.

People don’t have a right to demand that we approve of or agree with their behavior. We all have a right to have moral standards. It’s okay to proclaim that we don’t believe in following the gods of human nature.

If you want to be happy, be helpful. If you want to be sad, be focused on your own desires, feelings, and opinions.

To be inconsiderate is to be love illiterate. It is anti-Christian. The Bible says: “Consider others better than yourself.”

Help somebody — anybody. You don’t have to agree with people or approve of their beliefs to help them.

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Feelings, desires, & opinions lead to illusion more often than to reality

Posted on June 6, 2021 by Steve Simms

Our feelings, desires, don’t opinions don’t always tell us the truth. Sometimes they lie. The strength of a feeling, desire, or opinion is not a measure of its importance or accuracy. Many of our feelings, desires, and opinions don’t “follow the science” or the facts.

Honesty is essential to a stable life, because without honesty we build our lives on the faulty foundation of falsehood. Lying covers up truth and tries to hide it. It can never change truth, but instead voluntarily puts falsehood in truth’s place.

Our feelings, desires, and opinions are often inner bullies that try to compel us to obey them. They lead to illusion more often than to reality. Just because we want, feel, or think something, doesn’t make it true.

Feelings, desires, and opinions are a fragile foundation for building your life because they frequently fade and shift like sand. To try to replace reality with our feelings, desires, or opinions is a dangerous way to live.

Reality isn’t determined by the feelings, desires, and opinions that clamor within us. When the doctor wrote “male” on my birth certificate, he wasn’t following his feelings, desires, or opinions, but the reality he saw right in front of his eyes.

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Weeding out corruption must begin in your own heart

Posted on June 6, 2021 by Steve Simms

To lie
Is to deny
Reality,
Exchanging it
For childish
Make believe.

Be a look out
Who looks within
To guard your heart
From corruption.

Corruption is supported by lies. Truth telling exposes it. Lying is the doorway to corruption. Weeding out corruption must begin in your own heart.

The greatest safeguard against corruption is the human conscience. The more we awaken it, the safer we’ll all be. Every attempt to get someone to violate their conscience releases more corruption into the world.

It’s much easier to see corruption around us than the corruption within us. Your conscience is a great lie detector. It continually tries to tell you when you’re lying.

Power doesn’t corrupt a person. It exposes the corruption that was already there and waiting for an opportunity.

Self-focus leads to self-protection which then leads to deception. Truth is found beyond our own feelings, desires, and opinions.

No matter how great a government or organization sounds, it will be as corrupt as the people who operate it are. Humanity is full of systemic problems. We don’t just need better organizations. We need to be better people.

End heart-stemic racism! Learn to appreciate God’s creativity in the array of human skin colors.

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When God gives you a nudge, don’t refuse to budge

Posted on June 6, 2021 by Steve Simms

To refuse to budge
When God gives a nudge
Is to quench the Spirit.
The Bible says not to do that.

To put your desires
Ahead of the Spirit’s leading
Is stomping
God’s prompting.

Inclination and impulse
Can be godly or ungodly.
It’s important to
Know the difference.

Christians are called to follow the risen Son of Man, not the plans of man. Spontaneously following the inner promtings of the living Jesus makes life a continuous adventure.

Christianity is allowing God’s unexpected to happen and experiencing Christ in fresh ways. It’s not arranging everything beforehand. If you frequently know what the preacher is going to say next, you need to graduate yourself and begin to apply what you know.

Jesus-prompted spontaneity releases encouragement, joy, and inspiration. To follow the inner promptings of the living Jesus is discipleship in action! Christ-followers follow Jesus even when He leads where they don’t want to go.

When Christianity is Spirit-led and spontaneous it flourishes. When it is legalistic and dutiful it dies out. Churches should be training Christians to uninhibitedly follow and obey the living Jesus. Christianity is supposed to be a movement led by the living Jesus, not a religious monument for a dead Jesus.

Christianity has been bridled to human plans, programs and opinions for far too long. We need the freedom to follow the living Jesus. When the promptings of the living Jesus are shut down in church, we’re left to rely on human leadership.

Following the impulses of your desires, emotions, and opinions, leads to a different outcome than following the promptings of Jesus.

Spontaneously expressing the inner promptings of the living Jesus, demonstrates His reality to those around you. Spontaneity seizes sudden opportunities to do good. Be spontaneous!

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Nature calls

Posted on June 4, 2021 by Steve Simms 
Walking thru the woods
On a sunny day,
Spots of sunlight,
Scattered among the shadows,
Stir something inside of me.
The sound of a roaring creek
Reaches my soul.
Nature calls me to mysticism.
I open my heart to amazing peace
And my mouth to inspiring,
Unknown words
That freely flow 
From within me.
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Is it wise to celebrate ego & pride?

Posted on June 4, 2021 by Steve Simms

Love wins,
But ego,
Lust and insecurity
Seldom do.

Your ego
Doesn’t know
As much as
You think it does.

It’s ego
When you think you know
Better than your conscience.

You don’t know
What you don’t know
Until you let go
Of your ego
And embrace humility.

Pride makes marriage
A clash of egos.
Humility makes it work.

Guilt shouts
It out:
Following your conscience
Matters!

Ego and politics
Are a fiery mix.
Pride
Isn’t the way
To decide
Public policy.

Lies are deception.
Deception is bondage
Humility and honesty
Set you free.

A billionaire can’t buy:
A good marriage,
Forgiveness,
True friendship,
Inner peace.

History shows that pride’s a myth. After a few generations, nobody really cares that you even existed.

Ego tries to control what other people think about you. Humility tries to think the best about other people.

If you’re unwilling to welcome and host honesty in your heart, deception will hold you hostage to your desires. Pride puts feelings and desires first (while truth, common sense, wisdom, principles, ethics, and conscience are often left behind.)

Pride listens to ego. Humility to conscience and courage to obeys it. Ego mostly ignores it.

Love? A person’s not a trophy. Ego isn’t love. Love is putting another person ahead of your self-interest and desires.

The best way politicians can “fight” is to fight their own ego. They need to put the best interest of the entire country first instead of their pride.

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Think outside desire

Posted on June 4, 2021 by Steve Simms

Think outside desire.
Wander into nature
And ponder
Its wonder.

Like the plants
In a garden,
Desires in your heart
Can be cultivated
Or weeded out.

Desire can lead to achievement or to bondage. It all depends on how well you manage it.

Hold fast to the desire for truth. It will keep other desires from dragging you into deception.

Irresistible desire is a myth. People have demonstrated that any desire can be controlled and kept in check.

Desire isn’t one of the 5 senses. It doesn’t reveal reality. Desire needs to be made to align with reality, not vise versa. Cultivate within you the desire to be free from controlling desires that try to compel you to go against your conscience.

Desire is a terrible master that leads us into unproductive habits and bondage. Before you begin to follow a desire, decide if you want to be its servant.

Desire tries to require you to dance to its tune. However, the more you do, the more it will ensnare you in its barbed wire.

If you don’t make your desires follow logic and reason, your logic and reason will become enslaved to our desires. Desires are like dogs. If you don’t train them to be under your control, they’ll continually cause you problems.

If you don’t desire truth more than your own feelings, wants, opinions, and thoughts, you’ll find falsehood. If you don’t cultivate within yourself a strong desire not to be deceived, you will be.

If our desires, feelings, thoughts, and opinions are controlling our life, the living Jesus isn’t. Make Jesus your Lord.

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America is ignoring important history

Posted on June 3, 2021 by Steve Simms

Just because some people don’t want to be reminded of something doesn’t mean that it’s not an important part of history. It’s time to bring ignored (and/or denied) history into the light.

Search: Off the RACE Track book.

Off the RACE Track: From Color-Blind to Color-Kind: Simms, Steve: 9781726663885: Amazon.com: Books
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Pride & conscience often conflict

Posted on June 2, 2021 by Steve Simms

Conscience is
Life’s inner guide
That our pride
Too often sets aside.

Conscience guides those who follow it. Desire dictates those who don’t. Conscience and desire seldom lead in the same direction. Following self-focused desires may satisfy for awhile, but eventually leads to guilt, trouble, and trial.

People who disobey their conscience will disobey laws that get in their way, if they think they can get by with it. Society nowadays demands we silence our conscience (or at least keep quiet about it), even though crime comes from people ignoring their conscience. However, love doesn’t demand that you approve of people’s behavior when it goes against your conscience.

It takes tons of effort and energy to continually hide from your conscience. Conscience says, “Your desires and feelings are often deceptive.” Pride says, “If it feels good, want it and revel in it.” It’s hard to follow your conscience, especially in a culture that prides itself on following feelings and desires instead.

Self-seeking keeps you stuck in a very narrow perspective. A whole lot of truth lies beyond our self-interest. If we don’t humbly go beyond our own desires and feelings, we’ll overlook much truth.

A self-seeking, desire-driven lifestyle seldom brings satisfaction, but often brings guilt. A focus on compassion and service toward others frequently satisfies.

Jesus calls for repentance. But we can’t repent if we won’t honestly listen to and obey our conscience. The Bible calls us to obey our conscience, while speaking the truth in love to people who do things that violate our conscience.

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