We would then share as much as we could about all the answered prayer and blessings that we had received in our marriage.  We would talk about all the good things that had been going on in our lives, from children to cars, from work to vacations and the tremendous middle class life that we had lived up until this latest economic recession.  We would share about a loving heavenly Father bestowing many blessings and forgiveness on us.

Much of God’s love was explained to us in Scripture.  The Holy Spirit would compare our unconditional love for our children with God’s love for us.  But God’s love is way more intense and patient with us.   Our Heavenly Father’s love and instruction had come through His Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, taught to us by the Holy Spirit.  The revelation of who God is has become clearer during this economic trial.  And our desire to be in His perfect will has increased.  His plan for us to follow Jesus Christ in His footsteps has been brought home with a deeper understanding.  The reminder to “Keep your eyes upon Jesus” has become a very important concept in our lives.

I cannot hear or think about keeping my eyes on Jesus without thinking about the Scriptures where Jesus is walking on the water with the winds causing many waves.  Peter sees Him and steps out of the boat in faith and starts to walk toward Jesus.  Only one problem follows; Peter takes his eyes off of Jesus, starts focusing on the winds and the waves, resulting in an increase in doubting, a lack of faith and Peter sinking in fear.  But even in Peter’s weakness, the love of the Father was there and Jesus reached out and saved him.

For my wife and I, this economic testing has been truly a faith purification process, a time to deal with fear, doubt and examine where or who do we put our trust in?  Do we keep our eyes on a sinful, decaying world full of lies trying to destroy our hope and steal our faith?  Or do we accept the love of the Father, the forgiveness found in Jesus Christ and make a choice to get out of the boat and follow the Holy Spirit in faith, remembering all the time to keep our eyes on Jesus?

Jeff Piery is an inquirer and a seeker of the Truth. If you have any comments or questions, you can contact Jeff by email at jeffback2basics (at) gmail (dot) com.

At first it was a pretty tough reality to accept for the children.  We, as so many parents do, spoiled our children with worldly stuff. They could no longer get the clothes and shoes they wanted because those things were not needs.  They had more clothes and shoes than their closets and dressers could hold.  Our daughter, who is very organized, was actually stacking her clothes on the floor.  When our son wanted a new pedal for his electric guitar, we told him that he would have to use his own money.  He did.  When he asked for a new snowboard, we asked him what was wrong with the snowboard he already had. His response was that nothing was wrong with it, so we told him that he would have to use his own money if he wanted a different one.  Fortunately for us, our children are very blessed, smart, quick learners and the transition for them was probably faster than for us.

The Holy Spirit was also having us review our lives.  We thought about what we had before we accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and knew we did not want to go back there.  We reviewed our lives after we accepted Jesus and started to see how many times we were in the “permissive will” of God and not His “perfect will.”  Too many times our prayers were prayers telling God how we thought our Christian life should go.  We told Him our plan for serving Him and walking in His Son’s way, instead of seeking His will for us.  The Holy Spirit was leading us to read the Word more, pray more and to earnestly seek God’s will for us.  We realized that our definition for success before Christ was creeping back into our lives and we were losing our true spiritual focus.

The Holy Spirit reminded us of why our loving God created everything, gave us a free will, allowed us to fall and sent Jesus Christ to restore our relationship with God.  He was showing us how we should follow the example and teachings of Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit was gently leading us back to a deeper view of eternal life and living.  He reminded us that we might be in this world, but we are not of this world and we need to follow Jesus’ example of being a servant.

In the beginning, my search for success had transitioned from worldly success to spiritual success and now to a more mature spiritual success in God’s plan.  I now pray “not my will be done but the will of my heavenly Father, on earth as it is in heaven.” Following Jesus, in the Father’s will, is becoming very exciting.

Jeff Piery is an inquirer and a seeker of the Truth. If you have any comments or questions, you can contact Jeff by email at jeffback2basics@gmail.com.

As the cash flow decreased, we were faced with a continued redefining of three words: needs, wants and luxuries.  The luxuries were easy to identify, but not so easy to give up.  The luxury of an expensive big family vacation- Disney World, a cruise, etc.- became a want rather than a need. After much arm wrestling with the Lord. we could not turn a big vacation into a “need” and had to give up them.  It is amazing how much family fun can be had on a three day weekend visiting relatives, camping or traveling within a one day radius of home.  It is true that the simple things in life are sometimes the most enjoyable.

What about the automobile?  The “American Dream” machine of freedom, success and pride of ownership was a luxury that we tried to keep in both the want and need categories.  It is a need, but we had to realistically evaluate.  We were never a family to buy the big luxury vehicles or sporty “hey-look-at-me”’ weekend rides.  The Lord had blessed us in that we did not have any car loans, and He wanted to keep it that way.  So when it came to our traditional time to trade cars because of our economic condition, we were faced with taking out a loan.  But the Lord spoke to us, “What is wrong with the car you are driving?”  The truth was that nothing was wrong with it, and the Lord wanted us to keep it and not go into debt just for a car.

It has been a challenge- sometimes very difficult- trying to break free from the brainwashing and psychological chains we acquired over a lifetime of advertising and marketing the experiences of growing up in our great country.  Change does not come easily and we were in the middle of being taught what the word “need” actually means.

Jeff Piery is an inquirer and a seeker of the Truth. If you have any comments or questions, you can contact Jeff by email at jeffback2basics@gmail.com.

The problem that I see with accountability is that most people believe everyone around them needs it. However, few truly believe they need it for themselves.  One of the things I do as a coach is hold people accountable to the visions they have for their lives.  But this level of accountability goes only so far.  I have never had anyone get gut-wrenching deep in asking me to hold them accountable in the areas where they need it most.

I have personally coached and taught others how to live better lives, how to live as godly men and women. One reason I do it is to hold myself accountable because I have not had that one person in my life to hold me accountable in my weakest areas.

I was coming home from a men’s conference and there were ten men in the van, all of whom are regular church attenders and all of whom desire to live a life that’s pleasing to the Lord Jesus.  All of these men are serving in their churches.  I polled them to find out how many of them had an accountability partner in their lives.  I didn’t even have to get to the point of telling them, “A real accountability partner is someone who will hold you to living a life of integrity and challenge you to be better…” because only one of the ten even had an accountability partner!

This group of men was one you’d be sure you were going to find the highest percentage of accountability among any other group.  The 10% is probably much higher than the average of any other group I could poll.

This was staggering to me.  I myself don’t have that one person who can challenge me and ask me how am I doing with my life, whether I’m living a life that is devoted to God or compromising.

We all NEED this in our lives.  The strongest of us will fall if we go unchecked long enough.  I know that I do not want to fall.  I want to live a life that is honoring to my God, my wife and my family. And I took the steps to be vulnerable in approaching someone to be that accountability partner in my life.  They have my permission to ask me the tough questions, and I have their permission to do the same thing.  We are meeting once per week to check in on one another.

Here are the questions that we start with each time:

1. Have you spent daily time in the scriptures and in prayer?
2. Have you had any flirtatious or lustful attitudes, tempting thoughts or exposed yourself to any explicit materials which would not glorify God?
3. Have you been completely above reproach in your financial dealings?
4. Have you spent quality relationship time with family and friends?
5. Have you done your best with your job?
6. Have you told any lies to put yourself in a better light?
7. Have you shared the Gospel with anyone this week?
8. Are you taking care of your health?
9. Have you allowed anyone, or any circumstance to rob you of your joy?
10. Have you lied with any of your answers today?

I do my best to live a good life and I strive to help others do the same.  However, I need someone to check up on me as well.  Every time you hear of a great man who has fallen, it’s almost always going to be during a time of weakness when there was no one there to hold him up.

I’m challenging all of you to take the step that I just took.  Find someone who, like you, desires to be the best person they can be.  Be willing to share with them, be trustworthy, and expect the best of one another.  Run to them when you are weak, and encourage one another to fight the good fight.

Blessings,

Steve

I had an incredible experience while I was there.  It never fails; no matter how much you give, you always seem to come back home with many blessings.  This trip did not disappoint.

Regarding lessons learned, they came over time. It took being home and processing my experiences to get more clarity.

The primary purpose of this trip was construction oriented.  My team met up with another team from California and we came to help knock out some much needed work for Escuela Integrada, a school that provides education to the poor people of Guatemala.  Without money, you don’t get an education. When the majority of the population survives on less then $2000 per year, many never get an education and stay stuck in poverty.

The poverty that the people of Guatemala experience is heartbreaking.  On one hand, it makes me very thankful for the life that I live and all the blessings that I experience. On the other hand, it is sobering to realize how much excess I have.  The instant reaction of most who come face to face with such poverty is to help.  With very little, a big difference can be made.  In fact, it can be so little that it’s not even a sacrifice for someone like me.

The majority of my time was spent working on the home of a family of seven.  The mother died a few years ago and the seven children lived in this one room house.  It had a dirt floor and there were two lofts for beds.  One loft is where the 5 girls slept and the other is where the two boys slept.  I can’t adequately describe what I saw and how I felt when I first stepped foot into the home.  I’ve been in some trashed houses before- it’s what I do for a living- but there weren’t people living in those houses when I was there.  Furthermore, all of those homes- no matter how bad they were- were superior in every single way to what I was seeing.

Daylight was coming in through the roof, they did have running water, and all of their possessions- which would be considered worthy of a U.S. landfill here- were in this one room home.  It was even more sad knowing that young adults and children were living there.

Over several days, we transformed this home into something much cleaner and safer for the family.  We did our best to make the house look nicer and and give it the feel of a home.  When we were finished, it was 100 times nicer than when we started. Still, it wasn’t much more then a crude hunting cabin by our standards in the United States, but you couldn’t make this family believe that.  They were elated with joy.

My helpers in the project were some of the older boys who had graduated from Escuela Integrada.  I got to work side by side with them throughout the week.  These young men were incredible.  They had great hearts, worked hard, were filled with joy, and most of them lived in similar circumstances as the family we helped.  And yet, they took great pride in being able to help someone else.
As a real estate investor with a heart for helping others, I immediately thought that coming to Guatemala to help them with their housing would be something that I could do, and something in which others would support me.  I kept trying to form a helpful plan in my head, but it just wouldn’t come together in a way that felt good.  I struggled and kept thinking.  Then it struck me.

THEY DON’T NEED HOUSING!

These families have lived this way for hundreds of years.  Their situations were not declining. They were not in crisis and overall they were content and happy.  To just come in and give them new housing wasn’t going to solve any problems.  Especially problems that they don’t view as a problem.

Don’t get me wrong. We helped seven young people who could not help themselves. That was a very rewarding thing, and I would say we did just enough.  To have brought their lifestyle any further would have been wrong.  A sense of entitlement would have been established, which can cause a reluctance for someone to work for himself to improve his situation.  Sometimes this causes people to just sit back and wait for missionaries to come in and do it for them.

Instead, I’ve decided that I want to take the skills, the knowledge and the resources that we at Lifeonaire share collectively and use them to help the Guatemalans “fish.”  Escuela Integrada is giving the kids a basic education, and a very good one at that. The school was just ranked #7 in the country out of over 1000 schools. After the kids graduate and go through vocational school or college, I’d like to help those who want to start businesses.

I won’t go into all of the details on how I plan to do that in this article. But let me just say that I have no intention of teaching them how we do business here in the U.S.  It likely would fail there.  It’s a different culture and I’d have to sit back and listen to them and coach them through the process of doing a business plan.  With their own businesses, they can not only do better for themselves, but they can provide jobs for others. And most importantly, they can give back to the school that started them down the right path.

It’s time to help the people of Guatemala build community and get to the point where they can stand on their own feet, without depending on others to do it for them.  The best part is that they want to get out from underneath the oppression.  They want to do things for themselves.  They don’t want handouts or bailouts.  Some guidance and encouragement will go a long way.

Unfortunately, when I was growing up I never had a single dad interview me to determine what my intentions were for his daughter.  When it comes to my teenager, I think we’ve done a pretty good job of raising her.  She has very strong values and her bar has been raised pretty high.  She’s made a commitment to purity, and for this we are very proud.

But I know young men because I was one. Every time I tell my daughter that we can invite any young men over to help me clean my guns, her response is “That’s terrible!” It sure seems like it would be a whole lot easier doing an interview with the young man looking down the barrel of a gun.  All kidding aside, the idea of interviewing a young man is nerve racking.

I desire for my kids to have wonderful lives.  I want them to experience all of its richness.  I want them to be a Lifeonaires, so full of life and joy.  I do not want them to have regrets, so big decisions need to be made now.  Will they make mistakes?  Sure, it’s all part of growing up.  But at the same time, I don’t want my daughter to get involved with the wrong guy and I’m certainly not going to sit back and do nothing, leaving her to fight for herself.  Until the day I walk her down the aisle and give her away, entrusting her to another man, I have the duty to protect her and to make sure that she is treated with respect, dignity and honor.

It is my responsibility to make sure that the young men who come knocking on my door know that my daughter is a beautiful creation of God who is to be treated like a precious jewel.  They must understand the commitment that my daughter has made to the Lord, and they must agree to fully respect it. But they must also understand the commitment that I have made to the Lord, and that is that I will protect my daughter.

I’m still working on my fatherly interview skills, and it’s not very easy.  (Pumping my 12 gauge seems so much easier..)

Would you rather own your house free and clear and have no cash?

or

Would you rather have $200,000 cash, no house and pay rent?

Answer the question and tell me why.

Blessings,

Steve

PS- For those of you who share this on FB and get the most “likes” I’ll also throw in a signed copy of Wholesaling for Quick Cash for you.

PPS- Contest ends on January 31st, 2012

But the woman surprised everyone with her question. “How heavy is this glass of water?”

Answers called out by the audience ranged from eight ounces to twenty ounces.

She replied, “The absolute weight doesn’t matter. It depends on how long I hold the glass. If I hold it for a minute, I hardly notice its weight. If I hold it for an hour, I’ll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold this little glass for a day, I might need some medical intervention.  But in each case, the glass has the same weight. The longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.” She continued, “And that’s the way it is with stress. If we carry our burdens around, sooner or later as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won’t be able to carry on.”

“As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again.  When we’re refreshed, we can confront whatever needs to be addressed, and become better at doing so each time practiced. So, as early in the evening as you can, put all your burdens down. Don’t carry them through the evening and into the night. Just face them with your best tomorrow.”

Whatever stresses you’re dealing with now, lay them down for a moment. Relax and tackle them after you’ve rested. Life is short. Enjoy it and remember the past stress that you’ve already conquered!

But we still asked why?  Didn’t God promise that our life would prosper as our soul prospered?  Didn’t God promise to meet our needs?  That is when the Holy Spirit would jump in and say, “Okay, it is time to review what the word ‘need’ means.”  It is strange how the American Dream mentality will continue to reject the true definition of “need”, even in a Christian’s mind.  Years and years of brainwashing by the advertising/marketing hypnotists are hard to overcome.  The lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life are actually better understood by the world system than by the Church.  I am not saying that wealth and possessions are bad, and I’m not saying God does not bless and raise up wealthy men to futher His kingdom. What I am saying is that some of us, especially me, have at times allowed the things of the world to come between us and the Lord.

Okay, Heavenly Father. I get it now. Please forgive me. I repent and we need you to bale us out…  I promise to be a better steward of the finances you put me in charge of, to seek You first, loving You with my whole heart, soul, mind and strength.  Oh, yeah… And with a lot of help from your Holy Spirit, I will forgive and love my neighbor as myself.  So, please help us and quickly before it gets any worse!

After praying that prayer a number of times in a number of different ways, I wasn’t seeing much change in the economy or our retail furniture business.  The fact was, as everyone is aware, the economy just kept getting worse.  Oh Lord, why are You allowing us to fail?  The answer came back the same as before: the purpose was testing and purification of our faith.  The Lord wanted to give us endurance, patience and the ability to place our trust only in Him.  He wanted to separate us from the things of this world and refocus our lives on the things that are eternal.

We still did not stop knocking, seeking and asking our Heavenly Father to get us through the economic recession and what appeared to be the loss of our business.

Then out of nowhere, the thought came into my mind. “Do you remember studying about the dust bowl of the 1930’s in High School?”

Jeff Piery is an inquirer and a seeker of the Truth. If you have any comments or questions, you can contact Jeff by email at jeffback2basics@gmail.com.