Have you reached your Potential?

Today's suggested reading: Proverbs 14 I Am Not Always Right Sometimes. Brian Vasil, Media Pastor “Arrogant know-it-alls stir up discord, but wise men and women listen to each other's counsel.” Proverbs 13:10 (TM) I only fight when I have to. I don’t like discord, disunity, disagreements, or disco. Basically anything that involves fighting, yelling, or platform shoes. Never have. When my brother and I would fight as kids, I’d usually win just because I was bigger than him. Now he is 6 foot 4 and that doesn’t work so I have to out-think him. I have to convince him that I know it all. I have all the answers…I have it all figured out. Of course, I really don’t, but you’d never know it by the way that I fight, though. Have you ever been in an argument or fight and realize halfway through that you are TOTALLY wrong? You know…that thing called pride kicks in and we are fighting for its own sake. Why do we do this to ourselves? Has arrogance or pride ever helped to solve a conflict? I...

9 years ago, I was having the most difficult time in my entire life. After a complete breakdown, I was ready to take my life on my own hands and God showed me his mercy and I knew for sure there was a real God. I remember my first kind of prayer was “All right, I understood. You want me to stay… I’ll stay here, but I don’t know what to do with my life… please show me the way, because I’m lost. Show me the path you want me to follow and I’ll do it. You want me to stay on this life, please, show me the way”. That was my first prayer… and the answer came to me. Few days later, He sent me an Angel on a shape of a woman. Some one with great patience, love and understanding that took care of that task and wisely she guided me to Christ, not inviting me to church or talking to me about Jesus, or judging me for my past actions… she just accepted me like I was… and prayed for me. Instead, she showed me Jesus on her daily actions, until finally I found Christ! My life was completely changed, tra...

To understand the value of a year, just ask a student who failed one, to understand a month, ask to a mother who give birth early, to understand the value of a week, ask to the editor of “Weekly News” paper. To understand the value of a day, ask to the lovers are waiting to see each other. To understand the value of an hour, ask to a nurse who is taking care of medication at a hospital. To understand the value of a minute, ask a friend who lost the flight because he was one minute late. To understand the value of a second, ask a person who avoided a car accident, just for a second. To understand the value of a fraction of a second, ask to a runner pursuing to break a record… I can see how important is to understand the value of the time in our lives. Today I was awaken 20 minutes late… Come on… just 20 minutes, I just jump out of bed, and ran to check the live feed… already started. And I missed the recording of the Devotion first part, and I just started the day without my personal qu...

Some weekends I expended with my grandma Martha, she told me few of the Aesop's Fables, and I particularly remember a short one; The Ants and the Grasshopper. The ants were spending a fine winter's day drying grain collected in the summertime. A Grasshopper, perishing with famine, passed by and earnestly begged for a little food. The Ants inquired of him, "Why did you not treasure up food during the summer?' He replied, "I had not leisure enough. I passed the days in singing." They then said in derision: "If you were foolish enough to sing all the summer, you must dance supperless to bed in the winter." I always thought: “Those are mean ants”, but the true is that we have to be awake in order to reach our God’s potential. The entire series of Antology where based on a Bible Verse: Proverbs 6: 9-11 ESV 9 How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? 10 A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to ...

“Don Quijote de la Mancha” is one of the greatest pieces of the Spanish Literature, it was written in the late XVI century by Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra, and it is considered as a corner stone of the novel writing. The first time I read this book I was 12 years old and I was captive by the romantic history of a Man who believed he was a “knight errant” with his armor bearer, Sancho Panza. All the history is about his dreams, his adventures and his errands. The first part of the book is funny and entertaining but the second part is more reflexive. Although the history is about “Don Quijote”, one of the reflexive characters is Sancho Panza, a man who always believed unconditionally the vision of his master, and no mater how crazy the venture looked; He was always there to support the Quijote's journeys. God gave to our Leader a vision to reach people all over the world to partner with them to reach their God's potential and to be “One church where you are" Today, at our st...

There are just few hours to start the “MyNakedPastor.com” series. We have been working at least for three months, planning, researching, designing, developing, doing tests, checking equipment, debugging, discarding by trial and error and we are almost there… at the beginning of a new adventure. Some of the equipment that we will be using is listed as follows: One Panasonic 3 CCD digital camera Two Sony Digital cameras with night view One Sound Blaster USB Camera, One wide angle lens One Mac Book with Windows XP One Dual Core Pentium D Computer with Windows XP Three 10 Meter FireWire cables One Verizon Wireless USB Modem One external magnetic mount antenna One Linksys router Two heavy duty tripods One tripod One 1,500 Watts inverter One 450 Amp Jump Start battery One LED lamp One Grip mounts for the camera One ISP monitoring our Bandwidth on a fiber optical output to the net… And a lot of cables, connectors, extensions, adapters and transceivers All of this to run for five weeks 24 b...

The Great Wall is the world's longest human-made structure, stretching over approximately 6,400 km (4,000 miles)[2] from Shanhai Pass in the east to Lop Nur in the west, along an arc that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia. It is also the largest human-made structure ever built in terms of surface area and mass. Seeking information about the Chinese I found that they where the inventors of: Abacus Chinese Calculator Paper money Battens in sails Belt drive Blast furnace The cannon Cast iron Chain drive Chinese cuisine: Tofu, Ramen, Sushi Chinese clothing: Qipao, Hanfu Chopsticks Bituminous coke for the iron and steel industry Compass Crank, hand-operated Crossbow and repeating crossbow Escapement mechanism for clocks Exploding cannonball Fire Arrow Gunpowder Firearm Horse collar Hull compartments/bulkheads Kite Land mines Lottery Naval mines Noodles Paper Pendulum (Zhang Heng) Pound lock Printing (woodblock printing and movable type) Rockets: Fire Arrow, Multista...

Today, Sol was jumping on her sister’s bed and she was hurt with a small cut on the leg. She didn’t wanted anyone to touch the cut, but I explained about the cuts, the infections and how the bacteria can causes more pain, and after the long explanation, she agreed to allow me help her to clean herself and to put a band aid to protect the cut. Some times we are also hurt by some situation in our life and we don’t want to be toched by anybody, even when we need assistance, because the pain is so big that we believe than there is nothing to release the pain, and we keep it on that way… We need to clean our wounds to start the healing process, and the one who can clean us and heal us is Jesus. Today is a good day to recall anything that can be causing pain in your live and allow our savior to clean and heal you.

Today I review my “to do” list at home and there was some pending tasks to be done. Paulina’s bed was broken and I needed to replace the base wood to fix it, also one of the kitchen drawers required some work, My daughters room needed a ceiling light, one of the baths needed some towel hangers… so “Labor Day” was a good day to take my to do list, and tackle it. I took some measures, I needed a large piece of 39 x 78 inches, and a small piece of 12 ½ by 4 ¾. I choose a panel and I took it to the cutting area, I gave the measures to the man who was doing the cuts and once I got my pieces, I’m used to check the measures and for my surprise, the small one it was 12 ¾ by 4 ¾ instead of 12 ½ I went back to the cutter, and he explained that it was close of the measure I requested, and he suggested me to use it just like that, I just laugh, and I just told him, sorry, but I’ll need this piece 12 ½ , no 12 ¾ . Then he told me “We are not allowed to do cuts smaller than 12 inches… I laugh again ...

One year ago, I met Deanna and Gonzalo, a young couple who was seeking wedding information, they where planning to get married. I gave them all the information, requirements and also we started a couple’s seminar that I usually give to the married couples. Marriage is the most important project on a humans life, is the fusion of two different elements onto a new one. Imagine this: You know in your heart that you want to be an architect, you love to design, you know that you have the potential to be not a good one, but a great one. You decided to go to the University fill out the application, sign your enrollment, and in that moment, get your diploma, you start looking for work, with your brand new title, they assign you to develop and build a nice complex… and you got all the enthusiasm, the feeling… but cero knowledge… after you got the project, you start studying and trying to accomplish the task at the same time… what will be the result? You’ll be lucky if you can get any progress ...

After the first two weeks of school, I decided to give a break to Sol and Sarai, and I wanted to expend some quality time with them, so we went to Butterfly World at Coconut Creek, Fl. after school. During our 40 minutes journey, we where playing and joking starting with the traditional “Are we there yet” the minute we left the school… When we arrived, I was surprised when we walked in to a big cage and there were butterflies all over the place… Thanks God I brought my camera and I got some great shots. We explored the place, observed the worms, and some different stages on a Butterfly’s live. We learned some about the Lepidoptera (Scientific name for butterfly) and some other insects like the spiders, cockroaches, and other species on some museum. After that, we where to the mall and we got some food, jokes and fun at the Sawgrass Mills Mall and in our way home, we stop at the park to close a perfect day with my two little ones. I was amazed by the perfection in all the creation by G...

Here is my video for the Contest for MyNakedPastor.com

This week I started my GED writing course, and I just entered on the unknown world of grammar. I discover that there are many rules, different from Spanish, about Pronouns, Prepositions, Punctuation and more… and this is just the beginning. Since I started, I continued reading my books, but now I look the text from a different perspective. I star noticing the grammar and punctuation on my reading getting not just the content, but the grammar too. I slowed down my lecture, because now I’m more analytic. On the past, I was able to swallow a book on few hours, but now it is taking me more time to discover a hole new world that has been there always, but I was unable to look at it because my fast reading. To better explain this I'll use a Motorcycle example: If you are going from Miami to Tampa, you could make it in 2 hours on a Ninja Kawasaki ZX6-R or you can expend 4 and a half hours on a Harley Davidson... not just driving, but enjoying the road and the details around the way. Some ...

Every day is unique, irreplaceable, and it only has 24 hours, no more, no less. I was reading about how much time we expend on different activities: We sleep 8 hours a day; we work another 8 hours five days a week, watch TV 3 hours a day, use Internet 2 hours a day, we expend 1 hour eating, we attend church and average of 40 times a year for one hour, and we have about 40 hours a year for social activities. This numbers translated: 2912 Hours Sleeping = 121 days. 2080 Hours Working = 86 days. 1095 Hours Watching TV = 45 days. 730 Hours surfing the Internet = 30 days. 40 Hours social = 1.6 days. 40 Hours Church = 1.6 days. What would you do with extra 45 days a year? I often listen the complain “I don’t have enough time for this or for that…” My question today is: What are you doing with your time? How often do you manage your time? The time… is yours.

When I started this blog, I made a commitment with myself to write every day, to be constant and make my best effort every day, to improve my writing, little by little but every day, and my goal is to become a better English writer as time goes by… this sound nice… like new year promises… but the true is that we need discipline to produce what we propose ourselves, and any laziness moment can become a great obstacle to reach your personal goals. Last Thursday, I start writing my daily post, but I was tired, it was a long day, and I was not 100% satisfied with the content, so I said to myself… Ok, tomorrow morning, I’ll be fresh and I’ll finish this and I’ll write tomorrow’s together… but then it happened that on Friday, I got a lot of things to do also, so I just start to write Friday’s post (Without conclude my Thursday’s one), then my Friend Freddy jumped in, some prints to do, my daughters had to go to the movies I had to pick them later… and the day slip from my fingers just like w...

Last week I went to Miami looking for a Wide Angle Lens for MyNakedPastor.com camera to provide a better view of what’s going on at Troy’s for 5 weeks. Here are to shots. One, a Wide Angle shot and two, another without. You see it is a better view. On my search of the lens, I visited several stores and also some parking lots. On the first parking lot there was an upset cashier, I pay and give them some encouraging words, not reacting on the way I was treated, may be she was struggling with some situation… I pray for her. On the second parking lot the cashier was with an I-phone, just grabbed my ticket and my money… no interaction at all. Never looked at me… and the third one, there was a nice cashier, she smiled me, greet me, and she wished me a great day… Three different persons, the same work, where is the difference? One word: Attitude. We all struggle with different situations every day, at work, at school, at home. No matter what is the circumstances around us, we can better use o...

Friday is my Free-day and the best day for me to read, relax, have some time with Dora, wait for Pani to know where she is going out, so thank God is Free-day. I meet today with Freddy, a friend who belongs to another Ministry, but we where always in contact, we work together for few years and learning on technology from each other. He will come to help me during the MyNakedPastor .com weeks, to have up and running the system for five uninterrupted weeks… planning, dreaming, figuring what kind of problems will exist, and also talking and fixing the world from our own point of view, what if Chavez this… or Bush the other… politicians in Mexico and other stuff... then we have lunch together ( laaaaate 3 pm lunch) and we enter some discussions about what he thinks of this and that… What is great, after all the discussion, we agreed on something, we have a great friendship. Friendship is not about to agree on everything, is about to understand how God created us unique, each of us, ...

Today was my first class day, and just coming in, I got my first test! To check my current knowledge, first, it was a Pre-test… so on this test it was reading, math and writing. First Results: Reading, 100%, (Is good to now at least that I can understand all I’m reading), Math, I got 96% (Ok I don’t remember how to divide fractions) and then… Writing. I check the sentences, read the questions several times… and I think I just got no more than 15%... the teacher just told me… “Well, you said you needed to learn writing…” I’ll get the right materials for you. She gives me the real tests (Now big books) for Reading and Math, and she told me that she will get one for writing next Monday. So I did the real tests, and it was fun, more than the questions, I was having memories about the time I learned the topic on question… it was something between nostalgic, melancholic and memories tests. I don got the results yet, but I’m pretty sure I got very good results on those tests… How different is...

We finished preparing the pre-launch website for MyNakedPastor.com and everyone is exited about this new series. It has a spot to submit your video to enter the contest to go to the “Naked Party” (I just made my own video and submitted). I’m learning about the RSS, XML & Twitter feeds on the link we added there, because, believe it or not, I didn’t know what it was a feed (Yes an outdated nerd… that stinks) and it is very cool, so, now I don’t need to visit all my friend’s blog, just get the feed and I can read all the updates all at once, great. Another interesting thing is the naked tools, that allow every one to include the code piece required to invite some one or just to share the fun of MyNakedPastor.com on the Naked Tools section. Well and what is this, all about this series? There is the explanation also: “The lead pastor, Troy Gramling, at Flamingo Road Church is getting naked! No...not that kind of naked, a new kind of naked. A nakedness that isn’t embarrassing; a nakedn...

Today I start reading the Book "Peppermint-filled piñatas" by Eric Michael Bryant, and as soon as i start reading, I was unable to stop reading it... it make me think about how can we move our ministry to become relevant, responsive, and reflective of the global community. He approaches the subject on a very funny way, starting with "The art of woo", I laugh from the beginning, I think I'll be blogging about the book on my next few posts... MyNakedPastor.com series will be relevant, and I believe that will change the mind of many as we approach the different subjects that will be covered by this series. Now, I’ll continue reading…