Welcome to Focused Planning

I have retired and no longer offer Life Coaching. Now I offer you something different.

I say Christian as a way of telling you that it is Jesus Christ working through you that will make the real changes in your life. Inviting Jesus into your heart is easy, as he is available. He has been available since his resurrection from death after crucifixion 2000 years ago. He himself said, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him and will eat with him and he with me." Rev: 3:20.

Religion in today's North American society is scorned by many. Is it accurate to say that? In our society I see devastation as I look at massive homelessness and poverty, government and other corruption and what appears to be a society that is very self absorbed and self focused. This replaces smaller town focus of brotherly love and caring. It also appears to disregard what we once referred to as religion.
Is God not really there? Is he an imagined being brought to life by desperate people? Is the bible just a collection of imaginary stories? I think God is real and offer three support pillars for this belief.

Pillar One: The Bible.

Most of the old testament of the Bible was written more than 2500 years ago. It tells the story of the people of the Middle East and their connection to God, and it does a fair bit of predicting of the arrival and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Isaiah 11:1 says "a shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a branch will bear fruit." Jesse was the father of King David, who killed Goliath and ruled Israel for awhile. The bible traces the lineage of Jesus from Jesse to Joseph, the adoptive father of Jesus, husband of Mary. Moving along now to the crucifixion, Psalm 22:16 says "a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet . . . . they divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing." This sounds a lot like the telling of the crucifixion of Christ, see John 19:23.

Moving on now to access to God, and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, 2Chronicles 15:2, says "The Lord is with you when you are with him. If you seek him he will be found my you." Seeking God involves praying and reading the Bible, which is considered the word of God, to have been written by men under the direction of God and going to church.

In the New Testament, Jesus Christ is born, raised, lives, is crucified and is resurrected. All of this could have been either made up or written by dreamers. But, people who believe in God, who are baptized as adults and read the Bible regularly, come to know something different. They pray and their prayers are very often answered. Now we have come back to the 2nd Chronicles verse, "The lord is with you with you when you are with him." The second of my support pillars is the experience of Christians from their connection to God.

Pillar Two: The Christian experience.
First let me tell you what a Christian is. The word has the name Christ in it because a Christian is a person who believes in the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus. With that belief in place this person reads the bible often, usually at least a bit every day, and thinks about the bible and prays often. This is what the bible tells us to do. The bible also tells us to obey the ten commandments and not cheat, steal or lie and the Christian does his best to comply with all of this.
From looking around and watching the news and television we all know that there are many "Christians," often regular church goers, who are missing the Christian experience. Here, I'm talking about Christians and their experience of God and the Holy Spirit.

Once baptized and accepted by God, the Holy Spirit is in you and with you no matter what. If you forsake God, He will forsake you but, in my opinion, the Spirit will still be with you. Likely you won't know it because you are no longer paying attention.

As an active baptized Christian, Here is my experience of God.

He is with me when I am with Him. We will talk more , later on, about how many non believers think that this statement in itself refutes His existence, but for now, Biblically and in my experience, He is with me when I am with Him. In Jeremiah 31:33, in referring to the New Covenant, God says, I will be their God, and they will be my people." Within the Bible,this is an often repeated bible verse, stating part of what God wants from us. Couple this with the 2nd Chronicles verse mentioned above, "The Lord is with you when you are with Him," suggests strongly that God wants us with Him through His word and through prayer and through our behavior. For me the closer I am to God, this way, the better by far my life goes: I find myself enjoying life more, and getting along better with others. Pillar Three: God's revelations to us.

more coming soon

What I expect from you?

If you want to work with me you must make a commitment to yourself. I only work with clients who are motivated to do well. Are you determined to enhance your life? I expect that you, with guidance, will do constantly better. I expect you to be showing patience, decency and honesty and doing the right thing more often. Since none of us are perfect we can all improve.

As your Life Coach, I become a second person, in your corner, to help you stay focused.

How long does coaching go on for?

That depends on how long you want to continue. Some people are done in a few months and others continue to benefit for much longer.

Get your needs met.

As people we like to impress others and be liked. In response to the question, How are you doing, we tend to say, "just fine" in a convincing way, regardless of what's really going on.
You might consider changing this when you are meeting with a life coach, counselor, spouse or good friend you can confide in. These are all different listeners but the same rule can apply: Your job is to get your needs met.

When your friend, spouse, coach or counselor says, How are you doing, consider being honest about disclosing something that is bothering you. If you're doing this with a friend, check them out slowly to see if this is really welcome. For example, you might say, I have a problem I'm hoping to talk about, are you up for that and is this a good time? Listen carefully to their response and then make your decision. If you're not sure, let it go for the moment and wait for them to follow up your question. If you do this with a friend, pick the friend with care as some friends may not welcome this.

Talking about our issues can meet our needs in different ways: With a receptive listener it can sometimes help clarify a problem or provide useful feedback that will add new understanding to what is going on for us.

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