I don't want to make the same mistakes

Joseph R Stinson

I don't want to make the same mistakes • Sermon • Submitted 7 years ago

Joshua 3:1–7

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I don’t want to make the same mistakes

Joshua 3:1–7 NKJV

Then Joshua rose early in the morning; and they set out from Acacia Grove and came to the Jordan, he and all the children of Israel, and lodged there before they crossed over. So it was, after three days, that the officers went through the camp; and they commanded the people, saying, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests, the Levites, bearing it, then you shall set out from your place and go after it. Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure. Do not come near it, that you may know the way by which you must go, for you have not passed this way before.” And Joshua said to the people, “Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.” Then Joshua spoke to the priests, saying, “Take up the ark of the covenant and cross over before the people.” So they took up the ark of the covenant and went before the people. And the Lord said to Joshua, “This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you.

Intro

Preparation Before the Event Leading up to a competition, it is important to provide athletes with the mental tools so that they can learn to manage their own performance and create their optimal level of mental readiness. Strategies such as goal setting, imagery, thought management, and emotional control can be learned through practical exercises that incorporate these elements into the athlete's practice and daily routines. Athletes can then use these tools to develop their personal routines and plans for achieving mental readiness for competition. These plans can be refined and adjusted during the pre-competition phase as athletes engage in practices, and other tournaments and competitions leading up to the "big event".

Develop refocusing strategies Athletes and coaches should also learn to apply the tools to develop refocusing strategies for challenging and unexpected events arising during their performance. Coaches will often facilitate the athletes' use of refocusing strategies by structuring challenges within the practice environment or by simulating competition conditions. Athletes' personal routines and their process for achieving optimal mental state are foundational elements of the mental training process. It is from this foundation that athletes can begin to explore focusing and refocusing beyond the context of the performance and apply their plans to deal with elements within the competition experience itself.

Anticipate and plan for distractions An additional part of the preparation for competition involves anticipating potential distractions and impediments to performance and focus. There is significant power in having anticipated an issue before it happens. If something occurs that has already been identified, then the energy and impact of the issue is lessened and an awareness of alternative responses to the situation heightened. Plans need to be established ahead of time for how to deal with the major distractions. Moreover, athletes need to have a general strategy for identifying and coping with the unexpected.

One suggestion might be to develop a chart to analyze and prepare for difficult conditions. Athletes and coaches can brainstorm a list of competitive and/or event-related conditions and for each consider the following:

The most challenging possibility (e.g., not playing as much; family and friends having unrealistic expectations of the athlete's performance);The best way of preparing for it (e.g., clarify team roles and expectations; outline the athletes goals and expectations ahead of time);How the condition might serve as an advantage (e.g., chance to watch other teams weaknesses; opportunity to communicate specific goals to family and friends).

Addition of a new child

It's easy to prepare your house for your new bundle of joy. But what about your marriage? One of the most important ways you can prepare for a new baby is to ensure you have created a solid foundation in your relationship with your spouse so you are best able to weather all the changes — hormones, sleep deprivation, financial demands — that will surely attend the addition of that new family member. Whether or not you have an official "baby moon," take plenty of time leading up to a birth or adoption to have fun together, talk and be that happy couple who started out dreaming of their future together.

Death of a parent

There's no easy way to emotionally prepare for the passing of a much-loved parent, but knowing all the facts about your parents' will and plans for the estate will make the post-funeral tasks easier to handle. Take time to sit down with your parents and understand exactly what their plans and wishes are, and make copies of relevant documents. Be sure to coordinate with your siblings as well so everyone is on the same page before a death.

Having an empty nest

Ok, so this one is way down the road, right? KJ Dell'Antonia explained in a New York Times article, "Between the day your child is born, and the time he or she turns 18, you get 940 Saturdays—and 260 of them…are gone by her fifth birthday."

The 18 or more years it takes to launch children into adulthood and independence can seem like a permanent state of (exhausting) affairs, but children really do eventually leave the nest. Spend those Saturdays making the most of your time together.

At the same time, prepare yourself for this new experience by building up other relationships, particularly with your spouse and close adult friends. Having a good support system of other loved ones in place can ease what really can be a grieving period.

How to prepare for a hurricane

Not sure what to do before, during or after a hurricane? We’ve got you covered for when you need to batten down the hatches.

CLINT WILLIAMSOctober 1, 2015, 3:08 p.m.

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https://media.mnn.com/assets/images/2015/10/hurricane-wilma-south-florida.jpg.653x0_q80_crop-smart.jpgHurricane Wilma moves through South Florida bringing destructive strong winds and rain in October, 2005. (Photo: Emilio Labrador/flickr)

If you're familiar with hurricane history, you know that anyone living along the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico needs to know how to prepare for massive tropical storms.

And because hurricanes pose a variety of threats — flooding, high winds, storm surges, tornadoes — it is important to prepare in advance and to follow the hurricane safety tips from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other emergency management officials.

Before a hurricane

Pack an emergency preparedness kit that will meet the needs of you and your family for three days. The kit, of course, will be handy in the wake of any natural or man-made disaster. An emergency preparedness kit needs to include food and water for each member of your family for three days, a battery-powered or hand-crank radio, flashlight, spare batteries, first aid kit, can opener, toilet paper, garbage bags and plastic ties for personal sanitation. A complete list of recommended items for an emergency kit can be found at Ready.gov, FEMA’s emergency preparedness website.Store emergency supplies in an easy-to-carry plastic storage container or duffel bag, making them easy to grab and go should local emergency management officials order an evacuation.In addition to the essentials in the emergency preparedness kit, pack sleeping bags or blankets, paper towels, books, puzzles, board games and special foods that will make a stay in a shelter more comfortable.Board up windows using 5/8” marine plywood. Using tape on windows won’t prevent them from breaking.Fill the gas tank of your car.Know emergency routes and make transportation arrangements. Identify a place away from home where you can go if you have to leave.Get a supply of cash.Turn your refrigerator and freezer to the coldest setting so that food will last longer should the power go out. Keep the doors closed as much as possible to hold in the cold.Gather and store inside anything that might turn into a missile: lawn furniture, lawn art, garbage cans, tools.Fill your bathtubs — and other large containers — to make sure you have a supply of water for cleaning and flushing toilets. This is in addition to your supply of drinking water.Follow directions regarding evacuation, especially if you live in a mobile home, a high-rise building, on the coast or in a floodplain.

https://media.mnn.com/assets/images/2015/10/hurricane-sandy-marblehead.jpg.838x0_q80.jpgHurricane Sandy hits Marble head, Massachusetts, in October, 2012. (Photo: Brian Birke/flickr)

During a hurricane

Brace external doors.Close interior doors.Close all curtains and blinds, even if you have plywood over the windows.Wait out the storm in an interior, windowless room or closet on the ground floor.If the power is out, use flashlights instead of candles.Listen to news and weather reports.

After a hurricane

Check everyone for injuries. Administer first aid, but don’t move anyone seriously injured unless they are at risk for further injury.Be alert to hazards created by hurricane damage such as broken glass and downed power lines.Stay off flooded roads.When returning to your home if you’ve been evacuated, walk carefully around the outside and look for damage such as loose power lines and gas leaks. Do not enter the house if it is still surrounded by floodwaters or if you smell natural gas.Throw out any food that was not kept at proper temperatures or that was exposed to flood waters.Take photographs of damage to your house and the contents to show when filing an insurance claim.

6 Crazy Ways People Are Prepping for Doomsday

BY THE WEEK DECEMBER 18, 2012http://images.mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/inventor-yang-zongfu-tests-one-of-his-anti-disaster-bubbles-in-china-565x340_4.jpg?resize=1100x740

By Chris Gayomali

REUTERS/China Daily China Daily Information Corp - CDIC

MORE FROM MENTAL FLOSS STUDIOSPlayMuteCurrent Time0:00/Duration Time0:00Loaded: 0%Progress: 0% FullscreenFOODCute Macarons Are A Lot Of Work

Circle your calendars: The world ends on December 21 ... at least according to some out-there prognosticators. And predictably, more than a few rattled souls from different corners of the globe are rushing to empty their savings accounts and stockpile nonperishable food, guns, ammo, gas generators, and whatever other doomsday supplies they can get their hands on. Of course, the Mayan calendar predicting the end of times has probably been misread, and NASA insists there aren't any asteroids headed our way any time soon. But the philosophy of these so-called "preppers" is that you can never, ever be too careful. Here's how they're getting ready for the end of the world:

1. The man building Noah's Ark

Lu Zhenghai of China is sinking $160,000 of his life savings into a massive ship to ensure that he and his family are protected in the event of a worldwide flood. The house-sized ship is pretty substantial, too. At 65 feet long, it weighs about 80 tons, built mostly of timber and steel. It's unclear if there will be any animals taken on board.

2. The man who built a nuclear shelter out of school busses

Bruce Beach, a 78-year-old former high school teacher living in Ontario, is no stranger to fallout shelters. He built his first in response to the Cuban missile crisis in the '60s. His life's work, a sprawling underground labyrinth nicknamed "Ark Two," was finished in the 1980s and is comprised of 42 underground school busses. Beach rents out rooms in Ark Two, and like most B&Bs, Ark Two rooms boast a kitchen, shower, and separate bunks for children and adults. "People have been in a panic because someone has prophesized the end of the world this particular week or whatever," he told the Canadian Press. "They call us up just to make sure we have space in the shelter and I tell them, "For sure, come on down."

3. The man building 3-ton steel balls

Not to be outdone by his ship-building countryman, 32-year-old Yang Zongfu of China has been building 3-ton yellow steel balls measuring 13 feet in diameter. The balls are hollow, and inside each there are seatbelts. They're designed to withstand a volcano, tsunami, earthquake, or nuclear meltdown. Yang calls each anti-disaster bubble "Atlantis."

4. The man who spent $130,000 on survival equipment

More than $130,000 of author Patrick Geryl's savings has gone into survival prep. In a small wooden bunker in South Africa (far away from the site of a potential nuclear meltdown), Geryl has stockpiled walls of guns, ammo, water purification tablets, and more, should the world need to be re-colonized. All of this is detailed in his tell-all book, How to Survive 2012. But with only two-and-a-half stars on Amazon, it's safe to say it probably won't make any best-seller lists come 2013.

5. The man who spent $350,000 on survival equipment

$130,000 is nothing! Australian marketer Robert Bast, 46, is the proprietor of a community called Survive2012.com, and has spent upwards of $350,000 stockpiling food, water, gas cookers, generators, and a pick-up truck to take his wife and three children to a safe house 1,500 feet above sea level. "What is certain is that in my lifetime, there is a strong likelihood that there will be a catastrophe of some kind," he tells CNN. "The sun destroying power grids, a flu pandemic that kills millions, an asteroid or meteor or comet striking earth, or a magnetic pole shift."

6. The couple stockpiling honey bees

A New England mom named Kathy Harrison prefers her other nickname: The "Doris Day of Doom." But rather than stockpile weapons and ammunition, Harrison and her husband are keeping something a bit unorthodox: Honey bees. "In a grid down situation those bees become not just food for us, but they become money that we can barter for," said Harrison. "Those bees are the essence of resilience for us."

Creating a Mental Pre-Performance Routine

Creating a mental pre-performance routine helps an athlete get into a mindset that allows him or her to perform their best, and prevents them from getting in their own way. I call this the "best-self" mindset. It includes three to five keywords or short phrases that cue the athlete into a specific vision of the "process behaviors" he or she performs, feels, experiences and exhibits when they're playing their best. The keywords and phrases guide them through every performance, even (or maybe especially) when things are not going well for them or their team.

"Process behaviors" represent the habits and characteristics an athlete has control over and can perform regardless of how the competition is going. Words and phrases like aggressive, attack, head held high, focus on the field, having fun, communicating, being positive with my teammates are examples of "process behaviors." The athlete can stay committed to these habits and attitudes at all times during a competition, regardless of whether the game is going well.

If you want to get into the right mindset, it's simply not enough to put on headphones and listen to your favorite pump-up music. Before practice or a game, athletes often feel too rushed to practice a true mental warm-up, since coaches don't actively set aside time for it to happen.

I recommend this process as a coach-led pre-game routine. Coaches should use the expertise of a sports psychologist to help their players create their specific individualized "best-self" mindsets—because every athlete is unique, and each ideal pre-game mindset will be different. The next step is to designate a few minutes specifically to allow the athletes to get into their pre-performance mindsets.

Just as the physical dynamic warm-up is scheduled and presided over, so too should the mental warm-up. It sets up an expectation that the athletes need to get their minds prepared as well as their bodies. The more times an athlete completes this process, the more easily and effectively he or she will be able to profitably use their positive pre-performance mindset.

Tips on How to Use Visualization..

You need to involve Sight, Sound, and Feeling to really gain from the benefits of visualization.

Now, there are some important things to consider when visualizing. If you just picture yourself shooting free throws in third person as if it was a movie, you probably won't improve as much as you could.

You need to visualize everything out of your eyes (in the 1st person). You have to be there at the free throw line feeling the basketball. Seeing the goal. Hearing the noise.

As you shoot, you should FEEL the ball roll off your fingers. You should SEE the ball traveling through the air with perfect backspin. You should SEE your hands out in front of you with the perfect follow through. You should SEE your hands out in front of you holding the follow through as you HEAR & SEE the ball swish through the net.

Once, you do this, you're guaranteed to see results.

On a personal note...

We had decided to discuss the concept of visualization and the importance in doing so at practice one day. We told the players to go home and visualize themselves shooting 10 free throws before they go to bed. We had to forgot to mention to everybody to visualize every shot going through the hoop. The next day some of the players were telling us about it. Jokingly, we asked a few of the players, "So, how many did you make?" assuming of course that everybody made 10. A couple of the kids said I made 10. Then one of our players sheepishly raised his hand and said, "But coach… I only made 7." The funny thing about it is that he wasn't joking.

Mental Practice

•Create your personal mantra moment cerebellum trigger. This gives you the best chance of shutting down your consciousness, allowing your cerebellum to kick in and allow auto pilot muscle memory to take over and make the free throw. Have just one feeling or visual queue. Try not to use words, but if you must, use only one holistic word, for example -- "swish." It's better to choose something like the feel of the ball as you bounce it at the line be your trigger. The absolute best trigger could be the rim itself. Train yourself to use the feel of the ball, or the sight of the rim, or whatever you choose to hyperfocus your cerebellum into action.

•Practice losing yourself in the feeling of the ball or whatever you choose for your trigger. The only thing in the world that exists is your trigger. Practice the feeling that when you look up and see the rim you are ready to shoot. The most important part of your free throw is your hand releasing the ball up and toward the basket. The most important part of that action is getting the ball to roll off your index finger and middle finger last. This must become a comfortable and very familiar feeling through practice. Get that feeling each time you bounce the ball before a free throw. "Shoot the ball to the floor," letting it roll (with backspin) off your fingers as if it is the free throw shot. The only thing you feel is the ball rolling off your fingers. The only thing you see is the ball spinning as it goes towards the floor. Try to hear the sound of the ball moving in your hand. Then just shoot.

•Stay off the line until the official/practice partner is ready to give you the ball. When you are practicing on your own, stay off the line until you are ready to shoot. When you step up to the line, immediately start your cerebellum trigger and shoot. There is no shot to make. There is no score, no clock, no teammates. There are no fans, opponents, victory to gain or loss to fear. There is no past or future. The only thing that exists is your trigger.

Message

Moses vs Joshua

The distinction between the Moses and Joshua generations is not simply a chronological one. It is a state of mind—which is often, but not always, a reflection of chronological age. In the Hebrew Scriptures we are told that when Moses sent out twelve spies, only Caleb and Joshua brought back a positive report and encouraged the people to go up and possess the land. In it says, “But my servant Caleb (and Joshua), he had another spirit with him, and has followed me fully, him will I bring into the land where into he went; and his seed shall possess it.”

I believe this is a spiritual/metaphysical, rather literal/political, interpretation. Therefore, it is an even more powerful and relevant message for our time because it applies to all of us. Each of us must choose which report we will believe, and thereby determine which generation we belong to: the Moses generation or the Joshua generation. There is no shame in belonging to either. However, let us be clear: one is focused on the past; the other is focused on the future and on its positive possibilities.

Martin Luther King Jr. was the first to talk about not being able to go into the Promised Land in his mountaintop speech, the evening before he died. The common understanding of his remarks is that he was predicting his death and giving his own eulogy. Yet if King had lived, I believe he could have bridged the gap between the Moses and Joshua generations, as indicated by his Riverside Church speech – “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence.” King called for a “radical reconstruction” of America, relentlessly turning the nation toward the needs of our poorest, most vulnerable people.

6. The Joshua Generation will be men and women of faith, who speak and live by the word of God.

That was the difference between the generations: being able to speak – and live – the words of faith. In spite of opposition, Joshua and Caleb spoke out the promises of God. Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we will surely overcome it” ().

There is going to be plenty of opposition to come. Most of it will be religious opposition, because the institution of the church is out to rob the true church of authority and power. There is going to be warfare. It has taken place before: whenever God starts to do something new and fresh, whenever He starts to pour out His Spirit in a new way, the previous generation opposes it because they do not want to give up control.

But you cannot control this: you have to go with what God is doing. The Joshua generation will not be into control: as we have seen, they will be gentle and humble of heart. We need to be men and women who are willing to live by faith and are unashamed to speak out the truth, challenge people’s understanding, and challenge the doctrines and mindsets which have robbed people of their true inheritance. Almost inevitably this is going to cause trouble, but we have authority, and we are going to see people rescued from those things.

7. The Joshua Generation will have (and operate in) a militant spirit, and will fully follow the Lord.

But My servant Caleb, because he has had a different spirit and has followed Me fully… ().

If you look at how Caleb entered the Promised Land, he was saying, “Bring it on! Give me the land of the giants, because I’m going to go in and take it”. And even when he was in his eighties, he was still strong to go in and out to battle and to war. He was still overcoming. The Joshua generation may have people in it who are 80, 90, or over 100. It is not about age, it is about attitude. They have a different spirit, a militant spirit – as Jesus said, it is the violent who take the kingdom by force.

It is a breakthrough spirit. These are people who are willing to be breakers, who will break things open so that others can come in and receive. That is what God is calling us to do, and to follow Him fully (not partially). It will take a militant breakthrough spirit to push through into the dimensions to which God is calling us, and we need to be prepared for that.

8.The Joshua Generation will be sensitive to and feel grief over sin.

We do not look back at a previous generation and say, “Well, tough on them, they have missed it”. We look at people and see they are still needing encouragement to come in. Over the church in general we have to have an attitude of intercession, an attitude of standing in the gap. Not an attitude of pride, but of willingness to do what we can to see more and more people drawn in.

And where we see the church as an institution in sin, our spirit needs to be moved to act:

Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, of those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes ().

When the others said, “We are not entering in”, they tore their clothes as an expression of sorrow and of intercession for them. That is how we need to be.

9.The Joshua Generation will be men and women of the Spirit

So the LORD said to Moses, “Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit” ().

We need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to be baptised in the Holy Spirit in fullness, and to be so continually. It is not a one-off experience: we need daily to be filled, to be overflowing, and to be operating in the dimensions of the Spirit. In the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and in the fruit of the Holy Spirit. We need to go up to whole new dimensions of the glory that is manifested through the Holy Spirit.

Moses’ generation an example

It is important for us to understand what the Moses generation is all about:

For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same spiritual food; and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness. Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written, “THE PEOPLE SAT DOWN TO EAT AND DRINK, AND STOOD UP TO PLAY.” Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents. Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. ().

Although God showed them all the promise, and the Promised Land, they actually refused to go in and wanted to carry on operating in the place they had become accustomed to, and in the strength of their own understanding. ‘Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction’, so that is an indication that this is really important. We don’t want to miss what God is doing, and we need to be aware of things which could cause us to miss it. We are experiencing a time when the fire of God’s Presence is here to refine and cleanse us, to prepare us for what is to come.

Failed to inherit

Let’s see what happened when the children of Israel were brought to the borders of the land:

Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we will surely overcome it.” But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are too strong for us.” So they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size. There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight” ().

Now this is what caused them to fail to inherit, when they were given the choice. Joshua and Caleb brought a positive report; the others saw the obstacles, including the giants, and the Nephilim (and we understand a little of what the Nephilim were all about); they saw them and they backed off. They were not prepared to go in, fight the fight and take possession of the land. And as a result, that whole generation missed out on what God wanted them to do.

Nevertheless, in spite of that generation saying ‘no’ to Him, God’s response was: “but indeed, as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the LORD” (). He would raise up another generation, because He was going to have His way.

And that is still the case today. God’s will is going to be done one way or another: our choice is whether we want to be part of it or not.

Moses was like the sun because he was close to God and his radiance was sometimes sobright that the people could not even look at his face (). God spoke to him face

to face (), but his followers had difficulty speaking to him. “Moses’ unparalleled awe

of God was so great that that he simply could not fathom why his people did not trust God also.

Ironically then, Moses’ incomparable faith may have been precisely at the root of his strugglesin leading the Israelites”

(Angel 150). His struggles in leading the people began while they werestill in Egypt and the elders required miraculous signs before they believed that God had senthim (), and then the people complain against Moses and Aaron throughout theirlifetime (, ; ; ,; ,; ; ; ; ; ,-

28). For example, in the wilderness, “

the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and the people of Israel said to them,Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meatpots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole

assembly with hunger”

(Fountain 191). This strong leadershipwas established in several events that are documented in table 3.Table 3Leadership style (transformational vs transactional)Burns (1978) describes transactional leaders as those that appeal to followers self-interests, while transformational leaders appeal to their moral values. Moses is recognized asone of the greatest leaders of history, but his leadership tended to be transactional. TheIsraelites did not accept him as a leader (, ) until after nine plagues they realizedthat he might be able to get them out of slavery. As long as things were going well, theyfollowed Moses. However, they rejected his leadership when he was not giving them what theywanted. This rebellion was seen when Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments (), when the people were hungry (), thirsty (), threatened (Exod.

file:///C:\Users\Joseph\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image001.jpg

Reid 7

14:11), or didn’t want to fight (

-4). Moses responded in a transactional manner: heprovided manna, quail, water, or whatever appealed to their self-interest.Joshua followed Moses, but appealed to the Israelites moral values. At the end of hislife, he told the people to choose who they would serve and had them swear that they wouldfollow Yahweh forever (). His goal was to change the lives of their descendents inthe Promised Land.

What is a Mindset?

Your mindset is the sum of your knowledge, including beliefs and thoughts about the world and yourself in it. It is your filter for information you get in and put out. So it determines how you receive and react information.

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