IT'S YOUR TIME by Joel Osteen

I'm reading another of Joel Osteen's book. This time it's IT'S YOUR TIME. Like most books I'm supposed to read, it just appeared one day in front of me. It was laying, lying?, ok sitting on Willie's nightstand and so I picked it up. I am pretty familiar with the format of his writing. Inspire, encourgae, entertain, make me feel good, inspire. I say that lightly and sarcastically because I was feeling a bit resigned and sarcastic when I picked it up. Resigned to that life would always be this way. In the middle. Not bad, not great. Just here. In the middle. But honestly I don't even have to dig deep down to recognize that I don't have an in the middle life. It's actually awesome. Yes, I have my concerns and goals I haven't met yet. But isn't that life? When I make out a list of what I have next to what I need, my haves heavily outweigh my needs. That I have my health, strength and mental capacity to keep on moving forward (the corniest of phrases and applicable here). I'm good.

Anyway, I claimed to be feeling sarcastic and resigned but truthfully I was looking for something. Looking for a way to encourage myself in the moment. I am an artist full of ideas and sometimes I can be weighed down by them as well. Ok, not weighed down by the ideas as much as the seeming contrast of what I know the possibilities to be and what reality seems like. Every relationship takes work. Even the relationship between myself and Myself. It takes work sometimes to maintain a positive attitude in spite of that negative voice inside my head.

So I picked up the book. It's an easy read, one I would reccommend to my son who will soon be thirteen. His narrative is easy and free flowing. Story after story he gives examples of how someone was on his path trying to make it and not knowing how it would work out. Then, and because of his faith, because God is that good, the winds turned in his favor. I've had many examples of this in my own life, so I know this to be true. That call for a gig that came just in time, that painting that sold right when I really really needed it to, because God is just that good.

What I particularly liked was the passage where he spoke about how God knows, and has always known about everything about us. I liked that so much because we can forget, if we are not careful, that God is really right there. Right here. Nothing can throw God off His plan. Joel Osteen says, in His wonderful humor that God is not thinking "I had a good plan for you, but your parents really messed it up. Nor is God thinking: That first husband of yours who walked out on you, he just ruined everything." I love it!

I haven't finished the book yet. Perhaps tonight. But if you haven't read it and need a quick pick me up to, dare I say, keep it pushin', then I suggest you get this book. Then pass it on.