The Rule of 52 for Success in Life - PDF

CHAPTER I I CCRT The Rule of 52 Learned and Earned Ecclesiastes 3:10-11, ''I have seen the task which God has given the sons ofmen with which to occupy themselves. He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet...

CHAPTER I I CCRT The Rule of 52 Learned and Earned Ecclesiastes 3:10-11, ''I have seen the task which God has given the sons ofmen with which to occupy themselves. He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man willfind out the work which God has donefrom the beginning even to the end." The bridge between knowledge and action is the Rule of 52. Success is never given or found; it is always learned and earned. The rule of 52 is such a successful counseling tech- nique I have written a separate book about the utilizations of the foundational principle. On my last day of high school, in the spring of 1980, I walked back into the school after the last final had been taken. This inaugurated summer's official start for me and the class of 1980. We were now just a part of high school history. The halls of the school were deserted. Paper and trash tumbled down the corridors from the empty lockers; the school was desolate. A building which had been teaming with life just a few hours before was now void of the energy of youth. A feeling of both melancholy and excitement filled me as I casually strolled to my locker for the last time. 155 CHRIST CENTERED REALITY THERAPY FOR THE 21 ST CENTURY I noticed one classroom light was on; it was my English teacher's room. She was one of my favorite teachers in high school. I poked my head in her door to say hi and goodbye. She greeted me with her usual smile and said, "Well, come in Mr. Barnette.""Finally, your high school career is at an end. What are your plans?" My reply was the standard of all high school seniors, "I'm going to go to college and then find a job so I can make lots of money." She paused, and you could see the wheels of her brain spinning as she reached in her desk and pulled out a penny. She held out the penny and said, "Open your hand." She placed the penny in my hand and said with a smile, "You have now earned your first penny as a high school graduate. Now all you have to do is add to it!" I still have the penny she gave me. I have worked hard to learn how to add to the first penny. Success is never given or found; it is always learned and earned. I was married with children while attending college. I was also working a full-time job and had a part-time youth minister position at a church. On top of this, my wife and I had just bought our first home. It was an old, rundown track home. I planned to remodel the house myself because I had worked as a home builder in construction all my life. This house was a real fixer-upper. I knew it would need a great deal of remodeling, but when you are young, you still think you are Superman. How wrong I was! The only thing I be- came was super busy! Coming to grips with reality is not always easy. Self-examination and the use of one's resources and energy will always disclose a lot about your reality and priorities. A so- cio-gram time theory is the systematic usage of time allotment in an individual's life, or in plain English, use of a personal timeline of how you use the hours of the day. If you did a socio-gram of my life from those long-ago days it would read like this, my hours of the day did not add up or make sense: 6 hours of sleep, 1 hour for all meals (mostly while studying), 1 hour to take the children to and from daycare/school, 1 hour of drive time, 10 hours of work, 3 hours of church preparation, another 3 hours for youth events, 2 hours to drive to and from seminary, and 3 hours study time for college, for a grand total of 30 hours per-day. 156  CHAPTER I I CCRT The whole 24 hours per day thing was not working for me! The first thing I cut back on was personal time; the next thing to go was sleep. A real point of discouragement and joy stealer was there was no time to remodel the old track home. Building has always been cathartic for me personally. When I bought our first house, I had such visions for the home, including big plans to redo and repair it inside and out. The builder in me was disgusted and frustrated with the crumbling home, but I simply did not have time to fix the house nor the money to have someone else remodel the home. Given the choice between family time, ministry, college, or repairing the home, the house always lost. The outside siding on the home was the most visibly repulsive thing because it was swollen and peeling. The home was from the early 1970's when builders used papier-mache siding on track homes. The siding was hanging on for dear life. One fine, spring Saturday morning during a dead week at college, I woke up and went to the lumber yard. I bought all the necessary supplies for 3 pieces of real wooden siding and trim. My home repair mission began on the front porch. I tore off and replaced one piece of siding with real wood and trim, but I only had time to tear down and replace one piece. I used my time wisely and studied for college finals. The next week I found time to replace one more piece of siding. I missed the week after, but I created a debt sheet. I now owed work on two pieces of siding the following week, and I scheduled the construction for Saturday. During week 5 I replaced another piece and added primer and painting to the project's critical path. This project also became family time with my son,Jonathan. He was old enough to help and loved building with his daddy. I bought him his first toolbox with real tools. We listened to music while we worked and talked about father-son things. We still love spending time with each other. Today he is in the building business. I replaced the siding, installed the trim, and painted the outside of my home one piece at a time. My new theme song was the classic Johnny Cash song from 1976, One Piece at a Time. Cash's song tells the story of a Cadillac assembly line worker who took one auto part from the plant each week. The worker stole the car parts from many different makes and models from 1949 to 1973. Then he assembled his own Cadillac. 157 CHRIST CENTERED REALITY THERAPY FOR THE 21 ST CENTURY It took me 52 weeks to completely re-side and paint the house. I began to apply my new Rule of 52 to many parts of my life. My wife also suffered from my lack of time. In applying the Rule of 52 to my relationship, I planned to do something nice for her once a week. My rule was simple, doing something for her Rule of 52, and it could not be anything which I would normally do like pick up the kids or take out the trash. The nice thing had to be something which only benefited her. One of the nice things I did was fill her car with gas on Sunday nights, which sometimes included a carwash. I knew this would be a nice start to her work week and one less task on her list. Occasionally, I would rent her one of her favorite movies and watch it with her (this always included popcorn). The movie thing was hard because she is strictly a sappy romance gal while I am an action/adventure and sci-fi guy. This is the toughest nice thing I did for her, but her favorite was when I rubbed her feet with lotion. I did something nice for my wife 52 times per year without being asked. I never told her my once-a-week plan; she just thought I had matured as a husband. I guess I had. The first time she discovered my plan was through proofreading the rough draft of the Rule of 52. I made it a point to spend at least 5 minutes per day with each of my children by pro- viding "Daddy alone time."These 5 minutes helped me meet their individual needs. There were many times when those 5 minutes would turn into hours. This "Daddy time"was over and above studying for spelling tests, caring for lost pets, washing the shirt which matched the best friends, or midnight runs to the store for supplies for the forgotten school project due tomorrow. This was 5 minutes of individual, personal time devoted to just the child's needs. The rest was just playing time. Today I still visit with my grown children, but the 5 minutes have turned into lunches, dinners, college visits, and problem solving. The same rule applied: if I missed time with them, I would have to make up the time missed. I owe my children my time. I do not get to retire from the "Daddy business." My kids have their own children; I now spend time with my grandchildren as well. The Rule of 52 is simple and it works; it has to be simple to work. It is about invest- ment. Do you invest in a retirement fund to pull the money out the next day? No! You 158  CHAPTER I I CCRT plan to let your investment grow and mature for the later years in life. Similarly, God's plan is "You reap later than you sow." My oldest daughter, Tommie Alice was about 3 years old when she discovered money, and it was used to buy things. A dollar bill was considered really big money to a 3-year- old, and she would say with excitement, "Money buys fries." She was referring to Mickey D's french-fries (when they were still good). The McDonald's Corporation spends an enormous amount of their budget on target marketing french-fries to children; this is why they have a clown and as a mascot. They get kids hooked early, knowing they have a customer for life. The world system is burning up money trying to influence your children, and their primary tools are time and consistency. Your children's brains are going to be filled, but it is your choice with what to fill them with. The Rule of 52 is all about life target marketing. In secular terms, as a parent you are target marketing to your children. Never rely on anyone else to give life-changing knowledge to your children. It's like President Harry Truman said, "The buck stops here." If what you are doing is not working, change what you are doing. The kids will change if you change. I have attended many workshops and seminars which have information overload. Seminars are full of great ideas, concepts, and new systems, but you would have to have a full-time employee just to learn the stuff presented in the workshops. You go home and the workbook, CDs, and other materials just sit on a bookshelf collecting dust. We have evolved into a 'point and click' society. Instant knowledge, gratification, and information are now more valuable than quality of life. Do not confuse technology and conveyance with quality oflife. Computer marketing gurus took the complicated language of ones and zeros of com- puter speak and translated it into user-friendly icons. This was the secret of the computer age's success. The computer geeks did not originate the idea; they simply worked the problem until successful. The Rule of 52 is a simplistic way to reprogram your life for 159 CHRIST CENTERED REALITY THERAPY FOR THE 21 ST CENTURY success while meeting your needs. When you meet the needs of others, your needs will then be met. One of the key CCRT concepts is people know 90% of their problems (needs) and people also know 90% of their solutions. What escapes them is the 10%, or how to suc- cessfully bridge the need and the solution. The Rule of 52 deals with problems people are not willing, ready, or able to deal with, but sincerely want to repair. Your current behavior is an extension of past learned behaviors. Many behaviors which are learned are success behaviors, but they are mixed with learned failure behaviors. You can be a Christian and still have the same old lingering behaviors, life habits. The outcome of learned failure is always a sum total loss and negative impact. It is like the man who was drowning and was saved by the lifeguard; he still came out of the water with the same habits he had before he was saved. The lifetime oflearned failure behavior will only change shape, size, impact, and mag- nitude as life progresses. As a baby, you learned sounds; the sounds formed words; the words formed meaning. Then you used the words to get what you wanted. Later, to use the word for both good and bad. You are in full control of what comes out of your mouth, and how it impacts your life and others. "But those things which proceed out ofthe mouth come forth from the heart, and they defile the man." Matt. 15:18 When you became a Christian, you did not stop using the language you learned, but those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart and defile the man or child. Nor did the old habits just disappear. If you are truly a new creation and really born again, should you change? The reality is nothing changes without work. You have the potential to succeed. You have the power of the Holy Spirit to guarantee success, but you still have to want to change. The "want to" always comes before "the do!" Authentic change will impact every aspect of your life. Real change comes with a price, and the reward is neither good or bad. It is a fact. Real change will affect each and every aspect of your life. Consider if you lost weight and got in great physical shape how would your life change. 160  CHAPTER I I CCRT Peter, even after having been with Jesus for three and a half years, still returned to his old habit of fear. If you study the life of Peter, you will find a man who had to work very hard to become a good student, a spiritual person as a servant, and friend of Jesus Christ. Peter would even have insight into the truth Jesus was the Christ. Peter's salvation was never in question; the problem was with his commitment. In Matthew 26: 74 - 75 it is written, "Then Peter began to curse and to swear, saying, T do not know the man (Jesus).' And immediately the cock crowed. And Peter remembered the word ofJesus, 'Before the cock crows, you, Peter, shall deny me three times,' and Peter went out and wept bitterly." Peter did not obtain success instantly or easily. The key was he worked God's plan for success every day for the rest of his natural life. We do not know when Peter stopped curs- ing, but his effectiveness as an Apostle depended upon his behavior changing one detail at a time. His actions on the day of Pentecost give evidence of real and radical change. Applying the Rule of 52 to Your Life the following are real life examples of how to live life with success. Step# 1: Application Always Begins with a (&estion People who are overweight know they are overweight. The person knows the problem; they are overweight and out of shape. I speak from experience because ice cream is my weakness. The individual also knows the solution; it takes diet control and exercise to lose even one pound. Every adult in America knows the answer to weight loss. If the answer is so simple, why are there so many overweight people? This is the 10% parts of the solution which escapes each of us. The bridge between knowledge and action is The Rule of 52. The rule of 52 is a formula for success in the most basic form. The Rule of 52 Qyestion Applied to Weight Loss: The simple question is: Could you lose just one pound per month? This is a very reason- able goal, and for most people the answer is, "Yes." At this rate you would lose 12 pounds 161 CHRIST CENTERED REALITY THERAPY FOR THE 21 ST CENTURY per year. What if you then lost 12 more pounds over the next year? In those 2 years you would have lost 24 pounds. Then you lose 12 more pounds in the third year for a total of 36 pounds. How would this weight loss affect your life? What would you physically look like and how would you feel? What would be the impact on your health? In three years, you would have lost 36 pounds. Can you start today by losing just one pound this month? For a little extra motivation, each person should make a copy of their birth certificate, tape it to their bathroom mirror, and look at it each morning. Then make the following statement, "I can get older with fat loss, or I can get older without fat loss; either way I am going to get older." My student challenge: I challenge any students going to college to take a copy of their birth certificate, tape it to their bathroom mirror, and look at it each morning. Then make the following statement, "I can get older with education, or I can get older without education; either way I am going to get older." It works best with masters and doctoral level students. Let's face it, when you are 18 you still feel immortal; time has no reality. Apply the same logic to weight loss. I can lose one pound this month, or I can stay one pound heavier; time will march on. The problem with most solutions is we are unrealistic with our expectations. Abnormal expectations lead to failure and failure leads to life problems. 'Tm going to lose 30 LBS this month,"you proclaim. Or you go to the track or gym and start where you left off at 18. Normal reality has to play the largest role in success. The difference in planned success and planned failure is normal reality. If you stood motionless in a room only breathing, the one thing which will change is time, regardless of what you do or don't do, time will march on. "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail, " advised both Benjamin Franklin and Winston Churchill. You choose which you are planning for your future 162  CHAPTER I I CCRT The Rule of 52 Qµestion. Applied to Money: Simple Qµestion: Can you save $5 in cash per week in your sock drawer for 52 weeks? At the end of 52 weeks, you would have $260 in cash. Make this weekly $5 contribution to the sock drawer for 20 years and you would have $5,200. What if you had this amount of cash right now? Would you ever really miss the $5 per week? What are you currently wasting $5 on each week you could live without? Imagine if you saved $100 per week. At the end of 20 years, you would have $104,000. If you had this much cash in your dresser drawer right now, would it make a difference in your life? The fact is, you can grow older without saving money, or you can grow older with cash money in the sock drawer; you will grow older either way! You can start today! If you can't save $5, then save $1, but get started immediately. Remember the rules of the harvest: You reap what you sow; you reap more than you sow; you reap exactly what you sow; you reap each and every time you sow; you reap later than you sow. The Rule of 52 can be applied to savings because money is one of our needs. The Rule of 52 is about total life success and sowing the seeds of success into your own life first, and then into others. You must be successful to lead others to success. You have to do both to truly be successful. Paul writes one of the conditions of the harvest rules in 2 Corinthians 9:6, "Remember this: the person who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the person who sows generously will also reap generously." You cannot out-give God, and you cannot change the rules of the harvest. Abnormal reality can also practice The Rule of 52 effectively and efficiently. Imagine a teenager who starts drinking with his buddies during his senior year in high school. He gets drunk 2 or 3 times per week. Then he goes to college, but he limits drinking and get- ting drunk to one night per week. After graduation, he is off to the big office job and his once or twice a week martini meeting with the boss. At home over the weekends, he has 1 or 2 cases of beer during a little backyard BBQand watches the game with his buddies. Let's do a Rule of 52 math problem by adding up his days drinking in college. By compressing the drinking timeline into days, we know he got drunk once per week for 52 163 CHRIST CENTERED REALITY THERAPY FOR THE 21 ST CENTURY weeks. He stayed drunk for 2 months per year during his 4 years of college. He devoted 8 total months of his life during college to drinking. As a graduate in the working world, the compressed timeline would be 3 days drunk per week. At 52 weeks, this would be 156 days per year or 5.2 months per year drunk. If you do not like math, consider how credit cards calculate interest. The interest starts ac- cruing from the very moment you purchase anything, and it continues until you pay your debt in full. A $2.99 breakfast at 18% for 12 months will cost you $49. Just because you charge $2.99 at a time, you still pay the full price. Proverbs 22:7 states, "The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. " Reality Key: The door swings both ways. The world system uses our weaknesses to trap us into being fat, out of shape, drunken, workaholics, overachievers, money seekers, or self-serving junkies. The idea, I have shared many times with junkies is, "If you can be committed to being a failure, then put the same commitment and time into being a success." James, an alcoholic, shared the story of his first A.A. meeting with me.James asked a fellow AA member, "How often do I have to attend these meetings?"The other alcoholic replied, "How many days a week did you drink?" James responded, "Every damn day of the week!""Then you should attend the same number of A.A. meetings. You had a plan to drink, now you have a plan to stay sober!" James' plan to drink every day is a perfect example of planned failure. When James invested the same amount of planning, time, energy, and money into becoming sober, he was successful.James drank for 50 years, and he was now planning for 50 years of success- ful sobriety! I have a friend who is a very good salesman. He was always putting time and energy into getting rich quick schemes. He was spending more time working on other projects rather than his real sales job. He was not even covering his business expenses. Over lunch one day he was complaining about another failed Internet scam. 164  CHAPTER I I CCRT I challenged him to put the same amount of energy, time, money, and effort into his real job for one month. He agreed to the challenge! The next month, much to his surprise, his boss' astonishment, and his family's shock, he was made salesman of the month. Today he is the regional sales manager for the company, and he loves his job. Mark Twain said, "Habit is habit and not to be thrown out of the window by any man, but coaxed down- stairs a step at a time." Step#2 You are already using the practice of The Rule of52 naturally in many areas of your life; you just don't apply it in the right direction. Break your life into manageable steps, and then take one step at a time. God's plan for each of us is to advance constantly, ever expanding, growing to become a success. God did not make His master design to fail; sin just wears us out. Linking the idea of a Sociogram to the idea of a Timeline forms a Sociogram-timeline, or a sociological timeline of your life or a Time Machine. This time machine will track your big life events from birth to death. Try to think of your own big life events, including birth; learning to walk, learning to talk, and play; early childhood; first day of school; first day ofJunior high; first love/crush; first day of high school; first date/kiss; first car and learning to drive; first job; prom/grad- uation; first day of college; becoming a Christian; college graduation; real big-boy/girl job and/or military service; advanced degrees; getting married; more advanced degrees; first child; more children; death of parent; first grandchild; retirement; death of a spouse; old age issues; and death. You may list as many big life-changing, earth-shaking events as you can think of to your list. When you list every big event, you will discover you do more common and mun- dane life tasks than big events. Each person worldwide and in all of history, daily go to the bathroom, talk, sleep, think, work, walk, smell and eat more than all the big events in their life. Statistically speaking, life's big events add up to no more than 100 to 200, or less than.01 % percent of your total life. 165 CHRIST CENTERED REALITY THERAPY FOR THE 21 ST CENTURY This means the majority of your life is lived out in day-to-day tasks, not in big events. It stands to reason; therefore, the majority oflife's failures and successes are in the day-to- day details and decisions of life. Guess which task you have to get right to be a success? The day-to-day choices are always the glue which binds success to your life. A high school student wanted to apply for a job, and I asked him an uncomplicat- ed question, "What if the person interviewing you asked for your attendance record at school? Would you hire yourself based on your attendance record?" Day to day details make the big events successful. Rule of52 Rules The Rule of 1 -Things You Do Once a Year Things you do only once per year can impact your life dramatically. Some examples are paying taxes, voting, reunions, annual check-ups, birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas and all other holidays, school starting and ending, and vacation. These events may start with conflict and end with problems. Most of these events are tied to emotions and compli- cations. Life events sometimes are very hard to measure in success and failure terms. The detail is in the devil. These once-per-year events may all have personal and family conflicts, such as which relatives to spend Christmas with. Simply completing the Income tax to submit on time. All of the traditions shape our culture and society creating potential conflict in individu- als and families. Could you imagine Christmas without Santa or Valentine's Day without greeting cards and flowers? With each social tradition event comes success or failure. We unfairly judge others and ourselves by the amount of success or failure found in these once-a-year events. As individual needs grow more abnormal, the abnormal wants become the larger life list. Consider a Christmas wish list, an anniversary list, a birthday wish list; the drumbeat of the list goes on. The list never grows smaller or less complicated. Ask yourself if your life is less complicated today than when you were younger. 166  CHAPTER I I CCRT The world system sets up the western cultural Christmas season for family failure. This is how the system makes money off of misery once per year! I love Christmas. I should say I loved Christmas as a child. Today as an adult, consider first how many parents are riddled with guilt and feel like failures because little Bobby did not get everything on his wish list. Secondly, think back to your Christmas as a child. How many gifts do you really remember? Can you make a list of the gifts you received each and every year? Now think about last Christmas season and make a list of the presents you received, or even the presents you gave. You may not remember the presents, but you will remember the arguments, conflict, guilt, and anxiety. Next, consider all the leftover lingering debt and residual family problems. The problems circle your family like a flock of buzzards. The perversely abnormal world system manufactured all of these problems. God's gift to Christians is the celebration of the birth of His Son. The world system uses God's Son to market toys and tinsel. The man-made world system convinces society our happiness revolves around once-a-year big events. The world system spends 52 weeks per year per- suading you to spend money. Your debt is a measurement of the world's system success, not yours. Your ability to repay the debt is irrelevant to the world's system. Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas; I just don't do the guilt and debt thing anymore. I spend my time investing in making my family happy. Happiness does not have to come out of my wallet. Making Christmas a Spiritual, Christ-centered reality is meaningful and a big part of Christmastime for my family. A benefit of being a Christian is Christmas. It has more meaning than money. If you are not a Christian then all you can offer your family is what is wrapped in a box and soon forgotten. Rule of 52 Rules Tue Rule of 12 -Things You Do Once a Month For the most part, things you do once per month fall under tasks. Some of these things in- clude monthly work reports, church meetings, paying bills, ordering monthly prescriptions, 167 CHRIST CENTERED REALITY THERAPY FOR THE 21 ST CENTURY visiting relatives, service projects, washing the car, rotating the tires, and changing the oil. All of these are tasks are necessary and routine. These tasks are the very stuff success is made 0£ I change my AC filters once per month in the winter and twice per month in the summer because it saves me money and improves the quality of the air in our home. It also prolongs the life of the HVAC system. The same logic applies to changing the oil in a vehicle. Once-per-month tasks are also a part of emotional success. I try to write letters to people I know and care about at least once per month. I do this just to let them know how much I love them and I am praying for them. When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone you love? I know you just can't find the time. I am determined to not let people pass off this earth without them knowing how much I love and pray for them. Many of my friends have said the letter always comes at just the right time! I buy discount cards, print address labels, write an uplifting message, and, for the price of a stamp, I share my emotional love and strength with people who I care about. It takes very little time, but everyone likes getting mail other than bills. The light company is always faithful to write to you. If you write to just one person once per week for 52 weeks, you will have written to all the important people in your life. Remember discipline is the refining.fire by which talent becomes ability. Charles Spurgeon writes, "I owe everything to God's furnace and hammer and His refining fire. With His mighty hand God shaped me into someone He could use." Rule of 52 Rules The Rule of 52 -Things You Do Once a Week Follow the money! This is how the cops catch white collar crooks. The paper trail does not lie. The same thing is true with the weekends. Track where you spend your time and money during the weekends. Weekends make up 3 ½ months of the total year. Most Americans spend their disposable cash in these two days of the week! According to na- tional statistics, these two days account for almost all Dill's, alcohol related auto deaths, homicide, sports accidents, crimes, rapes, spousal abuse cases-the list goes on. 168  CHAPTER I I CCRT A recent study found, almost all suicides and drug related deaths occur on weekends. Another survey found almost all final decisions for divorce are made over the weekend. The primary reason given was this was when they had time to make the decision. The majority of all drug and alcohol relapses occur on weekends. Finally, almost 100% of all weight control diets which started during the week are broken on the weekends. On the other side of the scale, almost all weddings, baptisms, first communions, funerals, and salvations occur over a weekend. Most wedding proposals and planned child conceptions happen on weekends as well. Our society has a light switch mentality. Compartmentalizing the work week from the weekend is not spiritual. Compartmentalizing being caused by the world's system has reduced individuals to a commercial product. Ask yourself why weekend papers are full of advertisements for the big sales.Junk mail comes on Wednesday so you can plan to spend money on the weekend. The world system knows if you pay people on Friday and give them Saturday off, they will spend all their money on stuff they do not need! God gave man a day off to rest, not to play golf or get caught up on paperwork. God also gave man this day to recharge his Spiritual batteries with a church and family. The other part of the weekend is spent mow- ing grass, washing clothes, cleaning and cooking in order to get ready for the next week. Are weekend plans and tasks driving you, or are you managing your tasks responsibly? You could be in the task trap. My definition of a trap is when you make a bad choice producing the seed of consequence. Avoiding a Task Trap will produce desirable fruit and the seeds of excellence. Task Traps effect is a Merry - Go - Round. When you get on the Merry - Go - Round you will not stop going in circles until you get off. All Merry - Go - Rounds are fun the first few times around then they get mind numbing. The first few days of a new job are exciting; but after the weeks roll on, the job becomes just wearisome. Many people feel overworked and underpaid even though they knew what they were signing up for when they took the job with enthusiasm. The 'Merry - Go - Round' anger build up. The 169 CHRIST CENTERED REALITY THERAPY FOR THE 21 ST CENTURY tune played over and over all day every day, "Pop Goes the Weasel" will drive you crazy- tensions rise and conflicts will ensue! Reality Key: Trapped by Tasks simply means inanimate objects like laundry, paying bills, paper work, children's schedules, Sunday softball games and mowing the grass have now taken charge of your life. The Task Trap will always squeeze God out of your schedule. There are reasons people wait for hours to get on a rollercoaster ride. God's plan for success is like a rollercoaster. We have a starting point, then lots of twists and turns along the way, but it always ends. The ride is fun and Christians always want to ride it again. If you are a Christian and your life's ride is not fun, then you might be in 'Ihe Task Trap. Rule of 52 Rules The Rule of 261-Things You Do 5 Days Per Week The 3 dominant features oflife are family, work and school. On the compressed timeline, we spend almost 9 months of our year with family, working or at school. Sin has kicked man to the curb starting from the exit from the garden. Consider the time you actually spend really relaxing or on vacation. Many people brag about never taking a vacation, but in the same breath they will state, if they had a million dollars, they would travel the world. The reality is God created man in a self-sustaining garden; it was weed free, danger free, and no clothes were necessary. Upon man's exit from God's garden, the workday commenced. God is speaking to all of mankind in Genesis 3:17-19 when He says, ofyou. You will eat from it by means ofpainful labor all the "'Ihe ground is cursed because days ofyour lift. It willproduce thorns and thistlesfor you andyou will eat the plants ofthefield You will eat bread by the sweat ofyour brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it. For you are dust, andyou will return to dust. "Talk about a hostile work environment. 170  CHAPTER I I CCRT Rule of 52 Rules The Rule of365 -Things You Do Once a Day There are things we do every day: eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, talk, learn, breathe, and the list goes on. There is one universal experience known by all mankind, in all genera- tions. Most people rarely live a single day without some or all of these experiences. A key reality is man's universal experience of pain, from birth to the last breath. Pain is the most common link to all of humanity. We all collect a little darkness each day. When our individual darkness is exposed to the light, others are repulsed by the darkness. Instead of embracing the opportunity to minister to those who have chosen to come to the light, the individual darkness is used to inflict greater pain. One of the reasons programs like AA works is because drunks are comfortable talking to other drunks. After all, this is who they spent time with at the bars. One of the main reasons for AN.s success also it is a judgment free environment. Can you say the same thing about your church? Each and every person avoids and resists pain. Count how many types of pain reme- dies you have in the medicine cabinet, in your purse, or at your desk. Keeping people pain free is a worldwide multi-billion-dollar business because pain is experienced universally. Reality fact is pain is man's greatest motivator, and it is also the greatest builder of individual emotional barriers and walls. Pain builds upon itself; it provides the bricks and mortar to build abnormal life walls. The mind-recoiling effect of pain constructs an indi- vidual wall or a prison around the mind, body, and Spirit. The wall is held together with emotional trauma. Next it forges fear, hate, hurt, and especially unforgiveness. The extremely heartbreaking fact is (the wall of pain) really will not keep pain out. The wall only protects the individual from success and God-given normal reality. The wall of pain is a closed system, like a rat cage. Pain, emotional waste, and inbred abnormal real- ity are kept inside the caged walls. The wall of pain is a retaining partition allowing the bitterness and anger to rot and fester until it is the new composer of reality. Friends and 171 CHRIST CENTERED REALITY THERAPY FOR THE 21 ST CENTURY family are let inside the walls of abnormality only when they submit to the new life of abnormality. This is why the battered wife keeps living with the abusive husband, the boss keeps the drunk on the job, and the mother keeps letting her son skip school and drop out. The drunk's individual brand of abnormality and the wife's normal reality merge to- gether forming nothing but contempt for moral knowledge of right and wrong. The merg- er will only occur behind the walls of pain and in darkness. An emotional festering swamp is formed behind closed doors and in the darkness of man's heart. Jesus called this the hardness of men's hearts. This is the expansion of the Task Trap. Your construction project of pain teaches others how to build their own individual walls. Your children now learn to build their own walls of abnormality one abnormal brick at a time. The bricks do not go up all at once but 365 days per year. They are stacked one at a time and become a life force. The Real Problem - Pain Is Involved in Healing Pain is also involved in the healing process. We build the wall of defense against all pain and not just bad pain. Working out at a gym makes you sore, but it is a good sore. Even taking a Band-Aid off a scratch hurt. All people worldwide resist pain even when we know it is good. This is why so many smokers know they need to quit smoking but don't; they are afraid they can't make it through life without the next smoke. A fact you need to accept is there is pain involved in being successful. When I was in college, I was a successful athlete. I also trained six hours per day, six days per week, and there was pain in the process. Today, forty years later, I look like the Pillsbury Doughboy. I had to redefine my definition of athletic success. I go to the gym now for health and weight control. This is my new definition of success. A key concept is you and you alone are in charge of defining your personal success. God is okay with your definition of success, as long as your success aligns with His will. Zig Ziglar writes, "You were designedfar success. You were endowed with the seeds ofgreatness; but would you know success if it tapped you on the shoulder and gave you its business card?" 172  CHAPTER I I CCRT Step #3 - Change Your Perception People become quite extraordinary when they start thinking about what they will do (success) instead of dwelling on what is preventing their progress. When they believe in themselves, they achieve success. It is not a secret. How you perceive a problem is more important than the problem itself If you begin by changing your thought process, you can ~hange the world. These concepts are reality's not platitudes. In scholarly circles, primary articles are also called original articles because they are the original sources for information. For mankind, the original information source is found in the book of Genesis. The first five chapters of Genesis cover all of creation, as well as man's original conflicts. This includes the first days of creation, first stars, first man and woman, and the first marriage. The first calendar is found in Genesis 2:1 - 2, ''And the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it; because in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made." With the act of creation, God created time itsel£ God organized it into a system of 7 days a week and 52 weeks a year. God called this time system good. He has never altered the original plan. According to astrophysicists, all time is measurable back to the begin- ning of time. The good news is time has not changed from the beginning of creation. Time is clearly understood as an original creation of God, and the intention is for man to operate in His will. God's time plan for man includes The Rule of 52, the 5 conflicts, the 5 needs, and the 5 rules of the harvest all at the same time, starting today! How to Use the Rule of 52 to Write a Book When I hold workshops, people ask me many questions about how to write a book. I guess they look at me and figure if I can write one, anyone could. Some of the questions include: "I have an idea for a book, but how do I get started?" "I started writing a book but I just can't seem to finish? How do you get across the bridge?" "How do you find the time 173 CHRIST CENTERED REALITY THERAPY FOR THE 21 ST CENTURY to write?" I am at a dead stop on a freeway for the last two hours thus I count it all joy as I am writing this chapter. The need is writing. The conflict is getting started, finding time, and finishing the book. The answer is The Rule of the Harvest; you reap what you sow.When I was a child, I had a neighbor who was a dime store romance novel writer. She was divorced, raising two children, and she made her living as a writer. She would get up each morning, put the kids on the bus, and go to work in her home office. Then she would sit in front of her typewriter for the next eight hours working; only taking two fifteen-minute breaks and one half-hour for lunch. This was her schedule Monday through Friday. She cleaned and shopped on Saturdays and went to church on Sundays. Following this routine, she was able to write six romances 'dime store novels' per year and make a good living. 1he key to her success was she made herself write a minimum of 5 pages per day. In 30 days, she would write 150 pages. I write 10 pages per week, which adds up to 520 pages per year, and I budget time into my schedule to write. If you just wrote one page per day it would add up to 365 pages per year. You can write your first page today? I am amazed at people who are willing to tear apart a room searching for the TV re- mote instead of walking to the TV to change the channel manually. If you had spent your time writing instead of watching TV, you could have produced a 365-page book each year of your adult life. How to Use the Rule of 52 to Help Your Children Children spell love T-I-M-E- this is an old cliche. If you spend 15 special minutes with each child each and every day, this 15 minute is over and above the child maintenance minutes (task). If you do it right, your overall relationship with your child will improve. Maintenance minutes are those spent driving to and from school or practice, correct- ing, teaching, reminding, and watching. Qµality minutes are defined as one-on-one time, you spend simply listening, loving, and visiting. All without cell phones! Qµality time is 174  CHAPTER I I CCRT not the opportunity for an extra lecture or armchair advice time. It takes hard work to put into practice and make a commitment to listen and love. If you spend 15 minutes with your child each and every day, in 7 days you will spend 1 hour and 45 minutes of individual quality time per-week, and at the end of 52 weeks you will spend approximately 4 days of quality time. It's Not much, but a very deep investment. A key to success: people are always, more important than things. If you consider your child the most important gift in your life, then the child is worth at least 15 minutes of your day. DO NOT confuse activities with individual attention time. This is like confusing knowledge with action. Authentic success as a parent starts with budgeting individual time in your daily schedule for each child. Kids love for you to watch them at their big game. What kids need the most is for you to know how their day went at school and at practice. They do not need for you to get protective and fix everything; they just need you to listen. When you listen and value what your kids are saying, they will quickly discover what they have to say is valuable How to Use the Rule of 52 to Clean Statistics state the average American families are simply overwhelmed by daily tasks. A typical family of 2 parents and 3 children taking one bath per day generates 5 dirty bath towels; which means there are 35 dirty towels per week or 2 - 3 loads of laundry. Over the course of a 52-week year this is 1820 towels. I am reminded of Lamb Chop and Miss Shari's theme song, "This is the song that never ends, and it goes on and on, myfriends." Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was, therefore they continue singing itforever just because, repeating into infinity. A Rule of 52 concept for laundry time is to break up the time into seven days like this: the last person to leave in the morning puts one load of towels in the washer, and the first-person home puts them in the dryer. Things like socks, towels, underwear, dishrags, and workout clothes do not have to be folded and can live in baskets, ready to be used. Save the folding and hanging clothes for the weekend or alternate washing and folding days. 175 CHRIST CENTERED REALITY THERAPY FOR THE 21 ST CENTURY Each person takes 20 minutes per day and picks up/cleans their personal living space. Work in teams and let each family member c~oose which tasks they would like to per- form. I hate doing dishes with a passion, but I love to dust, mop, and vacuum. If you leave it all for the weekend, you will end up washing only what you need for the next week while the rest remains dirty. Meeting one need at a time, you will meet all the needs successfully. Five family mem- bers working 20 minutes a day for a week equals almost 12 hours of total cleaning time. Now you have more free time, and you have also met a basic survival need of each family member by providing a clean, safe place to live. Conflict resolution and conflict avoidance have occurred, and there is minimal effort needed to clean the rest of the home. Education Many people are qualified for management positions, but they run into the wall of edu- cation. Corporations often have a hard and fast rule: no degree, no job! You were the best salesman in the company for the last twenty years, but you can't become the sales man- ager because you do not have a college degree. Adding insult to injury, your new boss is a 25-year-old recent college graduate with no experience. You train him and do his job on top ofyours just to make the sales quota. I cannot express how many times I have heard this story from capable men and women. They say, "I wish I had kept going to school. I wish I had used my time wisely in school, but it is too late now." "Horse spit!" is my reply to those statements! In Proverbs 9:8 - 10, wise old Solomon said, "Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you; rebuke a wise man and he will love you. Instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still; teach a righteous man and he will add to his learning. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." Learning is a Spiritual event which God created man to do, to use and to practice. It is God's will you are learning, training, educated and working. Use any Bible word search program and look up words such as, working, teaching, learning, and training. It will astound you how much God has to say about all four concepts. It is logical to assume a 176  CHAPTER I I CCRT continuous lifetime education for all individuals is God's will. He gave the need to learn; God will provide the resources. When my children were young and my family traveled, we always visited colleges along the way. Our children grew up not asking if they would go to college, but where they would go. In Proverbs 22:5, Solomon writes, "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not turn from it." Applying The Rule of 52 to the problem of finishing a college education is simplistic. Traditional colleges are divided into semesters: Fall and Spring semester with two sessions during the summer breaks. Applying The Rule of 52 to completing college looks like this: a student who only takes 6 hours per semester for all 3 semesters will accumulate 18 college hours. In 4 years, the student will have 72 college hours, which is more than enough for an Associate's Degree. I know you think it is too slow. The question is what if you had practiced this system for the last three years? How would it affect your life? Remember, it is not how you start the race but how you finish! During my first semester in college, I had a roommate whose home was Kermit, Texas. He was studying to be in the ministry so I called him Brother Frog as he was from Kermit referencing the puppet character made famous by The Muppet Show. I enrolled in the average typical freshman academic courses of math, science and English. Brother Frog took 18 + hours of PE, which I thought was stupid at the time. Brother Frog's grade point average at the end of the first semester was a 4.0, and my GPA was purely embarrassing. I learned the term "sco-pro" for the first time. Due to the 4.0 Brother Frog received a lot of scholarship money and was certified to be a referee. He became one of the college's referees for the entire intramural sports pro- gram. He made $25 per game, and he pocketed as much as $500 some weeks. I share this story with every young man who wants to go into ministry. I advise them to get a degree in accounting, business, teaching, or something in which they can make a living. By the time they get to seminary, most ministerial students are married and have a child on the way. Planning for success makes you usable to God. 177 CHRIST CENTERED REALITY THERAPY FOR THE 21 ST CENTURY The apostle Paul wrote 14 books of the New Testament, and yes, my list includes the letter to the Hebrews. In my opinion, Paul collaborated with Barnabas who was a Levite scholar, which would explain the differences in the letter of Hebrews. Peter, who was greatly used by God, was an uneducated fisherman who dictated 1st and 2nd Peter and dictated the Gospel of Mark.John Mark was educated, and after his failed missionary journey with Paul, he returned to write for Peter. The point is this: God will use you to your maximum potential. The more prepared you are to be used, the more you will be used. Your prayer should always be for God to make you usable. Remember the evil one does not care what you are a slave to as long as you are a slave. The devil is not prejudiced. He wants you to be a slave to sin, and it does not matter what sin! If he can keep you from doing God's will, the evil one has made you his tool and slave! What if God calls you to serve with a small, rural church which cannot afford to pay you fulltime and you are enslaved by personal debt with no education? Proverbs 22:7-8 states, "The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is a slave to the lender. The one who sows injustice will reap disaster, and the rod of his fury will be destroyed." Let's Make Money with The Rule of 52 Let's start with a question for pastors: what would happen if you visited and did outreach with one new family per week? Suppose each week, for 52 weeks, one new family joined the church. If each is a family of 4, this would be 208 new members in one year. What would this do to the size of your church? Economically, if each new family gave $25 per week, then the offering for each individual family for the year would be $1,300. If they gave $100 per week, the total would be $5,200. The solution to success is not the building, programs, or VBS; it is families. All the programs will happen because the members will need more programs. The needs will always drive invention and growth. The solution to church growth is to invest time visiting one new family per week for 52 weeks. 178  CHAPTER I I CCRT The same idea can be applied to insurance sales, real estate sales, construction sales, really any type of sales. If you add one new customer to your existing customer base each week, what impact would this have on your bottom line? An elderly carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer, a home builder, of his plans to leave the home building business to live a more leisurely life with his wife and extended family. He would miss the paycheck each week, but he wanted to retire. Home builder was sorry to see his good worker retire, and he pleaded with the carpen- ter to build just one more home. The carpenter unenthusiastically agreed. Over time it was evident his heart was not in his work. The carpenter did not pay attention to details as he once had. He wasted time and materials. His workmanship was substandard, and he was over budget. It was a poor way to finish a distinguished career. When the carpenter finished his work, the home builder came to inspect the house. Then the home builder handed the carpenter the keys and title to the new home and said, "This home is my gift to you and your family for all your years of service." What a shame! If the carpenter had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently. It is true you have many facets to your life, but you also have 24 hours per day to get it right. I am sure many of you are familiar with Solomon's beautiful poetic passages in Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8. It begins, "There is an occasion far everything, and a timefor every activity under heaven. " The deeper well and meaning comes from Solomon's commentary on how we use our time from, Ecclesiastes 3:9-15. "What does the worker gain from his struggles? I have seen the task that God has given people to keep them occupied He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also put eternity in their hearts, but man cannot discover the work God has done from beginning to end I know there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and enjoy the good lift. It is also the gift of God whenever anyone eats, drinks, and enjoys all his efforts. I know all God does will lastforever; there is no adding to it or takingfrom it. God works so that people will be in awe of Him. Whatever is, has already been, and whatever will be, already is. God repeats what has passed" 179 CHRIST CENTERED REALITY THERAPY FOR THE 21 ST CENTURY One of my preferred philosophers is Winnie the Pooh and I quote, "It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like, 'What about lunch?"' Paul writes in Ephesians 5:15-17, ''Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk-not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil So, don't be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is (for you right now). 180  CHAPTER I I CCRT CHAPTER I I Follow the Directions Below. Time tracker Sociogram Answer the following questions in round numbers then add them up. Example: (Qyestion: How many hours per day do you sleep? Answer - 8) Be honest!!! 1. How many hours per day do you sleep?_ 2. How many hours a day do you drive to work, school etc.? _ 3. How many hours a day do you take getting ready for work or school? _ 4. How many hours per day do you take eating and in meal prep? _ 5. How many hours a day do you work or go to school including any extracurricular ac- tivities related to the same? 7. How many hours do you spend texting, social media, playing computer games, TV or other? 8. How many hours per day do you spend with family activities, church, hobbies, yard work, house cleaning, washing clothes, homework? _ 9. How many hours per day do you spend in Bible time, prayer, or worship activities?_ 10. How many hours per day do you spend on other's needs? _ Total up the hours _ _ You can utilize this self-awakening technique with a counseling client or anyone. Where people spend their time, money, effort and activities will point to the abnormality in their life. This will be very enlightening and establish a baseline for goals and success. 181 CHRIST CENTERED REALITY THERAPY FOR THE 21 ST CENTURY Action plan (example): It is possible to have an action plan in a number of different areas of an individual's life. 1. How many sugar products do you eat or drink in a day? _ _ __ 2. How many calories do you eat in a day? _ __ 3. What one thing can you do to change your habits each day? _ _ __ 4. Could you lose one pound per month? Yes or No (in one year it would be 12 pounds) 5. How would losing weight change your life? _ _ __ 6. How many people could your weight loss help? _ _ __ 7. How many excuses do you have for not losing weight? _ __ 8. Can you work this plan? _ _ _ _ _ (Remember you eat to live not live to eat.) =1