Chapter 3 - Seeing God in Our Friendships

Don, a spiritual and professional coach, travels worldwide for both corporations and ministry. He teaches five competencies effective when incorporated your everyday life. They will work for you if you can identify them in your life. If you feel deficient in one of them, ask the Holy Spirit to give you a willingness to change. Regardless of the problems in your life, if you can identify the following, they will help you right where you are.

1. The Competency of Purpose: If you find purpose in everything you do, God can use you in that area. You have a unique ability to do things that other people can't do just because you are driven by a need.
2. The Competency of Connection: No matter what you're doing, not matter what's going on, if you have connections in you life, you will handle crisis better. You will manage life's problems better.
3. The Competency of Perspective: If you have the ability to measure and weigh things in the right assessment of order and responsibility in your life, you will maintain balance and your equilibrium. Let big things be big, and small be small.
4. The Competency of Learning: Learning is the ability to gain understanding or skill in your situation which will enable you to cope, grow, and face one-on-one challenges.
5. The Competency of Change: If you have the ability to experience transitions and adapt to your different surroundings, then you will find more energy to stay in the present and enjoy the moment.

Personal Process Assessment

Joy mentored me through friendship. Friendships happen in many settings and evolve in diverse ways, but a precious few will grow into a mentoring relationship where you either become a loyal friend and advisor or the beneficiary of such a friend. How do you see your friendships evolving? Which relationships in your life have you received or given such love and guidance? What are you doing currently to stay connected to close confidants in your life?

Mentoring is counsel for the calling. It is not training, coaching, teaching, or parenting. Mentoring provides an essential spirituality necessary for overall growth and maturity. It involves spiritual impetus. Willingness is the contingency clause to defining your life's purpose and keeping it through mentoring. You define it when you're mentored. You hold on to it when you mentor. Mentoring is fun! Are you willing to do whatever it takes to see yourself succeed in your gifts and callings? As a mentor, do you make yourself available whenever the call comes? Do you accept the inconvenience of a phone call or interruption to stop what you are doing and accommodate the need?

• Destiny = Fate. Once you accept Jesus as your Savior and Lord, Heaven is your Destiny.
• Purpose = Intent. God wants you to wake up each morning with quiet resolve and determination in your heart to live this day to the fullest no matter what happens.
• Meaning = Message. God speaks to you through your circumstances everyday. What is He saying to you?
• Goal = Target. It is the place where a project is finished or a trip is ended. Goals may change and have different meanings, but your purpose stays constant.

There is a difference between great and famous. Famous is an outside public recognition for accomplishment. Great is an inside understanding and recognition for who we are and living it out. God made us all great, not famous, but great. Through our trusted friendship Joy showed me how to live great. Do you just want to be famous and fulfill a psychological need or are you living out great- the life God designed for you?

Don's 5 Competencies are a simple effective way to cope with feeling overwhelmed and helping us stay in the present and enjoy each moment. They will work for you right now.

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