I Promise - Gary Smalley

Alice and I attended the Gary Smalley "I Promise" conference at CBC this weekend. The promises consisted of 1) I promise to conform my beliefs to God's truths, 2) I promise to be filled with God, 3) I promise to find God's best in every trial, 4) I promise to listen and communicate with love, and 5) I promise to serve you all the days of my life.

The bottom line for the entire event was M&M (memorizing and meditating) on scripture in order to keep the promises.

The bottom line for the first promise was that you are the sum of your beliefs. Your beliefs are much more powerful than your thoughts. Changing your beliefs requires changing your thoughts--memorizing and meditating. The second promise dealt with taking the expectation off of other people to make you happy. Realize that you can't change anyone, only yourself through Christ. The main point of the third promise was that stress is frustration over expectations, the gap between what you expect and what you're getting. You can either reduce expectations or thank God for the gaps and the personal growth that occurs. The fourth promise dealt with moving from communicating in the "Knowledge/Issue/I want to win" level to the "Love/Relationship/I want to know you" level. Another point of the fourth promise was why going after your brother's "Speck" is a waste of time and destructive. It sets up people as adversaries, makes the relationship unsafe, and creates codependency because the focus is on the other person. The last promise dealt with serving--opening our hearts first to God and getting filled with His love; opening our hearts to others so that God's love can flow to others; cultivating an environment of safety so that others are open to being served; responding to the needs and desires of others.

Nothing radical or revolutionary presented, but I really enjoyed his view on our heart and beliefs. Your thoughts lead to your beliefs (from your heart), which lead to your actions. He presented five core beliefs and the scritpure to reach our heart.

1) Believe God exists and God loves your and gave you His Word. Matt 22:37
2) You are a sinner and lost. Jesus is your salvation and boss. Rom 10:9, 10
3) Once you receive Christ, the powerful Holy Spirit lives within you. Acts 1:8
4) By faith, all your trials are transforming trophies. Rom 5:3-5
5) Serving God and others is God's highest calling for you. Matt 22:39

Of course, this was a marriage conference, but I thought some of it applied to Mission Imprint, especially the fourth and fifth belief, and the promises. It's all from his new book "I Promise" if you're interested. We were blessed and really enjoyed the conference.

May God richly bless you all this week. rb