Last week I attended the first session of our spring women's bible study. We are doing Beth Moore again, this time it's called "Daniel – Lives of Integrity, Words of Prophecy". We saw the first video, and it didn't really speak to me in any specific way – had a lot of history about kings.
Yesterday I downloaded Dr. Phil's new book "Life Code". Dr. Phil wrote this book just for me, and if you read it you'll probably say he wrote it just for you. Many times I've mentioned in this blog that due to my own naivety, I'm often blindsided by the behavior of another that attacks my life, using me to get to someone or something that they want and I never saw it coming. I've been going through this blindsiding thing since fifth grade. I always scratch my head and wonder how these people could be so clever. They take one tiny piece of information and spin it to whomever and suddenly I'm the bad guy and there's no way to explain what happened. I just drop my hands and walk away. These people steal my peace, trample on my joy, and leave me questioning myself – am I really a bad person? Dr. Phil's book is the remedy for my naivety. He gives us the play book of these people who use others to get what they want, no matter whose life they wreak havoc in. You got it, they want it, and boom! – out of the blue they used all the info they could gather on you, while befriending you, and slam! – out of nowhere you're out the door and they have what was yours. Bewildered, you slowly stand up and wobble away scratching your head mumbling, "What just happened?"
Little did I know that there are an actual group of people out there that make it their lifestyle to do this to further their own causes. "Life Code" teaches us what we need to know to stop this blindsiding. Dr. Phil doesn't get bogged down in the "why" they do it. He spells out "how", which is what we need to survive in today's world. There are people he calls B.A.I.T.E.R.S. They befriend you and get you to trust them and then go in for the kill. You can read about what the acronyms mean if you get the book. You will be surprised at the people lurking in your life that really shouldn't be there if you were any kind of "street smart" – which my husband will tell you, I'm not – not at all. I wear those rose colored glasses and make Pollyanna look like the big bad wolf, and, as he puts it, I'm always "outgunned".
Now – you may be scratching your head because I started this post talking about my new bible study and how it wasn't speaking to me. I was kind of not wanting to study the history Beth was presenting in the book of Daniel – until I sat down to do the homework pages. You won't believe what I found in the lesson. In 650 BC they used what was called "friendly captives" to gain entrance to the inside of the temple and all it's treasures. How did these kings do this? They befriended the the guys in the temple and got them to trust them and boom! – guess who walked right out of the temple carrying the treasures? Everything Dr. Phil was writing about and applying to our world today was happening in 650 BC. Beth Moore is using the book of Daniel to also show us how we can use the playbook of these early civilizations to show us what is still happening in our world today and how we must take care to protect ourselves from it.
Amazing huh? Dr. Phil, Beth Moore, and the Bible all on the same page. I know. It blows my mind how everything that is happening in the world today is not new. Just new people with new technology to do the same things old people with no technology did back in 650 BC. Did you know back then the king ordered boys, ages 15-20 who were smart, handsome and well-bred to be brought to him so he could teach them and school them to send them back out and infiltrate society for his own gain? Home grown terrorism ring a bell here?
What I thought was going to be a boring bible history lesson has suddenly become fascinating. That's why I have to go and listen to people like Beth Moore because I'd never find this stuff in the bible myself. Put Dr. Phil in this same arena, and, well, you can guess the amazing learning to come out of it.
And so, as another day goes by, God and His holy book continue to rock my world, He sends more tools in the form of Dr. Phil's book, hopefully I'll emerge a little smarter about who I let into my life and how long I let them stay, and….I have written.
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