There are two ways to kill a cockroach, one way involves the same way to prevent its intrusion in the first place: starvation. If we don't have food or water sprinkled all over our floors and in the cracks of our sofas, they won't last more than a month and they probably won't move in to begin with. The second way is with poison.

Cockroaches poop and pee and make our houses stink. Outside, they keep the world clean because the rain cleans up after them. They'll only visit to clean up houses whose keepers don't clean up after themselves.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB-vB_OjXf0

God seems to like to wait until the last minute before solving our problems, but, He doesn't actually. He doesn't wait until the last minute anymore than He waits for the first minute; He waits for the perfect minute.

Baking a cake requires the perfect cooking time, neither too long nor too short. Our self-worry, wanting to fly while keeping both feet on the ground, causes us to perceive that God often waits until the last minute to come through. He doesn't. He does everything at just the perfect time.

It takes getting used to—acting at the perfect time.

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Anyone can refine and narrow-down a preferred recreation. Anyone can sit in a chair and ponder one's own life and what useless hobbies we each enjoy the most. But, profitability—the ability to make the money needed to do what you really want to do in your heart—that can't come from a psychologist or conversationalist.

Discovering your own profitability requires someone who has discovered his own. We need feedback from friends and family. These are useful. But even more, we also need information, facts, challenges, and someone to teach by example on how to quickly get to the point.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzCC9TwgWCE

We have so many identity-shaping experiences from our formative years, no book can be written long enough to list what kinds of events might make us act insane.

Even being asked to sit down might trigger a conditioned response that a scolding would soon follow and a beating after that. So, a friend asks you to sit down, you flip out, and you can't figure out what went wrong.

The golden rule from Jesus flags and cures all of these—love others as yourself, don't resist evil. By following his simple rules, you'll find whatever issues lurk beneath the surface.

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Ignore them. You know who... The people who say, "It will never fail, but you always will."

These are the lecturer-types who are convinced that world empires never fail—as if they never heard about Rome or Greece. "It is the biggest and always will be." Such are the words of a man who does not believe things can be caused because he does not know how things are caused into being. So, he neither believes nor knows how things are caused into failing.

He's wrong. You can cause success as much as you can cause failure. Make smart choices.

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Victories never happen by themselves, including the Godly ones. Unless God decides the battle, fighting only wastes time. When God decides to whom the victory should go, the battle must still be fought. God avails opportunity and unlocks doors, but we must step forward, reach out, push open, and take what is offered to us—because victories never happen by themselves.

Sometimes, a gentle push means offering tokens of friendship or demonstrated charity. Sometimes it means showing the truth to someone who misunderstands you. Sometimes it means evicting bad, dangerous people. But, every victory needs taking; and taking means taking.

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Hard work, achievement, victory, and defeat all come in waves.

Consider how a sand castle gets knocked down. It doesn't happen slowly and evenly as the tide comes in. One wave after another gets closer and closer until a monster wave comes out of nowhere and washes over the sand castle how an army only dreams of.

Things turn for better just when they look worse and worse just when they look better, then back to better and then back to worse or even better. Progress and decline both swing and leap. They are never linear, but always rewarding foresight.

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You can't know whether a thing will work out unless you try it. Three things often try to keep us from trying things that are most likely to work out: fear of being a nuisance, boredom, and bad weather.

If you plans are good, bad people will be annoyed by them. Never fear being a nuisance, hope for it. The good roads are long and boring. Never let a boring road deter you from its destination. And, right before we head off to unearth buried treasure, some thunderstorm always gets jealous. But, bad weather has a way of pulling punches.

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God prepares tables in the presence of enemies. This is one of the benefits that comes with being a Christian. When Jesus is your friend, he takes his white tux and wraps it around you, right in front of your enemies, just to tick them off.

It might sound insensitive to be so insensitive to mean, cruel, oppressive—well, to enemies. But, flaunting a little lack of concern for people who want to do you harm comforts the soul. Nothing is as reassuring as the Almighty setting up tables topped with white linens and fancy banquets all ready to eat.

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Many evil deeds are impossible against those who do not fear whatever harm evil might do.

Evil, wicked men plot and plan terrible things, but those things cannot begin unless people fall into panic. And, let us not forget that part of the war against evil is against spirits and demons who literally feed on fear and grow larger and more powerful in size the more people are afraid of what has not yet happened.

Next time terrors and fears come knocking on your door, treat them as an alien sentience: Ignore them. Focus your planning on paths of love.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImiineAVVvU

Mental conditions originate from many sources, whether medical or emotional-physical abuse or a learning style ignored or a type of autism wrongly reacted to. Situations like these get worse and worse, spiraling around a self-smothering cocoon of crazy. Once cocooned up in the crazy tree, no one can help that person more than that person is willing.

Everyone feels the pull to climb crazy trees at times. The only thing that pulls us down from climbing crazy is love from other people. Knowing that someone on the ground loves us and calls out to us can call us back down.

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Moving forward often requires placing our favored pet projects on the chopping block to move forward without them.

It's easy to see which projects need the axe, but accepting so proves more difficult. Right away, we know what costs more and can't carry its own weight—which projects don't sow "good karma" (so to speak) and which ones generate the necessary buzz of a "freemium" business model.

The keepers stay afloat, being able to generate and lift. Some things need carrying in their beginnings, but you can only carry so much baggage. Axe whatever weighs more than you can carry.

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Take time out of your business to travel, sit, and talk face to face with people. Cancel important things. Cut your business profits. Ax. Hack. Chop off something you are doing that needs to be done. Make the sacrifice that won't kill you so that other people can encounter you in the flesh.

Sometimes it is rejuvenating and your own work list actually gets more items checked-off after a personal encounter. You need that encounter as much as other people do.

Some face-to-face time helps relationships because it's the right thing to do, costing everyone less time in the end.

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Most matters gridlocked by personal pride are cloaked as matters of "principle". They're not.

It seems like a matter of principle when you're mad as an angry bull and can only see the color red. "I can't let him get away with doing that to me," the attitude goes. "It's about the principle!"

Principles are important. Without them society breaks down entirely. So, look at the deeper principles truly at stake—much ado about little, mountains grown from ant hills, grown adults squabbling over matters so silly, children can't notice the difference. Being petty is also a matter of principle.

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