Those stomach butterflys usually are what is leading you in the right direction, outside of your comfort zone is where the greener pastures are because in your comfort zone is where you’ve been grazing most of the time, so the food supply is running dry, which is why you must move forward to take more territory – it’s in our DNA to expand and grow.
Scriptures say,
“Now Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, “Oh that You would bless me indeed and enlarge my border, and that Your hand might be with me, and that You would keep me from harm that it may not pain me!” And God granted him what he requested.” 1 Chronicles 4:10
“Two things I asked of You, Do not refuse me before I die: Keep deception and lies far from me, Give me neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is my portion, That I not be full and deny You and say, “Who is the Lord?” Or that I not be in want and steal, And profane the name of my God.” – Proverbs 30:7-9
Now what I feel these Scriptures are saying is that we want to stay at a comfortable growth pace. Asking God to give you “neither poverty” means to keep you nourished and to equip you to handle your everyday needs, and as everyday passes our family grows, our business grows, our responsibilities grow, and He is the One who keeps us on the train tracks towards the Promised Land where we’ll neither have to worry about money nor shed a tear. Although it is important to store Heavenly Treasure, and to learn more about that I recommend Randy Alcorn’s “Law of Rewards.”
The Bible also speaks about how one action can affect a nation. One of the biggest mistakes in Biblical History was Abraham having a kid with Hagar, when God specifically promised that Sarah would have a baby.
“Now Sarai, Abram’s wife had borne him no children, and she had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, “Now behold, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Please go in to my maid; perhaps I will obtain children through her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. After Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Abram’s wife Sarai took Hagar the Egyptian, her maid, and gave her to her husband Abram as his wife. He went in to Hagar, and she conceived; and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her sight. And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done me be upon you. I gave my maid into your arms, but when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her sight. May the Lord judge between you and me.” But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your maid is in your power; do to her what is good in your sight.” So Sarai treated her harshly, and she fled from her presence.”
Now this was a mistake that cost the Jews dearly and even to this day. All of their Middle-East enemies are descendants of Ishmael, Hagar’s child with Abraham. Another costly mistake was Hezekiah who prayed to live another ten years when the Lord told him that his time was up. It’s a bit long but bear with me, the storyline is important but I’ll put in bold the main points.
In those days when Sennacherib first invaded Judah Hezekiah became deathly ill. The prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die and not recover.” Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, saying, “Please, O Lord, remember now with compassion how I have walked before You in faithfulness and truth and with a whole heart entirely devoted to You, and have done what is good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly. Before Isaiah had gone out of the middle courtyard, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “Go back and tell Hezekiah the leader of My people, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father (ancestor): “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears. Behold, I am healing you; on the third day you shall go up to the house of the Lord. I will add fifteen years to your life and save you and this city Jerusalem from the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will protect this city for My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.” Then Isaiah said, “Bring a cake of figs. And they brought it and placed it on the painful inflammation, and he recovered.”
At that time Berodach-baladan a son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah, for he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick. Hezekiah listened to and welcomed them and foolishly showed them all his treasure house — the silver and gold and spices and precious oil and his armory and everything that was found in his treasuries. There was nothing in his house (palace) nor in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them. Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and said to him, “What did these men say that would cause you to do this for them? From where have they come to you?” Hezekiah said, “They have come from a far country, from Babylon.” Isaiah said, “What have they seen in your house?” Hezekiah answered, “They have seen everything that is in my house (palace). There is nothing in my treasuries that I have not shown them.”
Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord. Behold, the time is coming when everything that is in your house, and that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried to Babylon; nothing will be left,’ says the Lord. And some of your sons (descendants) who will be born to you will be taken away as captives; and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.’” Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord which you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “Is it not good, if at least there will be peace and security in my lifetime?”
Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned for fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah. He did great evil in the sight of the Lord, in accordance with the idolatrous repulsive acts of the pagan nations whom the Lord dispossessed before the sons (descendants) of Israel. For he rebuilt the high places for the worship of pagan gods which his father Hezekiah had destroyed; and he set up altars for Baal and made an image of Asherah, just as Ahab king of Israel had done, and he worshiped all the starry host of heaven and served them. And he built pagan altars in the house (temple) of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem I will put My Name (Presence).” And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courtyards of the house of the Lord. He made his son pass through the fire and burned him as an offering to Molech; he practiced witchcraft and divination, and dealt with mediums and soothsayers. He did great evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking Him to anger. He made a carved image of the goddess Asherah and set it up in the house (temple), of which the Lord said to David and to his son Solomon, “In this house and in Jerusalem in the tribe of Judah, which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel, I will put My Name forever. “And I will not make the feet of Israel wander anymore from the land which I gave their fathers, if only they will be careful to act in accordance with everything that I have commanded them, and with all the law that My servant Moses commanded them.” But they did not listen; and Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the sons (descendants) of Israel.“
So here’s the bottom line, Hezekiah gets told by God, in his infinite wisdom, that he needs to close up shop and get ready to come on home to Heaven. Hezekiah begs God not to let him die. It’s like God knows what’s going to happen, and Hezekiah told God, “Remember now with compassion how I have walked before You in faithfulness and truth and with a whole heart entirely devoted to You, and have done what is good in Your sight.” So God told Isaiah to tell Hezekiah that He heard the prayer and was going to give him a chance. It’s like God had blessed him because of the request to remember how Hezekiah was faithful, Hezekiah probably liked being the King, maybe didn’t know too much about the after-life, and was afraid, and his fear removed God’s infinite love from the picture, because fear drives out love, and perfect love casts out fear, right? So Hezekiah was afraid of dying, but he certainly wasn’t afraid of public speaking, because he told the enemies who came to him after his miraculous health everything about the LORDs treasures in Israel, another verse comes to mind thinking about this:
“Don’t waste what is holy on people who are unholy. Don’t throw your pearls to pigs! They will trample the pearls, then turn and attack you.”
– Matthew 7-6
This means that you don’t want to show off everything you have to the people who come up to you, you want to leave it a mystery, there’s another Scripture that says, “There is one who pretends to be rich, but has nothing; another pretends to be poor, but has great wealth.“ – Proverbs 13:7
…and I feel that it’s important to be cautious about who you align yourself with and shouldn’t just share everything with every random person that comes your way. 80% of the people in your life should be people that you purposely surround yourself with because you like their habits and want to be like them and learn from them, 20% of the people in your life can be family, child-hood friends, and the people you’ve met due to random circumstances. “Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life.” – Proverbs 4:23; it’s here that we find what we need to focus on. Guarding our heart, and that means being careful with how quickly we judge someones character. So the Snowball effect and the Butterfly effect culminate in the fact that it’s our comfort zone that we need to get out of, let’s just say that some of our comfort zones look like a desert because we’ve eaten everything we can see, or we’ve exhausted our resources, or we’ve picked the fruit so many times that the roots have come out and now we need to head towards the promised land. Momentum is such a powerful force, and with the Snowball effect, momentum means an increase, and it goes back to that Proverb I mentioned, a prayer that God keep you in a comfortable growth pattern – like getting your weight up.
You wouldn’t go into the gym and try and deadlift 500 pounds right away, and that’s what some people do with life and with inheriting money without knowing how to manage it – or to get in a great relationship with someone they want to marry and then ruin it because they haven’t developed the right personality skillsets or to get into a marketplace and create alliances and fumble the ball because you don’t know what you’re doing, you haven’t studied under the right mentors, you haven’t asked all of the questions or don’t know how to ask yourself the proper set of questions when it comes to problem solving and taking action towards your dreams, which means maintaining a healthy body and a healthy mind, free from clutter, with a laser focus on the next task at hand that knocks over another domino in the bigger picture.
Now to speak about Snowballs the interesting thing about a Snowflake is that each snowflake is unique. Snowflakes are also known for having great variety in their structures. This is because each ice crystal forms as it falls through layers of air. Each layer has a slightly different temperature and a little more or less water available for adding to the crystal structure. There are so many variables that each flake is completely unique, and it just takes one flake to start rolling down the mountain to gather thousands of other flakes to create a huge snowball and even an avalanche.
So start taking action on your dreams, get out of your comfort zone, make a plan and stick with it, time out your week, read productivity books, stay in top notch shape by taking the best supplements and getting your workouts in, if you’re not getting the results in an area you’re trying to progress in, first of all know what you want then ask for help from the professionals who can answer the questions, those you can trust, and then keep a task management system, whether it’s “Getting Things Done” or “DropTask,” or some other task management program, you need to have one and you need to transfer the material in that task management system into your calendar. There’s a reason why your mom kept important dates on the calendar, and if you can keep the same discipline in your life, you’ll keep that momentum moving and constantly expand your comfort zone fighting off the butterflys in your stomach and keeping note on the type of actions that you can take that can hinder your future from being all that it can be.
Let’s talk about sex outside of marriage, excessive drinking, smoking, partying, let’s talk about stealing from other people, committing crimes, and hurting other people. These are things that can cause a negative butterfly effect in your life – and that has a lot to do with trusting God. Read the Proverbs and Psalms on the regular, follow the Life Journal Daily Bible Study, check out my site Prayer Pharmacy. I’ll leave a couple reference videos I think are important on your journey towards mastering the principles of the Butterfly and the Snowball.
