Thoughts On Getting Refreshed By Nature, The Duty Of Self-improvement, And The Centrality Of Jesus In All Of It

AI Generated Transcript (I only fixed glaring errors):

So I came out to a beautiful green area. Not really a park, just a little area that's under development and nothing has been built there yet. And I came out here to just relax and take in nature. And I've managed to relax some, but I've noticed that I keep looking at my phone. I keep writing in my journal, which actually, the writing in the journal is a good thing, but it's not looking at and enjoying nature. Ironically, I was listening to an audiobook about disconnecting and just enjoying nature. Well, ironically, rather than doing that, I was focused on the audiobook. So I don't know. I'm just thinking about life and thinking about how to detach. Right now, even though I'm talking, I'm looking out at this beautiful little park-like area, just trying to let it refresh my soul.

In the meantime, kind of a topic shift here, I was listening to, what is that called? I can't remember what it's called, but it's one of those self-improvement mindset type books. It's just driving me crazy that I can't remember what it's called right now. Inner Excellence. Inner Excellence by, I can't remember his name, Sam Murphy (It's Jim Murphy) or something like that. And I was just listening to him, and I don't know what his beliefs are. I do not know what his religious beliefs are, but I was also listening to Think and Grow Rich, or actually a movie about it the other day, and a thought that I keep thinking about is, were they Christians? Is Sam Murphy or what? I'll look up his name later. I apologize if this is, that's not his name. Maybe he is. I'm very early in the book. I am NOT criticizing him. That is not my point. I read that Napoleon Hill was a Christian, at least at some point he was, or identified himself as. And yet, when I've listened to his stuff, I find myself yearning, longing for him to say the name Jesus, or for someone to talk about God the way he really is, not about, you know, unconscious mind or whatever. I'm not remembering the concepts right now.

But I wonder how many Christians are holding back on the Christian source of their ideas because they somehow want to make them accessible to non-Christians, people who are not Christians. I don't think we should do that. I really don't think we should do that. People that do not want to follow Christ, they're still going to have access to everything you say, even if you name Jesus. They can choose, but don't choose for them, right? Don't emphasize somehow we need to bring it down to a level of where people who are rejecting Christ can understand it. This doesn't make sense. And it's an opportunity missed. I personally believe that some of the self-help kind of stuff out there are actually like Christian principles that have just been pulled out of the context of the whole of Christianity. Because the whole of Christianity teaches things like suffering and obedience and yielding to God and being willing to give up your life. But in the midst of that, if you believe, excuse me, if you believe that you can do what God says you can do, you're going to be more likely to do it. If you have great faith in the potential of human beings that God created in his image, you're going to have more ability to help people get there, to inspire people.

So a lot of the things that are called self-help, I think some of them are rooted in Christian ideas, but at some point along the way somebody pulled the Jesus part out. They pulled the most important part out. And this is an opportunity that has been missed. And I believe that the tendency of any sort of self-help material or self-improvement material, even if it was at some point built on Christian ideas, it's going to go off. It's going to start to go off away from it. So by after however many years it won't even be recognizable anymore. So I really believe that we as Christians have a duty to improve ourselves and our lot in life for the sake of the next generation. For the sake of ourselves, for the sake of glorifying God, and for the sake of the next generation. So there is a duty to do this. And some of us will probably produce some content that will help people make their lives better. Don't leave Jesus out. You don't have to be awkwardly always trying to squeeze him in, squeeze his name in. But why not just talk about him in a natural way? Because he's real. His influence is real. His teachings are real. He is the creator God from the beginning of time. All that he created is real. He made us. We are made in his image. Connecting with who he is and who he says we are is actually the key to self-improvement. What is even the definition of these things comes from him.

So I just wanted to share these thoughts on my first ever voicenotes, blog, audio blog, whatever this thing is going to be called. It's kind of an experiment. If you get a hold of this somehow, let me know what you think. I would like to hear it. Jon Davis signing off.