After attending the funeral service for a sweet friend of mine last week, it forced me to think about my life from a different mindset.  I started thinking about the outstanding accomplishments I made over the last year, as well as the major mistakes I made too.  I decided to make a list of the 12 Goals I will accomplish in 2013.  I don’t know about you, but if I do not write it down and get it out there I will NEVER achieve my goals.  I’ve learned through Life Coaching that we must be intentional in order to have success!

I challenge you today to take out a piece of paper and write down 12 Goals for 2013 and share it with someone you respect.  This typically insures accountability on your part.  Once you have done this, Congratulations because you have taken the first step, (baby step) in living your life with purpose.

When I made my list, I did it from the perspective as if it where my last year alive.  This frame of mind, forced me to be completely Honest with what I want out of my life.  I hope you will join me today and take that first baby step to intentionally make your life different!

Honored to serve as a Women’s Christian Life Coach from Charlotte, NC at www.lindakuhar.com

How do you know when God is speaking to you?  I frequently get asked this question in my line of work as a Women’s Christian Life Coach.  There are thousands of ways God can speak to us, but I will share just a few ways I hear best from God.

My favorite way to hear from God is through journaling.  I typically spend my morning reading scripture and then writing in my journal.  I write to God and He responds back to me through journaling.  Another way I hear from God is through prayer, but this kind of prayer for me is not easy.  The type of prayer I’m talking about is with my hands and knees on the floor with my face planted in the carpet.  This type of prayer comes with a lot of emotion and usually buckets of tears.  Then there’s another way I really love hearing from God, which is usually through a messenger.  It could be a friend, a speaker or even a song.  It’s something unexplainable, but you just know at that very moment God has spoken directly to you and there’s no denying He wants you to embrace and accept what He just spoke in your life.

I could write pages on all the ways we can hear God speaking to us, but I believe every individual hears from God differently.  There’s no magic formula to “hear the voice of God”.  It takes effort on our part to learn how to look for and listen to God’s voice in our life.  The bottom line is it starts with relationship.  The more time you spend seeking God the easier it will be to hear His voice.  How will you spend your time today listening for God’s voice?  What new ways can God speak to you?

Honored to serve as a Women’s Christian Life Coach at www.lindakuhar.com

I’ve got a confession to make!  I have two sides to my “Christian Life”.  There’s the one side that just completed a 40-day juice fast strictly out of obedience to God’s call to start writing a book about my cancer/coma journey that he miraculously healed me from just three years ago.  Then there’s this other side that is filled with fear, self-doubt and insecurities that “tries” really hard to continue to walk in faith but eventually gets so worn out from trying that I end up living a mediocre so called Christian life.  I fall into complacency and do the same old song and dance day after day.  I wake up and half-heartedly have my quiet time and continue throughout the day to live the “Christian Life”, but really I just would rather lie down, hide my head and forget all the things God has called me to be.

In Pastor Steven Furtick’s new book Greater, he talks about the confessions of his shadow side and what to do when condemnation sets in.  I have to be honest here, it was quit refreshing to read how Pastor Steven deals with the same negative voices that I do.  It gave me a glimpse of hope and encouragement once again to know that I’m really not a phony Christian after all.

On day 40 of my fast, God revealed why he had called me to such a lengthy fast.  In my journal God spoke to me by saying this, “The fast was never about the length of time but about the amount of trust you have in me.”  Pastor Steven says in his book “God doesn’t do greater things exclusively through great people.  He does them through anyone who is willing to trust Him in greater ways.”

Now I know that when I start going down that road of a mediocre life, it is time to evaluate my trust in God.  As a Christian Life Coach, the best way for me to evaluate is to ask myself some questions.  For example, how has God proved himself to me in the past?  Or when has God ever left me to fend for myself?  When I challenge myself with these types of questions, its like scales are removed from eyes and I am able to really trust God again with 100% of my life.  I would like to encourage you today to ask yourself some tuff questions and see how God reveals himself to you!

Honored to serve as a Women’s Christian Life Coach at www.lindakuhar.com

I have some questions for you.  How much power does the Holy Spirit have in your life?  Do you REALLY believe that the God of our universe lives inside you?

I want to share with you from my personal experience on how the Holy Spirit can drastically change your life.  You see just 33 days ago God spoke something totally insane to me while reading the bible.  I heard that small voice say, “40 day juice fast”.  Now I don’t know about you, but for me I LOVE MY FOOD!  The first thing I did was say no way, I cannot do that and I really don’t want to only drink juice for 40 days.  That’s crazy!  I was literally complaining out loud to God and saying No.  Once I stopped whining, He said “If I cannot trust you with this small sacrifice, how can I trust you with more?”  I immediately took a big sigh and didn’t say another word except ok Lord and started my fast the next day.

I’ve never had success when it comes to diets and using my own “will power” to follow an eating plan, so I knew right away that if there was anyway I could successfully do a 40 day juice fast it would only be through God’s strength and not my own.   Acts 1:8 says “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you” and I am proof today that when the Holy Spirit moves in your life you can do ANYTHING!

I’ve learned so much during this fasting period, but honestly I’ve faced some great heartache and attacks along the way.  I realized along this day-to-day journey of my life that the difficult times and trials I face allow me to trust God deeper and to know him more intimately.  I’m learning and developing sustainable character that will impact my life as well as the others around me.  I’m finding that there is great beauty from pain and suffering.  After all, I do serve and worship a God that is the perfect example of this.

I want to challenge you today to take a step of faith and evaluate your life with spiritual eyes and not just your physical eyes.  What is God speaking to you today?  What is He asking you to surrender in order to know Him deeper?  My prayer for all of us today is to boldly walk by faith and not by sight every single day.

I had a dear friend commit suicide last week.  This special lady fought breast cancer with me, while I fought Lymphoma.  I cannot help but question God why we were in each other’s lives fighting so hard to stay alive and now within seconds she took her very own life.  My heart is broken in a million pieces for her and all the loved ones she left behind.  I keep saying to myself over and over if I had only said this or done that maybe she would still be here with us.  God keeps reminding me over and over that I am not in control or responsible for other people’s actions, however I am in control and responsible for my own.

After going through so much with my own personal battle to stay alive, I am amazed at how I have a newer brighter perspective on my life from this tragedy.  God is once again revealing to me how very important it is to live one day at a time and embrace each day as if it were my last.  All of a sudden I have a deeper desire to stay connected and in the present moment with my husband and daughter like never before.  I am determined to share Christ with others and tell them about how he has removed the chains of condemnation from my life.  I don’t want to waste a single second living in past regrets and failures.  I want to love and embrace everyone through the eyes of Christ.

Life is too short for judging or second-guessing who I am and why I am here.  To Honor my friend’s life today I am fully embracing that I am the daughter of the most High King, Jesus Christ and I will not stop sharing the love of Christ with others until the last breath I take on this earth.  Thank you Lord Jesus for taking our deepest heartaches and turning them into hope and a future in your ever-lasting arms.  My prayer today is for ALL people who are struggling with despair and wanting to end their lives.  May God rescue them today.

Three years ago I just woke up from my coma and I’ll never forget laying in my hospital bed literally strapped down, with a feeding tube, trachea and multiple IVs pumping all through me.  It was Halloween and the nurses were all dressed up in their Halloween scrubs.  My family wasn’t allowed to stay over night in my room so I was alone and afraid.  The TV was left on and black and white Halloween movies played all night long.  I was totally freaked out and panicked because I had no voice to yell for anyone and since my hands were tied down I could not reach the call button.  Talk about a real life horror story!!!  That is one situation I would not want my worst enemy to experience!

This morning I was reading how Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead and I couldn’t help but think how much this story echo’s my life.  In John 11:4 Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death.  No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified.”

To be real with you, I spent the majority of the last three years questioning God why I had to go through cancer, being on life-support and a coma for 3 & ½ weeks.  People would say to me all the time, “Linda, you have a story to share with the world” and I would kindly nod my head and agree with them.  Really deep down on the inside of me I would say, who am I to tell the world about this miracle and who really cares that God performed a miracle in my life anyway?  But not too long ago God opened my eyes to His perspective.  I realized I HAVE to tell my story because it represents who JESUS is and what He can do in anyone’s life.  It was such a relief to know that sharing my story is not about me, Linda Kuhar, but ONLY about pointing to my creator and the Savior of my soul.

I would like to ask you today to take a step back from your “life story” and view it from a new perspective, maybe even through Christ’s perspective.  How does that change the way you see your life?  What can you do different with your life to glorify God with your story?

Have you ever had a time in your life when you say to yourself, this is too good to be true and then you psych yourself into believing something bad is bound to happen?  Well, lately I’ve been experiencing these thoughts frequently.  Once I convince myself that something bad is going to happen, I’ve noticed I stay in a state of fear, anxiety or disbelief.

First of all, scripture tells us point-blank we WILL have trouble in our life, shoot Psalm 23:4 says, even though I walk through the valley of death…Bottom line, scripture is telling us we will have problems and bad things will happen in our life.  However, Psalm 23:6 says surely goodness and love will follow me all of the days of my life! So you know what I’ve decided to do?  I am embracing the truth and the facts that I will have difficult times in my life but, I will also have Goodness and Love that will follow me through any storm in my life.  Why continue to waste any more mentally draining energy on wondering if something is “too good to be true” anymore?  Instead I am going to believe the word of God and fight the enemy with the truth.  So the next time you have that thought pop in your mind, this is too good to be true, I would like to challenge you to read Psalm 23 and ask yourself this question, “Is this thought from God or from the enemy?”  Today I will be praying for all my readers to believe Psalm 23:6, that goodness and love will follow you all the days of your life!

I would like to challenge you today with the word of God.  Grab a pen and paper and copy the following scripture.

God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.  No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Hebrews 12:10 & 11

After reading and writing this scripture, I want to ask you a few questions.

1)  What area of your life do you need to truly surrender to God?

2)  How bad to you want freedom from this in your life?

3)  Are you willing to sacrifice this to experience God’s holiness in your life?

I’m currently offering sacrifice to God and what I have discovered during this time is that the presence of God brings me greater satisfaction than any other pleasure in life.  I’m praying that all my readers today will listen to that nudge from the Holy Spirit and follow God’s discipline for this season in their life so they will experience the fullness that only Christ can bring in our lives.

October Discount: All Coaching packages are 60% off for new clients and all existing clients will receive 30% off for the month!  Packages do not have to be used this month.  Expiration is One Year from the date of purchase.

Over 10 years ago I wrote a devotional for the church I was attending.  I don’t remember the content of the devotion, but I remember the title, Let Go and Let God.  Lately I’ve really been struggling with control.  I want to know the answers to all my prayers immediately or at least know if God is ever going to answer them.  I want to reap the harvest from what I’ve sowed and I want it now!  Because of our fast pace technology we expect God to work the same way Google works, type in a prayer request in the search engine and instant gratification within seconds.  Right?  Wrong!

I’m reading the most amazing book by Pastor Mark Batterson, The Circle Maker and he says, “Instead of thinking in terms of time, we must think in terms of eternity.”  Therefore we must make a shift in our thinking when it comes to our spiritual life.  Don’t you think it is interesting how the scriptures use agricultural analogies to explain the kingdom of God and the way we are to live?  The majority of the time when we pray is like planting a seed and eventually after it has been watered and nurtured we will see an abundant harvest from it.  But what is even more important than praying in hopes that God will answer us, is to pray so God can change us, our hearts.  Prayer gives us a new perspective on life.  Pastor Batterson says, “It enables us to see beyond our circumstances, beyond ourselves, beyond time.”  And honestly, when I strip all my selfish desires away, all that really matters is having the ability to look beyond myself.  When I let go of my desires, it let’s God show up in the most profound ways and prove He has everything under control. What areas of your life are you going to Let Go and Let God do His thing today?  I would love to hear from you!

*Congratulations to Renee from BlessednBalanced on last weeks Target giveaway! 

If you would like your name to go in the drawing for a Target Gift Card, all you have to do is leave a comment on my blog today.  Tell me what area in your life you need motivation and accountability and why.  Your name will go into a drawing to win a Target Gift Card!  Drawing will be held next week.

However, everyone is a winner for the month of October!  All Coaching packages are 60% off for new clients and all existing clients will receive 30% off for the month! This is a huge savings!  Contact me today at linda@lindakuhar.com to redeem.