MHR EP 2601 Making Good Decisions in 2026

What have you decided to do, that will make positive changes for you, in 2026. No not New Year’s resolutions but Internal Spiritual Growth Decisions. How can you use the four attributes of Advent to carry forward into 2026 to help you “purpose in your heart” to make positive decisions for your spiritual growth?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

What have you decided to do that will make positive changes for you in 2026?

SPEAKER_00 0:10

What if I told you that there's more to it? That there are benefits and resources from heaven that are available to help you in this life, and you've never heard about them. Are you curious? Well, join Gordon Merrill as he digs deeper into making heaven real in this life.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Welcome back to Making Heaven Real. A couple weeks ago we leaned into using our Spirit Council as a resource for helping us to grow and move on. We also discussed using heavenly equity, which included your spirit council, your loved one who has passed, people who are available within your realm of friends and family who have passed on. And we also discussed a grief toolkit for those who may not have had a loved one that was lost personally, close to them, but you know someone in your family, in your friends, or in your co-workers, and how to use that toolkit in order to be helpful and supportive without running and hiding and abandoning them. I hope those tools were helpful to you during this period in order to help you get through the holidays, whether you have experienced a tragic loss personally, or whether you were trying to help someone who has. How one decision can change your life. We also talked about how even if the decision may not have been the best decision you could have made for yourself at the time, God doesn't hold that against us. He may not completely remove the consequences of that decision or completely change your life back to where it was before that decision. But God doesn't hold it against us. He loves us through it, he helps us move forward, he helps us with an organized plan to handle those goals. We came to this earth to check off, to succeed at, and to learn. Family that we got to understand, we got to know, we shared experiences and social events together. And now those have been separated out from that one free will choice. It only takes one choice to trigger a chain reaction in your life. So let's look at that. Let's look at the choices we make. And how can we resolve to make better choices? Now, what I just went through was not meant to scare you. God basically says, never fear, because in Proverbs he says, lean not on your own understanding. I will direct your paths. And God will guide you, make your way clear and straight. And so will your spirits. And each of the four candles on the Advent candle represents something different. One is joy, another is peace, another is hope, and the other is love. So how's that figure for us? What are those key points from Advent? How can we carry those into 2026 and how can they be supportive and helpful for us as we make these decisions? It's been said the joy is when heaven intervenes in our daily life. Just picture heaven breaking through the normal monotony of the daily grind of getting up, going to work, making it through the day at work, coming home, taking care of the family at home, falling in bed, getting up the next day and doing the same thing. But then when heaven intervenes in that daily life, that normally represents joy. The next candle represents peace. Peace is the calm that overrides your storm. When we're looking at things on a daily basis and we're going through our day, suddenly there's a storm that arises. Peace is the calm that overrides your storm. Peace is also the calm that overrides your grief. Peace proves to you that you have not been abandoned when it wraps its arms around you. We talked a couple weeks ago about how people who have had a loss in their life and are in the middle of grief, especially at the first part of grief, feel completely abandoned by everybody who has friends and family around them. Peace that you can get from heaven right now is what wraps its arms around you and proves to you that you have not been abandoned. Another candle is hope. Hope provides light for your path, a spark that keeps you going, and the proof that you were never alone. A couple weeks ago I talked about walking around the neighborhood right after my wife passed. Not many friends in that town because we had moved to a different town. And as I'm walking around feeling alone, trying to talk to Jesus and not really feeling like anything was coming through or I was hearing anything. Yes, we did kind of prove that that was a medical and a physiological thing and had a had background to why that was not working the way I had hoped it would. But every day I still prayed, every day I still talked to God on my walk. Every day I still talked to my wife on my walk. With the hope that there was light at the end of the path, with the hope there was going to be a plan to move forward. And eventually there was proof that I was never alone during that time. Hebrews 11 says, Now faith is a substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Again, that's a King James Version, and I like to stick with that one just because of the two words that are used in that version. Substance and evidence. When you're talking about hope, people don't think about having something in front of them. You know, when you you go to talk about the wind, you really don't see the wind. You see the effects of it, but you don't see the wind. When you talk about faith, people are wondering if there's anything that you can actually see about your faith. Similarly, when you're talking about hope, are you wasting your time or is that hope really working? Well, according to the author of Hebrews, there is substance and evidence to that. When I'm walking around the neighborhood talking, and I'm not really knowing that I'm hearing anything or knowing that it's getting through, there is substance to that talk. There's substance to that faith, even before I see the evidence in front of me. Doesn't mean it's not there. Just means at the point in time that I'm trying so desperately to see it, I may not be physiologically able to do so. But it's nice to have the hope that we can feel substantively that the evidence is coming. The other of the fourth part of the candle is love. Love incorporates compassion specifically for you. Grace that's been applied even before you know to ask for it. But mostly, love is a gift that can never be demanded. If you demand love, you'll not get love. You'll get some kind of a response, but it won't be love. Because love is a gift specifically created for you out of compassion and grace. Songwriters of a song called Can I Be Honest have these words in the lyrics. Can I be honest? I just want to know that you're still got this. When all I'm holding on to is a promise, God, you promised that you'll never leave me. Not only will God never leave you, but your loved one. Your spirits, your spirit council, none of them will ever leave you. They're there right now. They're around you, doing things for you, even talking to you in some cases. So how do we put this into perspective? We know all too well the grief causes pain, tears, fear, loss, doubt, uncertainty, loneliness, and absence. Let's look at all of those in light of the four attributes of the Advent. Pain and tears can be taken care of by peace. Fear and loss, hope, doubt and uncertainty, faith, loneliness and absence, love. Now immediately after the loss, the pain and tears are immense. And that's when you need, but at the same time, if you're open and still for a few minutes, you will feel the peace of God and your spirit like a big warm hug. Fear after the loss. What do I do? We used to do this together. We've got all these things that we are responsible for, and that took two people to do it, and now just me, it's all I can do every day just to try and keep up. But that's where the hope comes in. That's where we were talking about the substance of your faith, the spark that keeps you going, the proof that you're never alone, and the light for your path. That helps to quell the fear. If your path is lit and you have the substance in front of you, and the proof that you're not alone, then the loss isn't as bad. Doubt and uncertainty. Where do I go from here? I know when I was going through grief, I was told by my grief counselor that my life would never be the same. Even if I did the same things I had done before, it would not be the same. Simply because this woman who had been such an integral, ingrained part of my life for 27 years was not there. One example I was told was similar to a person being cut in half from head to toe, and half of you trying to continue on with life. That's where faith comes in. That's where you are looking for the promise of where you're going. That's where you look for the direction from your spirits, from your spirit council. And once you get to where you can hear your loved one that has passed, you're not as lonely. The loss isn't as great. The fear isn't quite as much. And if you have engaged your loved one to help you, the uncertainty starts to diminish as well. But by the time you've engaged all that and you have them helping to manage your day and helping to manage your life's plan for you, loneliness starts to subside too because you feel their love every day. So pain and tears, look to the peace. Fear and loss, look to hope. Doubt and uncertainty, look to faith. Loneliness and absence, feel their love. Ricky Byers pinned a song, and part of the lyrics say, I release and I let go. I let the spirit run my life. And my heart is wide open, yet I'm only here for God. Let the Spirit run my life. It's exactly what we talked about a couple weeks ago. That's exactly what we're talking about now, and we're talking about how to carry forward into 2026. The attributes of the Christmas season to help quell some of the symptoms of your grief. Now I know I've had a couple comments already from previous episodes, and I'm talking about having spirit lead you through the day yet again, and I'm sure I'm hearing from the same people with the same comment. Well, you make it sound wonderful, but how does that happen? Okay, let me give you an example. When we started this podcast a couple months ago, I started with a new audio software. At least it was new to me. And been working through some of the bugs and trying to get everything taken care of, and I've even had comments from some of you that you know this part's louder than that, and this part doesn't sound the same. And I appreciate your feedback and I appreciate your comments. However, more to the point of this discussion, I've been working on this for several weeks, trying to figure this out. Considering I have had a career in computer electronics for many, many years, it's kind of odd that I'm the one having trouble trying to figure out a computer. But what was really very insightful this week before this episode, where we're having this discussion on this topic, is I literally had my wife paint a picture for me of where to go on the mixer board to make the major fix. So you say, okay, you're you're saying let spirit guide you, let spirit run your day, let spirit take care of things for you. Okay. One of the other things that my wife has been telling me since she passed is, and we've been working on this podcast together, she's just saying, don't be such a perfectionist. With my background and the kind of careers I've had and all the details that were oriented in those careers, it's hard for me to do an episode that isn't absolutely perfect. Which I've done for a couple weeks while we've been trying to figure out this audio issue. So, hmm. If she knew how to show me how to fix the audio issue, why did she wait six, eight weeks to tell me? Unless there was something this spirit in this body was supposed to learn as a part of their life's path. But at the same time, the issue was handled by a spirit, even to the point of painting a picture in my mind to where I knew exactly where to go to fix the major part of the problem. This is real. This isn't imagined, this isn't some pie in the sky idea that not everybody can get a hold of or wrap their head around. This is real. And when you quiet yourself, take the time to listen, your loved ones are there. They listen to you all the time. They're probably talking to you as well, but you don't hear them right now because you haven't slowed down enough to take the time to listen. But when you do, you will hear. And as it develops, you may even see pictures. One other picture I had several months back when I first moved to this particular house I'm in right now. She always made sure that I had a special kind of whirlpool jetted tub because of my previous back injuries. I moved to this house and didn't have one. She kept after me until I ordered one. Then the question was, well, will it even fit in the bathroom I've got here? And I lay there one night talking to her as I was going to sleep, and I said, I guess in the morning I'll get up and take some measurements and figure out where this bathtub will go. I rolled over to go to sleep, and immediately she put a picture in my head of how that bathroom should look when it was done. And now several months later, it is done. It looks exactly like the picture she gave me, and the bathtub fit perfectly on the wall she told me to put it on. So again, if you leave your planning and your management to your spirit team, then you don't have to worry. You don't have to take thought for tomorrow. You don't have to plan ahead for six months. Let God and your spirit team do it for you. Purpose in your heart now to carry with you your resolve to lean on your God, your loved ones, and your spirit council to organize and manage your day and your life's plan and your year. Through joy, peace, hope, and love. Allow all of this heavenly equity to make heaven real in your life.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

We hope you learned something new about God's love and his resources during our time together. Please like and subscribe so you don't miss out. You can find our social media links and our contact info in the show notes. When you're commenting, please reference the episode number. Join us next time as we begin search out the ways of making heaven real in this life with Gordon Merrill.