Feeling pretty sad about my dear Emily, having to work @ Kohls from 5:30am till 4:30pm today. She has to be the worse morning person I’ve ever known! Really, I must do something about this SOON. God be with Emily today, please give her strength… and a happy HEART and smiley FACE all day long!
Last night after church, my daughter Heaven and I went to Baskin Robins, for their 31 cents per scoop promotional! As you can imagine, my hyper Heaven ordered a 16 scoop waffle cone! The Baskin Robins employees said it was the biggest waffle cone they’ve ever made! People were whippin out their cell phones and taking pictures, and making weird sounds, and cheering her on like she was competing for gold in the world Olympics!
She actually downed about 9 scoops before we phoned up an ambulance! What a disgusting PIG, Heaven Balsamo! lol
You guys can check out the facebook thread from the photo we posted last night… the last time I checked, there were something like 30 (hilarious) comments!
Here’s the video we made from that memorable late night ice cream run! Warning: this video may cause excessive salivation! haha
That’s it for today… nothing super spiritual, just something to make you smile! If you were hoping for a spiritual message, please enjoy the 528 blog archive! Use the search feature… and find the exact message for your moment! I love you all…
Since my website was down all morning and I need to get something out to you guys fast! I’m posting a speech recommended by my great friend Ren Jones… he says it’s one of the best speeches he’s ever heard… let’s watch it!
The following speech “DO IT!” comes from Art Williams, spoken at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in 1987.
Art Williams (part 1)
Art Williams (part 2)
I hope this speech inspires you guys! Let me know what you think! Have a most triumphant day!
Is it really FRIDAY again! Wow, there goes another one-hour week! Time is flying for me this year! I am having a blast though! Hope you are too!
Here are three very powerful Bible verses for today:
James 1:22-25 “But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.”
Is This Working?
Last night at prayer meeting, I had this thought: I wonder how many people are actually practicing some of the principles I’ve taught this year… and I wonder what kinds of results they’re getting?
For example: over the past few weeks, I’ve spoke so much about the power and stability of living by faith and standing on the firmness of our Bibles… vs. the painful consequences of emotionally responding to every shifting circumstance.
I used one great example in my own life from last week. Remember, I told you guys about how last Monday, I felt like some mean person was stabbing needles into a Chuck Balsamo voodoo doll?
Remember, me telling you guys about opening my Bible to Psalms 112… and how verse 4 SAVED MY WEEK! “When darkness overtakes the godly, LIGHT will come BURSTING in!”
All week long, every time my emotions felt hammered by challenging circumstances, I turned to this verse and read it out loud… and LIGHT ALWAYS BURSTED IN!
Collecting YOUR 2 Line Stories!
Today, I would love to know how this teaching, and other teachings from this blog site have positively affected your lives. Think back over the past two months… and give me some PRACTICAL feedback.
You don’t have to write a book… just a TWO LINE STORY about how you’re IMPLEMENTING some of the principles presented on this blog, and the kinds of results you’re getting!
This year, more than any other year… I want to PRACTICE my own teachings… and I want to see other people ACTUALLY practice them in their own lives.
This request is not aimed at stroking my ego… it’s aimed at bringing people DEEPER into the real meaning of these messages… much DEEPER than the initial sense of encouragement they create.
Oh, and one more thing! IF there is a certain topic you would LOVE for me to write about… let me know, and I’ll see what I can whip up!
That’s it for today… a question instead of an answer! I hope this exercise adds tremendous value to your amazing lives! Love you… praying for you throughout the day!
On Wednesday nights @ Destiny Family Center, we have a catered dinner @ 6pm followed by small groups from 7-8:15pm. It’s been really nice for Emily and I, since neither of us have teaching responsibilities this quarter. So, we’ve been floating around… and last night, we went to the “Honors Reward” group, facilitated by Wayne Howard. WOW!
The night was all about “Honoring Your Peers!” Check out the following verses…
Matthew 10:40-42 “Anyone who receives you receives me, and anyone who receives me receives the Father who sent me.If you receive a prophet as one who speaks for God, you will be given the same reward as a prophet. And if you receive righteous people because of their righteousness, you will be given a reward like theirs.And if you give even a cup of cold water to one of the least of my followers, you will surely be rewarded.”
Anyone who receives (or blesses) a prophet, receives a prophets reward!
Anyone who receives (or blesses) a righteous person (a fellow follower of Christ), he receives a righteous persons reward!
Anyone who gives even a cup of cold water to one of the LEAST of my followers… you will SURELY BE REWARDED!
I Got Tired!
Ok, so I’ve been working 7, 16 hour days a week for the past month… and yesterday afternoon I hit a very understandable level of exhaustion. So I went home to relax for a few hours before coming back for church. Emily was off work too… had a great time, watched a few CSI’s… a good mental diversion.
Came back to church last night… and within ten minutes, I was being approached by a pile of people with some pretty HUGE personal problems. As bad as this sounds, I was still in mental shutdown… and I wasn’t real jazzed about trying to help anyone last night.
I Hid in my Office!
So after the meal, I ran back to my office so I could HIDE AWAY for 15 minutes, before I had to go greet everyone and open the small groups.
Bad attitude for a Pastor, I know. But I’m not God and I do have my moments of weakness… and I have to work through those moments just like every other human.
I Had a Vision!
Just before I walked out of my office to welcome our guests, I told Dave Harman how bad I felt about not wanting to help anyone… and then I had a vision of Mother Teresa loving and blessing every disadvantaged person she could get her hands on! And I thought about how much more like Jesus I wanted to be… and how much I wanted to spend my life more concerned about the needs of other people than my own.
Honoring Your Peers!
Then we went to the small group and as I mentioned, the topic for our “Honors Reward Group” last night was: Honoring Your Peers!
That group REINFORCED this feeling I had in my office @ 7:55pm! I was SO MOVED with he video and with Wayne Howard’s presentation… and with the discussions that followed… especially with Greg Bakers heartfelt confession!
So I figured I’d share my experience with you guys… for your benefit! There is such a mandate on our lives to become like Jesus. No, we cannot do this in our own strength… and yes, we are allowed to have a selfish afternoon every now and then!
For me, last night was about correcting my attitude towards suffering people. Everyone likes to hang with their friends… we can do that all day long.
To Care Like Mother Theresa!
What I’m talking about here is this: Do we have the kind of LOVE Jesus had for all the WHOSOEVER’S in our world? Do we REALLY care to make a difference in other peoples lives… in the lives of people we have little or nothing in common with… in the lives of the people who disrespect us and betray us, our enemies? Or, do we pick out the easiest people and leave the rest for Mother Teresa?
And if you give even a cup of cold water to one of the least of my followers, you will surely be rewarded.
Maybe this is just something unique to me and I’m out of my mind for mentioning it on this blog… but I was pretty moved last night, and felt someone else could benefit from my transparency.
Please leave your comments… I just finished praying for you all, with great love and appreciation! Have a most triumphant day!
I bet you’re wonder why I got lazy this morning and reposted yesterdays video instead of making a new video for today!
Here is why I’m asking you to RE-WATCH yesterdays video and RE-READ yesterdays written blog: because it’s too GOOD and too MUCH for any one of us to effectively process in ONE DAY!
Really, when I powered up my computer this morning, that video was still on the screen, staring me down! So I figured, what the heck I’ll watch it again… and WHAM, I realized THAT VIDEO was BETTER TODAY than it was yesterday!
Try it and you’ll see! Watch it ONE MORE TIME! This time, actually intend to follow its suggestions!
For the past two weeks, I’ve been attempting to lead this tribe towards a life of FAITH instead of FEELINGS.
“If you’re looking for another year of hard toil and little results… than BE EMOTIONAL… and keep fighting your own battles, with your two fists and your big fat brain! If you want to try one more year in your own human strength… and you’re not yet sick from all the tossing about… then keep on striving and negotiating!”
I said we have become:
Far more spiritually engaged in our circumstances!
Far less dominated by our shifting feelings!
Far more forward propelled, by learning how to LIVE BY FAITH!
I started to explain HOW a person can actually live by faith on a practical level.
By SEARCHING for specific verses concerning your unique circumstances!
By MEDITATING on the word of God until these specific verses become a tangible part of your lives!
By STANDING on the substance of scripture, despite how you might initially FEEL!
By GENERATING emotions out of your spiritual position… to FEEL as you believe, rather than to FEEL as things appear to be going!
By HAMMERING through your obstacles with FAITH, and biblically inspired actions… until circumstances shift in your favor!
Yesterdays 7 Step Best Week Plan was a practical follow up to that teaching. It’s a simple 7 step formula for getting into a position of FAITH.
This morning, I wrote the following Facebook status update… and received a very powerful reply from Jamee Rae Pineda! Check it out!
Chuck BalsamoUsing the principles I’ve been teaching to remain in forward momentum! Living every day by faith instead of my shifting feelings. Let’s have a great day everyone!
Wow, yesterdays blog was a smash hit! We recorded the highest stats in three weeks… thanks for LOVING IT you guys! Thanks for all the comments you sent to twitter, facebook, and here of course! I guess the topic must have been highly relevant to a pile of people!
Paper Tongues
This morning, I wanted to advertise the Debut Album for tomorrows legendary band, Paper Tongues! Lead singer, Aswan North is a long time friend of mine! What a HEART, what a SOUND!
Here’s a video interview with Randy Jackson from American Idol about how he met Aswan! They have a really FUN pre-order package with tshirts and autographed stuff! Check it out… and please pray for my friends as they charge into this dangerous secular arena with a prophetic message for todays youth!
I’m working on tomorrows message for Destiny Family Center and writing in my book all day while Emily works at Kohl’s, then going to my little nephews birthday party! I feel happy today, hope you do too!
Nothing to do tomorrow and close enough to pull it off? Come to Destiny… everybody’s doin’ it!!
What a schedule I have today! Really, this could be the busiest day, and then the busiest weekend of my life… the busiest of 2010 FO SHO! I woke feeling very stressed this morning… hmmmm, I better pray until this emotional slump recedes…
Did I tell you guys, tomorrow is our annual Washington DC Feed the Homeless Outreach? We’ve done this EVERY YEAR for something like the past 17 years… one of my favorite things to do in this life! Here’s a photo of some of the packages we’re taking on the tomorrows outreach!
gerald & phyllis mayhan
I thank God for Evangelists Gerald & Phyllis Mayhan… that they keep on leading our teams every year. There is not another man in all the earth more adequately equipped for such an outreach!
Gerald was a point man in Vietnam, two purple hearts… lived 18 years addicted to heroin and cocaine, living on the streets of Washington DC… and his wife waited for him and PRAYED for him until GOD reached down and pulled Gerald out of the lowest gutter.
Gerald is one of my very best friends and the greatest evangelist I have EVER MET! Check out his ministry website when you get a chance!
If you would like to make a donation to Gerald Mayhan’s Ministry, you can give today, here on this website by clicking the donate button… and we will bring Gerald a check tomorrow! There is no greater cause I can think of!
inspirational stories from last year!
Here’s a clip from last years homeless outreach blog… you can check out the entire blog and all the comments with photos by following this link: From the Streets of Washington DC
This year (2009), even more than previous years… I really experienced the enormity of what took place! There are so many hurting, lonely people in our earth. And while so many well to do humans point the finger down at these bleeding ones, God compels us to come to their aid!
God cares about each one of them… not desiring to lecture them about the series of wrong turns they made that led them down into the gutter… He possesses us with his compassion and sends us to kneel down beside them… He gives us a message to speak… He asks us to read them a love letter… And we go with his love and his tears. He embraces them with MY ARMS… and I can feel HIM IN ME making his appeal through MY HEART.
This year, we took a team of 35+ into the frigid streets of our nation’s capitol. All day long, we gave HOPE to the HOPELESS. Even more than the message we gave them was the message we asked them to tell us. We gave them our ears… we listened to them like they mattered… and they FELT OUR LOVE FOR THEM! Their tears and ours flowed like rivers all day long.
One man, “Alfrado”, explained how he came to America from Elsalvador… it took him 3 months to get here, dreaming that this would be a place of new life for him. And there he was sleeping on park benches and eating food from the trash containers. Alfrado said that some nights, it’s so cold he is scared to fall asleep… that he may freeze to death and not wake up.
Another lady, “Pricilla”, said that she just got released from prison a year ago after being stabbed in her spine during a prison brawl. She grabbed me and made a puddle on my shoulder as she wept about how scary it is living on the streets at night! She talked about being raped and beaten over and over… and told me that she is not built for this kind of life!
Then there was “HANK”… the happiest homeless man on the face of the earth. We all left Hank wondering if we had met an angel! Just like Hank, so many of these destitute men and women gave us back so much more that we gave to them!
Throughout this day, we distributed hundreds of sandwiches, care packages, sweaters, sweatshirts, blankets, and everything else we could get into their hands. More than these… we gave them Jesus… and they took him happily into their hearts!
Every single person on our team stepped out with a fearless kind of faith… they shared their personal life stories, prayed like seasoned ministers, and gave LOVE as if God himself was right there in physical manifestation!
Please pray for this same level of success at tomorrows outreach! That it’ll be like Jesus himself is walking through the blistery winter streets of Washington DC. God bless you all with a most triumphant Friday… thanks for being here… please leave a comment and help us expand this tribe in every creative way you can dream up! Love you all…
I got so carried away with yesterdays message, that I forgot to tell you guys something VERY important! Yesterday was a HUGE DAY for Emily and I! February 17 ring a bell? Come on you guys… some Chuck and Emily trivia!!
Ok, I’ll just go ahead and tell you. On February 17, 1991 @ 10:45pm, Emily and I invited Jesus into our marriage, our home, and every single small and big part of our lives! This happened 19 years ago, yesterday… so happy SPIRITUAL birthday to us!
Instead of me trying to tell the story from memory, let me give you a FUN clip from my coming book, Make Me A Legend! It’s taken from the middle of chapter 8, Get a Dream!
Eventually, those high winds of passion and romance would blow over us young and restless kids one more time! Just after my High School graduation, Emily came begging for me to take her back! (ha ha-hey, this is MY book Emily! If you want to tell your version, write your own book! lol) Really, the sparks of attraction were flying… and we were sweltering for each other!
Time had been cruel and we both carried way too much emotional baggage back into this tender, rekindled, volatile fling! We did some things unmarried people are not supposed to do and ‘somehow’ Emily became pregnant! She was only seventeen, and I was just turning nineteen… and we were having a baby!
So we were married in my Grandparents back yard, standing on top of an old creek bridge on August 11, 1990… and we lived happily ever after! Well, not exactly… because neither of us had been to rock bottom yet. And little did we know just how close from disaster we really were! It wouldn’t be long now; we were falling out of love and into hate… sliding into the divorce of no return at breakneck speeds!
With Emily having to move from Richmond to finish out her senior year (with child)… in a new town, while going to hair school at nights and working as an apprentice hairstylist, and making time for all the doctors appointments, and cooking dinner and everything else that goes with having your own home… and then me having to find ‘jobs’ paying enough money to support my new family… the pressure was unbelievable!
So the honeymoon didn’t last long… and just before our first Christmas, tears were falling, love was lost, and we were looking for the fastest way out! Emily got an attorney and we were going our separate ways. Neither of us really wanted to be apart, we just couldn’t find a way to end the fighting.
During those days, I remember watching Little House on the Prairie and thinking, “If we could just get a little religion in our home, maybe we could work things out.” Looking back now, I know it was God who planted these thoughts. He was reaching out to both us in so many ways… and we were just about to reach back!
There were three primary forces impacting us positively at that time. First was a group of kind and loving volunteers at the local Pregnancy Help Center. After the free pregnancy test, a girl named Amy gave Emily a free Bible and started sending handwritten letters of encouragements to both of us.
Then there was our bold redneck neighbor Dale… the guy who smothered us with his great big Jesus smile every time our paths intersected. Dales niceness was so profound, I actually wondered if the guy was on feminine hormone pills!
Besides Amy and Dale, there was one old high school buddy of mine… he really made the difference! Just as soon as my heart started opening up, Kevin is the first person I thought to call! I had not forgotten that unexpected September day when Kevin first came into school claiming he “found Jesus” at a summer youth camp. None of Kevin’s friends were happy about his apparent experience. I’m betting I was the unhappiest! In fact, I did everything I could to lure Kevin off that straight line he walked so well.
Here I was just two years later, pitifully humbled… and on the phone begging for Kevin to show me the way! Thank God he stood his ground in high school and did not weaken in the face of all that peer pressure. Thank God for people like Kevin, who willingly forfeit friends and reputation and everything else-to live their faith right out in the open for all of us to see. It was about one month into my near divorce experience, while on the telephone with Kevin that Emily and I welcomed Jesus into our hearts! It was the night of February 17, 1991. 10:45pm EST to be exact!
We we’re so excited that night! Emily was on one phone and I was on the other, both sporting our puffy wet cheeks. I remember when we got off the phone, she ran from the bedroom and I met her from the living room… and we hugged for what seemed like hours, crying in each other’s arms!
Our experience was the real thing! At last, when it seemed as if there was no help for us, God dived headfirst into our blazing inferno, scooped us up in his loving arms, and blasted us out the other side of rock bottom. What new confidence had that night, knowing that our lives had finally taken a turn in the right direction!
That’s a small piece of our amazing story…
Here’s a video that best expresses my heart at this moment! Love you all!!
I hit a BRICK WALL with my WRITING yesterday afternoon… it was so painful, felt like vessels were popping in my brain! I almost buried my computer in a snow drift and walked away from this mission, just a few weeks from the finish line! Well, that may be a slight exaggeration, but it was the worse writing DAY ever, following the best writing WEEK ever.
I suppose this creates the perfect opportunity to blog about BALANCE!
burnout
You see, riding on the heels of 30 days back and forth to Richmond while my wife went through the process of losing her dad… and working to implement a new year for Destiny Family Center… and fighting off the pressure created by the most challenging financial year of our lives… and after working 7 days a week, 18 hours a day for a few weeks, even through the recent snow storms… with VERY LITTLE REST… yesterday was INEVITABLE!
imbalance
I reasoned that I could throw my life out of balance for ONE MONTH, so I could finish my book… then I would REST. After all, I’ve done this before… and very successfully. My family was fully supporting the plan… they were cheering me on… everything was working perfectly… until my mind SHUT DOWN yesterday morning!
rest
So I took the evening off, picked Emily up from work at 3:30, exercised with her at the house to Jillian’s Biggest Looser Last Workout Video. Watched Amelia… boring moving in my opinion. Ordered pizza, watched the winter Olympics… fell asleep, well rested. A perfect diversion… we’ll see how much it helped as I move into my demanding day!
Oh and I forgot to mention that enjoyable phone call with Kim Zahren! What a friend he’s been over the years! In his 40s, Kim has been accepted into LAW SCHOOL! Something I’ve always dreamed of doing… and MAY do after I receive my doctorate this year! I’m so INSPIRED by his ENERGY!
Kim’s family is offering us their Grand Cayman paradise for as long as we desire to stay… all we need is air fare and food money. Maybe after the book is turned over to a publisher and things are a little different for us… check out the video and pray we will be able to go before their property is sold.
the high cost of imbalance
The cost of getting out of balance is not always immediately recognizable! Sometimes, neglected people suffer in silence. Sometimes, we achieve a desired goal at a cost far higher than the value of that goal! WOW, thats a quote CHUCK!
Sometimes, we achieve a desired goal at a cost far higher than the value of that goal! -Chuck Balsamo
In other words, we have to keep moving each of our nine life equities FORWARD with proportionate dedication!
other great quotes on balance
“Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.” -Monk Thomas Merton
“There’s no secret to balance. You just have to feel the waves” -Frank Herbert
your life is a song
I think that just as with any great song… there are times when ONE instrument plays more than all the others… there are times when specific life equities have their SOLO moments in the song of our lives… but we have to pay attention to the balance, order, rhythm, and harmony… we have to FEEL THE WAVES!
Here’s another quote… the perfect ending to a very powerful message:
“Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.” -Brian Tracy
Yesterday, I wrote page 334 in my book, Make Me A Legend! Only 25 pages to go and we’ll be on way to the editing and publishing phases! 360 Word Document pages should translate into approximately 250 book pages… the perfect size! I’m writing at a rate of 4-5 pages per day right now… should be finished by the end of next week, definitely ahead of my March 15th goal!
No kidding… my eyes water 10-15 times a day, just thinking about the profound series of events getting ready to unfold for my friends and me!
Yesterday I worked on my final chapter, Untame Yourself… here’s a very sloppy clip, about the making of Gods greatest legend! It’s a lead-in to my final few pages: the wild is calling!
For 40 years, Moses existed as a regular guy with the perfect, average life! Fourty years of hard labor & living in the sandy cocoon of Midians desert wilderness… the untaming of Egypt’s Prince! God worked on him and worked on him, and even though Moses must have went about the routines of his meager daily existence unmindful to what was happening… he just had to know, deep in his heart, that God would return for him again someday!
During those four long decades, when it would seem as if Moses had been forgotten, God was doing his greatest work! None of this time was lost time, for God was creating his greatest legend of all time! 40 years, of uprooting, tearing down, destroying, and overthrowing every weak and vulnerable place in Moses! 40 years of welding and banging and forging into creation, Gods epic reprisal… the LEGEND MOSES, Gods vengeance on the destroyer of his beloved children!
When the time was right! On that day of no turning back! The restored instinctive Monster nature of Moses heard a howling on the distant hills! Perhaps, when the time is right you and I will hear it too… the call of the wild! Aaaooooooowwwwwwwww!
Have you ever felt like this before? Like you’re a could-have-been legend, sitting exhausted on a trash pile of wasted decades?
Then, you MUST know deep inside your heart… God WILL return for you again someday! When the time is right! After the welding and banging and forging into creation… on that day of no turning back! God will come for you!
We’re all made for something GREAT. We all try hard and fail miserably. And as long as we are still ALIVE, then there is still a reason for our unique existence! We have a heavenly calling, a divine purpose… an eternal destiny! We’re all called to rescue somebody…
Perhaps, when the time is right, that restored instinctive Monster nature within YOU and I, will hear a howling on the distant hills!
Perhaps that time is now!
Aaaaooooooooowwwwwwww! Moses, Moses… I have heard the cries of my people… and I am sending you…
There you have it! Encouragement for the seemingly forgotten ones! I just finished praying for you all… have a most triumphant day!
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