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About John Shore

John is the author of I'm OK--You're Not: The Message We're Sending Nonbelievers and Why We Should Stop (NavPress); Penguins, Pain and the Whole Shebang (Seabury Books); and co-author, with Richard Lederer, of Comma Sense: A Fundamental Guide to Punctuation (St. Martin's). Both Penguins and Comma Sense won San Diego Book Awards for best books in their respective categories (Religious/Spiritual, and How To/Reference). He is also co-author, with Stephen Arterburn (Every Man's Battle) of Being Christian: Exploring Where You, God and Life Connect, Midlife Manual For Men: Finding Significance in the Second Half, and Regret-Free Living: Tools for Building Strong, Healthy Relationships.

As e-books on Scribd.com, John has made available for downloading or reading online, collections from his blog, entitled Seven Reasons Women Stay in Abusive Relationships (and How to Defeat Each One of Them),  How to Make a Living Writing, and My Funniest Stuff. He has also made available his book, I'm OK--You're Not: The Message We're Sending Nonbelievers and Why We Should Stop.

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John Shore

Writer, Editor, Author

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Forget Yourself to Save Yourself

Insecurity. Fear. Gnawing financial worries. These are the sorts of things a lot of us are struggling with during these strange, difficult days.

My advice to those of you who are lately sleeping less than you used to (not that any of you have asked me, of course) is to simplify. The singular blessing of difficult times is that they make you focus on what's most essential and true in life. They help/force you to tune out the superfluous, the distracting, the wasteful, the ... merely noisy.

If life's got you terrified, it's time to get clarified. That's my motto.

And when you've done that---when everything but the most essential thing in your life has disappeared from your attention---what's left? God.

And how do we do that clarification---how do we get to God? By accessing the Holy Spirit within us.

And what is God/the Holy Spirit? God (as the Bible repeatedly tells us) is love.

The way we simplify and clarify our lives is by listening exclusively to what God most wants us to do and be. And what God most wants us to do and be is love.

Everything always comes down to the same thing: Serve others. As Christ made as clear as he possibly could: It's all about sacrifice. Give to others, ceaselessly serving them, and expect for your loving sacrifice nothing in return---nothing, that is, beyond living at one with God.

When things get tough for us, we think we need to start watching out for ourselves. But the only way any of us can really protect ourselves is by losing ourselves in the service of others.

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