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Ever wish you could get on the fast track to empowerment? There is a way. But it will mean accepting that everything you've experienced is meant to help you get there.

Are you empowered?

I don't mean ready to conquer the world, or land that gold medal. Are you empowered sufficiently in your own life so that you are doing the things you believe you should be doing? Or are you watching TV every night, dreading life in the morning, only to watch more TV come evening?

If the latter description fits you (or something close to it) and this is the best life you can imagine or desire, then I wish you peace. If you know there's more to life, however, but just don't have a clue how to reach a place where you can be experiencing it, then I would respectfully suggest that you are in need of empowerment.

Which raises the question: Where does empowerment come from?

Here's the short answer: It comes, and can only come, from within. Want the long answer? It comes from everything your Creator sends into your life with the view of improving you. And that means, quite literally, everything.

Everything that happens to you, all your experiences, joys, disappointments and defeats--is all meant to improve you. To bring you closer to what you are supposed to be, and what you are supposed to be doing.

Now for the bad news: It won't all work that way (to improve you) without your cooperation. This is the reason so many people aren't now, and may never be, in a place of empowerment. To get there, you need to accept the vehicle that takes you. (Which is, everything that has and ever will happen to you--combined with a knowledge of the God who determined it all.)

If you can get to the place of being thankful for even the negative stuff, knowing that it will play a part in your growth (towards the best you possible), that is how you get on the vehicle. That is how you accept it. And think about it: Can a journey start if you don't get in the car? By foot, perhaps, but it will be much, much slower.

What you want to do is to get on the fast track to self-knowledge; in other words, empowerment. Is that a tall order? Yes. But it is God, our Creator, who ultimately empowers us, and "nothing is too hard for God."* The key is to get on His team.

Again, it's like accepting the vehicle for a journey. If he drove up to you in a posh limo and opened the door wide, you'd probably jump right in! No hesitation there.

The thing is, he more likely pedals up on an old, broken-down bike, asking you to hop on to a rickety-looking seat in back--and then promises that by getting on his old bike, you're actually fast-forwarding the journey! You are now on the way to finding the true you, the empowered you, the one He made you to be. And faster than you'd ever get there, otherwise--if you could indeed get there at all.

Think the analogy doesn't fit? Many people balk at the idea of "wasting" time in church attendance. (What? Spend good, free time every Sunday in a church? All they want is your money!) But the church is there, you see, as God's vehicle. It's the old bike that looks like it's had better days. And there's a rickety seat in it waiting for you.

Same thing with Bible reading. (I've got so many books to read already! And I can't "waste" my time on that one. It's so hard to understand, anyway!)

If you're looking for empowerment to be the person you were meant to be--to do all the great and wonderful, exciting things you were meant to do-- then you'll just have to get on the old bike.

Trust me. I got on it a long time ago, now, and the journey just gets more exciting and fulfilling every year. As I take the time to go to church, read and study the Scripture--I'm hanging on to the old, rickety seat, you see--I grow in empowerment. You can, too.