Manns Medium

I have always been an advocate in believing that the strongest part of the human body is the mind.   I believe that it is the mind that is the main actor in this play called “Life” and if we are to truly be in command of our destinies, we must first master our own individual minds.   The mind has been credited with the ability to heal the body and we know that people have been able to convince themselves of things even in the face of over-whelming evidence to the contrary.   What one perceives to be the truth is often the reason why they may react in a particular way or believe in certain things and because of those conflicts arises and many times resolutions to these conflicts can never be reached.   This results in added stress which can cripple a person’s physical health.   There are ways to help reduce this stress and the primary one is to exert as much effort spent to help our children with their mental work as we do with their homework.   It is the ...

What is this that is God-given? But man can’t seem to keep, Paid for by the blood of the Lamb, But cost not one of us a dime. Has been around for a very long time, But still remains fresh and new, It houses the essence of who we are, And stays our earthly course. It guards the good and the bad in all of us, And makes us well aware of them both, It shelters our disappointments and despair, As well as our hopes and dreams. What is this you may ask, That’s worth its weight in gold, It’s full of the milk of kindness, It's simply called your soul. R.Manns 12/04/2015

Far too often we sell ourselves short and prevent ourselves from ever becoming the kind of Christian that God has always known us to be.  For those who still do not believe that the greatest dangers posed to us is that danger which is brought on by us, this story should give you all the proof that you need in order to see that what you thought was indeed the truth.  We are our worst enemy and only those we allow can break us down.  We often spend so much time blocking our own way and blame others for the obstruction.  Sad really, if you think about it, God gave us the power and authority over our lives, desires and direction but instead of us stepping up to take hold and control of them, we give that power to someone else in order to avoid being blamed or held responsible if they appear to go wrong.  You do not have to look for the larger things to show you just how special God knows that you are, look to the small things, the things you do each and every day w...

For so long people have been trying to explain in a clear way how allowing those who are better equipped to handle those issues for which you are not equipped to handle.  This is what your grandparents and parents meant when they said worry about the things you can control and those that you can’t turn them over to God.  Maybe justice will not come when you wish it to or when you call but make no mistake justice will come guaranteed. Classic example is found in the article titled “ 2 men plead guilty in 2011 racial beatings in Mississippi ” written by Jeff Amy for the Associated Press.  In this article it states “John Louis Blalack enters the federal courthouse in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2015 for a change-of-plea hearing in relation to a series of 2011 racial beatings that resulted in the death of a Jackson man. Blalack was indicted in 2014 at the end of a long investigation sparked by the June 2011 death of James Craig Anderson who was run over by a picku...

As a newborn grows and develops, many often can be heard saying that they think that newborn has been here before.  Not really having any other reason to say that except watching them catch on to things so quickly and saying things that we would normally not equate to a person of such young age.  Many often wonder why and to date, no one has been able to give us a suitable explanation that is up till now.  Now don’t get me wrong, I am not an experts or anything, just a person who probably thinks too much and questions too often but I believe I have a clue and would like to share it with you.  Remember, it is not important that you agree with me or not, what is important is to take a few seconds and think about it to see if it makes any sense to you.  If it does then great but if it doesn’t that is also awesome as well.  The purpose is not to convince but to spark a consideration regardless of conversation. It is written in the Bible that Jesus said to ...

There are many driving forces that feeds our lack of understanding and because of that, many of us just give up totally on trying to even come close to figuring out what the other person means.  We can’t seem to get it and because we don’t get it, we don’t get them.  Not getting them means you have to rank them somewhere so human beings “catch-all” column for anything or anyone they do not understand is the ignore list.  So why do we do this and how valuable is this list? We do this because when we talk about values we lie because there are only really two values and no one human being is equipped with both so basically each of us that wear this meat suit will either possess and display one value or another.  The two values are being right and doing right.  Now for many of you, your first thought is that you can have both and there we must agree to disagree.  There is a very huge but single difference between being right and doing right.   ...

So many religious leaders want you to know what lessons the Bible teaches and each has their own ideas of what that lesson is.  The problem comes when their idea of that lesson conflicts with my idea then as Satan would have it, the arguments begin.  We send more time trying to convince another that we are right than we do investigating our own ideas and thoughts to see if they are right.  It soon becomes unimportant if we are truly right as long as we are willing to act like we are and not allow anyone else to sway us from believing it.  We spend the majority of everyday looking at the decisions of another person comparing them to decisions that we may have done differently and then attempting to prove that point.  At no time  publicly , do we consider that we may be wrong or that there is truly no right or wrong answers.  At no time do we consider that what you believe is your right to believe and even though we may not agree with it, we can at...

For years we have been under a false impression, that the choices that we make as individuals only affect the decision maker or maybe those close to them but we are wrong.  Every decision we make will affect another person whether it is our intent or not.  This is why we must consider each and every decision we make and prepare ourselves to be ready to take responsibility for that decision. As human beings, we have a built in defense to even considering how our decision affects others and that is the defense that they are not us, they do not know us, they don’t look like, talk like, or act like us and especially they are not my brothers and sisters.  All of these excuses are wrong and it should be made clear that when we speak of brothers and sisters, we are not talking about man’s definition of brothers and sisters, we are simply talking about God’s definition of brothers and sisters.  In God’s definition, all human beings are our brothers and sisters because w...

I was blown away about a story written by Mike Miller for ijreveiw.com titled “News Anchor Makes Startling On-Air Announcement: He Only Has 4-6 Months To Live,” not because of any of the most thought of reasons like he was brave enough to share it with the audience or he may be seeking sympathy or increasing viewership.  I was blown away because it was only today that I was speaking to my own audience about the miracles average people perform every day. In the article Mr. Miller reports that “Champaign, IL, news anchor Dave Benton, 51, told viewers during a broadcast on Thursday that he has an inoperable brain tumor – and that doctors tell him he only has 4-6 months to live. The born-again Christian said he believes he is in God’s hands: “I am at peace and I know he’s going to take care of the days ahead and that the goal here is to have the best ones possible.” I was blown away because of what the article said toward the end “Stories like this one serve to remind...

How many times have you heard that a person, who died, here on earth, told someone who were there at the time, that they were tired and ready to go?  Maybe they told someone earlier that they would not be here much longer before they took that last breath.  Ever wondered how they knew?  I remember Dr. Martin Luther King saying that he had been on the mountain top and had seen the Promised Land, and then he said, I might not get there with you but I promise we will get to the Promised Land.  The Bible says that hell is a place full of pain and suffering which describes living on this earth to a tee.  It would explain why the Bible asks us to rejoice upon the earthly death of a loved one instead of morn.  It may explain why the Bible told us, so long ago, that the wages of sin was death and tells us to not fear death and that if we must fear death, fear not the death of the body but of the soul.  Leaving here, this earth is only death of the body....

Lately I have been on a roll where I have taken the liberty to answer the tough questions like why people hate God, why God allows bad things to happen to good people and now I want to talk to you about something that will probably scare the stuffing out of some.  I want to talk to you about death. One of the major reasons, people are more able to be manipulated and controlled whether it is by criminals or bullies is the threat of death.  Think about that and you may be able to see, instances where you were influenced to change or modify your positions because you feared dying.  You could no longer see yourself as being a part of this world and felt unready to go because there was still more you wished to do with your life or things you wished to say.  At the apex of any terrifying event always comes a moment where many will see their entire lives flash before their eyes and in that moment we began to pray for a little more time.  Promising to do better tha...

Ask any parent what is the number one responsibility of a parent and they will say to protect their children.  I know this because I have asked plenty of them and this was the same response from me as well.  I have recently discovered that this reason ad this reason alone may be the primary reason that so many parents fail and so many children are then lost to the streets.  A parent’s number one responsibility is not to protect our children, it is to educate them. Now the title of this piece is how Hollywood can help but before we get to that, we need to explain why protection is not number one and education is.  Think on this; as a parent you set yourself to believe that you need to protect your child and when you fail to do just that, a world of misery is dumped directly upon you.  You feel inferior and weak because your child is hurting and there seems to be nothing you can do to ease or stop it.  You sit there with your head up your butt wondering ...

Some years ago I was asked about what I thought the meaning of life was and along that vain, I penned an article and a book calling it “The True Meaning of Life”.  The idea behind my definition of the true meaning of life was based on perception.  How you see things will determine where you stand.  If you see greed as good then you will defend it.  If you perceive that there is good in everybody then you will look for it. If you perceive that there is a heaven and a hell then you will stand firm on those grounds.  In the search for the true meaning of life, we tend to try and ascertain it for the sole purpose of understanding why people do some of the things that they do. We want to try and understand why people commit crimes and we have come to accept that there are sometimes outside forces that cause them to do so.  We have come to accept environmental, societal, physical and even mental excuses.  Once we find out which ones made them choose cri...

Scientists say that everyone dreams and if you ask around you may come to say the same thing but are these dreams also visions?  For some, this is a stupid question because for some reason or another, they believe that only a select few have the ability to see visions.  For others seeing visions are seen as things from the mind of someone suffering from hallucinations from some kind of drug or illegal substance.  So does dreaming make you a clairvoyant, or sage? Or are dreams only the re-living of past lives that your soul encountered? For me, they are one and the same.  Now I do not have any proof of this and my purpose here is to only get you to think.  I have come to believe that dreams are visions and these visions are your soul re-living past experiences helping you to prepare for some upcoming event yet to occur in your present life.  I think these visions provide you avenues and routes to deal with what’s coming next and only those few able to d...

Lately it is getting harder and harder to understand why the actions some people take does not give them pause and still remains even more abstract after some answers to why are given.  We continue to wonder just how we lost our sense of humanity and when will it ever return.  Those questions still remain elusive and they become even more relevant after reading this story. It is a story of how far some of us have fallen from any sense of grace and civility and can be found in an article titled “Officials say two employees at a Utah school have been placed on leave during an investigation of why lunches were taken from students who owed money on food accounts”, written for the Associated Press.  In this article it is described as “a Utah school cafeteria manager and a district supervisor have been placed on paid leave while officials investigate why lunches were taken from students who owed money on food accounts, a district spokesman said Friday”.  Now the first q...