The Best Possible Life by Jim Murphy
I picked up this book at EWR. I love airport bookstores, they are like the Trader Joe’s of all bookstores, a curated collection of classics and contemporary works. I already packed 5 booked for this Italian island trip and here I am with buying 5 more. I also loved that the cashier at this particular Terminal 3 store was deep in reading a book of her own. Beautiful, I thought.
My highlights from the book:
Part I
What takes the most space in your heart– what you worship– determines everything about you. We all worship; the question is who or what we worship. (page 19)
“What’s running your life at any given moment is not your external circumstances, not your thoughts, not your intentions, not even your feelings, it’s your soul. The soul is that aspect of your whole being that correlates, integrates and enlivens anything going in in the various dimensions of the self. You don’t direct the soul. You feed it, then the soul directs you.” - Dallas Willard, director of philosophy at USC
We want to feel connected to a vision, secure in who we are, engaged in something that makes us feel alive.
The best experiences in life– like in the flow of resonance– happen when we ac tin accordance of our true design (page 25)
God created you to do amazing things– too many to list– which he prepared in advance for you to do. He wants to fill you with unlimited peace, joy, and confidence to realize your infinite, inherent worth.
Throughout history, the people God has used the most– the ones who have lived extraordinary lives– are the ones who recognized they had little or nothing to offer and so they relied on God’s strength and words and direction instead of their own. Ultimately, the greatest human strength is to recognize your own weakness.
Confidence is great but what’s more empowering is being fully present. (page 50)
What you get as an adopted child of God is everything a natural-born baby would receive and: A Father who loves you more than you can imagine, and there’s nothing you’ve ever done or could do that would change his life.
Part II: Amazing Awaits
God is inviting you to a life of freedom and fulfillment, independent of how skills or successful you are or what your situation is. The only prerequisite is letting God transform your heart and take control of your life, surrendering everything to him (page 67)
Seek success or money or achievements as your highest goal and you’ll never be satisfied, continually striving yet never arriving. You’ll constantly be anxious about what you have and might lose, or don’t have or may never get. But seek first the absolute fullness of life, and no matter how talented or untalented you are, every good thing will be added to you. When you release the need to be the center, when you live for something greater than yourself, you find a life of meaning, joy, and power.
You may still keep the same job; it will have a new ultimate goal. Your work becomes one of the primary ways you learn and grow in your apprenticeship. It becomes a means of expressing God’s love so you become the expression of God’s love. Your daily labor becomes a path for you how to practice how to love and to serve– how to be selfless.
Beliefs are running your life, and those beliefs are continually being reinforced all day long by what you think, feel, and say. Always speak in the past tense about anything you don’t want to continue and in a positive manner. Your heart and subconscious are always listening, creating new beliefs and reinforcing ones. Your subconscious mind is always waiting for directions to make sure your energy (and vibrations) match what you say and believe. (page 103)
Training your heart is a daily thing, it starts with prayer and surrender.
The type of person you’re becoming is the most important thing about you, not your accomplishments or achievements.
There’s a great need in the world and you are what the world needs – your true self, the one created by God, for God, aligned with God. No one in the world can do what you can do. No one has your background, experiences, or heart. No one has the precise plans laid out for them by God that you have.