With positivity comes the power to change things was the resounding message of the 25th Garland County Leadership Prayer Breakfast on Tuesday.
Pastor, author and speaker Stan Toler, who renowned motivational speaker Zig Ziglar said "teaches principles and procedures that will build a church, a home, a business, a community, or a nation," shared his message of finding the positive in a negative world with those in attendance at Horner Hall.
With the preface from his book "Rethink Your Life," Toler shared his story growing up in "the foothills of Virginia."
"I was born the poorest of the poor in Welch, W.Va.," he said. "That's the place where Lyndon Johnson declared the War on Poverty when he was president of the United States."
Toler's father, who worked in the mines of West Virginia, had his back "broken three times" by the age of 30 and suffered the "black lung disease that miners often get," so he moved the family to Ohio in search of a better life.
"Looking for a job, he finally found a job and went to work on a Monday morning and was tragically killed in an accident," Toler said, adding that at 11 years old this impacted his life negatively.
Many nights, Toler said he would wake up with fears wondering which family member would be taken from him next. It wasn't until years later in college that he discovered the ability to change one's life with positive thinking.
Through a positive mental attitude conference featuring speakers like Ziglar, Norman Vincent Peale and founder of Success Magazine William Clement Stone, all of which struck a chord with Toler, it was Stone's words that stuck with him most.
"It was Clement Stone that said 'What the mind can conceive, you can achieve,'" he said. "A tremendous statement, I left that day impacted for life ... And I decided that I was going to think positive. Eliminate the negative and accentuate the positive in my life."
It was one day in a college chapel that Toler said his life was transformed when a speaker talked about the "transforming power of Jesus Christ."
"And that day I dedicated my life to Christ according to the reading of Romans Chapter 12," he said. "After that moment in that college chapel, I wrote in the front of my Bible 'A positive mental attitude without a positive faith will result in positive failure.'"
Toler challenged those in attendance to "give God control of your mind" by fixing their minds on Christ, filtering out the negative influences, forming relationships with those who energize and feeding their minds with the "7,487 promises in the scripture."
In keeping with the spirit of the prayer breakfast, Toler called those in attendance to make sacrifices that impact the world for the better.
"A few quick things I would say to you about shining God's light on what is right, we could start by replacing anger with love," he said. "There are a lot of angry people out there on God's green earth and if you don't believe me, just get on the freeway sometime."
Toler continued by saying replacing fear with faith, judgment with acceptance and sadness with happiness are all ways to make a positive impact.
"Become a giver, not a taker," he said. "This world is filled with selfish people and 'Me-ism' runs rampant in the world and even in the church, and it's time for us to give the world a smile.
"Focus on the future because God has a great future for you."
Local on 09/17/2014