Welcome to the Excel Stillmore podcast. I am your host, Chris Emerson. I'm here to encourage you in your walk with God. Thank you for joining in.

Today's podcast is sponsored by a wonderful company, Creation to Revelation. This group of Christians believe it is extremely important that we teach the Word of God to our kids.

They have original graphic illustrations from the beginning of the Bible to the end,

featuring the beautiful and consistent presence of Jesus throughout.

You can explore all of that at creation to revelation.com.

I'm so thankful you're here, so let's get started.

Hey, welcome back, and thanks for joining in today. I'd like to begin with a book recommendation.

It's written by a man named Jeff Olson, and it's titled The Slight Edge.

It's a purely secular book, but it deals with human nature, like yours and mine,

and you and I understand that we have been made by God and for God,

and so what you and I get to do is use material like this

to help us in our daily walk, just like everyone else is doing, but also to help us improve

in our faith and in our commitment to God. I probably should have titled today's episode,

The Slight Edge, but honestly, this book is filled with so many good ideas

that I want to use it as some background resource material for a variety of topics

throughout the rest of the year. And that begins with today's episode, Breaking the Cycle.

There was a repeating cycle in Jeff Olson's life that he finally decided to change.

And I have a feeling that this will sound very familiar to you. Now, the first thing that I want to do

is put an image in your mind that comes up when you hear the term breaking the cycle. We need to

make sure that we're on the same wavelength.

And I use that term on purpose. Can you visualize what a wavelength looks like?

Or maybe just sound waves on a screen. There is a bottom line, a baseline, and there is also a limiting line across the top. And so the wave

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