About this time last year, the Holy Spirit told me 2015 was the year of new beginnings. I embraced that. I preached it all over the country. I heard many testimonies of the wonderful new things the Lord birthed in people’s lives.

2015 was a year of new beginnings for me on many levels. In fact, it was one of the most meaningful years of my ministry. I entered into new assignments—including being named the first female editor of Charisma magazine—launched for a number of intercessory prayer initiatives, birthed awakeningtv.com and joined the New Breed Revival Network. I believe all of this—combined with the labor of many others in the body of Christ—is ultimately unto a Third Great Awakening.

This year, I released my best-selling devotional, Mornings With the Holy Spirit: Listening Daily to the Still, Small Voice of God. That was followed by The Next Great Move of God: An Appeal to Heaven for Spiritual Awakening, which shines lights on God’s plans for America even in the face of doom and gloom. I traveled across the country doing media appearances and preaching prophetic messages of hope.

In South Florida, I’m building the Awakening House of Prayer to raise up an army of intercessors who will labor in prayer to see God’s will done in the earth. My latest books, Jezebel’s Puppets: Exposing the Agenda of False Prophets and Revival Hubs Rising: Revealing a New Ministry Paradigm for the Next Great Move of God, are coming out any day now, and I’ve got several new projects in the works, including a prophecy Bible and a new spiritual warfare book.

You Can Have a New Beginning

I didn’t tell you all that to boast—except maybe in a Lord who can do wonders through someone like me. You may not know my testimony, but I got saved in a jail after being accused of a crime I didn’t commit—after my husband abandoned me with our 2-year-old baby nearly two decades ago. I never forget where God has brought me from and I know what it’s like to need a new beginning.

You can have a new beginning too. Now is the time to determine that you will press past the past and press into a new beginning. You can birth those new things that Lord has put in your spiritual womb. You can’t make it happen in your own strength. I mean to say that you can’t do God’s part. But you can do your part. As we wrap up 2015, the year of new beginnings, let me leave you with some lessons I shared across the country this year that helped many break into God’s new thing.

1. Give your will over to the Lord.

What you are birthing may seem scary to you or it may seem insignificant to you. It may seem overwhelming to you. We can take a lesson from Mary. It’s time to face your fears—fear of the unknown, fear of failing, fear of rejection, fear of transition. When the angel came to Mary and told her she would birth the Son of God, she ultimately responded: “I am the servant of the Lord. May it be unto me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

2. Be willing to adjust your schedule.

When you are expecting a baby, you are preparing for its birth. Women, we change the way we eat, the way we sleep and how we spend our time. As we prepare to enter a year of new beginnings and birthings, we must be willing to adjust our schedules and to spend more time in the Word, in worship and in prayer. That may mean giving up other things. “Therefore, since we are encompassed with such a great cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Heb. 12:1, emphasis added).

3. Be willing to shift your direction.

I’ve had a number of baby dreams over the years. In one of my baby dreams I was nine months pregnant but the baby had stopped moving. The baby wasn’t kicking or rolling or showing any sign of life. I thought the baby was dead and I panicked. Then, suddenly, I had the unction to shift the baby’s position with gentle pressure from my hand. (I later researched this and discovered there’s a name for it: the Diaphragmatic Release.) When I did, I could feel the baby kicking again. I knew all was well.

Sometimes things look dead, but you just have to reposition yourself for life. It doesn’t always take much. Just one gentle movement in the right direction can cause God to breathe on that thing again so you can birth it and begin nurturing what God has given you to steward. But you need to hear from the Lord about which way to shift. Remain close to the Holy Spirit, and “your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ whenever you turn to the right hand and when you turn to the left” (Is. 30:21).

If God has given you something to birth, it may be time to pull an Ezekiel and speak to those dry bones. It may be time to pull an Elijah and raise it from the dead. It may be time to walk away from the Ishmael. Refuse to abort and just reposition yourself to receive what God intended all along. You could just be in the wrong place or in the wrong time or with the wrong people. Listen to the Lord.

4. Embrace the transition.

Transitions are difficult. This is the place where people tend to grow weary and faint. The moments right before you give birth to that new thing—before you enter that new beginning—are the hardest of all.

And here’s a fifth point: Don’t give up. I always say that the best thing I have going for me is not my communication skills or even spiritual gifts. It’s the fact that I absolutely, positively refuse to give up. I just don’t have any quit in me. That doesn’t mean I don’t get discouraged. I do. It doesn’t mean I don’t feel like quitting on some days. I do. It just means that for all the thoughts and words I may speak about throwing in the towel on my toughest days, I always get back up again.

In 2016, let that be you. Sometimes victory in spiritual warfare really is just a matter of outlasting the devil. Keep pressing! Jesus is your victory banner.

About this time last year, the Holy Spirit told me 2015 was the year of new beginnings. I embraced that. I preached it all over the country. I heard many testimonies of the wonderful new things the Lord birthed in people’s lives.

2015 was a year of new beginnings for me on many levels. In fact, it was one of the most meaningful years of my ministry. I entered into new assignments—including being named the first female editor of Charisma magazine—launched for a number of intercessory prayer initiatives, birthed awakeningtv.com and joined the New Breed Revival Network. I believe all of this—combined with the labor of many others in the body of Christ—is ultimately unto a Third Great Awakening.

This year, I released my best-selling devotional, Mornings With the Holy Spirit: Listening Daily to the Still, Small Voice of God. That was followed by The Next Great Move of God: An Appeal to Heaven for Spiritual Awakening, which shines lights on God’s plans for America even in the face of doom and gloom. I traveled across the country doing media appearances and preaching prophetic messages of hope.

In South Florida, I’m building the Awakening House of Prayer to raise up an army of intercessors who will labor in prayer to see God’s will done in the earth. My latest books, Jezebel’s Puppets: Exposing the Agenda of False Prophets and Revival Hubs Rising: Revealing a New Ministry Paradigm for the Next Great Move of God, are coming out any day now, and I’ve got several new projects in the works, including a prophecy Bible and a new spiritual warfare book.

You Can Have a New Beginning

I didn’t tell you all that to boast—except maybe in a Lord who can do wonders through someone like me. You may not know my testimony, but I got saved in a jail after being accused of a crime I didn’t commit—after my husband abandoned me with our 2-year-old baby nearly two decades ago. I never forget where God has brought me from and I know what it’s like to need a new beginning.

You can have a new beginning too. Now is the time to determine that you will press past the past and press into a new beginning. You can birth those new things that Lord has put in your spiritual womb. You can’t make it happen in your own strength. I mean to say that you can’t do God’s part. But you can do your part. As we wrap up 2015, the year of new beginnings, let me leave you with some lessons I shared across the country this year that helped many break into God’s new thing.

1. Give your will over to the Lord.

What you are birthing may seem scary to you or it may seem insignificant to you. It may seem overwhelming to you. We can take a lesson from Mary. It’s time to face your fears—fear of the unknown, fear of failing, fear of rejection, fear of transition. When the angel came to Mary and told her she would birth the Son of God, she ultimately responded: “I am the servant of the Lord. May it be unto me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

2. Be willing to adjust your schedule.

When you are expecting a baby, you are preparing for its birth. Women, we change the way we eat, the way we sleep and how we spend our time. As we prepare to enter a year of new beginnings and birthings, we must be willing to adjust our schedules and to spend more time in the Word, in worship and in prayer. That may mean giving up other things. “Therefore, since we are encompassed with such a great cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Heb. 12:1, emphasis added).

3. Be willing to shift your direction.

I’ve had a number of baby dreams over the years. In one of my baby dreams I was nine months pregnant but the baby had stopped moving. The baby wasn’t kicking or rolling or showing any sign of life. I thought the baby was dead and I panicked. Then, suddenly, I had the unction to shift the baby’s position with gentle pressure from my hand. (I later researched this and discovered there’s a name for it: the Diaphragmatic Release.) When I did, I could feel the baby kicking again. I knew all was well.

Sometimes things look dead, but you just have to reposition yourself for life. It doesn’t always take much. Just one gentle movement in the right direction can cause God to breathe on that thing again so you can birth it and begin nurturing what God has given you to steward. But you need to hear from the Lord about which way to shift. Remain close to the Holy Spirit, and “your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ whenever you turn to the right hand and when you turn to the left” (Is. 30:21).

If God has given you something to birth, it may be time to pull an Ezekiel and speak to those dry bones. It may be time to pull an Elijah and raise it from the dead. It may be time to walk away from the Ishmael. Refuse to abort and just reposition yourself to receive what God intended all along. You could just be in the wrong place or in the wrong time or with the wrong people. Listen to the Lord.

4. Embrace the transition.

Transitions are difficult. This is the place where people tend to grow weary and faint. The moments right before you give birth to that new thing—before you enter that new beginning—are the hardest of all.

And here’s a fifth point: Don’t give up. I always say that the best thing I have going for me is not my communication skills or even spiritual gifts. It’s the fact that I absolutely, positively refuse to give up. I just don’t have any quit in me. That doesn’t mean I don’t get discouraged. I do. It doesn’t mean I don’t feel like quitting on some days. I do. It just means that for all the thoughts and words I may speak about throwing in the towel on my toughest days, I always get back up again.

In 2016, let that be you. Sometimes victory in spiritual warfare really is just a matter of outlasting the devil. Keep pressing! Jesus is your victory banner.

Growing up, Halloween was a fun time of year. We dressed up in cute little costumes and went around the neighborhood collecting large amounts of candy. The candy lasted for over a month. I remember my little pumpkin candy collector that one year was replaced by a pillowcase. The pillowcase held more room for candy.

My parents kept me away from the scary side of Halloween. We never went to haunted houses or scary events. We didn’t watch horror movies or do scary things.

When I went away to college, Halloween was no longer part of my life. After all, my friends and I were too busy studying and hanging out to think about a children’s holiday such as Halloween. However, each year on my college campus there would be a pentagram drawn somewhere with a few dead animals laying on top of the writing. Often the dead animals included at least one black cat. No one dressed up on Halloween. Besides, the horrific pentagram scene we would see the day after, Halloween was just a distant childhood memory.

I assumed that when I had my own children, I would dress them up and take them trick-or-treating. After my husband, Mike, and I married, we would pass out candy to neighborhood children on Halloween, often enclosing little tracts to share the gospel with them. About this time, strange things started happening to candy. There were rumors of razor blades and other non-candy items being found in children’s candy. Kids were encouraged to take their candy to the police stations to be checked before they ate it. Parents, who had years before sent their children off by themselves to trick-or-treat, were now encouraged to go with them. As a result of these scares, or so I thought, churches began offering Halloween alternatives. Children would dress up, play games and gather candy from large bowls around the fellowship hall.

My husband, a youth pastor, planned and headed up many of these events in our church. We had fun and played silly games.

As my children drew near to the age of trick-or-treating, things began to change in our lives. Mike became a senior pastor and we counseled people who had been involved in witchcraft, including one girl who had been tortured and raped in a Halloween celebration. You see, we learned that Halloween was a high “Un-Holy” day for Satanists and others involved in various types of witchcraft and the occult. We were shocked!

As we were discovering the dark side of Halloween, Halloween became more and more popular in America. Suddenly the stores weren’t just filled with candy, they were filled with creepy decorations. Creepy costumes never were attractive to me, but to walk through my neighborhood and see lawns turned into graveyards gave me a start. I didn’t like the darkness of the decorations.

As we researched Halloween, we realized that we didn’t want to participate as a family. At the same time, we didn’t want to be Scrooges, so we passed out candy and tracts with our children. Soon, however, they asked us questions like: “If we think Halloween is bad, why are we passing out candy?” or “Why can’t we go out trick-or-treating?” They were confused by our behavior, and, to be honest, so was I.

Was there a solution? Well, looking at the calendar, we discovered that on Oct. 31, Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the Wittenberg Door and the next day, Nov. 1, was celebrated as All Saints Day for centuries by Christians. Now, those things were things I could get behind and celebrate.

Now each year, we have a Heroes for Jesus party. Adults and older teens dress up as heroic Christians from the pages of history who did exploits for the glory of God. We have had St. Patrick, Martin Luther, St. Francis, Brother Andrew, Elisabeth Elliot, Nate Saint, Corrie ten Boom, George Mueller, Lottie Moon, Amy Carmichael, Eric Liddell, Charles Wesley, John Wesley, the apostle Paul, Athanasius, Polycarp, Dr. David Livingstone and Joni Eareckson Tada “visit” our parties. They introduce themselves to the children and play a game with them. We often end the evening with a movie such as Luther.

If you would like to learn more about having your own Heroes for Jesus party, you can purchase my e-book, Celebrate Our Christian Heroes (Instead of Halloween). {eoa}

Meredith Curtis, pastor’s wife and homeschooling mom of five amazing children, has been married to her college sweetheart, Mike Curtis for 31 years. She loves Jesus, leads worship, homeschools, writes, mentors ladies and sometimes even cooks dinner! She is the author of Joyful and Successful Homeschooling, and several high school classes and Bible studies. She and Mike are founders of the Finish Well Conference, a Christian conference aimed at equipping families to disciple their children to be world changers.

For older people without dementia, fuzzy thinking and lack of self control may be signs of higher risk for heart attack or stroke, a new European study suggests.

Older people who scored badly on a test of decision making and problem-solving – so-called executive function skills – had nearly double the risk of heart attack and 50 percent higher risk of stroke compared to people who did better on the tests.

Since lower scores on cognitive function tests might indicate previous vascular damage in the brain, the researchers expected a connection to stroke risk, but were surprised to see an increased risk for heart attack as well, said Dr. Behnam Sabayan of Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands.

“This might reflect that damage to the vessels is a global phenomenon in our body and when we see abnormalities in one organ we should think about the other organs as well,” Sabayan, a coauthor of the study, told Reuters Health by email. “This is another line of evidence showing that pathologies at the levels of heart or the brain are not independent.”

Neurologists and cardiologists should collaborate for early detection of older people at risk for either cardiac or brain vascular disorders, he said.

Researchers studied 3,926 older people in the Netherlands, Ireland and Scotland. The average age was 75 years old, and participants had either a history of heart disease or an increased risk for it due to high blood pressure, diabetes or smoking, but no history of an actual heart attack or stroke.

The researchers used four tests to assess the participants’ selective attention, decision processing speed, immediate memory and delayed memory.

Over three years of follow-up there were 375 coronary events, including heart attacks or deaths due to heart disease, and 155 strokes in the group.

The researchers divided the participants equally into three groups based on their executive function skills scores at the beginning of the study. Those in the lowest-scoring third were 85 percent more likely to develop coronary heart disease and 51 percent more likely to have a stroke than those in the highest-scoring third.

Those with lower scores were at higher risk even when the researchers accounted for age, gender, education, body mass index, blood pressure, total cholesterol, current smoking and history of diabetes.

There were 69 strokes in the low-scoring group, compared with 48 strokes among those with high scores.

Scores on the memory tests did not appear to be related to heart attack or stroke risk, the study team reports in Neurology.

“This is just adding to the evidence to support what we already know, there is a relationship between cardiovascular risk factors and cognition,” said Dr. Olaoluwa Okusaga of the University of Texas-Harris County Psychiatric Center in Houston, who was not part of the new study.

“This study is novel in that they identified a specific domain, executive function, as being predictive of cardiovascular risk,” Okusaga told Reuters Health.

Executive function includes making decisions and weighing options, so it could be that people with lower decision-making scores make poorer decisions in their daily lives that make them more prone to heart attack or stroke, he said.

Before doctors change what they do, this study should be replicated, he noted, but in the meantime, keeping mentally active by doing things like puzzles may help prevent cognitive decline.

Unlike innate intelligence, or IQ, cognitive abilities can change over time and are more vulnerable to exposure to factors like uncontrolled blood pressure in midlife, Sabayan said.

Older people with slower thought processing are less likely to follow physicians’ lifestyle and medical recommendations, he said.

“Therefore, our findings highlight that older subjects with impaired cognition need closer attention in terms of cardiovascular risk management,” he said.

“This does not mean that everyone should undergo cognitive assessment to determine their heart attack or stroke risk, instead it means when older patients present with cognitive problems their physician should take into account risk of future cardiovascular events and provide preventive care,” he said.

For the original article, visit reuters.com

© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.

s humans, we are not meant to be isolated. We all crave deep and lasting connections with other people. But we know it’s possible to feel alone in the middle of a crowd, and it’s possible to sleep in the same bed with someone for years and still feel lonely. Many of us never expect to be lonely in marriage, hoping that our spouse will be the lifelong companion who saves us from loneliness. Over time, however, couples can gradually disconnect from one another and find themselves feeling isolated and withdrawn.

Loneliness is not just about physical proximity, it’s about emotional connection. FamilyLife’s Dr. Dennis Rainey and his wife, Barbara, explain, “You may have sex, but you don’t have love. You may talk, but you don’t communicate. You live together, but you don’t share life.” If you’re feeling lonely in your marriage, here are some ways to reconnect with your spouse:

Make the first move. Feelings of loneliness are seldom felt by only one person in a relationship. If you’re feeling isolated, chances are your spouse is, too. Take the first step to reconnecting with them, even if it’s just a small gesture. Open up to them about how you feel and give them an opportunity to do the same. Healing cannot begin you hide or mask your pain.

Forgive past hurts. Especially if you have been feeling alone for a long time, hurts have likely been building up in your marriage. Nothing breeds loneliness more than unforgiven hurt and conflict. If you have been wronged, make the decision to forgive your spouse. And if you have wounded them, seek their forgiveness immediately.

Spend time together. This seems like a no-brainer, but sometimes couples get so busy or caught up in their individual lives that they neglect to simply spend time together. The less time a couple spends together, the more likely they are to feel distant from each other. This can be resolved by deliberately scheduling date nights in, date nights out, TV-free nights, and occasional weekend getaways—just for the two of you.

Make your time count. The quantity of time together is important, but so is the quality of that time. Couples have to be intentional about their time together to create a marital connection. When you and your spouse are talking, put down your cell phone, set aside distractions, and focus on each other. Find ways to bond over shared experiences: taking a walk, cooking dinner, going to a concert or sporting event, or playing a board game or cards together. Encourage and compliment your spouse. Make your moments together count.

Prioritize physical closeness. This is not just referring to sexual intimacy, though that is certainly an important part of marital closeness, but also to the little things that may have fallen by the wayside like holding hands or snuggling on the couch. The key to resurrecting physical touch is to start small. Sit close to each other, give neck massages, and pull out a surprise kiss. Getting closer physically will naturally lead to feeling closer emotionally.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. While the idea of seeking outside input on your marriage can be intimidating to many people, nearly every couple can benefit from marriage counseling. Getting an outside perspective can be extremely helpful to you and your spouse.

You may feel lonely in your marriage, but you are not alone in the struggle for marital intimacy. We have all experienced loneliness in our lives, but you don’t have to feel it in your marriage.

Mark Merrill is the president of Family First. For the original article, visit markmerrill.com

I’ve never fallen into a trance but I know people who have—and it’s totally biblical. We only see people falling into trances a few times in the Bible, but there is enough evidence from the Word of God and from modern expressions to back up this scriptural supernatural experience.

A trance is a state of one who is “out of himself,” according to Easton’s Bible Dictionary. The word trance comes from the Greek word “ekstasis,” form which the word ecstasy is derived. Peter fell into a trance in Acts 10:10 that opened his eyes to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. Paul fell into a trance in Acts 22:17 in which the Lord gave Him a warning and a commission to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. I suppose it’s hard to describe it if you’ve not experienced it, but Smith’s Bible Dictionary goes a little deeper, saying a trance is:

“The state in which a man has passed out of the usual order of his life, beyond the usual limits of consciousness and volition, being rapt in causes of this state are to be traced commonly to strong religious impressions. Whatever explanation may be given of it, it is true of many, if not of most, of those who have left the stamp of their own character on the religious history of mankind, that they have been liable to pass at times into this abnormal state.”

Trance Evangelism?

Since we’re looking back at historical figures in the body of Christ during Charisma’s 40th anniversary month, I though it fitting to offer a look at Maria Woodworth-Etter, a powerful voice from the late 1800s and early 1900s that was moving in the supernatural before Asuza Street or the charismatic movement made its mark on church history.

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Indeed, Woodworth-Etter was a Pentecostal forerunner. She saw great outpourings of God’s Spirit in the Midwest before entering the West Coast to win souls for God. In Oakland, California, she bought an 8,000-seat tent in 1889 and packed it out with people hungry to watch God move. He didn’t disappoint. Healings, signs, wonders, miracles were commonplace in Woodworth-Etter’s meetings.

Of course, miracles always draw crowds and critics and it was no different for this female pioneer. However, she didn’t see the attacks from fellow healing evangelist John Alexander Dowie coming. Dowie, himself moving in miracles, at first praised Woodworth-Etter but soon accused her of propagating a great delusion because people were falling into trances left and right under her tent. He called it “trance evangelism.”

Woodworth-Etter also drew attention from the media. The Salem report documents her falling into a trance on March 24, 1904, and she “had to be laid on the platform for over an hour.” The Indianapolis Star also reported “Woodworth-Etter Goes into a Trance” in a 1904 edition. In 1913, The Boston Globe reported, “Took No Money for Healing; Mrs. Etter Gave God Credit for Cures.” Those are just a few of the articles written about this pre-Pentecostal minister.

Standing Like Statues

There are accounts of Woodworth-Etter falling into a trance at a St. Louis meeting and standing like a statue for three whole days as attendees of the World Fair looked on in amazement. It’s not clear if the trance actually lasted that long, but she was known to fall into trances that left her frozen for hours at a time—and so did many others who attended her meetings.

“People fell into trances, experienced visions of heaven and hell, collapsed on the floor as if they’d been shot or had died,” reports Revival Library. “Thousands were healed of a wide variety of sicknesses and diseases and many believers, even ministers, received mighty baptisms of the Holy Spirit.”

Often times, unbelievers who came in to disrupt the service were encountered by the power of God and themselves fell into a trance. Reporters ridiculed her, her husband lashed out at her in a public letter, she lost the support of well-known ministers in her day, but she continued preaching the gospel and people continued getting saved—and falling into trances. Woodworth-Etter pointed people to scriptural references of trances and believed it was the power of God.

Criticized in her day, she goes down in Pentecostal history as a pioneer, a forerunner who withstood strong persecution to steward the glory of God in her meetings. We need more like Woodworth-Etter in this hour.

In the Weekly Evangel, Robert J. Craig, an early Pentecostal leader and pastor of Glad Tidings Temple in San Francisco, honored her and encouraged ministers to study her life and ministry: “If the Pentecostal ministry would study her life and count on God, expecting the supernatural to be revealed in each meeting, what a mighty agency ours would be in the hands of God.”

Amen. And think about it for a minute. What would happen if skeptics of the gospel entered a Holy Ghost meeting and fell into a trance and saw visions of hell? Maybe trance evangelism isn’t such a bad idea.

Jennifer LeClaire is senior editor of Charisma. She is also director of Awakening House of Prayer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, co-founder of AwakeningTV.com, on the leadership team of the New Breed Revival Network and author of several books, including The Next Great Move of God: An Appeal to Heaven for Spiritual Awakening; Mornings With the Holy Spirit, Listening Daily to the Still, Small Voice of God; The Making of a Prophet and Satan’s Deadly Trio: Defeating the Deceptions of Jezebel, Religion and Witchcraft. You can visit her website here. You can also join Jennifer on Facebook or follow her on Twitter. Jennifer’s Periscope handle is @propheticbooks.

In a small new study, volunteers who were shown chocolate and sports drinks after an exercise workout could not correctly guess how much would be an equal “reward” for the calories they had just burned.

Surprisingly, they chose amounts that were much too small—either underestimating how many calories they had burned or overestimating how many were in the foods.

“We believed adults and children would not be good at estimating the calorie values of foods and drinks nor the calorie expenditure of exercise. But we originally (thought) they would overestimate,” said senior author Craig Williams of Children’s Health and Exercise Research Center at St. Luke’s Campus of the University of Exeter in the U.K., in email to Reuters Health.

The researchers selected 50 adults and 49 adolescents who exercised regularly at sports clubs for rugby, netball, swimming, hockey and badminton in the U.K. After one hour of sports practice, they estimated how many calories participants had burned based on an existing activity guide.

Then the researchers asked exercisers how much food or drink would compensate for the calories they thought they had burned. Participants were shown 30 individual squares of chocolate on a board, and bottles of sports drink filled to half a bottle, one bottle and four bottles, as visual cues.

On average, the exercisers chose less than half as much of both the chocolate or the sports drink than would actually have compensated for their calories burned, according to a report in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The exercisers underestimated by about 500 calories, the researchers found. Rugby players, for example, burned an estimated 700 calories over one hour, but by their own estimation, they could only have consumed about 330 calories of chocolate and 140 calories of sports drink to compensate.

“Potentially this might be seen as encouraging, but as we pointed out in the paper, we have qualitative evidence that their intentions would have been to actually eat more when the training had finished, even though they were reporting by underestimating,” Williams said.

Many participants remarked that they would have rewarded themselves with more food or drink than they had estimated would compensate, he said.

They would likely have been equally poor at estimating for other food items, like pizza, he said.

It is possible that the participants anticipated what the researchers wanted to hear, and changed their answers accordingly, Williams noted.

Also, in the study, the exercisers did not have access to the nutritional information for the chocolate or sports drink, but in reality that information would likely be available.

“Of course much of this information is already available on the food labeling or in restaurants where they are providing the information, but aspects of basic nutritional education I think do need to be improved to allow us to make better informed choices and then how this fits into our daily, weekly, monthly schedules,” Williams said.

It is not clear whether these subjects were underestimating how many calories they burned or overestimating the calories in the foods, he said.

“It is not imperative and we should not become too fixated with trying to be as precise as possible, for example, to the exact 1 kcal (this would be impossible), but to be able to make better overall estimations,” he said.

For the original article, visit reuters.com.

© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.

Born in impoverished circumstances in southern Oklahoma, Oral Roberts’ miraculous healing as a teen would serve as a precursor to the ministry that made him one of the premier evangelists of the 20th century.

It happened en route to a meeting where the 17-year-old Roberts was healed of both stuttering and tuberculosis through the ministry of unknown evangelist George W. Moncey. “Son, I am going to heal you, and you are to take My healing power to your generation,” said a voice young Oral recognized as God’s. “You are to build Me a university and build it on My authority and the Holy Spirit.”

That is exactly what happened. Roberts went on to preach to millions and lay hands on 1.5 million people for healing. When he died in December 2009, Roberts had written more than 120 books, pioneered television evangelism, and spread the doctrine of seed faith that is an integral part of Pentecostal and charismatic circles.

A larger-than-life figure whose slicked-back dark hair and flamboyant preaching inspired many evangelists, Roberts lives on through televised and recorded messages that continue to impact the world. He also left a mark through his family, which included four children and a marriage of 66 years to his wife, Evelyn, who died four years before Oral.

Roberts’ legacy extends far beyond the pulpit, through the educational institution that he established in 1965 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He served as president of Oral Roberts University for 28 years and remained as chancellor and a lifetime trustee after retiring in 1993.

Today the school spans 263 acres and last year enrolled more than 3,400 students in more than 65 undergraduate majors, 14 graduate and two doctoral programs. More than 40,000 alumni of Oral Roberts University are implementing his vision of touching every corner of the world with the gospel.

Current ORU president William Wilson got a firsthand look at Roberts’ influence during his stint as executive officer for the Azusa Street Centennial. The historic 2006 event brought 50,000 people to Los Angeles from across the globe. “I discovered quickly in that journey that of all the people in this movement—and there were a lot, from William Seymour on—that if there was a person who embodied the movement more than any one individual, it was Oral Roberts,” Wilson says.

Darren Rodgers, director of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center, calls Roberts one of the most influential American healing evangelists of the 1950s and ’60s, one who bore a mark of integrity at a time when many others fell into scandal. In addition, Roberts reached beyond his Pentecostal roots to expand a then-budding charismatic movement by bringing independent evangelists, churches and schools together.

“Unlike other evangelists, he was able to unite people around a common vision,” Rodgers says. “Many shared his vision for healing, evangelization and education. Before Oral Roberts and people like him, there was not a large platform for independent charismatics or Pentecostals.”

While some criticized Roberts for naming a university after himself, the historian says that as an expert marketer Oral recognized that many people supported him. Thus, Roberts wanted to parlay that personal goodwill into development of larger institutions. Rodgers says he succeeded, with ORU one of the premier Christian universities in the nation because of its founder’s vision.

“Oral was always a global man, a global leader,” Wilson says. “His ministry went around the world. In this season, where ORU has gotten strong again and emerged from crisis, we are positioned to dream again. We’re capturing the initial impulse of what Oral heard—that God would use this educational institution to the uttermost bounds of the earth.”

In reflecting on Roberts’ legacy during ORU’s 50th anniversary year, the president says several points emerged. Particularly how Roberts shaped a fresh view of God as a loving God who wants to bless and heal people instead of a then-common view of a harsh, retributive Lord. In addition to the concept of seed faith and serving as a bridge between the charismatic and Pentecostal communities, Wilson sees Roberts’ most enduring contribution as bringing education to the forefront of Christian life.

“He said you could not only be anointed to be a preacher, but you could be anointed to be a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, a nurse or an engineer,” Wilson says. “He taught that in every discipline you could be anointed by God’s Spirit, hear God and do God’s work in whatever sphere God sent you into.

“Oral’s founding vision ended with something like: ‘Their vision will exceed yours and I will be well-pleased.’ That is true. In raising this institution, Oral also helped educate the Spirit-filled movement that education was good and God could use it for kingdom purposes.”

The famous revivalist and televangelist shares the impact Kathryn Kuhlman (1907-1976) had on his later life and ministry.

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