A Little Poem

In every day
there is time for work
and time for play.

There is no chronology
required to say
which comes first
or in what way.

But when one finds
the end result
is not what was in mind,

then surely look
and be not blind,
toward the work
one was not sufficiently kind.

Temper costs too much

Temper sabotages in insisting its claim be worth any cost, by which one vastly overpays.

Repentance, Faith, and Power

You will act as though your beliefs are true regardless if they are or not. Thus repentance is focused not on changing behavior -- a mere consequence -- but on turning the heart.

It is choosing to believe something new--something different, even without evidence.

Thus repentance requires an exercise of faith, believing that which is not yet seen sufficiently to act on it.

The world calls this foolish; God calls it power.

A random rambling

I admit to feeling tired and weary. I admit to feeling discouraged and demoralized. I admit I've allowed my conscious hope to wane.

So why persist?

Because fundamentally, hope is my bedrock, thus hitting rock bottom puts me in direct contact with that hope. That hope nourishes me and feeds me.

Fundamentally, I believe we are here on earth to learn and progress. This has come easy for me in some areas of life. In others, it seems to be a mega marathon trudge through thick, chest-high muck. I wonder if I'm learning, or if I'm just repeating the same mistakes and missing the lessons that would actually help.

Malcolm Gladwell speaks of putting in 10,000 hours to become an expert in any specific field or talent. I wonder how often I'm spending 1 hour 10,000 times.

But, I believe that I must have faith -- and I believe that I do have faith -- to trust that God will help me learn and progress as effectively as will serve me. By choosing in to growth and learning, He will help me find it! He is a good Father, granting the desires of our hearts.

He knows my desire, I strive to follow His guidance, and thus I can trust. I don't see it all, I have fears to overcome, but fundamentally, I trust. I believe. I have hope, and I have faith.

History is rarely kind to those who try to hurry it, but earth is often left a more inspired place by those who do.

I am not arguing for impatience. I believe in allowing the law of gestation to work its miracles. No, quite the opposite. It's that history needs pushing along. We create history by our decisions of each moment! And thus, each moment can be a conscious allocation of our energy -- either its expenditure or its rejuvenation. However, it can also be unconscious.

Sometimes being unconscious is equated with rejuvenation. Perhaps that is amiss.

Of Worldly Terrors

Are you ever amused when someone not of your faith insists you believe or do not believe some crazy thing, especially when they're waaaay off? I can't help but chuckle at it sometimes!

And yet such insistence can have significant negative consequence. So many Muslim leaders condemn violence, condemn terrorism, and promote peace while many outside insist that they must be a warmongering people because their religion teaches them to be.

[sarcasm]
Surely the leaders promoting peace are just being deceitful!

After all, there are verses in the Qur'an that radical Muslim groups interpret to mean "go kill everyone that doesn't honor Mohammad and worship Allah!"

Obviously all Muslims are out to mass murder everyone!
[/sarcasm]

ugh.

In reality, don't most religions preach in world dominance at some point? That God will destroy the wicked and all will bow before Him in some form of united belief system?

And don't such groups often have radical outshoots that try to take such a work into their own hands, justifying all types of gross injustices?

I appreciate someone who honors and accepts what I say I believe, rather than dictating to me what I must believe because of ___fill-in-the-blank-here____. Perhaps we could honor the lives of so many peaceful Muslims by respecting what they claim they believe?

Side note: I'm persuaded that Donald Trump trolls The Onion for campaign ideas.

Are there some radical terrorists who also are Muslims who would hope to get into the U.S. with the many refugees? Indubitably!

As for me, I'm more concerned about the subtle terrors of our current society than I am about any myriad of radicals bent on shaping physical terror.

It is the demise of the fundamental unit of society that poses the much greater threat.

The demise of a family does not always look like divorce, by the way. Perhaps even more often, it is found in families yielding up the roles and responsibilities it is meant to provide.

That there are masses cheering after Trump and his boorish blathering is yet another evidence to me that too many families have been derelict in their duties.

Lessons From a Run

Today is Amy's eighth birthday. She's still asleep this morning, but I have exciting news for her!

I also have a few lessons learned.

As some know, I am running my first 5k in a couple weeks. My intent is to run it in under 30 minutes! This would be awesome for me!

Before a couple weeks ago it had been years and years since I'd been out running -- pretty sure the last time was in 2003 -- that's twelve years ago!

In my recent running efforts, the most I'd run is about 2.8k. What is that, about a mile and a half?

This morning as I went out, I decided with confidence that I'd run 3k. I had complete confidence I could do it, even if I ran slow.

As I began running, I began toying with the idea of running my first ever, uninterrupted 5k. After all, the race is coming up quick! "We'll see," I thought.

As I ran, I got more and more desirous to do it! And yes, I absolutely believe it was inspiration working in me.

It wasn't long when I decided I would. I was tempted at one point to cut it at four, but then I thought of it being Amy's birthday and thought, how cool would it be to run my first 5k on her eighth birthday! (Eighth is not a word I naturally type with correct spelling, by the way! Sheesh! Silly English!)

A little after the 2k mark, I remembered a recent video of Kris Krohn training and feeding awesome positive thoughts into Gary Norris. These are two friends who both inspire me regularly, and this morning was no different!

I began feeding my own thoughts with awesomeness like "my body was made to run," "one of my gifts from God is a body built for great running," etc. I thought of my inspiring and ever-positive friend Kevin Clayson who has impressed upon me the power of expressing gratitude! I began to express that gratitude for my body, for the chance to be running in that very moment, and more.

Running around a half mile track, half the run was into a slight breeze. My natural impulse was to feel slowed by this breeze, but my thoughts were too strong. I began welcoming the breeze and thanking it for bringing air to fill my lungs, for bringing refreshment to what otherwise would be stale, etc.

I began thinking of flow and speaking to my mind of the strength and wholeness of my heart and lungs, that my blood flows freely through my veins and brings life and vitality to my body. That air flows through my lungs, that energy, life, money, and emotion flow through me abundantly.

I regularly thought of Amy and her birthday and how cool it was that I was reaching this goal on her eighth birthday!

And I made it! I did it! I ran my first ever full, uninterrupted 5 kilometers this morning!

After breathing hard and walking a few steps, I felt SO excited! Was it in my mind or was it out loud that I said: "I did it Amy! I did it!"

The idea came of posting this on Facebook with pride for my achievement (which I will with a link to this blog post)! I felt so good! Then the thought creeped in: "posting it on Facebook? It's kind of pathetic really, this is your first 5k? You probably were really slow anyway. ...sure you want to do that?" And my excitement and joy faded a bit.

But I caught it. Can we see here how comparison murders joy? I remembered this truth and rejoiced again in my pride of accomplishment! It is life and joy for me!

I'm so excited to tell Amy when she awakes! I don't expect a lot of reaction from her, but I'm excited to tell her nonetheless!

When I made it in the house, after walking around and breathing hard outside a bit, I looked at the app on my phone that tracked everything.

I saw the total time and felt a bit confused.

Previous runs often averaged around 6 minutes per kilometer. I figured with a run as long as this, I probably averaged around 7 minutes. My time was 29:20!

Say wha?

k1: 6:24 -- kind of what I'd expect
k2: 6:04 -- oh wow, I went a littler faster on that one, cool!
k3: 5:56 -- ...huh?
k4: 5:34 -- What the? How on earth?
k5: 5:21 -- A full minute faster than my first one??

This baffled me!

How could I have gone faster on these later ones? Isn't that completely backwards?!

My left brain didn't get it, and then I realized -- it was my self talk.

It wasn't just my self talk though, it was my belief in my self talk. I was choosing in, believing all that I told myself.

You see, no one is born a winner or a loser, we're born choosers.

What we believe affects what we create. Why? Because you will act as though what you believe is true regardless of its validity! We are living, breathing, self-fulfilling prophecies.

We choose what we tell ourselves and we choose what we believe.

I choose to believe. I choose to live!

An Observation of Reaction to Dissent

There are no inherently wicked people, only wicked ideas and people who promote and/or follow them. (And thus, we are all wicked to some degree.)

One of these wicked ideas is that when there is disagreement, the opposition must be wicked.

Another is that we must destroy wicked people.

Put these together and we see why the wicked shun, pursue, and hunt dissenters.

One better idea is that, when there is disagreement, those who oppose our view are people with hopes and dreams and worth just like us. Even if they are promoting wicked and evil idea, they are still people -- children of God.

Another better idea is that we love and care for the well being of those who pursue wickedness.

Put these together and we see why the righteous feel sorrow for the loss of dissenters.

Lest I be misunderstood, I am not making commentary about when war is appropriate. I am simply seeing understanding between the frequent reactions I see played out in scripture.