Proverbs 4:23 says, “Watch
over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.”
(NAS) Again, in a different version, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it
is the wellspring of life.” (NIV)

I have known this verse – I’ve had it
memorized – since my college days, at least 30 years. Yet, for most of those
years I wasn’t diligent about my heart at all. I didn’t even understand what it
meant to watch over or guard my heart.

Guarding our hearts, there’s more to this
than merely avoiding evil. Erwin McManus compared it to building core strength.
Anyone who has worked out in the gym under an instructor for the past ten
years, or read a magazine article about getting stronger, knows that everything
comes from our core strength. In the fitness world, it is all about core
strength training nowadays.

Cyndi and I ran the Dallas
Half-Marathon last Sunday, around White
Rock Lake
and adjacent neighborhoods. Our original plan was to run with Katie as a family
sort of thing, but then she got pregnant and wimped out of the race. So, it was
just Cyndi and me (and 4,000 other runners we didn’t know).

I actually handled
the distance better than I expected considering my poor excuse for long training
runs; well, I was beaten-up and tired at the end, but not defeated. One reason
was because I’ve been training with Jeff Galloway's method: alternating running
five minutes and walking one minute; it has helped a lot.

Galloway has been part
of my overall scheme for recovering from injury, coping with seemingly
permanent knee aches, and my strategy to keep doing this sort of thing for a
few more decades.

He encourages runners to insert regular walking breaks into
their running, whatever the distance. Galloway
wrote, “When taken from the beginning of all long runs, walk breaks erase
fatigue, speed recovery, reduce injury, and yet bestow all of the endurance
benefits of the distance covered.”

I kept to my 5/1 schedule, making small adjustments
whenever necessary to space my walking breaks with the water stops. I was able
to start back running every time, and I maintained a better average pace than I
would’ve had I tried to run every step. That is, until I got to I0 miles.

At 10
miles, I just felt drained. I hit the wall. I don't know if it was because that
was the length of my longest training run, or if it was just what happened that
day. I adjusted my pattern to running 4:00 and walking 1:00, but I still
struggled. I eventually finished the half-marathon by walking 100 steps and
running I00 steps (my old backpacking trick). I wanted to finish in less than three
hours, so I kept working hard. I did finally finish in 2:55. An embarrassingly
slow time to actually commit to paper and hard drive, but even at that, it was
about 20 minutes better than my last half-marathon in Austin. It is my recovery-era half-marathon
P.R. Hopefully, the first comeback in a new trend.

Back in 2005 when I first
realized my left knee was hurt, I actually looked forward to surgery. I wanted
a quick fix to put it back like it was. I was willing to put up with surgery if
that’s what it took to fix it in a hurry.

What I eventually discovered, thanks
to my new friends at the Seton Clinic in Austin, was that what I needed
instead, was to increase my core strength. I followed a prescribed series of
exercises every day to build my core strength and correct my muscle imbalances.
It is a project I’ll continue to work on for the rest of my life if I want to
keep moving.

It’s a similar story about our heart. We want quick fixes, weekend
seminars, and fast solutions, but it takes a lifetime of guarding and feeding
and protecting and building core strength to avoid heart injury. That is the
“with all diligence” part.

Everything of value comes from the core. Everything
comes from our heart. We have to go to our core and get stronger inside if we
want to be productive and long-lasting in our heart.

This is not a passive
activity. We have to take the initiative to get stronger. We can’t just hope or
pray it gets stronger, we have to work it. We have to do the exercises.

We also
have to eliminate the things that hurt us. What have I allowed to inform my
life? It is good? What have I allowed to shape my heart? Am I feeding my heart
what it needs? What kind of crappyjack have I been eating?

Proverbs tells me to
guard my heart, for it is the wellspring of life. God actually sees me as
generative, able to create life. My heart is a wellspring; life can flow from
me.

This is way different than merely protecting what I have or guarding what I
know or staying away from evil. This is not a defensive posture, but an
offensive posture. I am supposed to use my heart to create life in other
people.

How about you? How do you guard your heart? How do you strengthen your
core?“

I
run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

This morning I was reading a series of parables taught by Jesus, and I
was struck by how often Jesus said, "He who has ears, let him hear,"
and "Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they
hear." Everyone Jesus talked to had ears and eyes, but not everyone heard
what Jesus said. Some were paying attention of other voices. Jesus was speaking
to those who were spiritually tuned in, or as we used to say in CB radio days,
"People who had their ears on." Lots of people heard Jesus, but fewer
listened to him, and fewer still let him speak directly into their life. They
are the ones Jesus blessed.

l woke up early this morning, at 5:40 AM, to get ready for my men's
class, and the song lyric running through my head as I got out of bed was,
"Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see,” from
Strawberry Fields Forever by John
Lennon. John was correct. It’s a lot
easier to stumble through life not seeing the world and people around us; it
was easier for the crowd to hang around Jesus if they kept their ears and eyes
closed. Easier, but they missed the encounter with the Son of God. They
misunderstood what they saw, thinking he was merely a miracle-working holy man,
missing the Savior of the World.

The reason I was singing Strawberry
Fields in my head first thing this morning was, well, I’m singing one song or
another in my head almost all the time, and quite often the song is my first
thought in the morning, but I was singing John
Lennon in my head because I have been watching a movie this week called Across
The Universe. My son, Byron, bought the movie for me a year ago, and he asked
if I'd watched it whenever we talked. I finally watched it this week. It’s a musical based on songs by The Beatles
and set in New York City
in the late I960s. It has been playing inside my head all week.

I found myself walking down the sidewalk listening to the guitar riff
from Come Together. And then I drove by Cyndi’s school say hello and to flirt
with her, and in my head I was singing, "Dear Prudence, won’t you come out
and play.”

Then I was working on some writing and in my head I heard, "There
is nothing you can do that can't be done, nothing you can say that can it be
sung, there is nothing you can know that isn't known, nothing you can see that
isn’t shown." I don’t know whether those lyrics helped or hurt the writing
process, but they wouldn’t go away, and I didn’t really mind.

There are some movies that I can
watch and enjoy and appreciate before filing them away in my memory for future
reference. Other movies simply take over my life for a few days. I’ve learned
not to fight the take-over, but to wallow in it. I’ll watch a particular movie
several times and let it sink in. Most of the time I'm not even sure which
images affect me; I just know I need to linger in the experience.

This week I was also listening to an audio
book titled, "My Revolutions," by Hari Kunzru. It was about a 1960s
radical-turned-terrorist, living quietly under a new name with a family that
didn't know his history, who finds his past catching up with him. Reading (or listening to)
that book, and watching the movie, put my brain firmly into the late I960s all
week.

In real time I was too young to understand the I960s. I was too young
to appreciate The Beatles until I was in college, long after they had broken
up. I was too young to be a hippie; in fact, I'm not sure we actually had any
hippies in Kermit, Texas. I did grow my hair out in the I970s,
but I was never a hippie. And I certainly never lived like the characters in
the movie or the book. Yet, I couldn’t shake them off.

So thinking about what Jesus said, one reason I read my Bible is to
keep my eyes and ears open. I want the words and character of God to haunt me
though the rest of the day in the same way that movie did. Even if I don't have
a specific verse in mind or a point to ponder, I know if I just read and wallow
in it, it will make me a better man. I don't want to misunderstand what I see. I
don't want to live an easy life with my eyes closed. I want to live with open
eyes and open ears. I want
to be blessed.

“I run in the path of Your
commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

To order Berry’s newest book, “Running
With God,” go to:

http://journalentries.typepad.com/journal-entries/running-with-god.html

You can follow Berry on Twitter … @berrysimpson

I was recently in a church personnel
committee meeting where we were discussing whether to hire one of our own young
adults as a youth ministry intern. Paul mentioned that this would be a great
opportunity for our young man to understand the stirring he is feeling in his
heart toward full-time ministry. Paul said, “He is hoping for a defining
moment.’

I joked (but like all jokes I was
partially serious), “I am in my 50’s and I am still looking for that defining
moment to tell me who I will be when I grow up.”

A fellow committee member joined in,
“After 70 years, I am still looking.”

Then Lee kicked in, too: “I still
haven’t found it after 80 years of looking.” It was a tough room; hard to be
the sage.

The next day during my noontime run,
I spent five miles thinking about our discussion of defining moments. I
thought, “There is good news and bad news in this.” The bad news was that none
of us would ever have that single defining moment that lays out the whole path
of our life. The good news? The same thing; we would never have that single
moment. We are more likely to have many moments that lay out our near term
plans and mark the phases of our lives. As I ran, I thought back through my
life of those occasions when I got a glimpse, maybe just a sliver, of defining
moments.

I remembered the moment when I knew
beyond a doubt Cyndi was the girl for me. It was a few weeks before
Thanksgiving of 1978, and I was sitting at the kitchen table in my college apartment
in Norman, Oklahoma, talking to Cyndi on the telephone.
She was in her dorm room at the University
of New Mexico, in Albuquerque. This was back in the day when
calling long distance was a big deal and cost lots of money. As we talked, I
was flipping through my Bible, and my eyes landed on Proverbs 16:9. Right then,
in that moment, in the middle of my conversation with Cyndi, I knew what to do.
I was crystal clear to me. It wasn’t scary. I knew I should marry Cyndi, and I
knew God would bless it. It was a defining moment for me.

I remember another moment, in the
spring of 1990, while sitting in my adult Sunday school class at First Baptist
Church, Midland, when God called me out. The challenge I heard so clearly in my
head was, “You are wasting our time and wasting your gifts sitting in class;
you should be teaching.” Later, over lunch, I told Cyndi about it, and she
said, “It’s about time.” That evening I asked Marilyn, our department director,
“I need to be teaching, can you find a class for me?” That moment has defined a
large part of me for almost 20 years.

The next defining moment I
remembered was when I was riding in my red Ford Ranger pickup on a snowy winter
Friday, in November 1998. I was driving to Martina’s
Bakery to pick up some beef tortas to take to Cyndi for lunch, when God spoke
clearly to me about a new writing ministry. My heart had been hungry for a
wider audience to share what God had given me. It was a breakthrough. I decided
that afternoon to start emailing weekly essays to a small group of friends, and
title them Journal Entries. After a few months, when I started having doubts
about it all, Cyndi reminded me, “You were called by God to do this. I know it,
because it comes from your heart, and your motives are true.”

I remembered
more moments when God continued to define me as a writer. Both were at Wild at
Heart camps. The first time was at a Boot Camp in the fall of 2003, in
spiritual conversation about my true name. The second was at an Advanced Camp
in the spring of 2008 after I saw the movie, August Rush. The message in both
of those encounters was too deep and too personal to write about, yet, but the message
I heard was similar – there is more here than you know.

And then I heard again when I
published my first book, June 2009. It was a defining moment to hold it in my
hand, to see the official bar code printed on the back, to see it for sale
online, to understand that I can do this, and to know that I can do it again.
It felt like the first moment of my next phase.

Not all my defining moments were
happy. In 2007 I lost a city-wide election after serving in city government for
twelve years. It was a hard message, that it was time for me to move on, time
to move boldly into the next phase of my life, time to put past successes
behind me and press forward. It was easy to write, but hard to do.

As I continued to run, nearing the
gym and hot shower, the familiar soreness in my left knee reminded me of a
couple more defining moments. My first marathon finish in 1983 at the Golden
Yucca Marathon in Hobbs, NM;
and then my 6^th marathon finish in 1998 at the Paper Chase Marathon
in Amarillo.
They were separated by many years and thousands of training miles, yet they
were similar moments, similar gut checks. Both races were too slow, but in each
case I was proud of myself that I could suffer and survive, that I could finish
without walking off the course.

Do you
have any stories you’d like to share? Any defining moments from your life? Mark
Batterson wrote, “It is the favor of God that gives me a sense of destiny. I
know that God can intervene at any moment and turn it into a defining moment.”
(Wild Goose Chase)

Tell me
yours …

“I run in the path of Your
commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

Order Berry’s newest book, “Running With God,” from
Amazon.com …

http://www.amazon.com/RUNNING-GOD-Berry-Simpson/dp/1607915448/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252036627&sr=8-1

You can follow Berry on Twitter …
@berrysimpson

Copyright 2009 Berry D.
Simpson, all rights reserved.

October 20 is a big day
for me; it is Christmas, in a way.

Each year I read through
"The Daily Bible in Chronological Order," one day at a time. Since
it’s arranged chronological order, it reads more like a grand story, from
beginning to end. The big story of God and mankind.  The psalms and prophets are mingled in place
with the historical accounts; Paul’s letters are placed where they belong among
the record in Acts, and like that.

On October 20, after
almost ten full months of daily readings, the story changes in a big way. Jesus
Christ is born. So every year I can celebrate Christmas in October.

Last year I sent out a
whole slew of text messages announcing Merry Christmas. As it turns out I
confused a lot of people who received the message but didn't know who it came
from. I got quite a few replies asking, "Who is this?" So this year I
posted my Merry Christmas on Facebook and email. I don't have much of a
presence on Twitter, yet, but I gave that a try as well.

Unfortunately the
Christmas story is so familiar and I have read it so many times it is hard to
read it again. My mind jumps ahead and forms the words before my eyes get to
them. That’s one good reason to read the story in October instead of December;
it sort of catches me by surprise.

I thought about
Zechariah, the husband of Elizabeth
and father of John the Baptist. When
the angel told him that he would finally be a father after so many years, he
said, “How can I be sure? My wife and I are very old." And because of that
the angel took away his ability to speak. I wrote in the margin of my Bible:
"Seems harsh; surely he was allowed one question. Moses argued with God in
front of the burning hush and he didn't get into trouble." What did
Zechariah do that was so bad?

And then the story
shifts to Mary, mother of Jesus, who was confronted by an angel who said,
"Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you." It
says Mary was greatly troubled at his words. I wrote in the margin: "I can
see why the presence of an angel might scare her, but his words should be
affirming not troubling." Why was Mary so afraid?

I don't know why
Zechariah got into trouble or why Mary was afraid; it was only words. But I
know my words to God matter, as do his words to me. Sometime I get so
comfortable praying I forget how important it is, what a privilege it is, how
eternal it is. I forget the power of words.

I don't know why
Zachariah got into so much trouble after asking only one question. We know from
other stories in the Bible that God usually allowed a lot of questions. There
must be more to this story than we’re told. Something must have been going on
between Zachariah and God that we aren't privy to, but it must have been clear
to Zachariah since he didn't fight back and doesn't appear to have resented
what happened to him. in fact, once his son was born, and once Zachariah’s
voice was restored, the first thing he did was praise God. He didn’t complain
and didn’t ask why.

I think Zachariah got
into trouble because of the condition of his heart rather than his words. I
take from this story that my words are important to God, but not as important
as my heart. I don't have to live in fear that I might pray the wrong thing or
ask the wrong question. What I need to be concerned about is the condition of
my heart and the status of my relationship with God.

What about Mary? Why was
she so troubled by the angel's words? Maybe in the same way that I get nervous
and start moving backwards when someone says, “You'd be really great at
this.." I try to avoid being recruited for something new.

Mary didn't stay troubled. As the angel laid out the plan,
Mary began to praise God; her words – the Song of Mary, the Magnificat – are
some of the best in the entire Bible.

We don't have to be afraid of the words from God. Even if
what he is asking us to do is troubling at first, We just have to relax and
listen and let him speak to us. We can trust God when he speaks.

October 20 was a strong day for me. Let me be one of the
first to say to you, Merry Christmas.

“I run in the path of Your
commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

      One
of the things I've wondered about for as long as I’ve been a wonderer is how did
the Romans do it? And Monday, while I was running in the cool rainy weather,
listening to a podcast interview with some famous movie animator, for some
reason I wondered about it again. How did the Romans conquer the world, rule
the wide variety of people, collect all those taxes, and build aqueducts to
move water hundreds of miles, using Roman numerals? How did they accomplish
anything without a place-value numbering system?

      In
my opinion, you can't do anything with Roman numerals except try to look
impressive. There are a few remaining users: the Super Bowl, Popes and Kings,
some clock faces, literary outlines, the Olympics, and the names of Army corps.
Publishers used to use Roman numerals to indicate the date of publication, and
I suspect they did it to intentionally obscure the actual date so readers
couldn’t know the true age of a book, but they don't use them anymore.

      Isaac
Newton and Gottfried Leibnitz invented their own mathematical notations and
numbering systems in order to develop and describe calculus. The Romans
couldn't even do 1st-grade math with their numbering system. Who knows how to
subtract IV from XXIX? No one does without converting to regular numbers. And
how do you express zero with Roman numerals? You can’t.

      Yet,
the Romans built some spectacular things. How did they do it? Was their secret
unlimited slave labor? Could they have had so many people working on a design that
the math didn’t matter? Those aqueducts – maybe they built multiple aqueducts
of various designs, and then tore down the ones that didn’t work, a grand municipal
trial-and-error method based on slave labor? I don't think so.

      “Who
cares?” you might ask, and I can’t blame you if you do. The only reason I
thought about Roman numerals while listening to an animator describe his work
was because only a few minutes before I had been listening to a different
podcast by Erwin McManus. Something he said was still ringing in my ears. He
compared our lives to Roman numerals, saying our value is determined by who we
have next to us. I couldn’t stop thinking about what he said.

      For
example, a Roman "I” can stand for one (I) or two (II), or three (III), or
four (IV), or nine (IX), and so on, based on what symbol is next to it. Unlike our
place-value numbering system, it is a relational numbering system. The value of
a symbol is based on who it’s related to.

      I’ve
seen in my own life, as I get older, that my true value comes from who I stand
next to rather than my actual place value. As McManus said, I’m like a Roman
numeral, whose value is determined by the other numerals around it.

      So it is for all of us. Our
value in this world is based less on absolute place value and more on who we
are next to, who we are related to. Our value comes from who we help, who we
learn from, who we team up with, and who we serve alongside.

      I don’t think I’m finished
thinking about this, though. Maybe during tomorrow’s run it will occur to me
that we are all more like differential equations, or more like cuneiform, or
maybe even more like cave paintings. What do you think?

“I run in the path of Your
commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32

      Erwin
McManus wrote. "We want to feel good about ourselves more than we want
ourselves to become good." (Stand Against the Wind).

      We
want to feel like we’re smart more than we want to study and learn. We want to
feel like we can sing all the notes more than we want to devote endless hours
studying the music. We want to feel like marathon runners more than we want to
do 22-mile training runs. We want to feel like we are getting stronger more
than we actually want to use our strength to help people.

      So
Wednesday morning I went to Cyndi’s Body Pump class at Gold's Gym at 5:30 AM. I
have been going to this particular early class since last spring, yet, I can’t
think of anything I do more against my basic nature than getting up at 5:00 AM.
My goal is to make at least three Pump classes each weak, and I go early on
Wednesdays only because Cyndi teaches and I want to be in her class.

      I
have been doing Body Pump workouts for about four years now, and I can tell I
have put on significant muscle mass. I am stronger today than I've ever been,
including back when I was much younger.

      Body
Pump is a group exercise class using low weights and high repetitions. The
weights are easy to adjust, and the challenge of the class is to put enough
weight on the bar to create a meaningful workout yet not so much you can’t
complete the routines. There is some trial-and-error involved in converging on
the perfect weight. My personal goal is to have enough weight on my bar that l
can't actually complete every single rep. I want to get stronger, and the only
way I know how to get stronger is to lift as much as possible, and the only way
I know how much is possible is to have enough weight so that I can't keep
lifting it. I’m sure that isn’t the officially recommended method for weight
determination, but it’s my theory and practice.

      That means that while I’m
getting stronger, I’m not that good at the Body Pump routines. I have to take
breaks and miss reps.

      One
of the reasons I don't worry as much about perfect Pump routines as I do about actual weight lifted is because of
something I read in an Outside Magazine. The article said our goal shouldn't be
simply to excel at the gym machines and classes and all that. Too many guys
workout hard mainly so they can be good at working out. The have perfect
machine-technique in order to be really good at the machines.

      Our goal should be
functional strength, not gym technique. I don’t want to just be stronger than I
was before, I want to be strong enough to run marathons, strong enough to help
friends move into a new house, strong enough to play all day with my nephew or
someday with grandkids, strong enough to haul a 65 lbs. backpack seven miles up
a trail at I0,000' altitude, and strong enough to be able to keep doing all
that stuff for a long time. I want to get stronger because I want freedom of
choices.

      All
that work in the gym is mostly worthless if it doesn't translate into real
life. If it doesn't make a difference in how I live and relate to other people,
it is just busy work. Maybe being fitter will allow me to live longer. but who
cares that I live longer if I’m living only for myself.

      Later Wednesday morning,
after class, as I was working on my lesson for Sunday’s young-adult Bible study
class, I couldn’t help thinking about my early morning gym workout. I thought
about how my biceps and shoulders were a little sore every time I moved my
backpack. I realized it doesn't matter how much I teach about Psalms (this
week's lesson: Psalm 5I) or how good I teach, or any of that, if what I learn
doesn't make a difference in my everyday life. I don’t want to simply feel good
about myself as a teacher. It is wasted effort to get pumped-up spiritually
just to be better at what happens inside the church building, just as it is a
waste to get pumped-up physically just to be better inside the gym. I don’t
want to merely feel good about myself, I want to become good, I want to do
good.

“I run in the path of Your
commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32