Monday morning I was on my bike in the living room of our home, spinning on a trainer, watching a documentary called “The Wrecking Crew.” I was cycling (stationarily) as part of my physical training rehab following knee replacement, and watching the documentary as part of my plan to catch up on unwatched DVDs.

The documentary was about the recording studio musicians who played on most of the rock and roll hits of the 1960s … you might not know their names but you certainly know their music. They played amazing music and seldom saw their own names on record labels. They used their world-class skills to make other people famous.

One of the questions implied in the documentary was, “Would you be OK knowing you are the best in the world, yet living completely behind the scenes and out of the spotlight?”

I realized I was looking at the life I want to live nowadays. Not that I want to be a recording studio musician (although I’d love to have the chops), but I want to be a spiritual leader who pushes heroes forward so they can shine. I’m happy staying behind the scenes. I’m even happier when one of my guys steps forward into his place of leadership and ministry.

I would rather be the consigliore than the Godfather, Bagger Vance than Rannulph Junah.

Early in my adult life I’ll admit I held back out of fear. I thought the front row was for the cool kids and not for me.

Later, I began to accept more lead roles, hoping to replace my fears with boldness. But even then, most of the leadership roles I held were because I was drafted, or pulled up, or recruited, not because I pursued them.

And now that I’m firmly on the threshold of my 60s, my challenge is to know when I should stay behind and push others forward, or stand up and be the front man.

Even now I’m haunted by the question: Is my desire to remain behind the scenes a noble effort, or is it merely my own fear of standing tall and taking on the risks of leadership? Am I still afraid I don’t have what it takes and so use the humble card to stay back, hiding my fears behind the mask of nobility?

Cyndi reminds me often that if I avoid positions of leadership, an important voice will go unheard and unheeded. I can’t disagree with her. I know she’s correct. I married a very smart and insightful woman. I have an obligation to give away what God has given me – grace and love and peace – and I cannot always do that from the back of the room.

And yet, I was talking to Joe Willis earlier this month about his participation in the Timothy Ministry, a mentoring program for new deacons, it occurred to me how many of the new young deacons in the past three or four years have been part of Iron Men or Journey Group with me, and I realized the unique place God had put me, to speak into the hearts of future leaders. God has entrusted some of his best young men to me, and that probably wouldn’t have happened if I insisted on being the front man in everything I do.

And so, my prayer: “God, thank you. Keep my heart full of integrity and humility and generosity. Thank you for trusting me with these young men. Give me wisdom to know when to stay in the background, and when to stand up and step forward.

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

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“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” (Marcel Proust)

One of our favorite stops in Italy was Assisi, home of St. Francis. It was built on the slope of Mount Subasio and surrounded by a protective wall, and it is very old. Roman ruins have been found dating back to 295 BC. And so, all the streets are very narrow and winding, built for pedestrians and horses, not automobiles.

The first place we visited was the Cathedral Church of St. Rufino, named for the bishop who converted Assisi to Christianity in 238 AD. St. Francis was baptized in this church 1182, and preached there often during his adult years.

Next, we descended a small steeply-sloping street (take it from a man with bad knees, Italy is one sloping street after another) to the Chiesa Nuovo (“New Church,” built in 1615) which was built over the childhood home of St. Francis.

After lunch we descended (again) to the Basilica of St. Francis, the mother church of the Franciscan Order. It actually consists of two churches, one above the other. And below both of them is a small chapel containing the tomb of St. Francis. We spent time in the upper churches admiring the medieval frescoes; it was very cool to realize pilgrims have been coming here to worship for 400 years.

But my moment came in the chapel containing St. Francis’ tomb. We sat for a bit on the benches; my intention was simply to rest my knees, but as I sat and gazed at the tomb I was overwhelmed. I suppose it came over me all at once, the reminder that one man with a heart to know God can gather like-minded companions, and literally change the world.

I prayed, “Lord, give me a life to give away, that will draw men to Jesus, who will in turn change the world for Christ.”

Behind the tomb was a stack of paper that you could use to write a prayer to St. Francis. I wasn’t interested in praying to a man, even if he was called a saint, but I wanted to reinforce the moment, so I wrote out my prayer and put it in the box.

It was a powerful moment, and caught me off guard. I shouldn’t have been surprised, since God often ambushes me in places like this. Thomas Merton said he was drawn to sacred sites, not because he knew the places, but because he believed the places knew him. Well said.

How about you? Have you been pulled in closer to God through history and architecture? What is your story?

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

I need your help. If you enjoyed reading this, please share with your friends. You can find more of my writing on my weekly blog, read insights on Tumblr, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

What first captured your heart and opened your eyes to the world of art, music, and transcendence? Who was the first to ignite your artist soul?

For me it was a rock band: Chicago. Hearing their music literally changed my life in 1971. I would not be a musician today if they hadn’t happened to me. And this week I was fortunate to hear them play again, in Midland, at the Wagner Noel Performing Arts Center.

I was 15-years-old when I discovered Chicago, and their Chicago Transit Authority album was one of the first things I bought with my own money. Within a couple of months I’d cobbled together enough cash to buy Chicago II and III. I was hooked. I was in deep.

If you’d’ve told me then those same guys would still be playing rock-and-roll when they were 70-years-old I would’ve laughed. How silly. And yet, now it’s my life goal to enjoy what I do as much as they enjoy performing, all the way to the end of my life, just like them.

The music we love reveals how old we are. It’s better than carbon dating; better than clothes, hairstyles, poetry, newspapers, or sports. Maybe because at that time in our life we were full of searching and exploration, and the first musical sounds we heard imprinted on our souls like a mother duck imprints on her ducklings. What we heard during that window of opportunity never leaves.

One March evening in 2001 my brother called me on the telephone and told me to turn the TV to VH-1. “Which channel is VH-1?” While he was laughing at my cultural ineptness, my teenaged daughter came to the rescue by calling out “channel 40.” It was a “Behind the Music” special about Chicago. Carroll said, “My gift to you,” and he hung up his phone.

I couldn’t believe it. I dragged my rocking chair in front of the TV and camped out for the next hour. Cyndi smiled at me because she knew I was gone for a while. Even Katie noticed the change. “Wow!” she said. “Dad put down his book just to watch TV.”

I’m not a huge fan of Chicago’s power ballads from the 1980s. In my opinion, almost any other band could have recorded those same songs and had big hits. What I love most, and what makes Chicago unique, is their integration of horns with guitars, keyboards, and percussion … not as background accompaniment, but as primary drivers. Jimi Hendrix once said Chicago’s horns were like an “extra set of lungs.”

I have to say that the volume Tuesday night was too loud, excessively loud, even for a rock concert. So loud it masked the subtleties of the music, and I was sad I missed some of my favorite parts. But still, I loved it. I knew all the songs anyway.

Here’s the thing: I’m not really writing about Chicago; I’m writing about the power of music. I’m writing about how some things latch on to your soul so that you wallow in it for decades. Maybe for you it was soccer, or dance, or math, or mountains, or the beach. For me it was music, and Chicago made it happen.

Week after week I write about God, running, cycling, backpacking, spiritual growth, family, music, and loving Cyndi. And the truth is, I can’t separate those topics. They are woven together and I don’t care to cut them apart.

I went to the Tuesday concert, not just to hear the same songs I can listen to any time I want, but to reinforce a 44-year-old life-changing experience that still influences me every day. Music is one of our tightest family ties. Music is one of my deepest spiritual truths. I don’t want to let that slip away.

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

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It’s not a simple question to ask which parts of ourselves we should hang on to and which parts we should leave behind. If we throw away the best parts of our core personality we risk becoming someone we hate, but if we hang on because “that’s just who I am,” we risk remaining jerks for the rest of our lives.

I started thinking about this last week while reading from my Daily Chronological Bible, about a time when King David was nearly killed in a battle with the Philistines, and says, “Then David’s men swore to him, saying, “Never again will you go out with us to battle, so that the lamp of Israel will not be extinguished.” (2 Samuel 21:17)

The story reminded me of the movie, Air Force One, in which Harrison Ford plays President James Marshal. In the movie, the president’s airplane was hijacked while he and his family were on board, following a controversial speech where he vowed never again to negotiate with terrorists. The Secret Service tried to rescue the President by shoving him into an escape pod, but when the pod was located and opened, it was empty. The President, a former marine and Medal of Honor winner, had sneaked out of the pod just before it dropped, in order to protect his wife and daughter.

Back in The Situation room in Washington D.C. they were furious that the President wasted his opportunity to escape. The Vice President said, “He’s taking a terrible chance with his life. He has no right to take chances with his life.”

She believed he had a responsibility to the nation as a whole that superseded his wishes as a husband and a father. It was his obligation as President and his duty to the American people to stay safe and survive.

The Vice President’s desire was similar to that of King David’s men when they told him it was his duty to stay safe. “You are the lamp of Israel and you will not be extinguished. You owe it to us and to your country to stay home.”

But by insisting that David, a mighty warrior, take the safe route and stay home, they were asking him to give up a defining characteristic of his life.

It’s not a simple question to ask which parts of ourselves we should hang on to and which parts we should leave behind. Both stories speak to the conflict between two of the primary needs in a man’s life. Men need a battle to fight and they need to be part of a larger story.

Both President Marshal and King David knew their place: their importance to their countries, to the future and wellbeing of their people, and to the message and mission that had carried them into leadership. Risking their life was a needless threat to their important roles in their big world stories, but to sit down and expect other men to risk death and injury on their behalf ran counter to their own personal need to be in the battle.

Unfortunately, King David followed his soldier’s advice and stayed home during the next season of war. The Bible says, “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war … David remained in Jerusalem.” (2 Samuel 11:1, (which appears in the text before the other story, but probably took place later in time))

This is a prelude to the tragic story of David’s affair with Bathsheba, which resulted in the murder of Bathsheba’s husband, the death of their baby, and the near spiritual destruction of David.

I wonder if his adultery with Bathsheba was an attempt to fill the hole in his heart left when he stayed safe and stayed home. Did he exchange one real adventure with another pathetic one?

I’m not making excuses for David’s adultery and murder. I’m calling him out. He should have told his army he would go to battle anyway, even if dangerous, because he was called by God as a warrior king. But he caved. He took the safe way. He took the easy way. And both David and the nation paid a heavy price because of it.

We can force men out of the battle, but we lose more than we gain. To make a man remove all risk from his life is to carve away part of his heart, and we’ll end up with less of a man. We’ll lose much more than we know.

QUESTION: Are you staying so safe that you’ve lost important relationships, habits, dreams, or moral direction?

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

I need your help. If you enjoyed reading this, please share with your friends. You can find more of my writing on my weekly blog, read insights on Tumblr, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

How many times have you heard or said, “I only wish things could return to normal.”

As if there was such a time. As if there is such a thing as normal.

Yesterday I mistimed my elevator ride from the 19^th-floor to the basement, meaning instead of a peaceful quiet solitary ride all the way down we stopped four times to take on people. And to be honest, there was one gentleman already inside the elevator when I got in, so he had to stop five times. I interrupted his day.

If you hear someone joke that “no one in elevators talks to each other they just stare at the numbers” you are listening to a refugee from the 1990s. Nowadays everyone looks at their phone. Or, in the case of my building, they look out the elevator window to see what sort of weather awaits us outside.

But yesterday was different. For some reason, the elevator passengers started talking about how much they could’ve accomplished during the day if it weren’t for the interruptions. It was true for me as well. I had a long term study I hoped to make progress with, a temporary gas compressor installation south of Ozona and were we really making any money on the project, but I received a couple of emails from the home office that changed my day and my priority list. I didn’t get any work done on my original project.

But as I listened to the playful complaining on the elevator it occurred to me that the disruptions I worked on were more important, and solving them was more fruitful to the company. On my long trek to the parking garage I wondered: If it weren’t for interruptions would I even accomplish anything of significance?

Leonard Sweet wrote, “We should prize chaos more than order. Only chaos brings forth new ideas, new experiences, and new energies, because only chaos is open and receiving, ready for change.” (What Matters Most)

One of my favorite chapters from the Bible is Mark 5, and it tells about a series of interruptions woven together that made up Jesus’ day. Reading that chapter is a reminder that if it weren’t for interruptions we wouldn’t know much about Jesus actual ministry with people. The gospel writers didn’t write about day-to-day teaching, but wrote about the chaos that followed Jesus everywhere he went.

It has become a favorite phrase of mine, that “change adds energy,” and I rattle it off as if I have always known the truth of it, but it has taken most of my life to learn to stop resisting sudden changes to my perfect life plans.

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t wallow in chaos. I don’t seek messes and I certainly don’t plan my life that way. In fact, I am always trying to sort through the chaos and find meaning, beat down the mess to find the true story, untangle the situations to locate the lesson that will help us all find our way through.

I also know that constant chaos is debilitating and draining. Even deadening. So we should find places and times for peace and rest if we want our lives to be effective.

It is in those moments of change, the transitions, the chaos, when the danger of making a mistake is the greatest, that we depend, finally, on God. During normal times, whatever that really means, there is no future. There is only more of the same old thing. The future hides in transition. Hopes dwells in the chaos.

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

I need your help. If you enjoyed reading this, please share with your friends. You can find more of my writing on my weekly blog, read insights on Tumblr, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

There are surprising advantages to growing older; each year is a slightly higher platform for viewing the past. And so, just last week, from my current vantage point on the threshold of turning 59, I captured a new picture of life.

While listening to a Mosaic Podcast in which Hank Fortner spoke about faith and wisdom, I pondered a question he asked, one often used by motivational speakers and goal-setters: What would you attempt if you knew you couldn’t fail?

I thought about how personal failure has changed me and shaped our family’s life. I started making a list of what would have been different if I’d gone through life never failing.

Who would I be if I never failed? I …

…would be braver, knowing I couldn’t fail, but without the risk of failure what is the meaning of courage?

…would’ve never learned humility from having to start over being laid off so many times

…would believe our family destiny, safety, and success, depended solely on my economic decisions

…would’ve never experienced the restless heart that’s pulled me toward God

…wouldn’t have needed all those time-consuming and often painful training runs before each marathon

…would’ve succeeded in my first attempt at the Golden Yucca Marathon, never fully appreciating how difficult it was

…would’ve missed the deep spiritual meditations that came from those long training runs

…would have the same self-sufficiency I had when I was 20

…would’ve never experienced the strengthening, maturing, and seasoning, that comes from a failure-laden journey

…wouldn’t have sought out sages for wisdom and advice

…would still think success was all about me

…would have no patience with those who are suffering, for those who fail

…would have leaped up the corporate ladder moving to California, missing so many ministries and relationships in Midland

…wouldn’t know what it means to prepare

…would’ve jumped into teaching opportunities way too soon

…would’ve never needed, understood, or experienced forgiveness

…wouldn’t have learned to listen to advice

…would be worthless to anyone asking my advice

…would’ve never learned to give credit to others

…would’ve never learned to recognize bad advice

…would’ve never learned the details of why success happens

…would not understand or know risk; without risk there is no room for love, only conquest

…would’ve never learned that contingency plans are often better than original plans

…would’ve never learned how to learn

…would’ve never known anyone smarter than me

…would’ve never learned the joy of spontaneous improvisation in sticky situations

…would’ve never known how much I needed grace; never learned how to give grace away

We love to quote the movie, Apollo 13, “Failure is not an option,” but it’s wrong. Failure is not only a live option, it is a certainty. And if the oxygen tank in the Apollo 13 Service Module hadn’t failed, turning a moon landing into a rescue mission, NASA would never have had their “finest moment.”

But embracing the value of failure isn’t enough. Hank Fortner followed up his original question with this idea – that as Christ Followers safe in God’s embrace, failure shouldn’t scare us. A better question to ask ourselves would be: What would you do if you knew failure didn’t matter?

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

I need your help. If you enjoyed reading this, please share with your friends. You can find more of my writing on my weekly blog, read insights on Tumblr, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

I wasn’t sold on skiing again; not even sure I wanted to try; afraid my arthritic knees would give out. And besides, our last ski trip was 15 years ago. I’d assumed skiing was behind me, something I used to do. But I couldn’t let the rest of my family go to Santa Fe without me, and our five-year-old granddaughter, Madden, was joining us for her first ski trip. How could I not be part of that?

Everyone else including Madden skied three days, but I skied only the first day. I knew at the end of Saturday I was finished, and any further attempts would likely end in serious injury.

But what happened to Cyndi and me was surprising: this trip reawakened our love for skiing, and as we rode the lift together we started planning more family trips.

The reason for the surprise, at least for me, was how soon this reawakening followed a recent and pivotal conversation we had one noon at Rosa’s. The observation and question I usually hear is, “Why are you limping?” However, this time Cyndi’s sister, Tanya, asked, “Are you a candidate for knee replacement?”

“Yes.”

“When are you going to get it done? Why are you waiting?”

“I don’t know. I’m not ready to give up running, yet.” What I didn’t say, but knew, was that I’d only run six times since Thanksgiving, and none of those were pleasant. In truth, I’d given up running already.

Minimizing knee pain has informed almost every decision I’ve made in the past ten years. It’s kept me from doing fun things with Cyndi, like hiking in Verana or the Kalalau Trail. It’s pushed back too many of the dreams that once energized my life, and I want those dreams back.

I want to dream again of long dirt trails, of backpacking the Appalachian Trail or Continental Divide Trail, and as of this weekend, of family ski trips.

I’m fully aware that I may never run again after knee replacement, but I’m not completely convinced of that. We’ll see what happens. As Cyndi has noted, what I currently call running is “hardly running at all,” more like power walking, and surely I could keep doing that. My consistent prayer has been to ask God to remove the love of running from my heart whenever He thinks it is time. He hasn’t done that yet.

Thinking about knees and dreams has reminded me how important cycling has become. Not just as a form of vigorous exercise, which I love, but also as a vehicle for ambition and creativity. I need something in my life that pushes my own expectations. Carroll and Mark did me a big favor when they talked me into cycling, long before it was all I could do.

During one of my Santa Fe non-skiing days I was flipping through Penelope Lively’s excellent memoir, Dancing Fish and Ammonites, when I saw this comment about gardening: “The miraculous power of gardening: it evokes tomorrow, it is eternally forward-looking, it invites plans and ambitions, creativity, expectation.”

Her description of gardening is exactly how I want to live my life: forward-looking adventures, ambitions, creativity, and expectations. I want the important things in my life – work, sports, hobbies, ministries, and writing – to be forward-looking. I want to be engaged in things that make the future bigger, brighter, bolder, and smarter.

I want a life that spills over onto people and pushes them deeper into life. I know such a life can exist even with bad cranky knees, but thinking about new knees has reawakened me. It has leaned me forward. I can once again see on my horizon epic dreams of long distances and endurance adventures and moving on dirt with my guys.

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

 I need your help. If you enjoyed reading this, please share with your friends. You can find more of my writing on my weekly blog, read insights on Tumblr, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

Let’s just say that being a grandparent and being a grownup do not always have the same goals.

Our plan for last Friday was to drive to Dallas, to DFW Airport, for an interview with Homeland Security for Trusted Traveler Program approval, and then on to Mansfield for the weekend to be part of our granddaughter Madden’s 5^th birthday party.

We left Midland at 6:30 AM, driving on slightly slick snowy roads, and made it around Loop 250 to I-20 feeling bold and confident. The road conditions were not excellent, but they were passable, and I drove 40 mph hoping for clear traveling ahead. Maybe we would catch up to the edge of this slow-moving storm which hadn’t yet reached Dallas or Ft. Worth.

Traffic was very light, and the right hand lane of I-20 was mostly clear. However, the wipers and defrosters wouldn’t keep up with ice on the windshield and we had to stop a couple of times to scrape if off. Luckily we had two ice scrapers, so Cyndi and I would jump out and scrape each sides of the windshield and then jump back in, like a NASCAR pit crew.

After we left Big Spring the road conditions quickly deteriorated. Apparently the snow plow driver that had cleared the lane from Midland stopped in Big Spring for breakfast. Even worse, the traffic volume doubled, mostly big trucks driving entirely too fast since they didn’t have their family on board and thought they were invulnerable.

Our son Byron texted that snow had started to fall in north Dallas, so our hopes of clear driving were over. We phoned daughter Katie who had driven to work on clear roads but was now watching it snow outside her office window.

At Coahoma we decided the appropriate grownup decision was to turn around and go back home. It had taken us 1-1/2 hours to drive 50 miles, and traffic was slowing down even more. We’d have to tell our little girl happy birthday on FaceTime.

The drive home gave me plenty of time to think about our decision to turn around and how it mirrored so many other decisions we make in life.

How do we know when to turn back or when to move forward in faith in spite of the circumstances? How do we know how far to push into adversity and keep going, or when the grownup decision is to cut our losses, minimize future risk, turn back and go home? Do we keep moving in the same direction until receiving a specific word, or sign, from God? What is the difference between acting in faith and simply being stubborn? Or stupid?

The movie Searching for Bobby Fischer has a famous line about winning at chess, “Don’t move until you see it.” That theory of decision making works well with my engineer mind, which never wants to start a project until I can see the entire path.

But my friend Gene Abel once called me out on that when I hesitated to take a teaching opportunity at Midland College. He said, “Berry you always want to be certain of the whole path before you take your first step. Sometimes you have to start moving in faith and see what happens.”

Knowing when to go and when to stay is never easy and never clear.

Cyndi and I made the correct decision to turn around and drive back home last Friday. We’ll have plenty of opportunities to make that trip when the weather gets better. However, most of life’s decisions are not so obvious.

I believe the more we know and understand God the clearer the answer will be, but I also suspect we’ll have to step out on many plans and issues before seeing the path. The good news is, God doesn’t leave us alone to decide. If we’re seeking His will and pursuing our relationship with Him daily, then I think our default reaction to a tough decision is to trust our own hearts, where God dwells and where He most often speaks.

When a straight path appears ahead of us, we should take it. Make the move. But be prepared to stop and turn around if necessary. It may be that little out-and-back jaunt was what God wanted from us all along.

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

I need your help. If you enjoyed reading this, please share with your friends. You can find more of my writing on my weekly blog, read insights on Tumblr, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

Here is the thing about New Year’s Goals and Resolutions: They aren’t about feeling guilty over your life, or about correcting past mistakes.

New Year’s Goals and Resolutions are about leaning forward. They’re about living an intentional life. Instead of spending your energy responding to life as it happens, having goals allows you to create your own future.

I go through the goal-setting and resolution-making exercise every year, and most years I publish my list, to be accountable and to encourage other people to do the same thing. However, I would guess that over the last twenty years, my success rate, meaning the percentage of goals and resolutions I can say I absolutely accomplished by the end of the year, is probably less than 30%.

But I’m a different man because of that 30%. Not only that, I’m a different man for attempting the other 70%. Even the act of writing them down, and sometimes that’s all the attention I give them, changed my outlook for the next year.

PROJECTS I NEED TO FINISH:

Publish book #4. (I am deep into the structural part of this book, but it is hard to find quality time to work on it and live the rest of my life, too.)

Finish Cyndi’s outdoor shower. (I’ve been poking around the project trying to figure the best way to do it. I should be past most of the decision points now … time to finish)

Make modifications to our seldom-visited westerly side yard. (This project will spill over into making my garage more useful)

Finish our wills, end of life plans, financial statements, and all of that. (In the past two years we have lived through enough estate complications (from both families) we have no excuse to finish this up.)

HOW I WANT TO LIVE:

Take two backpacking weekends. (I don’t know how many more times I can haul my pack up Tejas trail on these sore knees; I should go now before it gets worse.)

Run a trail race.

4,000 miles cycling, 400 miles running. (These are more “holding-on” goals than stretch-goals.)

Run at least one more marathon.

Hold an Iron Men Retreat with at least five guys speaking.

Play scales and warm ups on my P-Bone at least twice a week.

Do core workouts at least two evenings a week.

Find a way to make my 100-life-goals more accessible and reportable. (This includes reorganizing and evaluating.)

WHO I WANT TO BECOME:

Make this my default reaction: Assume positive intent on the part of everyone

Ruthlessly eliminate hurry from my life. (As prescribed by Dallas Willard (via John Ortberg)

SCARY LONG-TERM DREAMS:

Run a 100-mile trail race (This may never be possible for me, but ultramarathons have sung their siren song in my ears ever since I first started reading about running; I can’t give up on this yet.)

Take an epic multiday bike adventure ride

HOW ABOUT YOU?

What are your goals for 2015? Share them. Who knows but that someone may have special abilities or information that will help you accomplish them.

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

I need your help. If you enjoyed reading this, please share with your friends. You can find more of my writing on my weekly blog, read insights on Tumblr, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

So the good news is that Amazon has been selling a lot of my books this December. The bad news is that I’ve spent two or three days each week standing in the long line at the downtown post office mailing books to the Amazon Distribution Center in Whitestown, IN.

The good news is that for all my line standing, I haven’t heard one person complaining beyond making obligatory jokes. The bad news is that not everyone in line speaks English so I don’t know what they are saying … but they don’t appear to be angry.

The good news is that we all handle long line waits better when we have entertainment, which is what we all have nowadays on our phones. The bad news is that means we are staring at our phones instead of talking to each other … not that I talk to strangers in line very often.

The good news is that one of the happiest Window Clerks at the post office says “Merry Christmas” to everyone he waits on, every day, in spite of what you may have heard on talk radio or read on a Facebook rant about how that greeting is now illegal … it isn’t, and it is still uttered by many. The bad news is that the post office no longer allows Salvation Army bell ringers to stand outside the door with their kettles … Cyndi taught me to drop a dollar in every time I pass by, but I pass by so few lately and I miss it.

The good news is that on Monday, the woman behind me in line quietly hummed Christmas carols to herself the entire time, in her deep, rich alto voice, and it was delightful … I would’ve turned to make a request but I didn’t’ want to embarrass her. The bad news is that the post office doesn’t have song leaders to help us all sing carols together as we wait in line.

The good news is that a large portion of my church’s live nativity was performed by members of our Sunday School class, and it made me very happy to see them sharing the gospel story in this creative way. The bad news is that I almost missed seeing it at all because I stayed too late visiting with friends and our new “family boyfriend” … I caught about fifteen seconds of their performance before they broke character and left for warmer shelter.

The good news is the Christmas season, and I love the friendliness and graceful air that exists between people. The bad news is that we don’t like each other the rest of the year.

The good news is that you don’t have to be swept up by the commercialization and competition that the laziest of us complain about, but you can choose to be happy, generous, kind, loving, and unselfish … go ahead, make the choice, you’ll be satisfied. The bad news is not enough people make the choice of generosity over resentment … generosity is life’s secret sauce, and it will make every aspect of your life better, richer, and deeper.

The Good News is Emmanuel, God with us … the Breath of Heaven breathes into us a fresh start and a new life for 2015. There is no bad news, in that.

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

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