Time has passed so quickly the past few weeks. Just when you think things are under control and life is slowing down, if only for a moment, IT hits. You probably know what I am talking about – the IT factor. Some might add a few consonants in front of that word, but the “it” factor is when anything and everything seems to happen on a given day. That might mean some potentially good things, but for the most part, when “it” strikes, you can expect a day of chaos, unexpected interruptions, and circumstances outside of your control.

That’s what seemed to happen to me…not just a day, but an entire week of the “it” factor. Needless to say, that week is over and I am trying to awaken from a dormant cycle to regain some focus and direction. That’s not always an easy thing to do – the human temptation is to coast, wander, drift, etc. I’ve never really fallen into that category before, and I certainly don’t want to start now. You probably have known a drifter or two in your life. Here’s a typical scenario: up for work (not willingly, and usually late), passionless while at work (struggling to focus, or even staying awake), comes home from work, hits the couch, turns the tv on, and finally, vegetation. This happens day after day until the weekend hits, when suddenly the drifter finds a wild passion that makes absolutely no sense, and lives life with abandon for 48 hours. But then Monday hits, and the drifting captures their heart, and a complacent and visionless life is born. What’s worse is when the drifter gets married and sucks the family right into the same game. How many families do you know that eat t.v. dinners while staring at the tellie throughout the evening, only to get up and do it all again the next day?

I think we’ve all been tempted to be a drifter. It might possibly be grafted into our genes at some minute level. So how do you get from the town of “Driftwood” to a new city of hope and purpose? I think the Life Plan attempted to answer that question:

(1) You have to WANT something more than your own selfish desires. This is really the first step, and ultimately the most difficult.
(2) Determine WHERE you want to go. In other words, develop a mission/plan for your life. Everyone ends up somewhere, but few people end up somewhere on purpose. Intentional living can be a powerful tool.
(3) Identify WHO you are. What are your values? If you could identify some specific characteristics about yourself, what would those be?
(4) Clarify WHAT you want to accomplish with your life. Set realistic and short term goals for yourself. This would be a great thing to do with your family as well.

Now this might seem all nice and tidy (and of course there are four “W’s” for you to easily remember!) but the key is to turn these thoughts into action. I have really struggled with this for most of my life. I have a lot of ideas, thoughts, dreams, visions, etc. rolling around in my gray matter, but ultimately if I don’t “DO” then they will only sit there and rot and mold in my brain. It reminds me of Mr. H’s saying, “Success comes in cans, failures come in cant’s…” That’s a great motto for life. Or as Jesus might say to you, “all things are possible through me.”

There are so many colloquial phrases we could throw in the hat here, but I’m afraid we’d be here all day long. I’ll leave those to your imagination. But for today, I’m going to travel some…not towards the dreaded city of “Driftwood,” but to a world full of hope and possibilty…I “can” do it!!

I have finally had the opportunity to read again. I really miss it when I don’t have the chance to digest a few pages each day. I just finished “Death By Meeting” by Patrick Lencioni. If you ever find yourself leading a meeting (or sitting through countless numbers of them!) I highly recommend this creative and intuitive look at the meeting world. It is a very quick read and extremely applicable and enjoyable.

I’ve started reading “Through the Painted Desert” by Donald Miller. If you recall my previous post, he is the author of “Blue Like Jazz,” a phenomenally written tale of life near Seattle. Funny, witty, and relevant are three great descriptors. The book I’m reading now, however, takes a different look at life. This is one of Miller’s first books, and while the writing is incredibly descriptive, it takes awhile to digest it completely. Miller crafts an interesting tale of his journey from Texas to the west coast in such a way that captivates the reader from the get go.

I love his point about how life is like a book. Everyday we draft the pages of our life book. Some of us have many pages in our book, others more, others less. We cannot change the pages we have already written, but we can choose to write our story differently each day. The key thought is this…how many more pages do you have left to write? I find myself thinking about this more and more. The concept of life and what is left to live. Our “Life Plan” study at Meadow Heights has really opened my eyes to the “plan” of my life. Or at least the lack of a plan for my life.

I used to think that planning wasn’t necessary. Existentialism was my daily mantra. “Live life to the fullest each day” was my motto. Freedom was my declaration, and planning only stood in the way of that. Maybe that’s why God waited 33 years to capture my attention and wake me up from the solstice of my dreams. I wasn’t ready to think about planning, let alone God’s plan for my life.

But now I am increasingly infatuated with what the future holds. Developing a strategic plan for the goals I have seems to be a logical and necessary step. I have also found that there is power in writing goals on paper – getting those thoughts from my brain to the page holds great value to me. Now the challenge is actually following through with those thoughts. I love how Jesus tells us to “go” and to “do.” Don’t get me wrong, life is not always about those two words, but for most Christians it’s the toughest challenge they face. It’s easy to talk about Jesus, but much more difficult to LIVE like Jesus.

So the question to ponder is this…what are you writing in your “life book” today? And what will you write tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. And probably the biggest question is how many life pages do you have left to write? Don’t waste another day of mindless drifting, and certainly don’t wait for your ink to run dry. Craft a life page today that you will look back to with fondness and want to read over and over again.

As an avid musician for many, many years, I love the lyrics of a recent Casting Crowns tune entitled “Lifesong.” It simply states this…”Let my lifesong sing to you.” What great imagery!! And if you care to discover it, I hope you’ll find my lifesong worthy of listening.

I haven’t been skiing since I was a freshman in college at Northeast Missouri State University (Now Truman State). They used to have a ski resort there (which my feeble mind cannot remember the name at this point of my life) where they made artificial snow and had a small lodge and a few slopes. With the errant views of many of my more “liberal” friends, global warming has made this place obsolete today.

Colorado was absolutely beautiful. The mountains were beyond description. Our first day there was sunny, clear and about 40 degrees. A perfect day for skiing. Believe it or not, it was like riding a bike for me. I absolutely loved it!! For me it is a combination of water skiing and roller skating. If you have ever done either one of those before, you’re a good candidate for skiing. The first day started slow at first, but soon after I was shooting down the slopes with incredible speed (and sometimes not by my own choice!).

The second day brought colder temps and harrowing winds. They actually closed one of the lifts because it was too windy. By mid-day it was snowing…the wind and snow stung your face like a thousand tiny wasps burying themselves in your cheeks. It almost became unbearable, but most of us were not deterred by the elements. The second day also brought some different and more challenging slopes – including a few marked in the “black” or very difficult. I have to admit that the first time we hit a black slope was by accident – but fortunately we made it through. For you non-skiers out there here were the colors associated with the slopes at our resort:

* Green – easy
* Blue – medium
* Black – difficult
* Double Diamond – you must be an idiot if you try this

While we spent most of the time on the greens, we did manage to tackle quite a few blues and as I mentioned before, an occasional black. There’s something very challenging and daring about staring down the face of a mountain with no idea how you might get to the bottom. You try to go very slow – side to side – but at some point you have to make the decision to turn the skis downhill and go for it. WHAT A RUSH!! I don’t know how fast one goes on the side of a mountain, but my guess was in the 30-40 mph range, and if you haven’t experienced that before – PUT IT ON YOUR LIST OF THINGS TO DO BEFORE YOU CHECK OUT OF LIFE.

John Eldridge wrote a book called “Wild at Heart” that challenges men to go through some experience that will exhilarate the soul. This was one of those experiences for me. To be a barbarian, if not for just the moment, was a refreshing and fulfilling moment in my life that will not soon be forgotten. Standing at the top of a mountain over 8000 feet up and peering off the edge into an expanse of nature so glorious…I definitely felt a connection with God at that moment. A reminder that life should be enjoyed and breathed in…not a shallow breath that is fleeting and then gone, but a deep breath that takes so long to exhale you’re not sure if you’ll make it to the next breath. That’s what I felt at the top of that mountain. A fresh breath of life.

The challenge comes not from finding that moment on top of the mountain, but transferring that to the bottom of the mountain in every day life. How does one capture a “fresh breath” in a world consumed by the fast pace and shallow breaths of life? That’s the challenge. Not just your challenge or mine, but our challenge. To face the world through new eyes, taking time to breathe slowly, to capture the essence of that breath, and then exhale only to be consumed by the next. Have you checked your breathing lately?

I heard recently that stress is not something that is detrimental; it actually builds you up. But only if you allow time for recovery. It’s similar to exercising. Have you ever climbed up a set of stairs only to get to the top panting for the next breath? Through exercise you are able to build your capacity to process more oxygen and ultimately have more energy and recover from your exercise. The mountain was like that for me. I was trapped in a world where I could only run to the top of the stairs once, gasping for my next breath, my oxygen depleted. But I caught a glimpse of what life might be like if I “exercised” my mental being – full of energy – completely recovered. We forget that oftentimes our mind needs some exercise, some freedom, some recovery. Don’t get trapped in a “mind game” that breeds routine, uncalculated decisions, or mindless thoughts. IT’S TIME TO EXERCISE YOUR SOUL!!

This might look like a lot of things for you. For me it means reading again. Expanding my mind, exercising it if you will. Reading leads to new ideas, discussions, dreams, and so forth. It may have even lead to these posts today. Everyone needs an outlet to exercise their soul. What does that look like for you?

So I close this post today ready to “breathe” again. Ready to capture what God has put into my mind for this day and maybe the next if I’m lucky. Ready to experience exercise for my soul and to share this journey with my wife, my family, and any others that would play fancy to my ramblings once again. If life is ready, I’m ready to breathe.

The New Year has jumped in front of me like a bus you weren’t expecting. Here’s is a short list of some things that have happened in my life since my last post:

* Recovered from the preparation and execution of 4 Christmas Gatherings at Meadow Heights Church during the week prior to Christmas
* Experienced the joys of Christmas – Christmas Eve with my own family, traveled to Eldon for my wife’s family on Sunday, then on to Sedalia to spend Christmas with my own mom. Back to Fredericktown the next day.
* Short trip (and I mean short!) to Colorado for two days of skiing with my son and friends. A FANTASTIC EXPERIENCE!! We drove over night on a Sunday, went skiing all day Monday, staying in a lodge overnight, went skiing the next day and then packed up and drove overnight back to Missouri – a 16 hour marathon in a van!
* New Year’s Party with friends – the clock struck midnight way too soon!
* Recovered at work from the holidays – began planning for the New Year.
* Successfully manuevered the holidays with a college student at home. Took my daughter back to school this week as she prepared for her new semester – with lots of studying!!
* Began a new “Life Plan” with my wife that will hopefully engage our minds and tempt us into becoming intentional with our lives.
* Started our Life Group again this past Sunday – it was great to get together with friends again.
* Finally began reading again – Ordering Your Private World by MacDonald. I think I am finally ready for this book…and I need it.

What does the future hold next? Hopefully more posts…but only time will tell!