A week condensed

A weeks worth of random thoughts and happenings in no particular order.

• I love riding roller coasters. Got to ride a couple last week. Especially loved the fact that I was able to walk right up and ride one of them immediately. No line to wait in and it was one of the ones where your feet hang down (those are my favorite). Several loops and corkscrews. Nice ride.
• Had my first experience eating Ethiopian food last night. It was at a one year celebration party for when our friends got to bring home their amazing daughter that they adopted. Seems like she has been a part of our lives for longer than that. It was cool to see the pictures of when they were in Ethiopia and when they arrived back in the states last year after adopting her. Can't say that Ethiopian food is one of my favorites, but she definitely is one my favorites.
• Schlitterbahn is definitely worth it. Best water park that I have been to. Loved hanging out with my family especially in the wave river. The slides were pretty cool as well, even though we never knew for sure where we going to end up at. Nice break from the normal.
• My wife is amazing. I love just sitting down and talking with her. Yesterday was an especially long (and somewhat frustrating day), but we got to hang out last night for a couple of hours and talk. I love the insight she brings into the conversation and also that she is willing to patiently listen to me ramble on for quite awhile. I probably take her for granted more often than I should and don't tell her often enough, but she is freaking awesome!
• I don't like having to have discipline. It really isn't any fun. I know their are benefits of it down the road, but it doesn't make it any more enjoyable at the moment.
• Had the chance to open some challenge cards last Sunday at church. Love this idea, even though it will require the previously mentioned discipline. Lisa and I decided to do them together. Ours were to work out at least 3 times a week for 30 minutes and to memorize Matthew 5 by the end of the year. Like that the challenge cards will stretch the faith of those who opened them and create lots of possibilities of growth for our church. Being stretched is almost always required if you want to grow in your faith. It doesn't happen by just sitting on the sidelines or doing the same things that haven't worked in the past.
• Enjoyed the nice break of reading fiction for the last several weeks (on the sixth Harry Potter book right now with one more to go after that) and looking forward to reading Steven Furtick's book (Sun Stand Still) that is coming out in September. His blog is one of the most consistently challenging ones that I read. The book is about daring to believe God for the impossible. We settle for so much less than God is able to do.

Looking forward to the week. What has moved you this last week? How are you being stretched in life right now? Ready to jump in the deep end? I am. Bring on the week.

Thoughts from the racquetball court

Had the chance to play some racquetball last night. Here are a few things I learned while running around a small room chasing a bouncing ball.

• Don't know if you've ever seen the guys who play racquetball all of the time, but I don't think I want to ever fit the normal. The usual player appears to be somewhere between 55 to 70 (I at least have a few years before I reach the minimum age requirement). He usually appears to be pregnant or have a beer belly. Seems to have hit the jackpot on braces as he will have at least one and more likely three or four - one for each knee and elbow. Has a sporty headband for his bald head and appears to be about ready to collapse at any given point. Also he will be extremely sweaty even though he doesn't appear to run at all during the game. Optional that they talk a lot about politics (Chris this may be your sport in the future).
• Now that being said, they can absolutely kill me in racquetball most of the time. They have perfected the shot that barely touches the front wall and then just dies (a kill shot for those who don't know the term). They stand in one place and direct the ball with great accuracy. Now if they have to take more than two step for the ball, I've got a chance. Matter of fact we were given one of those compliments last night that isn't really a compliment (you know, one of those comments like you aren't nearly as fat as I thought you were going to be). We were told we had a lot of energy to run around and keep the ball in play. Translation - you can't hit a kill shot if your life depended on it. At least it sounded nice when he told us that we sucked.
• Momentum during the game can swing quickly. You can go on a streak and win 7 or 8 points in row and then it just disappears. You can't hit two winners in a row and no points are won by either of you. Or the other player seems to be able to hit serves that all of sudden you can't hit back to the front wall. A little like life. One moment everything is sailing along beautifully and then life is totally out of control. Seems to happen quickly and turns on one small event. Also we often have the tendency to run around in circles chasing the unimportant instead of just staying in the center and waiting on the ball.
• Things that look very similar are often very different. I also like to play tennis. It also involves using a racquet to hit a ball on the court, but they are two totally different games. Tennis depends on your swing and you use your entire arm. Racquetball is a game of small adjustments and depends on your wrist action. In tennis the ball is coming straight at you (most of the time anyway), whereas in racquetball in can come from many different directions. Tennis you have the net to hit it over. Racquetball requires hitting it off of four different walls. They look similar but are two totally different sports. Sometimes I wonder if we get other things mixed up because they look similar on the outside, but really they are quite different when you take the time to look at them more closely.
• Oh, and in case you were wondering. I won two of the three games. Also my shoulder is sore today. Wonder when I can start wearing some of those braces?

Hope you have a fantastic weekend! Next week will be quite on here as we are off to play for the week at Shlitterbahn and to visit Shamu.

What do you do in the moment of hesitation?

Why do we make stupid choices? Usually when I am about to make one of those unwise choices, I have a moment of hesitation. That point where I question whether I should be doing it. Usually though we rush by that moment. We don't want to dwell there because we may have to look at our real motives. We may recognize what we are about to do is simply wrong. We override the moment so that we can do want we want. And can't we be convincing in the moment? We can justify and make it sound rational to ourselves. But I wonder how well those sound decisions would be if we tried them out on someone else first? But we don't want to do that. We don't want to bring someone else in on what we want to do. They may tell us it is wrong and that we shouldn't do it and we really, really want to do it. So we go ahead with our plans because we know what's best, right?

Sounds pretty lame when you walk through it. We let our pride (we know what's best for us) convince us that we have it all figured out and don't need any help. Not sure, but I can't think of anytime when arrogance really is that helpful. It boils down to our selfishness. We want to do it so we choose not to listen to anything that might challenge us. Sometimes we may get away with it. We have our fun and no one seems any the worse for it at the moment. But sometimes, it accumulates before it hits the fan. If we make a routine of ignoring the call to be holy, at some point it catches up with us. We may think we are getting away with things, but I wonder what it is costing us that we don't see right now?

I've made those stupid choices. Choices that I knew were wrong, but that I wanted to do anyway. Hopefully I am learning to pause longer during that moment of hesitation. I have learned to slow down the decision and run it by some people who have my best interest at heart. People who will challenge me. Friends who tell me that I am wrong (even though I don't like to hear that). Someone who will point out my selfishness. I still want to do stupid things, but wanting to do something stupid isn't the same as doing it. Maybe I am learning from the past mistakes.

Know some people dealing with those stupid choices right now. You don't get a do-over. You pay for those choices. Those are the consequences, but you can learn from them. See we learn in the hard parts of life. We learn in the struggles. We learn in our doubt. We learn when things are beyond our control. The justifications, the rationales we use don't really help much then. They are great at letting us walk into the situations, but don't help much with getting out of them.

No matter where you are in the process... in the good times, the moment of hesitation or dealing with the consequences of bad choices... authentic relationships our critical. Simply put - get over yourself. Seek out those relationships that will challenge your bad decisions, encourage you in life, and move you towards a more Godly life. Living transparently can be a little awkward for us at times, but it sure beats dealing with the mess of living selfishly. What decisions are you thinking about that you need to involve someone else in? Who in your life can you be "real" with? Who will you tell you the things you need to hear and not just what you want to hear? We do a pretty good job of telling ourselves what we want to hear so we really don't need more of those voices. Someone willing to be transparent and authentic to do life with you... don't think you can have too many of those voices in your life. As always it is your choice, but run it through this filter - Is it wise? That questions seems to cut through the noise and get to the bottom line.

Your choice of character

"Your talents and abilities can take you where your character can't keep you." - Steven Furtick

You have talent. You've built something special with hard work and God-given abilities. It takes years to establish the excellence you have reached. You have created something that is worth striving for. Momentum is going your way. You have made strides in an area that can make a difference for years to come. It is an achievement to be proud of. And it can be gone in an instant. What takes years to achieve can be gone with one single lapse of character. A decision to cut corners just this once. A decision to do something that no one else will know about. One decision that leads to a moral failure. All your momentum, all of your talent, all of your hard work... wasted because you chose to compromise your character.

We spends lots of time developing our talents. We teach our students to study hard. We spend hours becoming better at sports. We take time to learn to do things better and more efficiently at work. We spend lots of time on our talent and abilities, but what about developing our character? There isn't a short cut to developing character. It is made one choice at time. Is your character keeping up with your talents and abilities? Is there one thing out there with the potential to cancel out all of the success you've had up to this point? Your choice. Your character. Decide now because it could all be gone with one decision to compromise your character.

The weekend has arrived

It is finally Friday. This seems to be one of those weeks that has lasted twice as long as normal. Probably doesn't help that I wake up tired and am completely exhausted by 9 P.M. I'm ready for normal to return. Now if I could just define what normal is. Anyway, some random thoughts as I look forward to the weekend.

• Fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays. Two simple reasons and another obvious one. The fourth at my parents house means lots of people - aunts & uncles, cousins, family friends, you name it. There is always someone stopping by during the day with anywhere from 20 to 40 being there for the fireworks at night with room for whoever else wants to show up. Everyone is welcome. For our extended family it is a time we can all get together. Christmas tends to be chaotic with lots on everyone's schedule so it is hard to get everyone together, but with the summer, the fourth tends to be a lot more flexible. Another favorite is homemade ice cream. We are talking vanilla, chocolate, peach, strawberry, Butterfingers and who knows what else might be available. Love my mom's homemade ice cream. The obvious one - somehow me and my cousin end up being the ones who light our night fireworks before the big show begins. So I get to play with fire and watch things blow up. Pretty good day.
• Feeling like doing something to shake things up a bit. Seems like some friendships have gone a little stale and predictable. (If you know me, predictable is not high on my favorite word list.) Not sure yet what that means, but know there will be some things that are different in the near future.
• Been spending some good time praying recently. I like those times in my life when prayer seems more like a continual, on-going conversation. It isn't always that way, but that is what I strive for.
• Is it awkward for anyone else to hang out with people you used to know pretty well but now don't have much in common with? Had that happen several times recently. I'm not big on lots of small talk to begin with, but to try to have small talk with someone that I used to have deeper conversations with just seems weird. My thought usually runs along the lines of why?
• Been reading the Harry Potter books recently. (I know I'm only about 5 years behind that sensation.) We watched all of the movies about 5 or 6 months ago so now I'm reading the books along with Lisa and Caleb. I like reading fiction along with the other books about leadership, etc. that I read. Looking forward to the last couple of movies coming out in the next year also. (No I won't be dressing up or standing in a long line to see it. Don't get the Potter, Twilight, Star Wars fans who have the desire to dress up in character to go see a movie. Guess I am just not a true fan.) Should I read the book first or watch the movie? Have liked watching the movie and then reading the book. More details than the movies (obviously) plus I am not thinking "wait, that isn't how it happened in the book" while I am watching the movie.

Okay campers, be safe out there this weekend and don't blow up any body parts while playing with the fireworks. Also make sure to "ooohh" and "aahhh" loudly after each firework explodes in the sky. Your neighbors will appreciate that. Catch you next week.