Moments

  During this training I have ridden my bike in some scorching heat.  Sometimes it feels like my brains are cooking inside the bike helmet.   Today, it was raining.  I was scheduled for a four-hour ride but the lightning kept me in the house until later in the morning.  It was still raining.  Out on the highway, the wind was in my face.  The rain increased.  It was pouring.  I could barely see. What a changed from the heat of only yesterday.  Then, I turned a corner and the rain and wind stopped.  What was left was a wonderful cool ride. Sometimes life gets like that.  We go from burning up, to getting drenched.  We want to just give up and give in.  But no!  We are God's children, "beautifully and wonderfully made," created in His image.  Of ourselves we have nothing to boast, but with our lives vested in Him, we can ride through the fire and the rain, unto that greater day He has promised.

  One morning as I was running early, I started to feel weak.  The legs felt trembly like  they were made of jello.  My strength was gone and I felt like I used to on the last mile of a marathon: completely spent.  There was no good place to  lay down on the side of the road, but I wanted to; wanted to badly.  Besides, I knew I must keep moving back to the vehicle.  Once down, I knew it would be hard to get up and moving again.  So I kept moving back toward the vehicle, one step at a time Life can be like that.  Life drops a bonk on us sometimes and we get a jello-legged spirit. We want to just lay down and quit: escape at all costs.  But God did not call us to lay down.  He told us to "run the race that is set before us."  He didn't say run the race if you feel good and are not hurting.  He didn't say drop out and escape the pain.  He called us to run, jello legs and all.

  My reading of the Bible has shown me that God did not call us only to "be," but to "do," to risk, to challenge, to be different.  Christianity is an adventure, at least. At a minimum it is hard work.  It is hard working on yourself, to turn your eyes from the faults of others to the faults and negative propensities of yourself. And then, having the courage to change those comfortable within you to embrace the risks of alienating friends and family; having the guts to be different for Glory of God.   Jesus called His disciples to use themselves up, to burn themselves up for Him.  In the end He called them to die to themselves as He did.  "Take up your cross daily and follow me" was not an invitation to a church picnic but to a hard and sacrificial life, depending on the Father as He did.  Lord give me that strength to follow that course, and "run the race set before me."

  It has been my experience that God uses events in my life to test me much the same as I use triathlon events to test my training. I believe that through testing, He wants me to see how effective and committed our walk of faith really is or isn't and  get an honest appraisal of just how my spiritual training is really going. Testing is to inspire searching of oneself and trying of one self. God isn't testing me to know how I am.  He already does.  He wants us to be aware of what He already knows.  Just like Peter when he said he would go to the death with Jesus and Jesus said you will deny me three times, God already knew. God already knows what we are made of.   "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thought: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."   Psalm 139:23-24 B ut God also knows who we can be; what we are capable of.   I cannot help but believe that it is God's highest hope that we learn from our t

  It was late when I left for my bike ride.  Evening shadows were already falling.  There was no time to be gentle with myself. Time was of the essence.  Pushing against the wind  going out, I maintained a good speed.  Darkness was falling.  Coming back with the wind and now in the half light, I couldn't read my bike computer.  However I knew I was "soaring" again.  I couldn't see it, but I could feel it; magic moments from good to best.  The soaring speed  requires less effort than some of the more pedantic rides in the daylight.  Just after dark, I finished my ride and one look at the bike computer in the light left me amazed that I had done so well.   So it is with the prospect of the dark in our spiritual lives that we encounter.  The athletic life and the spiritual life require a single-mindedness, pushing to move unfit to fit, from darkness into Light, to who you were to the greater self God has called us to be.   These are those wonderful moments,  when we can

  T he 63 mile bike event was over a hilly course.  During the early miles, it seemed I just didn't have it, and I hoped I could finish this without it tearing me down too much.  As one hill after another was overcome though, it seemed to get easier.  I seemed  to go faster, The :want to" was overcoming the body's natural lethargy. At the halfway pint, I was into it, and found that special rhythm to it all that I all "soaring."  I wasn't going al that fast according to top road racing standards, but I was the top of my game and loving it.  I have many such rides and runs over the years where I smile to realize The Power had been there all the time.  These gifts from God are  not a comparative ones, but a personal experiences lived out through pushing through what your body, and the world would have you believe about yourself; to claim that personal prize that  God has reserved just for you; life more abundantly. 

  This is from June 4,  2009 when I was training for my first half  Ironman event  - 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike followed by a 13.1 run.   The training has been hard and now it is becoming hot as well.  This may sound corny but I feel called in all this.  At the same time, I feel blessed that I can train to do this event at an age when many men my age are shopping nursing homes or living in one.  However I do not feel exceptional, as I feel God has placed inherent possibilities within all of us.  For me, staying close to God helped me find my possibilities though not necessarily my talents.  It is my experience that the quality of our lives can be largely determined by our beliefs and our courage to act upon them.  My belief is in God and I believe if act with courage and commitment upon this training, that I will be enabled to complete this half ironman I am training for.   After all, training is an act of faith.  You train without immediately seeing the outcome but you believe that a

  By the fire on this frosty morning, there is a quiet peace of Spirit - a knowing, a sensing, a loving that now permeates my being and washes over me like a gentle warm wave, tingling my soul with a delight that is not fully comprehended.     Peace and joy glow within and without as yesterday’s failures and successes softly drift away into the silent swirling fog.   Distant times are fading into hazy reflection.   The past and future are now.   All that is felt, and all that remains is this one moment, this warmth, and a love that only intimacy with God can create.     Thank you, God, for this moment in which one truly lives in life eternal; living life in You.

She wasn’t pretty. In fact, she had a somewhat disheveled look to her.   Who knows what her job was at this prison I worked at, but she came around to transact some sort of business in my department now and then. Everyone avoided her as much as possible.   “She’s mean and hateful,” they would say.   “She’ll bite your head off. Better to leave her alone.” Indeed, she looked the part. Her furrowed brow, her prominent eyebrows, the narrow hollow eyes, the set jaw all gave her the look of someone you better leave alone.   She never had much to say and what she did say was short and curt, in a “better leave me alone” tone.   No one could stand her, but I   couldn’t understand why someone would want to be such a mean and disagreeable person.    Every time she would come around, she would pique my curiosity, but I also felt a pity that someone could choose to live a life so full of bitterness.   Being a little off-center myself, I naturally distrust majority opinion and what this my

 They say I have AFIB and am at high risk of stroke if I don't take blood thinners.  They say, that on blood thinners I should be careful not to incur a serious wound as the bleeding might be hard to stop.  They say my heart rate is too low and I could die in my sleep any time .  They say all the plant based eating and exercise, with no smoking,  no alcohol and trying to get plenty of rest means little as I am like all the rest in this condition with essentially one foot in the grave and doctor dependent.  My whole life future is articulated in a 10-15 minute doctor consultation.   I could believe maybe I don't have long to live. But, they don't really know that.  God does.  The lack of confidence in the medial profession and the dire prospects predicted by them for my life has driven straight to God.  I may be getting prepared to meet Him but I am more peaceful about it all than before.  God and I are closer than before, closer than if I had not had this diagnosis.  Who kn

  We put a lighted cross up in the pasture in front of the house for Christmas.  In these pandemic days, the cross shining out bravely in the darkness is a smile maker, a bad mood breaker.  "Because He lives" I can live also; now - and everymore.  "Because He lives, I can face tomorrow; because I know He holds the future:" not the government, not  the politicians, or any disease.  Since I found the Lord there has been  a cross in my life directing my way, shining  in the darkness that would overcome me.  The lighted cross reminds me of this lest I forget.  As  long as I can be reminded of that, I know there is a resting place for my world-weary soul and there will continue to be hope in my heart.   We feed the deer in the area of the cross too .   The deer resting at the cross seems to say I need to stay resting in the cross myself.      God bless us all.