starting point

"Always start with WHY...not WHAT."
WHAT is being done, should flow from the WHY it is needed. Wrestle to find the WHY and the WHAT then becomes intentional. The WHAT should fulfill the WHY. I hope that came out right.

craziest race

I forgot to blog about this, but I really have to. Last Saturday I ran the toughmudder.com in Indiana. It was the craziest race I have ever been a part of. 40 degrees and 20 mph winds didn't help any. The race was 10 miles through the badlands of huge hills that were made out of a sandy gravel. The obstacles were everything from going underwater and under a wall in a huge container full of ice water to army crawling in tunnels, to carrying a log on your shoulder for 1/4 mile. Others were the huge walls you had to scale, the cargo nets, the mile of waist high freezing swamp water and their signature electric shock with hundreds of charged wires that you had to run through. It was very tough and I still don't have complete feeling in one of the ends of my fingers. (perhaps some frost bite) I ran in the elite heat and placed second. I will say this, you never truly know who you are until you have pushed yourself to your limits. For it is then, that you see who or what you really are.

time away

Some of my most relaxing time of the year is around Thanksgiving. I keep back a couple vacation days for this time. I just got back from 3 days in the mountains of WV doing some deer hunting. It poured rain the whole time, but I still enjoyed just getting away to a place where cell phones don't work and no one has heard of the internet. I was blessed to come home with 2 coolers full of meat. Thanksgiving morning I ran a small 5k and won the first prize...a frozen turkey! Today will be spent hanging with my family and playing nerf wars and eating some good food. I am so thankful for all that God has given me. I want to enjoy all the blessings of life.

one shot

We only get one shot at this thing called life. One life to live however we choose, but someday we will be held accountable. I can't imagine when we stand before God and all the distractions and busyness of life are removed. We will then see with different eyes, the perspective that God sees. I wan't to live for that day...and I only got one shot.

challenge

As a church, we are in a constant change. The great thing is, people are constantly experiencing the LifeChanging power of Jesus. The hard thing is, as we continue to move forward, we have to change in order to continue to stay ahead of the growth. Change is tough and very demanding. Those who won't pay the price of change, experience the consequence of apathy and decline. Both have a high price tag. One is paid up front, the other is demanded on the back end. It's our choice wether we pay now or later.

Family fun

This weekend I got some great time with my kids. On Saturday, I got to hang with my 2 boys and one of their buddies the majority of the day. We played nerf gun wars for a couple hours and then I quarterbacked for a 3 on 3 game of football in the front yard for a couple more hours with them and some neighborhood boys. Then Sunday afternoon, it was just me and my little princess. I took her on a daddy daughter date to Graeter's Ice Cream. I'm blessed to be a dad and am loving this season of life. Upward Basketball season starts next week and I'm excited to coach my son Kross!

risk and failure

It seems to me that each one of us either leans to risk or caution. If you lean to risk, you lose quite often, but when you win, you win big. If you lean to caution, you very rarely lose, but when you win, it is usually small. Risk equals more losses but bigger wins, while caution equals fewer loses but smaller wins.

At least that is how it makes sense in my head.

become a miner

We have all had many life experiences, some good and some bad and many neutral. Sometimes we zip through them so fast in order to keep moving on, that we don't learn all that we can from them. What would happen if we sat down and took some time to again walk through our life's experiences with the lens of "What lessons were there for me to learn from?" How many things should we have learned that we didn't, only because we never took time to dig them out?

stalled out

I've been seeing a trend in spiritual growth in newer believers. Someone far from God comes to Christ and their lives begin to change. They accept forgiveness, grace, mercy and love. Their relationship with Jesus is all about themselves, just as it would be for an infant or young child in the natural. After a couple of years, their is a propensity to stall out. The reason is because their has to be transition from "what can I get," to "what can I give." Unless this transition is made from inward to outward, new believers will stall out in their faith. Our spiritual growth process must at some point turn from Us...to Others. We are redeemed to fulfill HIS mission and that is to reach the lost.

not found

I've been after a certain deer for the last 3-4 years. The first year, the day after the season, I see him while in my car. The next year, he walked under my stand while it was still dark, then out to a field where I could make out his antlers. Another year, I saw him as I came out from my tree stand, and he watched me from the top of a hill. Yesterday, he appears out of nowhere and I was able to get him stopped and quickly launch an arrow. I hit him...but after several hours searching could not find him. I will go back out and look again, but I am just sick over this. I been blessed to have harvested over 30-35 deer in my lifetime and this is the first one I have not retrieved.

something that matters

Start something that matters. What are you waiting for? Who's permission do you need? What obstacles are standing in your way? Why have you waited so long? Do something that matters.....today.

John 14:12

John 14:12 - "Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father."
We will do greater things than Jesus, not because of the QUALITY of the Spirit of God on our individual lives. For we all know that none of us walks sinless like Jesus. We will do greater things than Jesus because of our QUANTITY of the Holy Spirit poured out. In other words, Jesus was in one place at one time and we "Christ's Disciples" will be all over the world.

- idea from Radicle Together - Platt