"Where do you struggle?"

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I was working around our farm recently when I noticed something growing under a very large oak tree. I discovered a small maple tree struggling to live under that huge oak tree.

I say “struggling to live” because it was very tiny. Its leaves weren’t fully developed and they were kind of turned down, like they were barely making it.

It occurred to me looking at that stunted maple tree struggling for life under that big oak that as long as the maple tree remained there, it would struggle for life, and probably never grow to become a mature maple, much less reach its full potential. Transplant it out in the open where it can get sunlight and won’t compete with another tree for rainfall and it thrives.

You are like a tree. If you stay in someone else’ shadow too long, you never reach maturity or your full potential. Transplant you where you’re nourished and you thrive. Step out of the shadows today and get where you can grow as you listen to life and make a life, not just a living.

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"Have you been reset?"

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My wife and I were at a concert and as she clapped her hands, a ring on her right hand struck her engagement ring on the left and the band snapped. You can imagine how bad I felt. The engagement ring I gave her broke, and after only about twenty-five years of her wearing it!

Well, I decided that getting the ring repaired would make a perfect upcoming anniversary gift. So I took it to a jeweler and the lady started showing me how thin the shoulders were on the ring, how the prongs were broken, and I smelled a sales pitch for a new ring coming on. Instead, she showed me a ring almost identical to my wife’s in which the diamond could be reset. I bought it and gave it to my wife on our anniversary at about the same time we arrived at our honeymoon spot all those years ago.

When our daughters saw the ring, they thought I’d given their mother a new ring. Amazing, isn’t it, how something old and worn, when reset, looks new? The same is true of you—give God your spirit, old and worn, and get it reset. You’ll feel and look new as you listen to life and make a life.

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"Are you open?"

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I travel out-of-town to speak to companies, associations, and other groups which means I fly some. And, of course, whether I like it or not, I have to check bags now more than previously. Now I don’t like checking my bags because occasionally something is lost, but sometimes I have no choice.

I stood in the baggage claim area of an airport one day, waiting for my bag to appear on the carousel. I noticed what I thought was my bag coming down the chute and making the turn toward me. I grabbed it up when it came by and went on my way.

As I carried the bag, it seemed heavier than I remembered it. At first, I just thought I was tired from the flight. But it really seemed way too heavy. I stopped and looked for my tag. There was no tag. So I opened the bag…and didn’t recognize a thing in it. It looked like my bag on the outside, but on the inside it was completely different.We’re like that, too.

We can look the same on the outside, but you don’t really know us until you get to know us on the inside. Open up, as you listen to life today and make a life, not just a living.

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"What are you afraid of?"

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One of the things I remember from trick-or-treating as a child at Halloween is that my younger brother was scared to death of ghosts. Or, actually other kids dressed as ghosts.

He and I would walk from one neighbor’s house to another and all of a sudden, he would scream and start crying. I would look around and there was a kid dressed as a ghost. I would hug him until “the ghost” walked on by.

He was afraid of ghosts not because they were ghosts but because they were dressed in all white. You see he had surgery a couple of times when he was a baby and later as a preschooler. All of the OR people wore white as did the other nurses and doctors. He associated their white dress and the white sheets of “the ghosts” with pain.

You know, we’ve had a lot of pain in the world this year—war, terrorist attacks, school shootings, genocide. It’s easy for you to associate that pain with every dark shadow in life and be frightened of lots of things.

Ask God to hug you until your ghosts walk on by as you listen to life and make a life.

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"Is there a purpose for every season?"

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Have you noticed with the change of seasons comes less daylight? When I get up in the mornings, it’s dark. There’s just not as much daylight now.

I understand all about the earth’s rotation and the seasons and distance from the sun. But somehow having less daylight affects me. I feel more tired at the end of the day, because it gets dark so much earlier. In the summer, when it’s light until nine some evenings, I go home and work in the yard or cut the grass. I have all kinds of energy. Now it seems like I’m ready for bed by nine.

I guess there’s a rhythm to life, isn’t there? A beat that is fast sometimes and slow others. There’s a purpose to every season. I mean I couldn’t work forever at a summer pace. So maybe the purpose of fall is to slow you down a bit, to get you to back off of the throttle for a while and coast a little more, to help you remember to breathe deeply, to force you to find a lower gear.

Find your rhythm in this season, hopefully a slower pace, and enjoy this season for what it is as you listen to life and make a life, not just a living.

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