"Are you making a real life?"

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Former Virginia Governor Mark Warner was regarded by many as a leading Democratic candidate among those jockeying for position to run for U.S. President in 2008. That’s a pretty lofty place to be in your life; rare air for sure.

But Warner recently decided not to run, not to give the next year and a half of his life to campaigning and then potentially the next four years to the all-consuming task of running a nation. Why did he decide not to run?
Warner says that one weekend last month he attended his father’s 81st birthday and took his oldest daughter, Madison, to several college campuses as she prepares to go off to school. "I know these moments are never going to come again," Warner says. "This weekend made clear what I’d been thinking about for many weeks—at this point, I want to have a real life."

Mark Warner, front runner for what many regard as the powerful job on the planet, chose to listen to life and make a life, not just a living.

If Mark Warner can do it, so can you. Ask God to help you make a tough decision as you choose to listen to life and make a real life.

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"How do you choose to react?"

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A man walked into an Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, PA, took a gun, and before it was over killed 10 precious young girls and then himself. His choice was horrific, unmerited, and evil.

The Amish community there in Nickel Mines also made a choice. They chose not to return evil for evil.
Instead they cast a light into the darkness, expressing in a press release read by a local official that this man had made a bad choice and they forgave him for it. They didn’t blame anyone or anything, just forgave.

Their radical forgiveness doesn’t mean their grief wasn’t severe. It was and I’m sure still is. As the father of two daughters, I can’t begin to imagine how they must feel. But they chose to pass on God’s love they’ve received; forgiven, they chose to forgive. That Amish community knows that darkness only breeds more evil and so they chose to shine the light of God’s pure light.

What will you choose today when someone wrongs you? How will you react to evil? Choose to love and forgive like God as you make a life today.

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"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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