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Thursday, November 09, 2006

"When's your birthday?"


Today is my birthday. Don’t ask me how old I am unless you’ll settle for my standard answer: "Old enough to know better, and still too young to care."

Yea, I’ve noticed some changes as I’ve gotten older, but I get to choose how I deal with those changes. My attitude is a choice I make that either helps or hurts me as I celebrate a birthday each year.

I had a friend who was nearing 100 years old. She got more and more excited with each passing year as she neared 100. By the time she was 99, she was organizing her 100th birthday party, telling her daughter what to do and how to do it, and confiding in me that she wasn’t sure her daughter was making arrangements properly.

We were talking one day and she said something about "an old lady" down the hall having physical challenges. I asked how old the "old lady" was.

"Well," my friend said, "I think she’s about 85."

Celebrate your life and your age with me today and let’s listen to life and make a life, not just a living.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

"Are you enjoying life?"


My office and studio are in a building on our farm. One window overlooks our backyard where our yellow Labs that we raise play.

So as I’m sitting here, writing these stories for you, I hear the puppies barking and playing and having a great time. But then there’s a noise I don’t recognize so I look up from my monitor to see what it is.
Evidently when my wife fed the Labs that morning, she left one of the food pans in a pup’s kennel. The pup had brought it out, flipped it over, and was pushing it with her nose all over the yard. Her sisters were ganging up on her, trying to steal it from her so they could push it around. The noise was the puppies banging the pan, stealing it from each other.

They were having the time of their young lives by simply pushing a pan around! I’m watching them and I think, "Wouldn’t it be great if all of us enjoyed the simple pleasures of life like that? Had a ball just pushing a pan around?"

You can enjoy those simple pleasures today, you know. Just ask God to leave a pan out for you as you listen to life and make a life, not just a living today.

"What's one little thing you can do today?"


I did an interview with a radio station in the Detroit area last month as Detroit and St. Louis played in the World Series. They gave the weather forecast just before I came on. It called for cold rain and the possibility of snow.

The guy on this morning team is a huge Tigers fan. So I asked him, "Hey, are the Tigers going to win the Series in the snow?"

And he said, "I don’t care how they win it just so long as they win it. But it’s hard to tell this time of year. The only difference between rain and snow is about one degree."

I’ve thought about that a lot. One degree, one little thing you do can make a huge difference in your life. For instance, if you eat one less candy bar today, you make a difference in your weight. If you smoke one less cigarette today, you make a difference in how long you live. If you pray one more prayer today, you make a difference in your attitude about life.

So choose to do one little thing and enjoy the difference as you make a life today.

Monday, November 06, 2006

"Are you making a real life?"


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.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

"How do you choose to react?"


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.