"Are you in a fog?"

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My wife and I went out to eat with some friends. As I drove over to their home, the fog began developing. And the further I drove, the thicker the fog became. As I drove nearer their home, I found the subdivision, but took a wrong turn, and pretty soon found myself disoriented. Finally, I found their place.

As I drove to the restaurant, the fog became thicker until pretty soon, I could hardly see past the end of my car.

"What am I looking for?" I asked my friend who was giving me directions.

"You’re looking for a blinking light," he said.

Shortly, I found myself all the way in a little town beyond the restaurant and we couldn’t understand how we missed the blinking light…until I went into a convenience store and the clerk said that area had no power due to fallen trees from an ice storm. In the fog, I couldn’t see well enough to even know when I’d passed beneath a powerless blinking light.

Are you in a fog? And can’t find what you’re looking for in life? Then stop and ask for help from God. That’s the best way in the foggy world to listen to life and make a life, not just a living.

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"Are you happy and you know it?"

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I shared a story with you recently, "When will you be happy?," about how so many of us defer our happiness until some future event happens, like you buy a new home or your husband gets his act together.

A friend who listens to life through our website at www.listentolife.org emailed me to say that she is learning that lesson again; how to be happy in the every day. It seems that she and her family have a new puppy. If you’ve ever had a new puppy, you know that house-breaking, or as she put it—"potty training," takes some consistent effort and some dogs learn more quickly than others.

She caught herself saying, "Oh, I can’t wait until he grows up and is potty trained." And then she realized that she was missing a lot of happiness. Like giving him a heartworm pill in peanut butter and him ferreting out the pill and leaving it in his dish just so he could have more peanut butter.

Discover happiness today. Look for it as you go through the everyday parts of your life. Listen for it as you make a life, not just a living.

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"Are you propped up?"

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A college friend of mine visited us for a weekend on our farm recently. My wife and I walked around with him, showing him our various barns.

We came up to one barn—an old heart-pine log barn—and he admired it and said, "That barn’s been around for a while." And my wife said, "So long that it leans to one side."

And I noticed that it does. It leans to the right a bit, but the previous owner propped it up. He built a lean-to on that right side, put strong, sturdy posts under it, and in effect propped up the barn on its leaning side.
That old barn is close to 100 years old. It’s withstood a lot of storms and high winds, snow and freezing rain, insects biting it and horses kicking on it. But it still stands. It leans, but it stands straighter because someone propped it up.

I’ll bet you lean a little, too. You lean toward getting angry or even, gossiping or criticizing, not forgiving and holding a grudge. Ask God to prop you up on your leaning side, keeping you from falling down and becoming no good. Ask God to prop you up as you listen to life and make a life today.

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"What if that guy was God?"

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One of my coaching clients emailed me recently. It seems he was walking into a Starbucks recently when he noticed a guy standing outside the door. The man’s face obviously had suffered from severe burns and his hands, too. The disfigurement he had made it kind of hard for my client to look at the guy. The guy stood there, with his burned hand out, asking for money. He was panhandling. My client walked on quickly, not making eye contact, just as everyone else did.

As my client stood in line for his coffee, he started thinking, "Aren’t we here to help others? To make the world a better place? Isn’t that part of making a life, not just a living that Dr. Joey talks about? And what if that’s God standing there, disguised? And I just walked past God?"

He got his coffee and went to his vehicle where he cleaned out all of his change—a couple of dollars worth—and gave it to "God" standing outside of Starbucks; and made the world a little better place to live…at least for a day.

Make a life, not just a living today…God is closer than you think.

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"You haven't given up, have you?"

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I speak to lots of business and service groups. And everywhere I go lately, there’s talk about the recession—"Is it coming or is it already here?"

Seems to me all this talk is wasted. Some very famous and successful have proven that predicting what’s coming is very difficult.

For instance, Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment, said in 1977, "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." A Western Union Telegraph Company internal memo in 1876 read, "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication." When Gary Cooper turned down the lead role in Gone with the Wind, he said, "I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper." When in 1962 Decca Recording Co. rejected the Beatles, it was because "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."

"Given-up thinking" is everywhere. But don’t you give up. God has a special plan for you to enjoy the very best life offers and it can be yours. Don’t give up. Instead listen to life and make a life, not just a living.

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