Wednesday, January 28, 2009

It's All in the Mind

It's been quite a winter: too much cold and way too much SNOW has marked the season the season for me. It didn't help that I got to be in Florida for three days!

Today was another snow day in the Adirondacks and I royally took advantage of it by staying mostly at home and working from a coffee table on my laptop. It was really great to change up the routine and adjust the pace of my life for twelve hours. I got a lot of work done and cleared off about 60 items from my Project and Next Action lists.

Things are good in my world and I'm honored to be serving Jesus Christ as a spiritual leader in the county. I sense God's hand on my life and ministry and am humbled by the honor of walking with Him through life.

I celebrated my 48th birthday on the 19th and heard from a number of new and old friends. It meant a lot to be with family and friends on the day. My friends joked about me now being an "old geezer" but I still feel like I'm 28 and not 48. It's all in the mind, folks!

I enjoyed fire meeting last night. While all we did was wash fire trucks and clean up, the manual labor and interaction with the TREMENDOUS people at the fire department made the evening slip by way too quickly.

I'm reading a book "Making It All Work" by David Allen. Whereas "Getting Things Done" was a nuts and bolts look at work and life management, this book is the philosophy behind the methodology. A good, if not long, read.

My daughters have been together in NB for the last six day and I would have loved to have been there with them (and that beautiful baby!!). Soon.

Okay, enough.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Monday, January 5, 2009

Catching Up with Me

It's been awhile since I posted last so I'll catch you up on what's been happening in my world since:

CHRISTMAS
I had a fantastic Christmas: great Christmas Eve services, Naomi was home, and Christmas Day was restful and meaningful as I interacted with family. I kept thinking all day, "Brother, I'm the most blessed guy on the planet today!" I love Christmas and the Christ who came so I could celebrate it!

MAKING IT ALL WORK
I took time between Christmas and New Year's to get away and work on the six horizons of focus and the synthesis of it all in my life. I was able to map out and capture Projects, Next Actions and short-and long-term goals from the runway to the 50,000 ft horizon of focus. For the first time in my life, I have a complete system in place to help me strive toward becoming "Captain and Commander" of the experiences God sends my way this year. I've regained a sense of control and perspective after one of the the most challenging and somewhat quizzical seventeen months of my forty-seven years on the planet. I look forward to 2009 and what it will hold for me and my family. (P.S. If this last paragraph means little to you, read "Making It All Work" by David Allen and it will come into better focus!)

FOSTERING A FULLER TRUST
I've been gaining a clearer perspective on my life and my ministry in these months since leaving Canada and Corinth. While only a handful of people know the complete story behind our departure from our homeland and home church, God is most keenly aware of it all and has been faithful in helping me process my experiences (and the people who've contributed to them) and He's aiding me in being able to foster a fuller trust in His Romans 8: 28 purposes for my life. A deeper sense of divine purpose and personal settledness pervades my life these days and pain is giving way to gratitude to the One who is using it all for greater Kingdom good. As hard as it is to believe that I could ever say this, I'm thankful for the Genesis 48: 8a and Genesis 50: 20 understanding I'm gaining at this stage of my personal, spiritual journey.

LAUGHTER
I have prayerfully added a new core value to my personal mission: FUN! I forgot how to laugh for too many months and it caused a dearth of joy in my life. As God has pruned and picked at other areas of my life, He has also chosen to open up a wellspring of joy that washes over me much more often of late. I look for and find the humor in life and see God using it in my ministry to help settle people and lift them above the trial of their unfortunate circumstances. This was made clearer to me after feedback from a hospital visit to a heart patient last week. God has a sense of humor - and it's healthy to be like Him!

If you've read this far, thanks for your time. If you gave up reading about me, then you've moved on to the sports page and really don't care what I write about in this last line!