Your life — slow down and soak it up
I saw this during my Emmaus walk last year and am sharing it in honor of this week’s Emmaus Men’s Walk #131 which starts tomorrow.
“How well traveled is the path to your God?”
Here is hoping that our journey with Christ is changing from a dirt footpath to an eight lane superhighway.
…..Dan aslowerpace dot net
I haven’t blogged in over a week — and it’s not because I don’t have anything to blog about. Quite the opposite. But all of these things take up time when they actually happen and blogging has been pushed to the side, unfortunately.
In short, we have had R’s 18th birthday celebratory dinner, a minor 2″ basement flood, a weekend visit to R’s college at IWU, and some severe weather including a tornado one county away.
This morning I found my long lost prayer journal. I knew it was not readily locatable, but I hadn’t prescribed it as “lost” yet. I also was not looking diligently for it either. It was a good habit I had in 2009 and some of 2010 but I became a slave to the act of detailing my prayers. In essence, “checking the box” rather than allowing the journal to be a result or inspiration for prayer. Consequently, I slowly stopped using it in an effort to focus on prayer. However, I have spent some of the morning going back over my entries and can see God’s wonderful providence and involvement in my life and the many others I pray for. It is just spectacularly wonderful when you can look back and the painting God has created for our life and see the picture after the paint has dried. That is what I have done this morning. And my intent is to pick that prayer journal back up and integrate it back into my prayer and devotional life.
One entry I made in the first hours of my Emmaus walk struck me as interesting…..and still relevant today.
“Where am I today?
I am a confident disciple knowing history that I have always grown, but always smaller than the day to come. That does not lessen where I was yesterday nor where I need to go tomorrow.”
Here’s hoping my blog writing will increase along with my prayer journal use.
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
There are many great Christian ministries out there. One that I get a daily email from is Parenting Today’s Teens. Below is their radio spot / podcast from yesterday. It describes the classic parent enabler — one that, understandibly, wants to “rescue” their teen or child and prevent them from pain. However, in doing so repeatedly, sets up a cycle of enabled bad behavior and delayed or reduced consequences.
It’s hard for some parents to allow their child to feel any form of pain from consequences, so they rescue them. But for teenagers, inappropriate behavior changes only when the pleasure received from wrong choices is overridden by the pain of consequences. I’m not talking about physical pain, but the loss of certain freedoms for a time.
So, parents need to learn to allow consequences happen, and not lessen them, or they’ll start a cycle of having to rescue their child again and again, from ever increasing wrongdoing, for their entire life.
They say it much better than I do. Go check out their website for some great resources and insight.
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
Ladies and Gentlemen, I’d planned to speak to you tonight to report on the state of the Union, but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans. Today is a day for mourning and remembering. Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger. We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country. This is truly a national loss.
Nineteen years ago, almost to the day, we lost three astronauts in a terrible accident on the ground. But we’ve never lost an astronaut in flight. We’ve never had a tragedy like this.
And perhaps we’ve forgotten the courage it took for the crew of the shuttle. But they, the Challenger Seven, were aware of the dangers, but overcame them and did their jobs brilliantly. We mourn seven heroes: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe.
We mourn their loss as a nation together.
For the families of the seven, we cannot bear, as you do, the full impact of this tragedy. But we feel the loss, and we’re thinking about you so very much. Your loved ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace, that special spirit that says, “Give me a challenge, and I’ll meet it with joy.” They had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths. They wished to serve, and they did. They served all of us.
We’ve grown used to wonders in this century. It’s hard to dazzle us. But for twenty-five years the United States space program has been doing just that. We’ve grown used to the idea of space, and, perhaps we forget that we’ve only just begun. We’re still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers.
And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle’s take-off. I know it’s hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It’s all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It’s all part of taking a chance and expanding man’s horizons. The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we’ll continue to follow them.
I’ve always had great faith in and respect for our space program. And what happened today does nothing to diminish it. We don’t hide our space program. We don’t keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That’s the way freedom is, and we wouldn’t change it for a minute.
We’ll continue our quest in space. There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space. Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue.
I want to add that I wish I could talk to every man and woman who works for NASA, or who worked on this mission and tell them: “Your dedication and professionalism have moved and impressed us for decades. And we know of your anguish. We share it.”
There’s a coincidence today. On this day three hundred and ninety years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and a historian later said, “He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it.” Well, today, we can say of the Challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake’s, complete.
The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God.”
Thank you. — President Ronald Reagan
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
I am way off on my blogging. Sorry. Stuff going on too but not enough hours in the day to get it written down.
Last night I attended the closing for Chrysalis Flight 45. One of the kids’ statements really hit me and I wanted to share it with you.
“YOU are God’s favorite!”
So simple, yet so powerful. And yes, I am God’s favorite too. Pretty cool if you ask me.
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
NOTE: If you do not know what Chrysalis is, it is like an Emmaus walk on jet fuel for high schoolers. Both Emmaus walks and Chrysalis flights are designed to deepen and further your walk with Christ. More can be found here — http://www.upperroom.org/emmaus/whatis/about.asp. I would highly encourage you to explore attending a walk if you would like to develop your personal walk with your Savior Jesus, not just “check the box” by attending church and being a good person. It will change your life — here on earth and for eternity.
With it being the Christmas season, my family and I have been watching a lot of Christmas movies like “It’s A Wonderful Life” and “Miracle on 34th St”. While these are dated movies, they are classics and still have some very applicable quotes in them. Below are two quotes from “Miracle” that I thought funny and true.
“There’s a lot of bad “isms” floating around this world but one of the worst is commercialism.”
“But maybe he’s only a little crazy like painters or composers or some of those men in Washington.”
Merry Christmas to all you readers!
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
“It’s one thing to climb into the lifeboat of Jesus yourself. It’s another to unselfishly help others in and share it.”
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
A great one passed away today. John Wooden, may you rest in peace and cherish the positive impact you had on many, whether through education, sports or life itself.
There are many good Wooden quotes out there, but I think this one is my favorite.
“Material possessions, winning scores, and great reputations are meaningless in the eyes of the Lord, because He knows what we really are and that is all that matters.”
And why is it that when someone of questionable character dies, it is plastered all over the media? But when a solid citizen, coach, husband and leader dies, you have to hunt for the story. Our society’s focus is completely out of whack.
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
At lunch today, I swung by WalMart to purchase a replacement wireless router for home. We are having some internet challenges and a misbehaving D-Link box was one of them.
As I walked out with my wireless router, Wrangler jeans and a 12pk of throwback Dr Pepper, I was walking next to an old man in a Harley Davidson jacket. We were matching strides and I looked over at him and smiled. I asked him how he was doing and his reply made my day and cracked me up.
He said, “I am doing so well, I make medicine sick!”
I laughed, said I was so glad to hear that and departed out the door to my car. And I thought about it more. How often is someone that cheerful at WalMart. We should all be so lucky to be like that wise old man.
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
I have come across a really nice parenting web site that gives great guidance on teens and your relationship with them. Below is a recent quote from one of their periodic emails:
Time and stability are needed commodities as the teen works through their issues. They need the steadying influence of their parents, who can help them sort it all out. It’s no time to lessen the boundaries or back down on the rules. Having those in place will provide the structure the teen needs, though they may seem to want just the opposite.
Go check them out at http://www.parentingtodaysteen.com
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
