never stop learning

Clean Slate Living Principle: I have a good friend who is a doctor in the mental health field. He made this comment to me as we collaborated on a counseling situation. “Some people just don’t know what they don’t know!” This was in reference to those who plow forward in life never taking the time to consistently update their thinking/decision making process or simply just review how they do life. When we stop learning and evaluating we actually create black holes of ignorance. Clean slate living requires effort to be informed. If you hit a wall…talk to someone. Get the information you need to advance. This is radically true of our spiritual life. We cannot live off day-week-month or year old experiences with God. Bible study and prayer are not religious duties...they're connections we make with God. Everything about Him is fresh and we NEED to join with Him every day to fully embrace the life Jesus proclaimed was ours to enjoy.

I’m about to leave for vacation. I’ll be un-wired for a few weeks so I wanted to post at least one more time before we go. What a weird day. I met with some old friends around our conference table and had a bitter/sweet conversation. They have just lost their 43 year old sister to a lengthy illness. She came to a place later in her life to trust Christ. Her early death was bitter---her destination is sweet. I’ll serve them at her funeral on Monday.

I’m about to head home. I just finished something that was given me on my birthday in 2002. It’s a book…a big thick book filled with empty pages. At the top of each page is a question. The title of the book is A Father’s Legacy—Your Life Story in Your Own Words. The book afforded me the chance to tell my story in detail to my kids. They can refer to it long after I’m home. My daughter Ellen gave it to me and it’s taken me years (I’m so slow when it comes to writing) to fill the pages. What a journey to go back over time and try and articulate what life was like at 10-20-35 years old. I shed some tears over this. What do I tell my girls, son-in-law and grand babies of what I’ve learned? What an exercise to examine your past and mine the good--the bad and the ugly. I actually wrote a section to the future son-in-laws and grand babies I may never meet. Sitting with the family I started this post about made me realize afresh….each day is a gift. I’m not guaranteed a tomorrow on this earth. When I wrote the last word…I told God thanks! Thanks for all of it. Thanks for what’s to come.

Be blessed! Tomorrow….a clean slate. God has fresh things for you to relish. Be extraordinary.

hello....goodbye!

Clean Slate Living Principle: Everything has an expiration date! The beauty of living fresh daily is the opportunity to ask the question… “what needs to continue today and what needs to end?” Too often, we pour time and energy into things that have expired. Never do something just because you’ve been doing it for years. Examine it and make sure it still has viability.

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.” Roman philosopher, mid-1st century AD

Happy B-Day Ellen!

It's my daughter Ellen's birthday! She has been a huge inspiration to me and a whole lot of fun to do life with. Enjoy your day Stinky!

PS: I'm heading out the door to meet up with her and John. We're taking the 3 and 1 year old fishing. Should be a train wreck!

can you see what I see?

Clean Slate Living Principle: One way for certain to keep each day fresh is to make sure you always have people in your life with broader experiences and keener insights than your own. They will wonderfully draw you into new places you may never venture into alone.

No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need

to learn to achieve our goals.

Brian Tracy

full potential

Clean Slate Living Principle: A huge pet peave for me is when I don't live up to my full potential in Christ. The life of a Christ follower is very different than those who take full responsibility for their actions-plans-dreams-investments...etc and exclude God from the equation. A Christ follower abides. Jesus said "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man abides in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."

What a dramatic difference; bearing much fruit or achieving nothing! Abiding means to dwell with...to adhere to. Every day is a clean slate. Today, I can re-align my thoughts and actions to the desires of Christ and let Him do through me what I cannot do by myself. My full potential at any given moment is simply this. Let Christ soak into my words, thoughts, reactions, assumptions, and preferences.

fresh start...

Several weeks ago, our communications director Danielle, asked the pastors to consider blogging as a way to interact with people from Grace. I started...having no idea what to do or how to do it. I also have no sense that anyone even reads my blog so I’ve just been posting snapshots of my life and some of the things I’ve been learning. My wife commented that I tend to sermonize a bit. That’s true…I do see everything as a potential opportunity to point to God and the pastor in me takes over. I’ve changed the title of this blog more than once and finally landed on Today Is A Clean Slate. I honestly believe that. Starting today and each to follow, I’m going to remind myself of this explosive truth. “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” This speaks of a freshness beyond compare. Our God has expansive love and endless compassion. These are the ingredients of mercy. Starting today…I’m re-embracing the following statement made by most likely Jeremiah. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.” The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. Lamentations 3:22-26

Who doesn’t want their portion? We have a deep need to receive our share of whatever. How wild for the child of God to know and embrace the truth that God Himself is our portion. I honestly can’t say I understand all that this means but I believe the fresh impact of a personal God is waiting everyday. I’m going for it and I'll be writing down my adventure here. Be extraordinary today!