November, 2011

11/27/2011

40 in 40: #38

I grew up in the bowels of American Evangelical Christianity.

My parents are devout Christians, my grandparents were devout Christians, my great grandparents were devout Christians. My Aunts and Uncles, with a few exceptions, are devout Christians.

You get the picture.

I heard the message of Christianity all the time. It sounded something like this:

Believe the right things
Be good and do good things
Get into heaven

At some point as an adult I realized something that seemed scandalous to me: the Christianity that I was taught growing up was not the message that Jesus himself taught.

For someone who called himself a Christian this was earth shattering. Wasn’t Jesus the guy who created Christianity?

Lesson #38

Jesus didn’t come to start a religion. Jesus came to free people from things that enslave them.

Jesus himself described why he had come by quoting a passage from the Psalms:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

If you study Jesus you will see this everywhere. In almost every story.

Jesus came to free people who were bound. He came to care for the oppressed and poor. He came to bring healing. He came to bring God’s favor to man.

This way of life provides unbelievable freedom. This way provides hope for everyone: rich, poor, successful, failures, addicts, downtrodden, people on top of the world and the destitute.

Jesus message is freedom and hope.

I’ve met lots of people who have trouble with Christianity. I’ve never met anyone who had trouble with Jesus message.

Keep moving forward,

Greg

11/18/2011

40 in 40: #37

I left work at 1pm yesterday. Grabbed Josh, rushed home, threw some clothes in a bag, jumped in the car, and headed to Blacksburg. My friend Tim Hartin had gotten us tickets for last nights Virginia Tech/North Carolina game.

So Josh and I road tripped for 5 hours, jumped out of the car, put on our warm clothes, and walked with Caleb over to the stadium. We watched an awesome game.

It was a blast. But the game was only the beginning.

After the game we cruised around a bit, I dropped them off on campus, and went to Taco Hell (aka taco bell) for a cup of coffee and and an hour or so of working.

I picked them up at 12:30 and we hit Ihop at 1am with 5 of Caleb’s friends until around 2:30. Then we crashed at a friends house on couches. I slept for a few hours and then was up and now I’m in Starbucks pounding out some work while I wait for them to wake up.

I lost some sleep last night, was up WAY later than I normally am, ate about 1500 calories more than I normally would (or should), and slept on a well used (that’s an understatement) couch that was about 2 feet shorter than I am.

And it was worth every second.

Lesson #37

The meaningful things in life will cost us something, but are always worth the cost.

My oldest two sons and I will remember yesterday for a long time. We’ll make some jokes about some of the things that happened for a while. Caleb’s friends will remember our time together.

We got a chance to BE together.

I can’t do that very often. If I did I’d weigh 500lbs and be exhausted all the time. Oh and I’d be out of work.

But a few times a year I can give up sleep, take some time off work, and break my normal comfortable habits in the name of spending time with people that I love.

And every time I do a little more is added to my relationship bank.

And as a result I now have another shared experience with my kids, I know 5 more of my oldest sons friends, I’ve gotten another road trip in with a son that needs my time and attention.

These are meaningful things. They cost me something. But they are worth the cost.

Keep moving forward,

Greg

11/16/2011

40 in 40: Lesson #36

Route 40

40 in 40: #36

I learned some great lessons while training for the marathon that I ran a month ago. I’m planning on sharing more of those lessons later.

But one of those lessons was extremely helpful.

When you are train for running there are certain principles that are really important. Some of them are obvious: you have to run a lot, you have to gradually increase your distance over time, etc.

But here’s the one that surprised me: your best “gains” in performance are when you push yourself incredibly hard and then rest. In fact my performance got better when I ran fewer, harder miles, and then rested more. This surprised me.

I would often run really hard one day, get busy and miss a day or two of training, then run again and find that I was able to run faster and further than I thought I previously could.

There are rhythms in life and I need to learn to pay attention to them.

Lesson #36

Continuous hard effort doesn’t produce great results. Great results come from periods of intense effort followed by periods of rest.

One thing I’ve rested from in the last month is social media. I love Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, and blogs. But for the last month I’ve largely “fasted” from those things. I’ve occasionally tweeted something or interacted but by in large I’ve abstained.

While taking a social media break I’ve been working really hard on some other projects at work. That level of focus has been great.

And now I’m really looking forward to reconnecting on Twitter with people.

What would you benefit from taking rest from? What should you be pushing really hard right now?

Keep moving forward,

Greg

p.s. check out a post I wrote today for Blue Ocean Ideas, “It’s not about the tools!”