Prayer:
"God, do something about my friend who is looking for his connection to spirituality in all the wrong places? Do something about my impure thoughts and actions? Do something about those who go hungry? Do something about people who have no connection to family or community? God, do something about my career confusion? Do something about people losing their jobs? Do something about genocide? Do something about the salvation of that person I love?"

God's Response:
"I already did do something--I made you."

One of the best ways I've ever heard a prayer started is, "so let us pray, and let us become the answer to our prayers."

In no way am I trying to undermine the power and work of God in a life or moment. However, let's just think about how much he has already done and not use prayer as a substitute for action.

"If" final stanza:

"If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!"

"If" stanza three:

"If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'"

"If" continued:

"If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:"

I need to have this rolling around in my head.
Let's go old school and memorize a stanza a day.

"If" by Rudyard Kipling

"If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:"

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
-Theodore Roosevelt

2 Peter 3:9 laid it all out on the table for me in a new way today.
God's personal will for me...to come to repentance.

Now, let's just assume something that is impossible to assume. Let's pretend I live 90 years. That seems like a pretty good run.
If I live 90 years I will die sometime in 2078.
According to 2 Peter, and I wholeheartedly believe him, before 2078 my main job is to come to repentance and help others do the same.

That only gives the feeling of "plenty of time" or "I'll begin that later" to you and me if we do two things:
-If we are ignorant of the fact that time disappears like a vapor. It is going away as you read this and surf on with your next mouse click.
-If we have small dreams. How many people do you want to help bring to repentance?

"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy."

The heavens are a tent for the sun.

The Captain and Lady Luck will never change. They're stuck in the Savannah waves holding tight to each other and to life. They are glued to the groove of each others souls. All they say is, "I'll never leave." You can always find them there when it's storming. "Dark clouds are good for dancing," they say. It's the beat you feel. It moves the feet. Houses bow to the screaming winds and the trees run away with the sands in hand, but those two hang on. Up on the waves and out with the tide, they hold on. Those two have never seen the past or the future. They are only there and they dig it. All they choose is each other. Maybe that night of dancing on the dock to the silence under the stars sent them waltzing into the deepest waters. There's no edge on it anymore and that's why they don't change. They don't see the lines that tell them the end is near and so it never will for them. They'll just cross eternity again and again.

The dinner table.
Do families still eat at these? I'm sure some do.
I will be forever thankful for those nights of "you can't get up from the table until you finish your milk and eat your peas."
It was more than milk and peas that I was digesting.
I was taking in love, patience, care, devotion, sacrifice, and commitment.

How would Now look different if Back Then would have looked different?

Happy Birthday, Mike.

The stuff I said about comradeship...I meant every word.
Now let's throw the pigskin as fall sneaks in and play the tunes with passion.

There is always more to learn.
What am I not seeing?