Monday, December 19, 2011

I have seen much of Christmas yet

I know it is very hard sometimes to slow down and allow the spirit of Christmas to enter into our busy lives. It's sad, but true. Yesterday I watched a youth soccer game where one team demoralized the same team two weeks in a row, at work today I had an upset client that could not get $1,500 out of the ATM over the weekend, next I received an email from a usher at church that was "shocked" to see their name listed to serve on Sunday (even though the 2011 schedule was emailed to all in February and ushers serve one month at a time), tonight I saw a lady at dinner, celebrating her 74th birthday share she is trying to catch up on all of the beer she did not drink the first 30 years of her life in front of her two teenage grandsons and then I saw a very grumpy man run a lady off of her table while she waited for the server to bring her the bill.

All of these are minor examples of individuals who should have so much to be grateful for. Grateful to be a good soccer team and recognize when they have superior talent, grateful to have $1,500 in their checking account, grateful to be able to serve at church, grateful to have lived a full life and grateful to be able to have dinner with their family. But yet, gratitude seems to be the last thing on their minds this Christmas.

I'm grateful my daughter enjoys soccer, that we have money in our account, that I get to serve others, that I recently celebrated a birthday sober and that I do not sweat the small things in life anymore.

These are all things I get to be apart of and get to share with my family and friends. So my hope is I will see Christmas tomorrow and be able to enjoy the spirit of Christmas for the rest of my life.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Keep it in the fairway!

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

For God so loved the world

Nothing I'm about to post is original material. Most comes from a sermon I heard last Sunday that nearly moved me to tears of joy. The sermon was on the first part of John 3:16 "For God so loved the world" (stop). When Tim Tebow posted John 3:16 under his eyes in the NCAA Championship a few years ago 92 million people "googled" it. There is approx. 330 million people in America. There is approx. 6 billion people on Earth. These numbers are even hard for me to wrap around my little mind.

So How big is the world? The world that God created in 7 days. The pastor contiuned...he held a golf ball in is hand (that got my attention) and shared that the sun, a star, is 1 million times the size of Earth. He kept going to the largest star ever see by telescope in the universe, named VY Canis Majoris. I guess this means one BIG ASS STAR. To give us an idea of its circumpherence, the pastor said a plane travelling 900 miles per hour can fly around the earth in 1 day. In order for this same plane to fly around VY Canis Majoris it would take 1,100 years. WOW.

I have been practicing meditation for a few weeks. It was suggested to me to begin by setting a timer for 7 minutes and just talk to God. Well that lasted for about a week and now I'm up to 15 minutes. This time with God is helping my peace and serenity. Since I heard this message on Sunday I have had a different perspective on how big God is and how big this world really is and just think there may be other universes out there that human technology will never find.

To think for God so loved the world and little old me. What a deal.

May we all try to improve our personal relationship with God and the next time you talk to God try to visual the God that created and loves the world!!!

Keep it in the fairway