Where is YOUR focus??

So? Where is your focus these days???.... and WHY am I the guy no one comes to and says, "hey, where is YOUR focus buddy?" Okay... so sometimes people do and I don't listen... sue me, right??
I get off track in life a lot and I look for my strength and my peace in EVERYTHING except for the one who really provides. I look to my job, to my girl, to weight loss to find identity etc and the one place I forget to look is UP...
Why do we do that? I have to be really honest and transparent right now.. I haven't kept my focus. I hate it too because I lose everyone's respect around me. I want everyone else to admire me and fix my issues etc. and I have NO problem laying this out there for you guys because if you are reading this??? you probably need to read these words for YOUR life too. I'm not the only one who ever does this you know... scripture is full of guys and gals who's focus was centered upon other stuff. Most of God's people were liars, theives, braggarts, and losers. I mean really... look at some of these guys... they were street people who didn't have a clue about their own identity and tried everything else first too. King Uzziah had to die off this earth before Isaiah could fully see God in his glory, before that, King Uzziah was his idol. Noah was a drunkard who fell down naked as a jaybird. Abraham LIED and told the story twice of his wife being his sister so his life would be spared. My favorite of all those who were nothing was David. A man after God's own heart. This king not only committed adultry, he hid it and had the woman he made pregnant's husband killed in battle. This is God's GUY! and he lost his focus... so If he screwed up... maybe God will forgive when I do the same.
You know the funny part about this is when I read about David, I know we all remember Bethsheba and his sin etc, but I also remember the story about David when he and his men had been living with the Philistines and Achish sent him back to live among his people. He and his men had reached Ziklag and the Amalakites had attacked their camps and taken their possessions and their families and even their wives. Vs 4 of Samuel 30 says " David and his men burst out in loud wails—wept and wept until they were exhausted with weeping. David's two wives, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail widow of Nabal of Carmel, had been taken prisoner along with the rest. And suddenly David was in even worse trouble. There was talk among the men, bitter over the loss of their families, of stoning him.

6-7 David strengthened himself with trust in his God. He ordered Abiathar the priest, son of Ahimelech, "Bring me the Ephod so I can consult God." Abiathar brought it to David"


See? Even in the midst of his sin and a life of lies, David had a heart after God. He was always finding himself in a dark cave hiding from his enemy and calling on the name of God and asking for wisdom, direction, care, provision etc, and the funny part? God ALWAYS took care of him. ALWAYS....
I've been in that place of finding my strength in him again... its not an easy place because it's like learning to eat healthy again, and finding a taste for good foods, but when we do? we feel like we are on top of the world...
So? I'm in your face... poking you in the chest asking YOU... where is your focus?

Street bum with a job

I heard something on the radio today that stuck with me… a man was talking about us as people. He said “Who we really are as people is not who we are when we stand triumphant on the mountaintops, but who we are under the rubble of the disasters of our lives” At first I was indignant about this… in fact I was quite snotty about it. I wanted to argue and tell this man he was wrong to speak for us. I am a man who is triumphant and making great strides to undo a lot of bad things and am doing quite well etc. etc. etc…
I thought about what he said all day and it finally struck a chord with me. Who we are is NOT who we are when things are going well… who we are and the real character of who we are is who comes out when our world collapses. I was pretty impressed with myself for figuring this out, and then another thought passed through my head… I’ve been here when my world has collapsed several times and I gotta say… I pretty much suck. I mean really. I would love to brag and say I was the guy who was on top of the world and when my world caved in all around me, I was still standing tall and rebuilding walls and being the mighty man blah blah blah... but you know? When my world caved in, so did I.
Who we are is not the issue here. If our lives are based on who WE are then we fail. I know that’s contrary to the champion lifestyle we are all striving to achieve, but it’s true. When I found myself in my lowest points, I’ve always realized just how far away from a loving God I have walked. God has yet to allow me to walk next to him and then let my world collapse. It’s always when I’ve strayed. I’ve realized that short of God… I am a street person with a job. Nothing more… it’s his grace that allows me to have a life apart from sleeping in cardboard. People don’t aspire to be street bums. They just fall on hard times and never get out of the trap of being where they have fallen.
Life is hard… but walking in a life without the grace and goodness of God is harder. But the hardest thing I’ve ever done is to walk along and not acknowledging the goodness of God in my life and to take what he freely gives as a gift and spit on it. I have had the opportunity recently to watch a friend of mine give and give and be stepped on by the person being helped. It caused me to realize how many times in MY own life I have taken God’s goodness for granted and how many times I should have been pounded into dog food for doing it, and never getting what I deserve. I was indignant with my friend’s guest for the way they treated my friend, and yet I find myself being ungrateful for God giving me the grace to make it through one more day and I just leave dishes on his sink and toothpaste on his bathroom floor… I’m a piece of work I tell ya…
Maybe one of these days I’ll figure it all out, but then again… I doubt it. ; )

Dream a little Dream

You know? There is something kinda all warm and fuzzy and kind comfortable about Sunday afternoons. It's a time to be reflective and yet make new plans and set new goals. It's the first day of the new week. Some would argue and say it's the last day of the week, but I learned in Mrs. Caufield's 5th grade class that Sunday is actually the 1st day of the week.
I remember in highschool.. my sister and I would plan nothing on Sunday's, which in the little Oklahoma town I grew up in, wasn't hard to do. We would lay in the warm sunshine on the trampoline and listen to Casey Kasem do the top 40 countdown. We were living the life with a cold soda as we were "keeping our feet on the ground and reaching for the stars". I never did understand what that meant growing up.
I thought maybe Casey had gotten too comfortable doing the voice of Shaggy from Scooby Doo and had taken a few too many hits off the bong and was just spouting off, but if you think about what he said, he isn't too far off base. Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars... Stay focused on what's real... but never give up on your dream.
When I was little boy, I wanted to be Bill Cosby. Not the pudgy pudding salesman or the bumbling Dr. Huxtable, but the REAL Bill Cosby who got started as a comedian. I had a few of his LP's and we would put them on and I can remember memorizing his material and regurgitating it with what I thought was the body language he would be using. I had my family in stitches from the time I was 4.
I still want to be a comedian, but I keep my feet on the ground by remembering how hard it would be and how little they get paid... Well that is until they become discovered.
It never hurts to dream a little and I have a great dream that one day I will use my wit and words to make my living. I'm not sure if I will ever achieve that dream, but I do have the dream. Many folks get so entangled in their day to day, they forget to remember the dreams of their youth. Kids, jobs, mortgages, it takes a lot to make life work and I can easily see how a dream could be forgotten. But it doesnt' have to be. Life should never be so hard as to give up on our dreams. When we cease to dream, we cease to live.

Do-over button

I often have people tell me from time to time I should author a book. I really am at a loss about it too. Why me? I'm just a basic boogerhead with no focus on the outside world other than a few observations about stuff I see around me. I saw a black guy at the bus stop in Independence today on my way home and he was waiving his arms all up in the air and screaming and kicking at trash on the ground. I know YOU are probably thinking you should lock your doors and drive faster when you see stuff like that... Me? I just take two seconds look at that and think, "Dang, someone must have pissed him off something fierce" and I chalk it up to the dude just working it all out. It's just a matter of how we interpret things.
In the town where I work in Kansas, there is a guy who wears long hair and skirts and women's shoes and rides a bike. Now most people think "hey? who is the nut job" and they make fun etc. Personally? I've not worn a skirt to ride, but I got to thinking about it... if you ride and a lot of wind blows up your skirt? it's got to be like an ac unit blowing up there in that area that gets hot when you work out... so I thought to myself? Maybe he is on to something? There are times that I think I'd LIKE some ac blowing on my... well... "Area" down there and wouldnt' mind a cooling system for physical activity... call me crazy..

The point is this... We all have a different way of looking at things. People think I'm a little needy because I post on FB all the time... Okay.. so your secure in your thinking and you think everyone should think like you? How much fun is that? do we all want to wear plaid shirts and khaki's and bostonian topsiders with shiney burgundy leather? I think not! I think Facebook exists as a proving ground for humor... somedays I'm the funniest guy alive? somedays I'm an idiot.... most days I mean. But if you are sharp and you work to hone your craft... you can see the world from a different angle and start accumulating stories to tell. My story is a good one and it's getting better all the time. That's the fun part about being a writer. You can change it with that crafty little delete button located on the top right corner. I refer to it as the do-over button... I wish my life had a do-over button... I've often thought I would have it on maximum warp overdrive and be hitting that bad boy every time I spilled coffee or posted something I shouldn't on Facebook... but the more I think of it? the less likely I am to hit that button. I'm finding more and more on a daily constant that I am less likely to be wise and more likely to be voted "most likely to smoke crack" by anyone's Sr. Class. I screw up more stuff than the guy that tests the reverse button on the drills at Ryobi...
but you know? I'm wiser than I was before I jacked up a few things in my life... somedays I am brash and arrogant and quick to do stupid things and I learn from those mistakes. The more I learn.. the more I realize how little I know. I think that's the definition of becoming wise... knowing where you stand in the midst of what you don't know and how much you are willing to be transparent so that others know you are just trying to "work it out" ; )
I guess you can say I have some really great friends... cause when I mess up? Those that mind don't matter and those that matter? well... they just don't mind : )