Really?  Could my last entry be April?

I find time to be such a fascinating phenomenon.  In one sense it is immovable to all of our attempts to speed it up or slow it down.  It is very linear.  One minutes flows into the next, it is 3:30, then 3:31, then 3:32, cycle after cycle.  Yet our perspective of it can change from minute to minute, depending on our emotional mood of the hour.  It builds on a linear plane, but the whole of it is hardly such.  How could three months seem so short and yet nearly immeasurably long?  I think I could easily spend the rest of my life in a scholarly and probably useless study of time, so abstract and esoteric that I’d be better off to write a novel and forget the science. 

Then you factor in God’s existence outside of time and ability to expand or contract it like some accordion of history …

Well, then, back to the present.  For the last three months I have been engaged in slightly more earthy goals, though I can promise my feet have left this blessed soil more than once. 

One highlight has been the new set of teleconferences I am teaching, along with two live seminars.  In fact, I am on my way to the first of the live seminars now.  It is a great joy to teach the things I have learned, and to learn more about what I teach!  I think I will be doing the classes again in the fall, as some of them turned out to be more popular than I expected.  A pleasant surprise!  Still is somewhat of a novel idea that I have something people want to hear. 

Another is a seminar I attended, and supposedly worked, in Oklahoma.  I did actually DO some work there, although it seems that God was a good deal busier than I was.  At one point I was called up to the front to pray for someone, and my composure got a good beating in the process.  Ever try keeping your poise and tear ducts dry when God is moving mountains in your heart and theirs?  Yeah.  Not so very easy.  When I got done I limped like a little wet rag over to the corner to try and process what had just happened.  God is very efficient, you have to hand it to Him.  He got us both at once.  And He is still unpacking the results and anchoring me so deeply at my core. 

I have a theory.  I think that there is an alternative to the Calvinistic approach that the primary source of our humility is our sin and brokenness.  I don’t think we have to keep reminding ourselves of evil in order to remain humble.  What if we were to keep reminding ourselves that it was not we who formed us?  Could we not then join more joyously in the celebration of heaven over the work of God’s hands?  It is an attitude that is deeply aware that what one has is not their own doing.  But it also allows for considerably more celebration and awe of a God who makes truly beautiful things. 

And the process of discovering the essence of myself is drawing me ever closer in worship of a magnificent God. 

For the future, I am really excited about a study that is a flavor of my Blessing of Daniel.  It is part of the inner healing process that I have not seen anywhere else, and is showing great results so far!  I am thrilled with the insight because of how many people it will empower.  I hope to release it for public consumption in the near future … though I would like to do a book, and those are quite a bit more time consuming than audio. 

And lastly, I am getting the itch to spruce up my website.  That means learning more html, and if I am really feeling intelligent, or lucky, or blessed or a fabulous combination of all three, I’d like to do something different with the store.

Oh.  One other thing.  I get to go see Andre Rieu this year.  That’s worth looking forward to.

Really.  Not trying to be melodramatic here.  Nor am I trying to lure you into a discussion that will end with questions like “why is the sky blue and the grass green?”  I really want to know if YOU know why you are alive.

I discovered very recently that I don’t have an answer to that question.

It was rather startling, actually.  Even shocking; a slap of ice-cold water in the face that leaves you gasping like a fish.  There are countless things I know about me.  Things I know God made me to do.  Things I like.  Things that make my spirit soar.  I know a whole lot more about my design that a lot of people twice my age know about theirs.  So you can only imagine how staggering it was to realize I had two critically different concepts all rolled into one.

What God showed me is the “why” for which you live is fundamentally different from the design through which you live.  Your God-given design is very important.  You need to know how God wired you and what He made you to do.  But for your design to reach its fullest and richest color, it must be fed by something outside of it.  You need to know WHY you are doing what you do, and that’s an entirely different matter. 

You see, for many years I have been trying to make areas of my design in themselves the reason for living.  They are not.  They are the playing fields.  Somewhere underneath there must be the foundational passion, the driving force, the thing that makes you get out of bed every morning, the flash of life God breathed into you from the very beginning.  It’s where you meet Him in what you do.

For one friend, their “why” is to help people be intentional in their lives.  No matter where this person goes or which playing field they are on, this drives them.  For another, it is revealing the colors of God’s wisdom.  For another it is articulating the creativity in another person and helping them achieve it.  Each of these friends has a unique design and ways in which they achieve their goals, and underneath it all is their God-given “why”. 

It is so very important not to mix the two!

Do you know your “why”?

If not, it’s time to find out!

Well, I am happy to say that with some prayer, rest, and modern medicine, I am on the mend.  Still got a bit of a stuffy nose, but I no longer have a Kleenex as an extension of my arm. 

Thank you all for your prayers and your thoughts.  Onward and forward!

… With one stuffy nose, a sore throat, a dozen sneezes, a bag of Halls and a whole LOT of Kleenex.  Anyone interested in a sudden boost in your stock portfolio, you might consider an investment in Kimberly-Clark. 

Me and sickness don’t get along very well.  Wastes too much time.  I will have to say, however, that when I was particularly miserable I watched one of the Chronicles of Narnia “Prince Caspian”.  I have seen it before.  The parts with Aslan made me cry like they always do, and have you ever tried crying when your head is already stuffed to exploding?  Not so much fun.

However, I am currently joyously celebrating some of life’s simpler pleasures. 

Like BREATHING.

And hopefully this weekend we will be back on track with blessings … minus the Kleenex!