People who want real change in this country put their money behind candidates with hopes but no promises it will actually happen. People who want real change in their city put their money behind causes of hope that both promise and create real change. The power of charity lies in its ability to be held accountable to actually deliver what politics only promises, and then usually at less than half the cost.

If more people actually lived

for that which they say they’d die,

they might die

but for thousands more to live

longer and better lives

where far fewer would need to die

for their beliefs.

Tiny

droplets

falling,

landing,

faster now,

they race

for standing,

driving down

in revving sheets

in a bouncing frenzy

each one competes

but

I

lost

count

when the river won.

I sat down

to watch the cool summer rain

applaud the earth

and waved the checkered flag.

Ever wake up in the morning unable to shake an uneasy feeling about the day?

Nothing you can put your finger on, but a sense that something upcoming is different. Not sure if it’s good or bad, just unfamiliar so you check your calendar, your schedule, your to do list and seemingly nothing is extraordinary, remarkable or noteworthy. Your morning routine continues but you’re extra aware of your surroundings, and not just a little superstitious about what to expect next and you take that little package of an unknown something with you out the door, on the road and at work, all the while, staying a couple steps ahead of yourself so that if it’s actually something, you’re not entirely caught off guard if or when it happens. It’s a little foreboding, a little interesting, and a lot more than you bargained for when you first woke up. You arrive back home retracing the events of the day, have your dinner, catch part of a show on TV and flip the lights off for the night and you’re back in bed where it all began more than half a day ago. And before you drift off, you realize the true cost of your prolonged anxiety that all began simply because you first believed the day ahead was yours alone to construct when it never actually was.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

Of all human experiences, only one remains almost entirely unknown.
Despite relentless attempts at its description from every conceivable perspective, unhinged fantasy, limitless speculation and sordid detail, we still know nothing more beyond its cause except for the promise that we never will for as long as we live.
And then at that instant, we will know it as either the nothingness of nightmares or the everything we ever dreamed of and more.

I write the things which are often not said

The silent dilemmas still left in my head

To wake up the ones left when I turn up dead

I’m just trying to leave something behind.

A whole book of stories from over the years

of people and places and things I hold dear

in hopes some will listen and some might even hear

I’m just trying to leave something behind.
But finding good news in this day and age

When i do, i write it, but it falls off the page

Far into the place where I’d kept it caged.

When I was trying to leave something behind.

Over the years so many products and people have offered promises to completely change my life, by now I should rightfully be only a shell of the man I once was. However, the only thing I’ve found to be 100% effective in creating lasting change with a five star rating over billions of evidence-based case studies is the taking of one free sample of life in Christ for which I’ve since become an enthusiastic ambassador.

Be humbly confident in who God created you to be.

A favorite leadership podcaster, Craig Groeschel, posted this and I paused to check if I believed him.

I listen to a dozen different podcasts every day through which I have learned a ton about life, love, leadership and a bunch of random facts to impress others if ever inclined.

But this one made me take pause.

At 63, I’m disappointed.

I know that by my final breath, I may have filled my purpose in being born but might not be fulfilled in doing so. I have way too many unwritten stories, a couple impossible reconciliations yet to make, and more refinements in my character than time on my hands will ever permit.

Be humbly confident in who God created you to be.

I’ve few problems with the humility part but zero self-confidence that I’m anywhere close to the summit of achieving who I was created to be.

But does anyone?

Living is full of unfinished business, and I’m confident of only one thing, that unfinished business may be just what keeps us moving on.

The mind is a terrible thing.

The places it takes you for answers unknown can be to the most terrifying of scenarios.

As sentient beings we have extraordinarily low thresholds for ignorance, ambiguity and uncertainty, often prone to crazy possibilities which, in the moment, seem eerily more satisfying than no explanation at all.

But behind this problem is the actual one, a condition which reminds us of our humanity. Essentially, a control issue.

God only knows the truth of this.

Read that again, because therein lies both the answer and the solution all wrapped into one.

If God is omniscient and all-knowing, it’s the first sign that we aren’t. That’s not our job.

Today, this is where I am.

I needed to write my thoughts down. That’s how I work out tough times and reel myself back to sanity.