Challenging Normal

As I was walking on the treadmill this morning it hit me, this is the last day of November. Seriously? Tomorrow is the first day of December. It is the first day of the last month of 2010. Wow! Where has time gone? Where has this year gone? We are in the Holiday season and I do not even feel like we got out of Summer good. Are you with me? Wasn't it just Labor Day last week?

Retailers started putting Christmas decorations out after Labor Day. Killing me!!!! My Pastor said the other day that in a couple of years there will not be a Thanksgiving. That is not right. We live and a society that is consumer driven and does not really know how to be grateful and thankful anymore. That is a different blog for a different day.

Yesterday was a very scattered day. Had way too much going for Game Day.

Mercy is a word that is used in church and by Christians to refer to how God has acted on our behalf. Mercy is something that we receive and really do not know how to give. Mercy. I see it as knowing you are right and someone is wrong and not holding it against them. You could. You would be justified. No one would blame you. But you choose to let it go. Not only let it go but to never bring it up again. You do not forget it, but you do not hold it against them. Mercy. Something else that we want to be shown but a lot of the times we have trouble showing it.

Really working this week on trying to live words out instead of saying them. One word that I struggle with is grace. It is a word that we throw around a lot in church these days. I believe that we can over use a word and under live it. Grace is easy to say and easy to talk about but difficult to live out. Most of the time we do not give out the same grace that we are willing to receive. We want and expect grace for God and from others but yet we are not willing to show it or live it ourselves. I believe no matter who we are that our humanity will get in the way from time to time.

Monday I blogged about how words are meaningless without action and what we do is a lot louder than what we say. One of the words that I am trying to live out is compassion. I believe that compassion is seeing someone's pain through their own eyes. From their perspective. Not necessarily fixing the problem but being there for them. Standing with them and at time standing for them. Compassion is tough to live out. If we have never been through what they are walking through it is impossible to understand their pain. You may not be able to understand their pain but you do understand pain. You understand what it does to your mind, how it haunts you. What it does to your soul, how it eats at you. What it does to your spirit, how it weighs you down. You may not be able to say you have been where they have been, but you can say you know what pain is like.

I have been on a journey since March of this year to loose weight and get in shape. I decided a month or so ago that I wanted to start riding a bike to continue my journey. Last Friday I got on a rode bike for the first time. About half way through I thought I had lost my mind. I thought the bike did not work right or my legs did not work right or something. By the time I got back to the house I was ready to throw the bicycle in the garbage. After I caught my breath and my legs stopped shaking I decided to give it another shot.

Goals are very important to set. It is hard to know where you have been and where you are going without putting markers out. Things to let you know how you are progressing. I want to put some November goals I have on here to help remind me of what I need to be doing.

Words mean nothing. What you do and how you do it scream so much louder than what you say. Most of the time people can not hear what you are saying because of how you are living. How you treat people. What you do when no one is looking. How you treat the people who do not look like you or act like you. Your actions give your priorities a voice. You never have to tell people what is important to you, they know it by the way you live. Words mean nothing unless you live them out. Unless people see them. Words are useless without action. I am trying to talk less and live more. Here are some words I want to live out.