Diane and me at the Sidney Opera House.

Okay! I broke the cardinal rule of blogging.  I haven’t blogged for over 8 weeks.  I didn’t really disappear from the face of the earth, I disappeared from cyberspace. I  owe you an explanation because you have been so faithful following my blog, So let me bring you up to date.

1. BOOK!   Most importantly I have been working almost continuously writing my new book “Fully Alive.”  Every obstacle I could imagine threatened to derail this project, but I am convinced that this book will be a life changer.  My agent and the Thomas Nelson team believe in this project.  We all  put our shoulders to the wheel and worked around the clock to make it happen.  I can hardly wait until “Fully Alive” is released Keep watching for more information.

A unique phenomenon that had everyone looking up!

2. THE MOVIE!  We are in full swing marketing the limited theater release of the film “Fully Alive.” The Erwin Brothers, who just finished filming “October Baby,” did an amazing job shooting our movie. I thought that once the film was in the can the work was over.   I was wrong.  Someone kicked the can (not the bucket) and we have been chasing it ever since.  I am thrilled with the initial response to “Fully Alive the movie”  and look forward to seeing it in theaters all across the United States. Lot’s more about this as the release time gets closer.

3. CURRICULUM!  Concurrent with the movie and the book we have created a curriculum that groups can use to inspire one another to live “fully alive.”   Joy Groblebe and Brian Scheer are heading up this project and Thomas Nelson has unleashed some of their top talent to bring it to life. Keep watching for details.

4. TOUR OF AUSTRALIA!  In the middle of all this we did a 17 day concert tour of Australia.  On the way to Australia we actually lost a day.  Unfortunately it was Sunday.  I had an uneasy feeling that God was not happy because I lost His day!  Australia is a beautiful country with amazingly friendly, happy people and Kangaroos everywhere.  My wife Diane came with me on this tour and if she has anything to say about it, we will definitely be going back to Australia.

5. THE SEARCH!  Since coming back I have been writing constantly and during breaks I have been looking for that Sunday we lost!  If you see it,  please leave a comment as to where I can find it.

One of the many beautiful trees found in Australia

I’M BAAAAACCK I look forward to being here with you again.  I promise to be regular with my blogs.  I hope you will find them entertaining and inspirational.

Can’t wait to hear your comments again.   Got to go. The dog is barking.  I think something is outside the door……   it might be Sunday!

Finally they announced that the flight would be on it’s way.   People who needed a little extra time to get down the jetway boarded before us.   The last in this group was a pretty young woman in a wheel chair with an effervescent personality.  When the agent asked if she could make it down the jetway on her own she answered with an emphatic yes,  did a  wheelie with her chair and disappeared into the jet-way.   I boarded a few minutes later.  I had carefully chosen my seat on this very cramped small plane.  Bulk head seat on the aisle. This was where I would have the most leg room and could get a lot of work done.

But alas! Someone was in my seat.  My brow furrowed.  So much for happy face happy place.  Before I could speak a fight attendant addressed me.  “Would you kindly take the window seat she asked.  But this is my seat, I thought, digging for the piece of paper that would prove it.  The flight attendant lowered her voice, ” this young lady prefers an aisle seat,” she said, gesturing toward the person in my seat.  Since when, I wondered are people allowed to sit where they prefer to sit rather than where they were assigned to sit.  I said nothing but I’m sure that my face communicated the inconvenience and displeasure I felt.

As I huffed my way past the passenger sitting in my isle seat I saw for the first time that she was the spirited young lady who had done the wheelie on the way to the airplane.  Surely she had seen my ugly face,  but she smiled and apologized.  I assured her it was I who needed to apologize.  During this flight we had a wonderful conversation.  We talked about attitude and how if affects our life.

I found out her name was Joannah and at seventeen she had been in an accident that injured her spinal cord. She has been  paralyzed from the waste down ever since.  With a smile that lit up the cabin she told me she was on her way  to Japan alone to do research for her dissertation on Ancient Japanese art and literature.

She asked what I did for a living.  I sheepishly admitted that I spread good news and laughter around the world but today I was waiting for my face to get the memo.  We laughed and chatted the entire flight.  As I drove home, I thanked God for health and for the opportunity to meet this vivacious and courageous women.  I prayed that God would continue to help me live with the kind of grateful attitude and a daily sense of adventure Joannah demonstrated that day.  Meeting her reminded me…..

• Live joyfully even in difficult circumstances.

• Let your light (and face) shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

• When someone asks if you can handle it, do a wheelie.

That’s what I want.  A wheelie attitude.

Thanks Joannah!

Am I the only one that can loose my grip on a good attitude in a heartbeat?   Who have you met that inspired you with a “Wheelie Attitude”

I am convinced that the value of social media is much more informational than relational. This has been true of all forms of communication from the beginning of time.

• When God wanted to reveal the “Ten Commandments” to Moses he used the first  “iRock.”  It was very heavy broke the first time it was dropped, but evidently came with a warranty.  It worked just fine. I can even imagine that Moses’ friends were quite offended when he kept glancing at it at the dinner table.

• When God wanted to call Moses into service, he released “The  iBurning Bush.” Although the idea never caught the attention of the Jewish market, Moses certainly got the message. In this case God didn’t need a hundred thousand followers, just one good leader.

• When God wanted to warn King Belshzzar of impending national disaster, he released the first stunning version of the iPad, It featured a remote controlled finger that wrote an ominous message on a screen the size of a wall.

• When God wanted to give the Israelites directions to the promised land, He released the first GPS, with a guidance system that worked day or night, and even had a recalculating feature.

Now let me take my tongue out of my cheek and express my point.

• When God wanted to demonstrate His love for us, when he wanted to extend the possibility of real relationship with him it required nothing less than flesh meeting flesh. Though he had communicated in times past by prophets and all means of wonderful gadgetry, to communicate love he sent his Son, Jesus to meet us face to face.. The tablets and burning bushes and pillars of fire were replaced with dinners, embraces, personal touch and Holy blood spilled on barren ground.

I am so glad God didn’t text, e-mail, twitter or blog his message of love to me. If he had come to earth in this day and age, he might have used social media to announce his coming or keep record of his being here, but only the incarnation, the appearance of God in the flesh could consummate the relationship he desired with us.

Social Media’s greatest contribution is the entree it creates for real relationships.  And as with Christ’s example, relationships are only consummated when flesh touches flesh. I have thousands of social media “friends” but real relationship happened when we looked each other in the eye, shook hands, embraced, and broke bread together. Before that we were acquaintances separated by a thin digital line. When we met, real people became real friends. Real relationship was born.

I am so grateful for those of you I have only met through this medium.  There is a bond between us that we would never have except for the internet.  In a post entitled Disciplines of the Heart, Michael Hyatt said this, “In a world of social media and faux connections, we must be intentional about building authentic relationships and real community.”  Although I know this can’t happen with everyone, I look forward to the day you and I might meet, move beyond the thin digital line and take a step toward real relationship.

Looking forward to your comments.

1.  Weigh the decisions you make before they weigh you down.

Every day I meet people who are prisoners of their own body because of poor lifestyle decisions they made throughout the years.   The decisions they made were little choices that ended up having a cumulative affect on their health.  I know this because I have been there.  The temptation of the moment resets the course of their life.  Each action we take must be weighed in light of what we want our life to look like in the future.  Whether your dealing the physical, spiritual, or social dimensions of your life, what you do today matters. Weigh your decisions carefully.

2.  Keep your ultimate goal in mind.

Years ago I read about a pro golfer who prepared for each major tournament by going to the very last hole and working his way backward  He would stand on hole 18 looking back at the course.  From there he would plan where his drive or fairway shot needed to land to give him the best opportunity to get his approach shot close to the pin. Then he would walk back to that spot and calculate what kind of shot he would have to make from the tee box to put him in that position.

He would walk the entire course backward to plan each action to lead to the ultimate goal of success at the 18th hole.  In his book Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, Stephen Covey clarified this principle in a chapter entitled “Begin with the end in mind.”  These are principles essential to anyone who seeks to live fully alive.  Have a purpose.  Know what you want to accomplish with your life. Then work backward from there to so that each shot you take at life puts you in the best position to reach that goal.

3.  Recognize the importance of little things

My friend Phil Waltrep tells a story that illustrates the power of small actions over a period of time.  One day he discovered that the foundation of his house was settling to the point that the structural integrity of his entire home was being threatened.  He called an expert and found out that the problem was due to a small leak in the gutter system.  One drip at a time the defective gutter had deposited tens of thousands of gallons of water that eroded the soil at the foundation of the house.  So little decisions over time can alter the course of life.  But there is hope!  Phil recognized the problem, fixed the gutter and repaired the foundation.

You see, little decisions can also add up to create character and foundational strength that leads to living fully alive.  As a boy I visited Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico.  As I stood in awe of the majestic and beautiful stalagmites, rising hundreds of feet from the cave floor, The guides said that they were formed over thousands of years one tiny drip at a time.  The decisions you make today can be foundation of your success tomorrow.

No decision is a small decision.

Every action is worthy of careful consideration.

Small decisions are the building blocks of success or the emissaries of destruction.

As a pilot, I learned aviation accidents are rarely the result of a single catastrophic event.  Most are the accumulation of a series of bad decisions.

• Rather than getting enough rest a pilot stays up late to watch a movie on television.
• He overslept and rushed to the airport to get off in time to get to his destination for an important meeting.
• Because he was late he did not do a thorough flight check of his aircraft.
• He failed to check his gas tanks.
• Realizing his situation he pressed on rather than landing to refuel.
• The engine quit. He passed up a field that would allow him to land safely but he chose instead to try to land on a busy highway, hoping that a motorist might be able to get him to his meeting on time.
• On approach to the highway he hit power lines and perished in the resulting crash.

If the pilot had changed any one of these little actions and made the proper decision he would be alive today.

No matter where you are in life and regardless of the bad decisions you have made, your next decision can be a good one. 

God’s mercies are new every morning. 

Today is a new day.  Don’t sacrifice tomorrow’s opportunity on the altar of today’s desire.

Love to hear your comments.

No humans were harmed in producing this fake photo!

I just finished a 15 mile bike ride in winds gusting to over 30 miles an hour. The ride took me an hour and fifteen minutes and included two incredibly steep hills. One of them was so steep that I had to traverse in order to keep from stopping. It was excruciating. Do you know what the hardest part of the ride was? Getting out of bed.  So what is the one action that will change your life forever…..?

Just do it!

The hardest part of almost any task or challenge we face is getting started. I am an expert at sitting on my rear while I analyze how difficult a task is going to be,  agonize over how long it will take mull over whether I will be able to do it to perfection. A friend of ours, who happens to run one of the most successful fortune five hundred companies in the world, put it well. “Any thing worth doing is worth doing poorly the first time.”

JUST DO IT.   You can always improve on it once you have started.

My friend Eric Alexander, helped guide the first blind man to the peak of Mt Everest. He had to do more than just dream about reaching the summit. He didn’t sit around worrying because a blind man had never been on the summit before. They made it!  But it would have never happened if he had hadn’t taken that first step, crossed that first stream, established that first base camp.

What you got to do today?
What you got to do?
Apologize?
Exercise?
Run or just have fun?
Read?
Ride?
Forgive and let Live?
Admit?
Commit?
Study and Learn?
What you got to do today?
What you got to do?

JUST DO IT!

Tell me what first step took that led to new horizons?  OR  What step do you need to take to make something happen?  DO IT and then report back and let me celebrate with you!

This is a challenge adapted from a post done almost three years ago.

Check out my friend Eric Alexander.  His story is an inspirational and motivational presentation you will never forget.