Just Continue That Thought...

A thought by Mark Batterson, Richard Foth, and Susanna Foth Aughtmon (2015-04-28) from their book, A Trip around the Sun: Turning Your Everyday Life into the Adventure ofa Lifetime  (p. 72). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) I have started every day for many years doing one thing.  I read from the Psalms and I read from the NT.  Right now I am in Paul’s second letter to the young man, Timothy.  I love what I read this morning in verse 7 of chapter 4.  Paul said, “ I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful.”  No matter what has happened to me, “I have remained faithful.”  That is what Mark is talking about here. He says, “I’m more and more impressed with people who simply keep on keeping on. I love the phrase ‘little by little’ in Exodus 23: 30. We want a lot by a lot, but that’s not the way it works in God’s kingdom ventures. Malco...

A thought by Mark Batterson, Richard Foth, and Susanna Foth Aughtmon (2015-04-28) from their book, A Trip around the Sun: Turning Your Everyday Life into the Adventure of a Lifetime  (p. 62). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) Do you really take yourself so seriously that if you do something dumb you don’t share it because you don’t want people to laugh at you?  I understand.  I’ve had problems with that.  The key is to realize that “the healthiest, holiest, and happiest people on the planet are those who laugh at themselves the most.”  Pride is not our friend. Here is what Mark says, “One of the things that defines our culture at National Community Church is our theology of fun. We take God seriously, but we don’t take ourselves seriously. We have cultivated a culture of honor, but we’ve also cultivated a culture of humor. Those two things aren’t unrelated.”  Then he says, “The heal...

A thought by Mark Batterson, Richard Foth, and Susanna Foth Aughtmon (2015-04-28) from their book, A Trip around the Sun: Turning Your Everyday Life into the Adventure of a Lifetime (p. 52). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) Dick said, “At a breakfast with some diplomats and former government officials, on the spur of the moment I was asked to offer a thought for the day. In my comments I lamented the truth that DC was not a town in which one wanted to toss his credentials on the table, because they would most certainly be trumped by someone. Someone who had more power, more money, more degrees, more years, more connections, more experience. More anything. When I finished talking, one of the conveners, a former cabinet member to the president of the United States, said, ‘That’s true, Dick, with one exception. If your credentials say “Friend,” everyone wins.’ ‘Friend’ is the greatest title and the highest rank you c...

A thought by Mark Batterson, Richard Foth, and Susanna Foth Aughtmon (2015-04-28) from their book, A Trip around the Sun: Turning Your Everyday Life into the Adventure ofa Lifetime (p. 46). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) I know.  We think that playing it safe is what we want.  But this weekend if we would have played it safe and stayed in our home in Studio City because we knew there was risk in getting in our car and heading up 5 hours to Yosemite we would have risked missing an extra ordinary experience that we will remember the rest of our lives.  But we didn’t play it safe. I mean, if we would have played it safe this morning, no way would Margaret have headed off to make a difference in the work that she does.  There is always a risk when you get on the freeways of LA but there is also a risk when you don't.  I like how Mark puts it, “One of our three core convictions at Nati...

A thought by Mark Batterson, Richard Foth, and Susanna Foth Aughtmon (2015-04-28) from their book, A Trip around the Sun: Turning Your Everyday Life into the Adventure of a Lifetime (p. 29). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) Dick shared, "Stuart Brown, a medical doctor, psychiatrist, and founder of the National Institute for Play, says that play, not necessity, is the mother of invention. And play is not just for kids. He reports: A study done in Okinawa, Japan, by the National Geographic Society revealed that engaging in activities, like playing with young children, was as important as diet and exercise in fostering the Okinawans’ legendary longevity. . . . When we stop playing, we stop developing, and when that happens, the laws of entropy take over— things fall apart. . . . When we stop playing, we start dying. " My son, Brett, his wife Marissa, his daughter's, Ashlyn, and Addison and Margaret and I...

A thought by Mark Batterson, Richard Foth, and Susanna Foth Aughtmon (2015-04-28) from their book, A Trip around the Sun: Turning Your Everyday Life into the Adventure ofa Lifetime (p. 29). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) Dick continued this thought by saying, “Ruth and I decided early on in our marriage that if we had to choose between giving our kids experiences or things, we would give them experiences. They could always get things. One of the ways we did that was by traveling. We didn’t let modest salaries stop us. We packed food and games and stopped now and again just to play. After all, experiences connected to play are so often how we learn. I didn’t intellectually know that at the time, but I learned it later and I know it’s true. It’s at the heart of who we are as human beings.” Later he said, “Our experiences shape the way we think, the way we interact with each other, and the way we live. They add...

A thought by Mark Batterson, Richard Foth, and Susanna Foth Aughtmon (2015-04-28) from their book, A Trip around the Sun: Turning Your Everyday Life into the Adventure of a Lifetime (p. 21). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) I love to read.  I really do.  I look many times for a book that gives me good thoughts to share with you.  But when I found this book I knew it was for me.  It really quickens me inside.  I hope it does you too.  Mark said, “The very nature of the gospel is Jesus inviting the disciples on an adventure. To do what they’d never done and go where they’d never gone. Never a dull moment! You cannot follow Jesus and be bored at the same time. Søren Kierkegaard, the nineteenth-century Danish theologian, went so far as to say, ‘Boredom is the root of all evil.’ Boredom isn’t just boring. It’s wrong.”  I really believe that and I want to challenge you to believe it...