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 of a Lifetime  (p. 76). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) I turned 68 years of age today and I probably feel better than I thought I would at 68.  I mean 68.  Aren’t you suppose to feel old?  Oh there are some things but there are also some other things that feel better.  And they feel better because I have had some goals to shoot toward every day. Do you have any goals that you strive to do every day?  Dick said, “Goals have a way of refocusing your life. They give you purpose and a target to shoot for. They are the compass of our dreams, helping us set a steady course. Goals comprise direction and progress. When we lose sight of our goals, we tend to lose sight of ourselves and who we are trying to become, who God has made us to be.” And

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. Malcolm Gladwell refers to it as the ‘ten-th

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 healthiest, holiest, and happiest

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 National Community Churc

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