Making progress....

First things first. Here is one interesting thing I learned today:

When a baby is born, his or her needs are very basic. All they do at first is eat (drink), sleep, poop, and cry. All that the little guy or girl needs is to be close to mommy for food, have something to wear, have a place to sleep, have some diapers to poop in, and have a pacifier (or, again, just be near mommy) to help stop the crying. Pretty basic. Not a lot is needed to meet those basic needs. Yet it is truly astounding the things that are available for sale to the soon to be parents of coming infants. I actually saw a mechanical cradle that will gently rock a baby side to side or back and forth. But it does so on a flat plane, not in the traditional curved rocking sense. This bed cost a fortune and will be outgrown within 4 months. Then there were these high tech car seats that can actually lay completely flat or adjust to sitting position; they can also be rotated to be side rear or front facing. There are devices for heating up bottles and for keeping wipes warm. Anyway - a trip down to Babies R Us opened my eyes to this whole new world of baby luxury. The sad thing is, the parents will never get thanked for it, and the babies will hardly notice the difference in many of these things.



Thought for the day:

This thought is hard to formulate. Let me think (i've written a half a paragraph and deleted it three times). I believe there is a succint yet thorough way to communicate what I'm thinking, but thus far it has eluded me..... perhaps a bullet point style will do.

I don't know if I'm normal, but I have for a long time been plagued with the desire to see great things come out of my life. Depending on where I was in life, "great" meant different things. But in any case - the desire was always for it to be something meaningful. Unfortunately - I have discovered that I feel that I am a man of weaker constitution than I would like to be. [parenthetical note that just popped into my mind: this recognition is undoubtedly a good thing according to 2 Corinthians 12:9. This fact could threaten to derail my entire train of thought, but I will attempt to continue] Because of my weaknesses and sometimes lack of ability to keep focused, I struggle to make progress toward reaching my goals. Some have said that I am too critical of myself. But really - I look at men who have been great, and they have had stamina, focus, and determination to do what's necessary to "get stuff done". I was talking with a friend who has had somewhat similar thoughts (I don't know all about the "greatness" stuff, but he wants to avoid living in a rut), and he had a great plan - which was to make a plan. The main obstacle to achieving the greater goals in life is that they require daily progress. Today, I can either choose to do the same thing I did the day before, or I can realize that the greater goal is reached by decisions made toward it day by day. It's not the greatness of the goal that makes the goal hard to reach, but the fact that it takes grueling day by day discipline and habits. The things that keep us all in ruts are the time wasters. (I hope writing this, or reading it is not one such thing for anyone). It seems like there is no great impact to my life or future if I spend a couple hours surfin the net or flippin the channels, but each time it adds to the time that could have been used. I'm not saying all leisure time is bad - I'm just saying that since I haven't been keeping track of it, I think I've been spending a lot more time on leisure than I would ever plan or like to admit. It's like buying Starbucks three times a week. It's not a bad thing necessarily. It's just that you have to realize the fact that it's almost a $60 commitment. If you weren't planning on setting aside that portion of your budget for Starbucks - the change comes at individual occasions of declining to do it. Each time seems like no big deal... it's only five more bucks. Same with time - it's only one more episode of the show, I'm just tired tonight.

In any case - if we want to reach our goals. Let us be clear with ourselves what they are and recognize what decisions need to be made to reach them. Then live inentionally, every day, with determination and the decision before our eyes to reach those goals. And back to 2 Cor. 12:9, I believe this is the most important part for me to remember. Although I believe I must make the right choices as discussed if I want to reach my goals. More importantly, I must lean upon Christ and draw my strength from Him. I must make His goals mine. I can't do it in my own strength - I just can't. And now that I realize it, I think there may actually be hope for me to reach the goals.