COFFEE WITH MAX ...
... coffee every morning with Max Lucado is my current therapy du jour. That's Lucado with a long "A" and I found that out listening to some of Max's Upwords on his website:
I've resisted the impulse to go to Max's website, highlight and copy some of his best stories and paste them here for you to read. If you want to read Max Lucado, do it the right way. Go buy one of his books or go check one out at your library. You owe it to yourself to take him seriously.
Day before yesterday I had a big grin at one of Max's stories. He tells of going to the church gym to play basketball. The players are made up of a diverse age and size variety, Max calls the "flat bellies" and the "fat bellies."
The flat bellies are agile and admired for their precision moves. They score a high percentage of baskets as the morning workout progresses. They are however, very tolerant and respectful of the fat bellies.
the fat bellies are very respectful of the flat bellies and admire their precision moves, their high basket scores and their youth and vitality.
The flat bellies respect the fat bellies because the fat bellies have the keys to the gymnasium in their pockets.
We all need to go through life remembering who has the keys to the gymnasium in their pocket.
I'd heard this story before, probably in one of Sherry's sermons (she's been reading Max Lucado for years).
Two battleships have been in stormy seas for days on manuevers off the Pacific Coast. In the early morning hours, still stormy with visibility at near zero, the intercom crackles "forward lookout to bridge, there's a light dead ahead." Because of the weather, the Captain has remained on the bridge and responds, "Forward lookout, this is the Captain, keep observing the light and tell me if it moves starboard or port or remains steady. If it remains steady it means we are on collision course."
A little while later the forward lookout reports the light is remaining steady. The captain sends a signalman out who flashes the message. "Light off point bow, change your course twenty degrees." From the light there comes the signal, "You change your course twenty degrees." The captain has the signalman send, "I am the Captain of this vessel and I command you to change your course by twenty degrees." The response comes, "I am a Yeoman 2nd Class and I instruct you to change your course twenty degrees."
Enraged, the Captain has this message sent, "This is a United States Battleship, change your course twenty degrees." From the light comes the response, "This is a lighthouse, change your course twenty degrees."
I don't need to finish this story. But the question that begs being answered is, "How much of our time do we spend demanding that lighthouses change their courses?"
I got Karen's beautiful red sunset shortly after I'd finished my "Coffee with Max" session and this thought came to mind.
An unusually percentage of males have a visual abnormality known in laymen's terms as "red-green color blindness."
During World War II, one of the sad things was the number of qualified young men who wanted to be aircraft pilots, but were color-blind. As I recall, they became bombardiers or navigators or maybe gunners. They can't be policemen. They will live and die and never know what the color "red" looks like.
I've tried to image how you could describe with words the color "red" to someone, to lessen their loss. I haven't even come up with a vague outline.
The question we all need to ask is, "What are our color-blind spots, our blind spots? What are the things we will never be able to fathom because of a flaw in one of the five senses?" If we know ourselves, our strengths (like the keys to the gym in our pocket) and our weaknesses (like color-blindness) and accept them, we'll be better able to deal with life.
COFFEE WITH MAX ...
... coffee every morning with Max Lucado is my current therapy du jour. That's Lucado with a long "A" and I found that out listening to some of Max's Upwords on his website:
I've resisted the impulse to go to Max's website, highlight and copy some of his best stories and paste them here for you to read. If you want to read Max Lucado, do it the right way. Go buy one of his books or go check one out at your library. You owe it to yourself to take him seriously.
Day before yesterday I had a big grin at one of Max's stories. He tells of going to the church gym to play basketball. The players are made up of a diverse age and size variety, Max calls the "flat bellies" and the "fat bellies."
The flat bellies are agile and admired for their precision moves. They score a high percentage of baskets as the morning workout progresses. They are however, very tolerant and respectful of the fat bellies.
the fat bellies are very respectful of the flat bellies and admire their precision moves, their high basket scores and their youth and vitality.
The flat bellies respect the fat bellies because the fat bellies have the keys to the gymnasium in their pockets.
We all need to go through life remembering who has the keys to the gymnasium in their pocket.
I'd heard this story before, probably in one of Sherry's sermons (she's been reading Max Lucado for years).
Two battleships have been in stormy seas for days on manuevers off the Pacific Coast. In the early morning hours, still stormy with visibility at near zero, the intercom crackles "forward lookout to bridge, there's a light dead ahead." Because of the weather, the Captain has remained on the bridge and responds, "Forward lookout, this is the Captain, keep observing the light and tell me if it moves starboard or port or remains steady. If it remains steady it means we are on collision course."
A little while later the forward lookout reports the light is remaining steady. The captain sends a signalman out who flashes the message. "Light off point bow, change your course twenty degrees." From the light there comes the signal, "You change your course twenty degrees." The captain has the signalman send, "I am the Captain of this vessel and I command you to change your course by twenty degrees." The response comes, "I am a Yeoman 2nd Class and I instruct you to change your course twenty degrees."
Enraged, the Captain has this message sent, "This is a United States Battleship, change your course twenty degrees." From the light comes the response, "This is a lighthouse, change your course twenty degrees."
I don't need to finish this story. But the question that begs being answered is, "How much of our time do we spend demanding that lighthouses change their courses?"
I got Karen's beautiful red sunset shortly after I'd finished my "Coffee with Max" session and this thought came to mind.
An unusually percentage of males have a visual abnormality known in laymen's terms as "red-green color blindness."
During World War II, one of the sad things was the number of qualified young men who wanted to be aircraft pilots, but were color-blind. As I recall, they became bombardiers or navigators or maybe gunners. They can't be policemen. They will live and die and never know what the color "red" looks like.
I've tried to image how you could describe with words the color "red" to someone, to lessen their loss. I haven't even come up with a vague outline.
The question we all need to ask is, "What are our color-blind spots, our blind spots? What are the things we will never be able to fathom because of a flaw in one of the five senses?" If we know ourselves, our strengths (like the keys to the gym in our pocket) and our weaknesses (like color-blindness) and accept them, we'll be better able to deal with life.