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Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Living How You Were Meant to Live

As I rode my bike back from church last Sunday I saw these beautiful Atomic babies just sitting by a dumpster. I thought how sad that someone had just abandoned them to live out their days as "trash". I immediately seized upon them to add to my growing ski museum collection.

Having been sponsored by Atomic years ago for XC racing, the design & graphics brought back nice memories. In those days Atomic would use the same graphic for all their models.... from xc, downhill racing to yes, even  telemark skis. I easily identified the year of these skis as 1992, my first pair of free Atomic classic skis that looked identical to these.

These particular Tele boards had been obviously well used, even crusty old kick wax from the final outing remained on the base. I've often wondered if skis could talk what would they say? Maybe some of mine would say, "you have too many of us! We don't get out enough!" or perhaps, "feed me! I need more wax!"

I'm sure these particular Atomic Tele boards would say, "Thanks for rescuing me from the dumpster, but please.... I want to ski again, not just sit on a wall!"

Truly indeed, a ski would only be happy shushing down the slopes gliding over pristine powder. They'd only be frustrated sitting on a wall or even worse buried in a trash pile.

Maybe it was because I was coming home from church, but I began to think how we as created humans are similar. We're only truly happy and content when we're doing what we were made to do.

And what exactly is that? Of course it's to worship our Creator and live our lives for Him. Even as cool as it is to live in a mountain town and race & train for ski mountaineering, xc and sky running (or whatever it is that you do), it all gets boring and pointless after awhile... if we're doing it apart from our Creator's overriding purpose- to worship Him and live our lives for Him.

I made a nice discovery in Romans 12.11 this A.M..... 3 commands, the middle one being "be fervent in spirit". The word "fervent" is a greek word zeo-used 2x in the N.T. and means to boil (literally & metaphorically- in this case the latter).  In other words let your human spirit be boiling red hot for God (& in the context, good deeds).

I'll admit that lately my thermometer has been on a lower setting lately. Time to turn up the heat!!

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

GLORY

With Olympic fever still on people’s minds maybe I can share a poignant Olympic moment in my life. The very first Olympic athlete I met (on the very first day I moved to Canada in ‘94) was Catriona Lemay (later...Lemay-Doan). Cat soon became a Christian and less importantly, an Olympic gold medalist. In the days leading up to the 2002 Olympics in Utah, I met with Catriona with the direct purpose of trying to give her a vision of how it could be for her if she became the first Canadian to defend an Olympic gold medal. As we now all know she accomplished this and was the only Canadian to do so until last week when Kallie and Heather repeated their gold medal performance in the 2-gal bobsled.

I wanted to encourage Catriona, as a growing Christian, to use her potential medal platform to worship. Indeed, when you’re on the top step of the podium in the world’s largest sporting contest you have the world’s adulation and adoration. Yet, as a Christian, how cool can it be when you simply direct all that just one (major) step above you, to the One who truly is the only One worthy of such attention. In essence, having a worship time on an Olympic podium.

Recently, I had some stickers made up and freely gave them away to many Christian athletes. They were simply a Bible verse reference... “Is.43.7".  It reads,

 “Everyone who is called by My name, and whom I have created for My glory, Whom I have formed, even whom I have made.”

What a great passage! In this simple statement is our reason for living...the reason why God made us in the first place. How often do we think about this? Why we’re here on this planet?  Do we orient our lives around this passionate purpose? Or like so many, is our sight only as far as what concerns us personally in the mundane day to day living?

Maybe we should all put some stickers or other gentle reminders around us, or better yet, spend some quality time each day with the God who is surpassingly worthy of living solely and soulfully for!