Eye’s on the road ahead please!

When you drive a car, checking the rearview mirror is a good idea so you can see who’s behind you and to look at where you’ve been. But if you keep looking at what happened, you get your focus off the road in front of you and risk crashing your car.

The same is true in our walk with Christ. Oswald Chambers had something great to say about this today.

“The snare in Christian work is to rejoice in successful service, to rejoice in the fact that God has used you. You never can measure what God will do through you if you are rightly related to Jesus Christ. Keep your relationship right with Him, then whatever circumstances you are in, and whoever you meet day by day, He is pouring rivers of living water through you, and it is of His mercy that He does not let you know it.”

The truth is none of us knows what God is doing with us so why do we spend so much time trying to figure it out? It’s good to glance in the rearview mirror once in a while but when we become overwhelmed by what He simply chose to do through us, we take our eyes off the target, which has nothing to do with us and everything to do with Him.

Life at the end of a Pole

I’m not much of a fisherman. I like to fish. But it’s not something that runs through my veins. My youngest son Jess is 100% fisherman. The guy is amazing at it. When he gets a spare second, he picks up his pole and heads to a river. Nice thing is he has a girlfriend who also loves to fish. My barber, Lee Myers, made good on his promise by taking us on a fishing trip down the Mckenzie River yesterday. Lee’s a great barber and a good guy. We spent the whole day up there. I took my video camera with me and brought back the big one…..(story that is).

Creswell: City Celebrates 100 (video)

I’m working with the city of Creswell on their website. We recently put together this video, that nowappears on the town’s website. You’ll be seeing more of this, on their website in the future…we hope.

Client: City of Creswell

Fishing Tease: Click here for video

Went fishing with my son Jess and my Barber Lee Myers. We had such a great time on the river. I’m working on a longer story but thought I’d throw down some video to get you interested. That’s called “a tease” in the News Business. Somethings never die.

Allen Alley: On the Trail Part One (video)

Allen Alley hired me to follow him on a few of his legs of his “On the Trail” walk across Oregon. Allen, right now, is the only candidate who’s thrown his hat in the ring to be Oregon’s next Governor. Yes, there will be more but take a look at the video and get to know Allen. If Alley’s name is familiar to you that’ s because he ran for State Treasurer when I ran for Secretary of State. If you’d like more information about where he stands go to his website AllenAlley.com. You can also follow his daily tweets on the trail.

Client: Friends Of Allen Alley

I Hate when Sand gets in my Oyster Shell.

A friend wrote me a note the other day and included this line that hit me like a ton a bricks. It describes my life. I want God to produce great pearls of wisdom but am sometimes unwilling to open my shell and allow a little sand in my life. Sand in an oyster shell is what causes the irritation to create the beautiful pearl.

Jesus warned there would be plenty of sand but most of us who follow Him try to limit the tiny bits of rock to protect what matters most to us, comfort.

I had one of those days yesterday. I woke up and found my shell wide open and before I could close up, buckets of sand had dropped on me and began to filter into my shell.

This morning, most of the initial irritation is gone but some lingers. I predict a pearl is being produce and out of it a pauper will be born.

As I look out my window, I see dark gray clouds blanketing the sky. In contrast the dry, dead, straw-colored grass in my yard looks almost beautiful instead of dead. As I sit here writing these words I’m thinking of the people I admire most and realize they have their shells wide open. Perhaps as I go through my day, instead of closing up, I will remain open and in that openness, a bit of sand will slip in causing irritation and another pearl.