It is in the still moments when you hear from God. The terms being still, being quiet, being calm, and being silent are in the bible 35 times and divided equally between the Old Testament and the New Testament. This means that the bible has talked about this presence of calm and peace sense the beginning of time.

Why is this important? It is because God will not compete with the phone, TV, email, internet, news or any other distraction. He wants to be the center of your quiet time and the center of that moment. God will not shout over the noise of your life. I find that I hear from God when I am still and quiet and I choose him.

I remember back in the early 90’s when we were so in debt and I had two young daughters, a beautiful wife and more debt than I could pay. One particular day I decided to get alone and stop all the noise so I could hear from God. This can be done in a bedroom with the door closed, a closet, and garage or in a car. I chose to go to Vogel State Park for the night. I remember when I got there I took out a yellow writing pad, bowed my head and asked God to speak to me and give me wisdom and direction to get out of debt.

A funny thing happened when I started to write on that yellow pad. I started to write any thoughts that came to my mind and it was as if God was writing through me. I don’t mean some hocus pocus Casper the ghost moment. It was a God moment. I just remember I was writing down a plan for how to get out of debt and many of those thoughts were new to me. I remember at the time thinking that this was just me and my emotions, but I wrote page after page on that yellow pad. When I finished I realized that most of what I had written was giving me direction in my life. That trip and that night and that word from God was one of the most important events in my personal, professional and Christian life.

I was looking through some old stuff not long ago and I came across that yellow pad and the words written on it. I begin to read what was written and my mind raced back to that evening at Vogel State Park and I can tell you that those words written some 20+ years ago still stirred my heart and made my eyes wet with the power and the memory of that quiet time with God.

Find a moment to be alone, still and quiet. Ask God if you are being the man or woman you should be, and if not, ask him for his direction and wisdom on how to become what he wants you to be. My suggestion is to get a writing pad and put the date at the top and where you are at that moment and really began to write out your needs, hopes, desires and the prayers for your life. Years from now when you look back on those words, I trust they will mean as much to you as mine meant to me. KT

How about a little lesson in Country Music. Ha

There is a song by Jake Owens called “What we ain’t got” and it has a very good meaning. The song is about people always wanting something more than they current have and never being satisfied. A bigger house and a faster car and we all want what we ain’t got. The striving for “things” we see other people have. One section of lyrics near the end of the song is particularly poignant when it says “I wanted the whole world until my world stopped. Now all I want is what I had.”

Things happen and the life as we know it can change with a phone call or a doctor visit. I trust everyone reading this blog will all live very long, very healthy and very prosperous lives but we all know someone that got a call one day and their world as they knew changed.

The point is to live life now and to not put off what you want to do.

Another song is by Tim McGraw titled “live like you were dying.” The song is about a man talking to his friend in his early 40’s about a bad diagnosis he received from his doctor. The man asked the friend what he did after the doctor told him he was dying. He expected the friend to tell him he went home and cried and felt sorry for himself. To his surprise, the friend told him he went “sky diving, rocky mountain climbing, rode 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu.” He also told the man that he gave forgiveness he had been denying, loved deeper, spoke sweeter and became the husband he was supposed to be. His friend told him, someday I hope you get the chance to live like you were dying. Wow

I know these are country songs that didn’t come from the bible but we all know that these words carry meaning for us all. Hopefully everyone reading this blog is in good health and living their dreams in life but sometimes making a decision to change our life comes only after we take an inventory of really how blessed we are now. Live the life you have today, hug your family and don’t hold back telling them how much you love them.

The ending of Tim McGraw’s song said it well. “Someday I hope you get the chance to live like you were dying.” What a good meaning and a good lesson for us all. Be Safe. KT

In life, keeping your balance is a hard thing to do. We can take a few lessons on the subject from cycling.

The only way to keep your balance on a bike is to move forward. Once you stop you are no longer balancing. I am a very amateur cyclist and the sport both scares me and excites me. I have all the cycling garb that makes me look like I know what I am doing until we start riding and then the real truth is displayed.

One of the things I needed to do when I started riding was to get the petal clips on my shoes. Instead of the normal bike petal there is a round shaft with a clip on it. The other end of the clip is on the bottom of your shoes. Having your shoes clipped in helps you to pull up on the petal as well as push down thereby helping you to increase your cycling strength.

The only way you can get out of the clips is to pivot your ankles and it releases your shoes. I found out the hard way what happens when you pull up to a stop and you don’t unclip your shoes. You basically just fall over to the ground because your shoes are fixed to the bike. I remember very vividly the first time I rode with a group with the petal clips. I looked like a total goob because our group pulled up to a stop sign and I forgot to unclip. When I stopped, I expected to just put my feet down like you would normally do on a bike but I forgot I was clipped in. All 200 lbs. of me fell sideways to the ground. Let me tell you, it was embarrassing and very painful. Ha Thank goodness there was not another bike beside me or it could have been bad. Want to know what the second most embarrassing thing I did was? I did the same thing again on the same group ride about 15 minutes later. When I picked myself up that second time, I had a PHD degree on what I would not do again. Ha

When you clip in on a cycle, you had better be moving forward. Just like in life, you need to be moving forward in order to keep your balance. KT

Be careful when you are following someone else’s tracks. H. Jackson Brown said, “In business or in life, don’t follow the wagon tracks too closely.” If I were adding anything to that quote it would be “because you may get stuck.”

In business this could not be any more clear. Look at the iPhone and the Blackberry, My Space and Facebook, AOL and Google, palm pilots, polaroid camera, 8 track tape players, CD’s, vinyl records and the list could go on and on. Following where other people have gone, will only get you where other people have gone. Did I miss something there or could it be that simple?

Look at your life as an example. If we didn’t follow the tracks of others for a while, none of us would have completed high school or know how to button our shirt. We all need to be lead to a certain intersection in life where we decide to continue following the tracks in front of us or to take a different route. Be careful when you look at someone else and want to be like them. I have found that the person you want to be like, many times turns out to be a goob when you get a close look at really who they are. My advice is don’t look at the stuff a person has, rather look at the eyes of who they really are. Look at these movie stars and athletes who seemingly have everything in life only to find out they didn’t know how to handle it.

Be careful whose tracks you are following because you could end up exactly where they are. I think of one female movie star that had everything. Fortune, fame and all the material things that the super wealthy have. She was a child prodigy and was one of the most sought after actresses in the industry. Well as she got older, she just could not handle the money, the success and the fame. Today she is a broken shell of the person she once was.

What am I am saying? There are times when staying on the tracks before us is the best thing we could do and then there are other times when you need to create your own tracks. You and God are the only ones that knows when to make that turn in your life. Unlike the person that left the tracks before you, God knows where the tracks lead 20 years from now. There is absolutely nothing wrong with following in someone else’s tracks so long as you know where the tracks lead.

So in summary I would say, don’t just follow for follow sake. Think on your own and think of your own. Think of your husband/wife and children and choose the best track to following to accomplish where you want to end up. KT