My 50th birthday today

Here on my birthday there are a lot of significant things that I could say as I look back upon my life but I'll spare you the boring details by giving you the best secular quote I've read this year:

You were born an original. Don't die a copy.

~John Mason

Outside of the Bible, I think that's about the best advice I've ever read. I firmly believe it

and now pardon me as I prepare for our garden party where I'm going to eat so much barbecue that I'll sprout horns.

Tomorrow: the half-century mark

Here's a picture of Julianne and me taken at the Knoxville Ice Bears minor league hockey game.

Tomorrow I will be 50 years old, and I must tell you, I enter into tomorrow's celebration a thankful man. God has been good, amazingly good.

Even in the trials He has patiently taught me and brought me along, so that, as stupid as I am, I can still learn. He's placed some wonderful lessons in front of me so that I can continue to grow in His knowledge.

I'm able to work with professional athletes, start-up businesses and major corporations by writing for them and helping them in the field of communications. I'm able to be creative and form new ideas to help people. I'm blessed to be able to continue to write novels and articles for companies across the country. I'm going to be part of a new publishing firm. More about that later.

And I get to enjoy my family. I have the blessing of having my office inside my home.

Tomorrow, the former members of the West Park Baptist youth group of decades ago will be my guests at our birthday party. So many good things happening.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life... Psalm 23:6

Breaking Up

In high school we had one of those "married couples." You know, the guy and the girl who were so attached that it's hard for you to visualize the time when they were actually walking on their own. Danny and Tanya were that way. They were always together. Always together. You couldn't pry them apart with a crowbar. It seemed like when he breathed pepper, she would sneeze. We would put down bets as to how soon after graduation these two 'soulmates' would get married.

Imagine my shock when I found out they split up almost as soon as the summer started. These two had been together for three years at least. It was stunning - Danny and Tanya were, well, supposed to be together. It was the talk among the grads. What happened to those two that they'd split up? They were inseparable!

I think of Steve and Julie who broke up in college and how I was shocked, thinking that these two were made for each other. They'd been together for six or seven months, and after they broke up they were miserable. They realized they were made for each other and they got back together. Today, they're happily married (over 20 years now) and have a pack of kids.

I think of people who have walked away from Jesus. Some people say 'walked away from the faith' but that can mean anything from mindless liturgy to repetitive yoga exercises. I mean people who have approached the awesome protection and love of Christ ... and turned away.

I was reading Adrian Roger's "Love Worth Finding" web site and this startling fact was posted:

Did you know that 85 of America’s first 100 colleges were built for the preaching of the gospel?

Harvard was founded as a Christ-centered school. In 1646 one of it rules stated, “Everyone shall consider the main end of his life and studies to know God and Jesus Christ, which is life eternal.”

Yale was founded in 1701 to train preachers of the gospel. Their president told the 1814 graduating class, “Christ is the only true, the living way of access to God.”

Princeton insisted in its early days that every faculty member be “convinced of the necessity of religious experience for salvation.” Its first president said, “Cursed be all learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ.”

Tragically, these schools and many of our earliest colleges and universities have abandoned their founding principles and more importantly their first love.

The book of Revelation reveals Jesus' deep disappointment with the church at Ephesus. This was a busy church "on the go" but the tragedy is spoken aloud by Jesus: "Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love."

We were made for a relationship with Jesus. I don't want to leave that union.

Source: http://www.lwf.org/site/PageServer?pagename=for_DiggingDeeper

Jill

Here is a picture taken at Nicholas' wedding. Jill is with her very dear friend Sharon McDuffie. Jill and Sharon have been friends for almost twenty years now, and Sharon was instrumental in making a fantastic presentation of Nicholas' and Alexis' wedding. Jill and Sharon both brighten any room they enter. My wife Jill has a heart for the Lord that is a constant encouragement to me, even in these early days of my new writing career. She has a yearning to follow Jesus each and every day and makes our household a home. I know quite a few people who cannot say that and it reminds me to thank the Lord every day for the blessing of having such a precious wife.

The "Meadowlark weekend" was fantastic. Maryville has embraced the new team and there is excitement about the upcoming season. We had numerous radio shows and press conferences - all went well. Big plans are in the works for the fall season.

Meadowlark is a man after God's own heart. He was consistently talking about following the Lord and the joy that serving Jesus brings. It was a busy but spiritually uplifting weekend.

------------------------------------------

This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. - Psalm 118:24

Meadowlark coming

We're moving quickly around here, preparing for the press conference tomorrow. I will be picking up Meadowlark Lemon at the airport at 4 p.m. He will be coming into town to announce his part of the ownership of the new ABA team, the Smoky Mountain Jam, along with his new tour with the Harlem All Stars - everything will be based in Maryville TN, right next to Knoxville. Meadowlark has been a good friend of mine since 2000 and, as the new Director of Operations for the Jam, I am pleased to be able to welcome him on board to be part of our basketball family. His tour is going to be awesome - he still gets on the court and plays!

Nicholas and Alexis Zockoll wedding

Here are Nicholas and Alexis (picture taken with my Blackberry -sorry for the sloppiness. I'll post better pictures later.) What a wonderful time we had. Goid blessed us with great weather and wonderful family and friends. Nicholas and Alexis are spending their honeymoon at Daytona Beach this week. It's great having Alexis as part of our family, and I'm proud of Nicholas for the wise choice he made to receive such a wonderful wife.

Faith in the Journey

I received a phone call last night from my youth group member of 27 years ago, Dan Guerrero. We talked of many events and joys of those days in Hollister, California, and of the journey since then. What a powerful thing to talk to someone to whom you ministered over a quarter of a century ago. I thought of the many things that have passed through my life since then, of which you read in my blog. I realize that through these years, as with the day-to-day walk I experience right now, that faith in the Savior is what keeps each day fresh and vibrant.

Faith is not a pathetic sentiment, but robust vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. You cannot see Him just now, you cannot understand what He is doing, but you know Him. Shipwreck occurs where there is not that mental poise which comes from being established on the eternal truth that God is holy love. Faith is the heroic effort of your life, you fling yourself in reckless confidence on God.
God has ventured all in Jesus Christ to save us, now He wants us to venture our all in abandoned confidence in Him. - Oswald Chambers

Prom

Peter and Libby before Saturday night's prom. They had a great time, and both of them looked great. I can't tell you how enjoyable it is to be able to see them at this special event. I can remember my Junior Prom - I wore (I am not making this up) a forest green tux that was not fitted properly so the pants came up over my ankles. I should have patented the style: high-water formal.

Libby and Peter went to Wasabi's before the prom - a little fancy food-prep-before-your-eyes type of shindig. All in all, it was a memorable evening for them. These are two very special young people.

new week

It has been about five straight days of rain. The azaleas are in bloom.

This is the our last week with Nicholas in the household. As of Saturday he will be a married man. he and Alexis will be settlign in Jonesborough TN as he pursues a career in the Air National Guard. I can still recall him as a child with me pushing him around the house on a Big Wheel truck (yes, it was indoors - we did get a bit rowdy) and his holiday school recitations onstage while a student at Faith Christian School in NC. And now he is ready to start his own heritage. I am saddened by our loss of his immediate presence here but joyful that he is blessed with a wonderful wife and a great start on a new life.

While I was speaking at a church class, I encountered a man in his thirties, a gentleman who was suffering greatly. "Paul" was enduring the loss of his home and a family tragedy. He told me he felt empty, a shell that just moved around and functioned. I listened and listened. I've been there. It was a powerful way for me to help someone, for me to tell someone that hey, I felt the same way. I shared Romans 8 but mostly I listened. Please remember this hurting gentleman. I will be contacting him throughout the week.

This is a big week. Lots to do, especially with the American Basketball Association. The ABA is really doing a powerful job of renovation and restoration. I'm busy with teams almost 24/7.

Comparisons

Now here's what we call a good snow in eastern Tennessee. This was taken of Jill and Julianne this past winter as I pulled up to the house after work. I bet it took Jill all of an hour to make that little snowman. But Julianne thought it was practically a blizzard. My friends in Colorado called about an hour after this picture was taken to tell me they had two feet of snow on the ground and more was still coming.

But to us - especially the little ones - this was a big thing. I do believe they even cancelled school for this.

In reflection I see that this is the way people are in other areas of their life. They may think events in theri own personal lives - especially trials - are insurmountable and deep. Yet in comparison to others, it pales. At college, one of my roomates asked for serious prayer because his executive dad wasn't getting as much of a bonus as they had hoped... while down the hall prayer was going up for a roommate who has to leave school because of a baseball-sized tumor in his brain. (He survived the harrowing surgeries and came back to school before the end of the year.)

In each of our minds, yes, the suffering I'm going through is real and hurting but let's not fail to realize that others around us need compassion and support. Let's not shut down and fence ourselves in. As Christians let's reach out and assist others who are in need and share each other's burdens, with people both inside and outside the faith. They're all heavy burdens, and in need of extra shoulders.