Zero sum game...

Our Daily Bread
Zero sum game is a business term that means that someone has to win and someone has to lose.  In other words, my gains are offset by your losses.  In Christ, we don't need to worry about this game.  God is faithful in every promise.  The concept of winning and losing is from a heavenly prospective instead of an early one.

For example, there is a story of a man who lost his job.  It was a difficult, stressful job, but it paid extremely well.  The man constantly had health problems from the stress and rarely saw his family with small children.  Finally, he collapsed one day.  His doctor insisted that he quit the job.  Was that a loss or a win?  Most earthly measures would say he "lost" a high paying job.  From a heavenly point of view, we would say he "won" because he kept his life and got reacquainted with his family.

What things in your life do you count as winning or losing?  Do you feel like you "gave up " something because of your relationship with God?  Is your life different than the lives of our friends because of your beliefs?

Lord, I want to count all things that are not from you as not important and "lost".  You are the most important part of my life.  Thank you!

Disciple Two-sday
This is my last entry for Disciple 2!  Wow!  We started this class in September.  It has been a great experience with a great group of people.  I will miss seeing them each week!  The chapters this week talked about Rom and Priority.

Rome
This chapter talked about Paul's last days when he was in jail in Rome.  It was an interesting story as Paul kept his ministries going while imprisoned.  His attitude towards his current state of freedom inspires many of us each day -- being content in any state.  Wow!

Priority
This chapter summarizes all the stuff we learned in this class.  It encourages us to find out priorities in life and live accordingly.  I started this process in my Walk to Emmaus in 2009.  I need to continue to work on this as my life changes.

Other Stuff
My left eye continues to get better.  I am interested to find out the results of my eye exam tomorrow.  I will write about it on Thursday.  I continue to wear my safety glasses during the day and a patch over the left eye at night.  The funniest part of this story is that my safetly glasses have been a hit almost everywhere I have gone the past few weeks!  Two of the baristas at Starbucks thought they were so cool when I got coffee Sunday morning!  What a hoot!

God continues to build my faith as this faithless, goofy bear is trying to learn to trust him with one of the deepest desires of my heart.  For the second night in a row, I begged God for a sign or more faith.  Within a half hour, he gave me another sign.  I will do my best to have faith and not need signs to believe that God is working in this particular situation.  God, thank you for being so patient with me.  I know I am needy at times.  The song "Sometimes I'm Samson" comes to mind.

Hang in there, my friends.  I will be upbeat and steady.  That is what I do...