Here's To Salt In Your Eyes!

Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. ~ Matt 5:13

Salt is mined in two ways. Dry mining and solution mining. Dry mining is the type of mining that takes place on the surface of the earth. This kind of mining is rare. In solution mining, fresh water is injected through a pipe into deep shafts that end in the salt beds, and salty water (brine) is drawn upward and dried, to recrystallize the salt. Obviously, this way of extracting salt from the earth is a little more involved than scrapping the surface of the Earth with a bulldozer. It takes effort to bring this kind of operation together. Scrapping the earth leaves scars and and impacts the surface of the earth, but solution mining goes beyond the surface and digs deep into the earth. Water is shot through penetrating shafts into the earth and the salt is then brought to the surface. All of this takes place below the surface, much of which is not seen with the naked eye.

You are probably wondering, what on earth does this have to do with exercise or really anything for that matter? Well, believe it or not, the picture of solution salt mining is a great analogy of exercising. As a runner, I have learned some great principles, not only about exercising, but also about life. These principles are both natural and spiritual and are applicable in a myriad of ways.

It is clearly evident that our nature has a tendency to want something for nothing. Within us is this strong desire to achieve all our goals without much effort. It's an instant gratification attitude that pursues the path of least resistance. After years of mistreating our bodies, lazy living, and lethargic lifestyles, we are easily moved by advertisements that offer quick and easy solutions. Commercials proclaiming you can lose thirty pounds in thirty days, WITHOUT exercising, capture our attention. Anything or any idea offering an easy way out will prompt us to draw money out of our bank accounts. Let's just put it this way, we want a magic pill solution to resolve the problems we have sown in a lifetime! We want a surface dry mining solution that can only penetrate the surface of the problem when the only real solution is an attack on the inner man, which resides deep within the crevices of our hearts!

As we enter week three of the new year, it has probably become evident, once again, it takes physical action to fulfill your mental resolution to change yourself. No matter how many exercising tools, DVD's, or gym memberships you buy, nothing happens unless you, that's right, YOU, do something with them. The treadmill will not do much for YOU, unless you get on it and press the buttons. You see, I have been here before. I have bought the two thousand dollar treadmill and watched it sit in the corner and make a very nice coat rack. I have spent the money on the exercise DVD's and watch them collect dust on the bookshelf. So, I write today with some first hand knowledge. I am no different than you. Believe it or not, I face the same temptations to NOT exercise as you do!

Again, you are probably wondering, 'What on earth does mining salt have to do with this discussion?' There are many well known qualities of salt. Salt is a taste enhancer of food. It adds to the taste of the food we eat. It makes our food taste better. It is also a preservative. No wonder the Lord said His people would be 'the salt of the earth'. Those who lived His Word out of their heart and actions would enhance life to those around them. If their life were lived according to His Word, His people were to add to life here on earth and also help preserve His Word. BUT, as we have seen in the natural, mining salt does not come easily, and as it is in the natural, so it is with the spiritual.

I love it when I get to a place in my exercise routine when a nice salty sweat rolls down my forehead and into my eyes. Sure it stings, but at the same time, I know I have had to work hard to get my body to sweat. Over the years, I have witnessed when I work out, a good old fashion salty sweat does not come in the first few minutes of a workout. I have had to dig deep into my earthen vessel, called this body, in order to bring forth the salt. By digging deep, I mean I have had to mine through a lot of negative thoughts and press pass many temptations to produce a salty sweat, and this makes me feel good! Mining salt does not come easy. It doesn't come by looking at the treadmill, nor does it come at 'thinking' about exercising. The salt from within doesn't even come in the first few minutes of a workout, but only after I have kept my body under subjection to the exercise at hand.

You have heard the saying, "Here's to mud in your eyes!" Well, today, I say, "Here's to salt in your eyes!" Don't make the mistake of just shallow surface mining for salt. Today, dig deep within your heart, and press pass the fleshly temptations to do the minimum, until you reach the depth of where the salt lies. Then, and only then, will you feel the stinging delight of drops of salt in your eyes! And believe me, the external taste of a deep mining workout will bring an internal joy and a hand raising pump in victory!

The 5K Challenge

Voices From the Rut

I spent a fortune
On a trampoline,
A stationary bike
And a rowing machine
Complete with gadgets
To read my pulse,
And gadgets to prove
My progress results,
And others to show
The miles I've charted'
But they left off the gadget
To get me started!

Right about now, today, you are feeling the pull of those bad habits. They are crying out from the rut of lost desires. It doesn't take long for the voices of the past to decry the implementation of change. Like some unfolding Broadway drama, these voices dramatically present their case on why the rut is better than change.  As a matter of fact, some voices are so strong, the excitement of the 'new' year has already become an echo down the hallway of procrastination. Clearly, there must be something stronger than those calls to quit that motivates you to move forward in this challenge. The "I will start tomorrows" either have gotten old or will get old, and the next thing you know, another 'new' year will be here with a new set of resolutions. If you are truly going to meet the challenge of change, there comes a time when you MUST command your body to follow your will.

One of my favorite inspiring story is the one of Sir Edmund Hillary. He was the first man ever to climb Mt. Everest. Yet most do not know he failed at his first attempt to climb the might mountain. Even though his first attempt had failed, the English government wanted to honor him. On the stage where Edmund Hillary was to ascend, a huge picture of Mt Everest was on display. Its picturesque presence loomed over the stage and the audience with its own mighty audacity! As Edmund Hillary climbed up the stairs and walked upon the stage, he turned and looked up at the towering picture of Mt Everest and said, "You defeated me But you won't defeat me again Because you have grown all you can grow.... but I am still growing" And with that inner fire, the next year, Edmund Hillary became the first man to conquer the mighty mountain!

The word 'motivation' is a noun which means, "the psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal; the reason for the action; that which gives purpose and direction to behavior." Many times the question is asked..."What motivates you?" What is it that lights your fire? What is your driving purpose? Is it your family? Is it a desire for more money? What arouses your inner fire to push forward into the day? And the questions could go on... but something does motivate each and everyone of us.

Stephen R. Covey said, "Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly." The fire must be from within! There must be a burning desire within you that pushes you toward a mark or a goal! If you are pushed, prodded, and prompted to go forward, you may go forward, but those kinds of fires fizzle out in a very short time.

History is littered with the passion of men and women like Edmund Hillary. Who refused to give up even when they probably had a right reason to quit! Men of renown...Edison, Ford, Bell, Singer, Carnegie, and on down the line of great achievements.

Then, when all is said and done, the Word of the Lord begins to illuminate my thoughts and the patriarchs of the past step into the forefront of my mind! Eternal examples of men and women who battled insurmountable odds to fulfill the calling of God in their lives. Pictures of resolute men, who withstood temptation and persecution, to see a move of God in their life time. Noah, while building an ark, preached for a hundred twenty years in the midst of a generation who's imaginations were only evil continually. Moses refused to be called son of Pharoah's daughter. Who was motivated to fulfill a calling far greater than the riches of Egypt! Men of greatness such as Caleb and Joshua, who withstood the temptation of the wilderness. Then there was Joseph, though he had the 'right' to be bitter, refuse to be consumed by anger or hatred against his own brothers. Of course, one cannot forget the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame. Though many tried to dissuade Him from going to the cross, Jesus looked out through time and saw YOU and He saw Me. God so loved the world that HE gave himself to be a living sacrifice to a lost and dying world. He came to reveal the true glory of God that was lost in the Old Testament law because it was weak in the flesh!

Love motivated Him because love never fails! Riches will fail, material possessions will fail, friends and family will fail, and rest assured governments will fail, but LOVE will never fail.

What motivates YOU? What is your deepest desire? What turns your wheels and cranks your shaft? Only you can discover it and only you can light that fire? AT one point in his life the Apostle Paul said he had not obtained, but there was one thing he did do, he would forget the past and reach forth unto the mark of the prize of the high calling of Christ Jesus. This was His chief motivation...this was his greatest desire! Don't you think its time to keep your fire burning? Truly, how has life in the rut benefited you anyway?

A 'New' Year, A NEW Vision

 (For we run, walk, or crawl by faith, not by sight:) ~ 2 Corinthians 5:7 


Well, the seconds have ticked on by and a new year is here! Many have made resolutions for this coming year. From quitting certain vices to starting diets and exercise programs, the resolutions have grown from our desires to 'change' the things in our lives we dislike the most. The excitement of entering a 'new year' encourages us to step up and take a chance at creating a 'new' us. The new year heralds an opportunity to do things differently than how it was done in the past. It tantalizes us with the thoughts of discarding the old and ringing in the new! The new year generates an excitement to start anew and change what couldn't be changed. Its like taking a breath of fresh air at the dawning of a new day!

Oh, if only fulfilling our resolutions were to be so easy! If such change could be accomplished by the simplicity of a thought! If this morning, when we awakened, and walked up to the mirror, we would see a 'new' you. You know the one, the one you resolved to change in a resolution last night. The 'new' slimmer, younger looking version you saw in your mind when you first envisioned your new year's resolution. If only the mere thought of thinking the vice that has you bound were to have disappeared at the strike of midnight! But it has probably by now become very apparent. As you stand in the mirror, the 'new' you is still the old you. The year has changed, but the mirror on the wall seems to keep time standing still.

How depressing, right? WRONG! Inside you yearn to keep those resolutions you proclaimed as the final weeks of last year rolled on by. Deep within your being, you resolved that, this time, things were going to be different! And on this first day of the new year, I am here to encourage you! Not only can you do this, YOU will do this!

One of the keys to keeping your resolution is VISION! In order for you to manifest what you resolved to change, you must first see it manifested! You cannot 'see' the old you in the mirror, but when you look in the mirror you must SEE the new you. Norman Vincent Peale said, "Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade. Your mind will seek to develop the picture." If you have resolved to lose twenty pounds, then you MUST already see yourself twenty pounds lighter. If you have resolved to run in this 5K challenge you must SEE yourself crossing that finish line in March. And not only must you see it, you must also manifest all the feelings and emotions that come with the success of fulfilling your resolution.

Frank Gaines said, "Only he who can see the invisible can do the impossible." You see, a resolution without a vision is really nothing at all. The scripture says the Lord's people are destroyed for a lack of vision! Where there is no vision, nothing happens. In order to transform yourself from the old to the new, you must have a vision of exactly where you are going or its just a handful of words that cannot be put into action. "Visualize this thing you want. See it, feel it, believe in it. Make your mental blueprint and begin." ~ Robert Collier From this day forward, you must change what you see in the mirror and not only what you see, how you speak, and how you feel. With every fiber within your being you MUST manifest the 'new' you before you can become the NEW you! Orison Swett Marden said it this way, "We lift ourselves by our thought. We climb upon our vision of ourselves. If you want to enlarge your life, you must first enlarge your thought of it and of yourself. Hold the ideal of yourself as you long to be, always everywhere."

There is no doubt we are by nature, creatures of habit and its only when we step out of the comfort zone of the creature can we truly make any real progress. Denis Waitley said, "A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future. You must break out of your current comfort zone and become comfortable with the unfamiliar and the unknown." It has been said the only difference between the grave and a rut is the depth, but I say its worse to be in a rut because you are still alive and you still have choice! Today, as you stare at the face in the mirror, YOU HAVE A CHOICE. You can fall back into the rut that has kept you there or you can begin to break out of the comfort zone of the rut and into a new life! But be sure, the only way this is going to happen is to maintain a vision of where you are going! You must not only envision it, but you must also act as though you are already there. It has been said that many an opportunity is lost because a man is out looking for four-leaf clovers. There is no easy way out of the rut. I can encourage and even help pull you out of the rut, but only YOU can keep yourself from falling back into the rut. The power to stay out of the rut of comfort and complacency can only come from within the depth and desire of your inner vision.

The Apostle Paul said it this way in Philippians chapter three, "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." One principle of forgetting the past must be maintained as you endeavor to fulfill your vision. Its time to forget last year's mistakes, and reach forth unto those things which are before. Henry David Thoreau said, "The question is not what you look at, but what you see." Therefore, whatever you have envisioned yourself to become, you must press toward that mark and fight to achieve it to the fullest. Will it be easy? More than likely not, but when you get there, it will by far outweigh any experience of living in the rut!

Finding the Right Balance

“Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.” ~ Brian Tracy

One of the biggest mistakes I see people make when they begin to exercise again is they try to do too much too fast! In their excitement to 'get after it', they end up over exerting themselves or trying to accomplish more than what their body's are able to give at that moment. Not only can this lead to injury but this can also be very dangerous. Euripides said, “The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man.”

In our zeal, we seem to forget we are not where we once were, nor are we as young as we use to be. There is something about the human condition that causes us to not be honest with ourselves. I am not sure if we just don't think we have aged or if we just believe we will forever be 'young'. So we make up our minds to exercise and think all things are as they used to be. This 'knee jerk' move back into exercise is a common issue I have witnessed over the years. Our minds are still seemingly functioning as an eighteen year old, but our bodies have lagged a little behind (no pun intended here)! The challenges of life have kept our minds mentally exercised, but in the meantime we have slacked bodily. Therefore, when we finally decide to 'move', we still think we have the body of an youthful teenager and we begin to match our bodies to our mental enthusiasm. Obviously, when this happens, I have witnessed a common cycle amongst all who endeavor to match the body to the mental...its called 'Crash and Burn'.

Part of the problem is definitely a 'nature of man' issue. All of us are engineered to look for the 'easy way out'. Most of us want and look for what I call the 'magic pill solution'. Its part of our human makeup and its also a part of this instant gratification culture we live in. After twenty years of doing nothing, we want immediate results. After years of inactivity we burst back onto the scene with this idea that we are going to blast our way back to those 'buns of steel' and a six pack of abs!!! We jump on the treadmill with an excited tenacity to finally get 'back in shape. Mentally and physically, we feel good. We have finally conquered this demon of laziness. In our newly awakened zeal, we push too hard, do too much, and over do it! Then comes the inevitable completion of the 'crash and burn' cycle. Though we feel good after getting off the treadmill, we wake up the next morning, feeling, well, to put it lightly...rough. Our muscles are sore. Our bodily pains seem to send very clear signals to our once excited mind and the signals are not nice. The inner voices rise up and the body begins to preach a message entitled, "What Was I Thinking?". Then to top it off, you are already scheduled your next exercise routine to do it all over again! This begins the process of it all spiraling out of control, its far easier to fall back into your old excuses and habits.

One of the most difficult things for people to do is to find a right balance. Its seems like the extreme is the fashion of today. Its an all or nothing attitude, but if the real truth be known, the victory lies in your patience. You have to balance reason with passion; reason keeps you open, passion keeps your adrenaline going. So today, I implore you to start SLOW! The goal is to build a strong base and a strong base can be your spring board into a new you! Don't let the moment get away from you and allow your zeal to be misused. Think LONG TERM! Think slow, not fast! Remember, it took you a long time to get into the condition you are in right now, and it will take some time to garner the results you desire to see. Be sure to keep your program fun and you will not have to enter the cycle of crash and burn.

The 5K Challenge

Why the Challenge?

"You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great."  Zig Ziglar

Today I want to set the record straight on what this challenge is all about. When I talk to people and try to get them to see the importance of exercise, one of the first things they say is..."Well, I can't run a marathon!" Most people immediately equate exercise with the level I am at as a marathon runner. They compare themselves with me, thereby missing the whole point! So today, I want to boot this thought completely out your head. This challenge is not about becoming a marathon runner or 'beating' me at this 5K in the spring. This challenge is about YOU and you alone!

Now, certainly, as a runner, I have learned many things, so when I say things it may come across as a 'challenge' to you on a personal level, but the reality of what I say is more of a challenge to what level you are at NOW. This challenge was issued to motivate ALL of us to do whatever we need to do that gets us off our butts and do SOMETHING! If you are able to run, then RUN. If walking is the best you can do, then WALK. If you can ride a bike, then RIDE. If you can swim, then SWIM. Whatever you can do, you NEED to do it! The point of the challenge is to motivate you out of your lethargy and off the couch! Over these past ten years, as a runner, I have been through a few season changes and I understand all too well the difficulties of transitioning from fall into winter. To me it is by far the most difficult of the seasonal transitions.

Now, it has been said, you may have forty million reasons to not exercise, but you don't have one legitimate excuse! In this day and age, the technology that is available to us leaves us without an excuse. There are many runners, who suit up in 'winter running clothing' and run outside throughout the winter. We have so many choices, from purchasing actual exercise equipment to buying a workout DVD, there is something available 'out there' that will meet our need to meet the challenge! Then comes the excuse I don't have any money for any of this stuff (which I find interesting, since you have been able to find the 'money' for a lot of other things that support your continual path to sickness!). Truly, running/walking is one of the cheapest hobbies you can get involved in. It takes but a decent pair of shoes, proper clothing, and you are off to the 'races'! In the end, the only thing it costs, is the price you pay when you make all those excuses.

When I issued this 'challenge' I thought about what a drag it is to deal with these winter months. It's difficult enough to get motivated let alone deal with being cooped up inside for the next three months. Then I thought, how great it would be to have a 'network' of people sharing a common goal. A group of people encouraging one another to DO SOMETHING this winter! Working together to break down the doors of the cabin with a different kind of fever.

So, remember, this challenge is NOT about you 'beating' me, but really about you beating yourself! This challenge is about meeting you where you are at RIGHT NOW, and doing something, anything to get yourself to the next level! When race day comes this spring and we cross the finish line, I don't care if you come in last place. The fact that you accepted the challenge and kept to your commitment to transform yourself, will truly make you a champion in my eyes! And I know, if I can someway help get you to the finish line, you will also feel the same way about yourself and THAT will make all the difference in the world!