My friend the Fox!

Hello my friends, hope this finds you well on this lovely day indeed! So the other night I'm driving to get something to eat and I saw my friend: a beautiful Red Fox with a sweet action bushy tail. This is the 3rd time I have seen him pretty close to my apartment, and I just love most wild animals but have always had a thing for Fox's. For example: some have heard me say something like "your crazy/smart/clever/etc. like a FOX!", I do not race at all but love the Fox Racing logo and have a few clothing items from them, and just think its cool that like my friend here they know how to survive through weather, habitat and many other changes. At small group/little church the other night we talked about life and the "comfort zones" that we can sometimes get it in with school, work, ministry,etc. As we talked I thought about how when this happens we start trusting our basic human/animal instincts, and can very easily get into survival mode; which isn't totally bad because of course to survive is good but what is even better, and I dare say the best, is to live or be alive.

What I mean is this, when we are in the survival mode that happens life gets numb and tasks are done half way most of the time. In short, we have forgotten that life is meant to be lived and are just taking up space/time waiting on something that probably will never come. Not to say we shouldn't dream about a better life, or whatever but there is a big difference in wanting life to be better and doing nothing about it, and doing the best you can with what the day brings you and hoping tomorrow will be even better than today. One of my friends once prayed, "Lord let us see this day how you see it, and that is that you have made it good and we need but let you lead us through it." This speaks volumes to what is really going on: each day is a gift but we have the choice to open it or not, and after opening it to use whatever the gift is for good or not. That seems simple but daily living is that, the overall picture maybe and usually is very complex indeed but the process by which the 'strokes' isn't because, as someone wise once said, "We are all given 24 hours everyday, but what we do with it is our choice and can make all the difference in the world." Like my friend the fox, we can choose to get up and embrace the day and what comes in it or we can blame others for stuff and be bitter about life and stumble through the day with our heads down; to the latter I say look up and refocus on what is up ahead if it all seems bad now, it won't last and there is always hope that tomorrow will be better.

John 10:10 says this, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have have come that you may have life, and have it to the full." Jesus is the one speaking here, and the thief is anything in our lives that promises to fill us but does not. I know that I have moment, days, even weeks when I fall back on things that are comfortable with attitude, how I treat people, and on and on but what I and we need to do is see it as what it is, that it is killing, destroying, and stealing life from us. I think we all can agree that we want a full, better life and truly that is what we need to seek in all areas of life. We can't just have half of the answer on either side: we got to talk the talk, and we have got to walk the walk and they both have to line up with each other. One of my favorite movie genres is Westerns, mostly because my dad loves John Wayne and I have seen everyone of his movies but more it is that the stories are great and so many of them lived lives worthy of recount in our current age of just getting by. Of this genre Lonesome Dove is at the top of the list, and a line by Captain Augustus "Gus" McCrae to his best friend Captain Woodrow F. Cal talking about this subject, "Call It Ain't Dieing I'm Talking 'Bout, ITS LIVIN'!" There are many other lines from the Bible, and from books/movies but my point is that we are meant to do great things in this life we have been so gracious given, and whatever that looks like for you go do it.

Remember my friend the Fox, and in the words of Winston Churhill/Galaxy Quest,
"Never give up, never surrender!"-WP