Love came down at Christmas

Days have a way of creeping up on us and days have a way of passing by so quickly. It is quite possible that I have connection with days that may seem weird to many. When I was a teenager, my mother bought me my first journal. I started then writing things down. Recording events, happenings in my life, people, feelings, if you can name it I’ve written about it to myself. In the 56th year of my life, I recorded my thinking in a different way. I shared through social media my daily thoughts of encouragement. Things that I wondered about, believed, had confidence in and encouraged myself with. On the 301st day of the 56th year of my life I wrote: “The greatest gift is love. The most precious gift is time. Opportunity is where these two change lives”. Following Thanksgiving, Christians began a Season in their lives referred to as Advent. Advent is about the coming of the Lord as the Savior of the World. I’ve been thinking this year as the 4 weeks before Christmas arrived that Advent is really a “seekers” celebration. We Christians might hold the time dear because of our personal relationship with Jesus Christ, but Advent this year I have been thinking about back to a time before I knew Jesus personally. As a person who was just living life, day by day, doing what I’m thinking most of us do, just living and whatever happens, well, just happens. That’s rather carefree living but as a “seeker’ there is something in life that I know is missing. “Seekers’ have this feeling inside but we can’t seem to put our finger on what’s happening. So we keep looking, we live our lives in such a way that we are hoping whatever is missing, we will bump into it. The Wise men in the Christian narrative of the birth of Jesus were seekers. The difference between them and many wondering people is that they had seen His Star in the East and we're on a journey to find the Christ child because they had seen. Christmas I sum up in the words “Love Came Down at Christmas”. The greatest gift in this world is love. Love has been defined by Jesus and what He did for us that we could not do for ourselves. Love’s characteristics have been defined by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. Love is the gift that changed everything. The dually important and equal gift in life is also time. If you searched the Bible you will find plenty about time, how it has operated, how time has been recorded through the lives of so many individuals and how time has been noted through history. Ecclesiastes chapter 3 has a great collection of issues, themes, discoveries, and truths about time. It is often referred to as a time for everything when quoting headlines of scripture. Time is that unique moment that when it happens, it is now or never. My quote references love and time as two of the greatest gifts. The element that brings these two into perfect harmony is opportunity. If you have love, but don’t give it away, what is its value? If you are looking for recognition that you have love in your possessions, congratulations on hanging on to love, but if you are only holding it, what remains its value if not used? Time is not a difficult concept to understand. It ticks away in seconds. I would suggest the easiest way to grasp the concept of time is to simply sit around, do nothing and let time just tick away. I’ve responded to the question before, “what are you doing?”, with the answer nothing, which could be either really sad because I was just in a state of lack of purpose, and had been wasting time, or it could be the perfect moment because I could be free and available, which is opportunity for me. Love, time and opportunity, three great companions of change! I am not sure how you spend your days or record your time, but both are important tools that when mixed with opportunity will allow us to use what we possess for change. Until then

Focus, distraction, discouragement, vision and hope

The world is a busy place, even if you live here in Southeastern Kentucky. Sometimes we have the tendency to think that the rest of the world is busy busy while things here never change, the world has already passed us by and we are in slow mode and nearly void of the rest of the world’s problems because of such. If that’s your thinking, I would suggest for your consideration that there is a difference between feelings and reality. Feelings have the easiest track into our lives to misdirect us, lead us down emotional stair cases and to put such weight on our shoulders that we feel completely stuck in the mud, with no hope of getting out. Along the by-ways and highways of life we each will face moments in our travels that we overtake us or that we will overcome. My personal encouragement, “Don’t be distracted and don’t get discouraged. Focus eliminates distraction and vision creates hope”. Focus is that which causes us to fix our eyes and energies toward our goals or need to discover solutions. Focus is that which requires us to create an action plan of steps. Focus is a process of eliminating distractions from the answer. One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made in life is focusing on all the reason why I wasn’t able to accomplish my task. Maybe your like me and you could spend days pointing out to all our sympathizers the issues that others created, the problems that others should have dealt with on their own time but no, their issues become ours and they are to blame for our lack of achievement. I feel better already having written that and gotten the truth out there…..of course that’s the way we feel…..and all that has created the perfect distraction that is almost a guaranteed remedy for failure in reality. Focus is the answer for discouragement. Once we have allowed our feelings to take over our emotional well being, we have lost whatever ground we had hopes of achieving. There is no more of defeated state of being that realizing all we had worked for seems to have been lost in a single moment because of our action or lack there of. Discouragement is that which creeps up on you. If discouragement had the characteristic of jumping out at you and announcing itself we would all no doubt t punch discouragement right in the throat, or at least that would be my first thought. However discouragement doesn’t work that way. Ot happens little by little and it arrives at your doorstep without the slightest observation that it was even walking up your sidewalk. When we take hold of our reality and align it with focus it is amazing what happens to distractions and discouragements. We will always have distractions in life. We will always have things that will interest us and can easily get our attention creating a perfect distraction from the things at hand and the foundation we are attempting to build and build upon. Don’t be distracted, remain focused. Focus will lead to success, but the process is not an overnight experience. Focus creates hope because with each step of success we are learning along the way we can overcome issues instead of being overtaken by them. We learn that because of that type of success we discover vision because we are not drowning in hopelessness. Vision is a product of focus by which discouragement is eliminated and replaced with hope. If we are removing one thing from our lives, life has a requirement that it be replaced with something else. Our choice regarding what we are removing and replacing is all on us individually. Our attitude in life has influences that impact our way of thinking. Situations and various circumstances we have encountered also have an impacts on our attitude. These truths however do not eliminate our personal responsibility for that which we can control. Focus, distraction, discouragement, vision, and hope. These five elements are generally in close proximity to each other at all times. The amount of attention and focus we give to these different characteristic elements play a huge role in our life’s journey. Will you be distracted at times in life, yes. Will you become discouraged as you live, go and do, absolutely. Should we leave these two D’s by themselves? No! Focus is the answers as it lays out a welcome mat in our lives, inviting vision and hope to come on in. Until then

Thanksgivings and people. Trosper Buchanan, Jonah Lewis and Bo Brown

Presently I am in the midst of what I have hash tagged as #thanksgivings. Thanksgivings are those people, places, experiences or books that have each enriched my life on their own merits. Growing up I had the concept in my mind that thanksgivings are a one day a year moment in time. Of course I would right? After all Thanksgiving only happens one day each year and after that day of turkey, ham and cranberry sauce, we were off to “ho ho day”, when Santa Clause comes to town. As I have aged my mindset has changed from a one day a year time of thanks, to a year long attitude of thanks as each day passes and especially during the fall season I have #thanksgivings that I especially point out, highlight or acknowledge. The importance of life and the quickness of time has played two big roles in my change of attitude. In our youth we often skip over the meaning of moments in life. I can easily become sad reflecting on the conversations I’ve missed or the lack of understanding on how important some situations are. By reflecting, I pray I have sharped my skills in recognizing the importance of opportunities. Today my skill set recognizes the many #thanksgivings I have daily. Too often we get caught up making big to-do’s over one activity, event or experiences that we miss the next one coming toward us head-on. Take for example meeting people. I realize that some folks are so-called shy and they just don’t feel comfortable introducing themselves, or saying hello without someone else speaking, but that just not me. First, I know what it is to want to be left alone, I get those moments, but everyone deserves an acknowledgment. Does it take time, yes it does. Will it slow you down some, yes it will. What will you miss because you walked on by?, only Heaven knows but I’m one to not take many chances on missing anything that Heaven might have in-store for me, so I’ll probably be that guy reaching out his hand to shake, (even during Covid) and yes, I’ll probably be that guy saying hello or asking a question without any formal introduction. My #thanksgivings include some of the neat people I’ve met. Call me selfish if it helps you get outside yourself, but you might miss the very answer you’ve been search for through an introduction. Recently I traveled to Mercer County to watch Trosper Buchanan play in a high school football game. I said hello to two student athletes who were kinda standing off by themselves. I met Jonah Lewis and Bo Brown. I learned about Jonah and his desire to come to Union College in Barbourville, Ky…(I know what’s that odds of that, he and I meeting each other, oh the connections we talked) and Bo Brown, who is just a junior is already planning out his career choices and direction too. He had his heart set on the University of Louisville. Both kickers on the football team and both soccer players too. Trosper Buchanan’s grandfather is Ernie Trosper. Ernie’s connection to Union College and the Kentucky Mountain Laurel Festival are legendary indeed. Every football game needs sports officials and during a dead moment in the sideline I asked the linesman, did I hear the announcer say that Doug Chaney was the referee for tonights game? When this guy said, are you Tim H Mills?, my response yes, he said, it’s me, Mike Helton..lol. Doug’s father and I officiated sports together, I remember Doug and his brother when they were growing up. Mike I have known forever too. Life, ministry, community, all just a part of the blessings to me. I’m just thankful for the blessing of meeting folks throughout my life, all a part of my #thanksgivings 2021 Until then