If I had a nickel for every concert I have been to….I’d be a rich man”…..so goes the adage…

In my case I would have a few bucks!!…maybe a lot of money actually.

I am not sure if my Rock Concert List below is a badge of fame or shame in that it cost me in money, brain cells and hearing!
I am sure at 50 years, my hearing has suffered at the hands of Foghat and Black Sabbath and more.

This I am confident: these guys were the best of all time in an era of Rock and Roll Renaissance.
My experience with music is that simple worship songs on an acoustic guitar are more profoundly moving to me than a
multi-million dollar music extravaganza.
Time with music in worship of the Living God is definitively more heart-changing than a lead guitar solo by Jimmy Page or Jimmy Hendrix.

Well, here is the list and you may have one as well. Here is to guys who are just humans who still need God, love ,and people and are not the heroes to whom we wrongly attribute stardom and idol status…..Just another human on the Bus of Life. Many have perished in a life of questionable meaning and legacy. What will your legacy look like? Just asking…

Some of the Shows and Bands I have enjoyed as a young man mostly in San
Diego in the 1970′s—-

• Chicago
• Rod Stewart
• Leon Russell
• Black Sabbath
• Traffic
• Keith Green
• Lynard Skynard (Pretty sure)
• Yes
• Emerson, Lake and Palmer
• Led Zepplin
• Jethro Tull
• Bachman Turner Overdrive
• Ted Nugent
• Peter Frampton
• Moody Blues
• Neil Young
• Alice Cooper
• Aerosmith
• Steve Miller Band
• Steely Dan
• Elton John
• Foghat
• Bruce Cockburn
• Santana
• Eddie Money
• Foreigner
• Edgar Winter
• Earth Wind and Fire
• The Grateful Dead
• Merky and the Martians
• T Rex
• Supertramp
• Many more…..the best were forgotten in the Fog of….the moment.

Some of the bands I missed…..would have loved to seen:

• The Who
• The Stones
• The Beatles
• Pink Floyd (gave my tix away!)
• Many others….

All my heroes have changed and some are still alive.

Funny how we define meaningful lives and legacy.

Weird how we value what is art by artists of nebulous character.

Who are your heroes and what do they stand for? Better–what are you standing for?

Do we compromise ourselves in some way by enjoying art of those who may be real life monsters?

The fifth and most important “tool” is a genuine relationship with God, both as an individual and as a family.

Writing about our relationship with God is extremely difficult. So let’s start with what it is not.

It is not:

1. About attending church
2. About giving money
3. About being” good “
4. About being religious
5. About being condemning, condescending, or arrogant about one’s faith
6. About religious activity, service, or lifestyle

What it is about could take up several pages .

But we’ll start with the following:

1. Knowing and understanding God’s Word–the Bible and reading and meditating on it regularly.
2. Understanding and having a genuine salvation/saving relationship with God by faith in Christ.
3. Being a person who prays on a regular basis, who has two-way conversations with God.
4. Being a person who’s quick to repent, be humble, and truly make things right, admitting it when you are wrong.
5. Being a person who’s willing to serve others, even at your own expense.
6. Living an obedient life, not out of obligation, but out of thankfulness and deep gratitude for all God has done for you.
7. Allowing God’s full expression in your thoughts, deeds, words, motivation, attitude, resources, and so much more.
8. Being a person who puts her walk with God as the number one priority in life, through prayer, Bible study, praise, worship, sharing my faith, serving my church and community and all fellow humans.
9. Obeying God in the small stuff, being sensitive to details and doing the right thing even when no one is looking….even when it hurts.
10. Relaxing, taking deep breaths, simply appreciating the life and the love God has given you, realizing you cannot add to this love. You can only respond to it by living in the moment, and being the obedient son/daughter He’s asked that you to be.
11. Utilizing the gifts and the resources He’s given you in the way that He leads you.
12. Having a heart attitude and disposition that seeks to glorify God in every aspect of life.

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Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Prayer From The Greatest Salesman In The World … by Og Mandino

Oh creator of all things, help me. For this day I go out into the world naked and alone, and without your hand to guide me I will wander far from the path which leads to success and happiness.

I ask not for gold or garments or even opportunities equal to my abilities; instead, guide me so that I may acquire ability equal to my opportunities.

You have taught the lion and the eagle how to hunt and prosper with teeth and claw. Teach me how to hunt with words and prosper with love so that I may be a lion among men and an eagle in the market place.

Help me to remain humble through obstacles and failures; yet hide not from mine eyes the prize that will come with victory.

Assign me tasks to which others have failed, yet guide me to pluck the seeds of success from their failures. Confront me with fears that will temper my spirit; yet endow me with courage to laugh at my misgivings.

Spare me sufficient days to reach my goals; yet help me to live this day as though it be my last.

Guide me in my words that they may bear fruit; yet silence me from gossip that none be maligned.

Discipline me in the habit of trying and trying and trying again; yet show me the way to make use of the law of averages. Favor me with alertness to recognize opportunity; yet endow me with patience which will concentrate my strength.

Bathe me in good habits that the bad ones may drown; yet grant me compassion for the weaknesses in others. Suffer me to know that all things shall pass; yet help me to count my blessings of today.

Expose me to hate so it not be a stranger; yet fill my cup with love to turn strangers into friends.

But all these things only if thy will. I am a small and a lonely grape clutching the vine yet thou hast made me different from all the others. Verily, there must be a special place for me. Guide me. Show me the way.

Let me become all you planned for me when my seed was planted and selected by you to sprout in the vineyard of the world.

Help this humble salesman.

Guide me, God.

The Stockdale Paradox
Chapter 4, pages 83–85

The name refers to Admiral Jim Stockdale, who was the highest ranking United States military officer in the “Hanoi Hilton” prisoner-of-war camp during the height of the Vietnam War. Tortured over 20 times during his eight-year imprisonment from 1965 to 1973, Stockdale lived out the war without any prisoner’s rights, no set release date, and no certainty as to whether he would even survive to see his family again. He shouldered the burden of command, doing everything he could to create conditions that would increase the number of prisoners who would survive unbroken, while fighting an internal war against his captors and their attempts to use the prisoners for propaganda. At one point, he beat himself with a stool and cut himself with a razor, deliberately disfiguring himself, so that he could not be put on videotape as an example of a “well-treated prisoner.” He exchanged secret intelligence information with his wife through their letters, knowing that discovery would mean more torture and perhaps death. He instituted rules that would help people to deal with torture (no one can resist torture indefinitely, so he created a step-wise system—after x minutes, you can say certain things—that gave the men milestones to survive toward). He instituted an elaborate internal communications system to reduce the sense of isolation that their captors tried to create, which used a five-by-five matrix of tap codes for alpha characters. (Tap-tap equals the letter a, tap-pause-tap-tap equals the letter b, tap-tap-pause-tap equals the letter f, and so forth, for 25 letters, c doubling for k.) At one point, during an imposed silence, the prisoners mopped and swept the central yard using the code, swish-swashing out “We love you” to Stockdale, on the third anniversary of his being shot down. After his release, Stockdale became the first three-star officer in the history of the navy to wear both aviator wings and the Congressional Medal of Honor.⁵⁹

You can understand, then, my anticipation at the prospect of spending part of an afternoon with Stockdale. One of my students had written his paper on Stockdale, who happened to be a senior research fellow studying the Stoic philosophers at the Hoover Institution right across the street from my office, and Stockdale invited the two of us for lunch. In preparation, I read In Love and War, the book Stockdale and his wife had written in alternating chapters, chronicling their experiences during those eight years.

As I moved through the book, I found myself getting depressed. It just seemed so bleak—the uncertainty of his fate, the brutality of his captors, and so forth. And then, it dawned on me: “Here I am sitting in my warm and comfortable office, looking out over the beautiful Stanford campus on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. I’m getting depressed reading this, and I know the end of the story! I know that he gets out, reunites with his family, becomes a national hero, and gets to spend the later years of his life studying philosophy on this same beautiful campus. If it feels depressing for me, how on earth did he deal with it when he was actually there and did not know the end of the story?”

“I never lost faith in the end of the story,” he said, when I asked him. “I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.”

* * *

I didn’t say anything for many minutes, and we continued the slow walk toward the faculty club, Stockdale limping and arc-swinging his stiff leg that had never fully recovered from repeated torture. Finally, after about a hundred meters of silence, I asked, “Who didn’t make it out?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” he said. “The optimists.”

“The optimists? I don’t understand,” I said, now completely confused, given what he’d said a hundred meters earlier.

“The optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”

Another long pause, and more walking. Then he turned to me and said, “This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

To this day, I carry a mental image of Stockdale admonishing the optimists: “We’re not getting out by Christmas; deal with it!”

Writing about our relationship with God is extremely difficult. So let’s start with what it is not.

It is not:

1. About attending church
2. About giving money
3. About being” good “
4. About being religious
5. About being condemning, condescending, or arrogant about one’s faith
6. About religious activity, service, or lifestyle

What it is about could take up several pages of a blog.

But we’ll start with the following:

1. Knowing and understanding God’s Word–the Bible–reading and meditating on it regularly
2. Understanding and having a genuine salvation/saving relationship with God by faith in Christ
3. Being a person who prays on a regular basis, who has two-way conversations with God
4. Being a person who’s quick to repent, be humble, and truly make things right, admitting it when wrong
5. Being a person who’s willing to serve others, even at their own expense
6. Living an obedient life, not out of obligation, but out of thankfulness and deep gratitude for all God has done
7. Allowing God’s full expression in me, in my thoughts, my deeds, my words, my motivation, my attitude, my resources, and so much more
8. Being a person who puts my walk with God as my number one priority in life, through prayer, Bible study, praise, worship, sharing my faith, serving my church and community and fellow humans.
9. Obeying God in the small stuff… being sensitive to details and doing the right thing even when no one is looking.
10. Relaxing, taking deep breaths, simply appreciating the life and the love God has given me, realizing I can not add to this love. I can only respond to it by living in the moment, and being the obedient son He’s asked that I be
11. Utilizing the gifts and the resources He’s given me in the way that He leads me to do so
12. Having a heart attitude and disposition that seeks to glorify God in every aspect of my life

Much of this has to do with what I call a “heart attitude”, the core belief system that governs all behaviors, words, deeds, and attitudes.

It stems from the realization of all that God has done for me, is doing, and will do in the future. It comes from a heart of deep gratitude, which seeks to please, not repay, or pay penance, to the God who loves me and has given his all for my life and eternity.

It’s just this… fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and faithfulness, and self-control… against such there is no law.” These are the heart attitudes which demonstrate Christ’s likeness. They only come with a genuine long-term walk with him.

Be careful to understand that not speaking about perfection… we are all human,, fallible, frail, weak, and prone to making all manner of mistakes. The giant difference is having a heart of repentance. It’s quick to humble, turn, pray, and make course corrections when we discover we have sinned against God or people. We need to be good repenters.

This doesn’t mean that everything is a bed of roses, in fact Christians suffer as much or more than others. The difference here is:” God works all things together for good for those who love him and for those who are called according to his purpose.” This means that even the worst challenges, problems, and disasters are actually blessings in disguise for trust God to work it all together for good. When a person can live this way, and a faith walk with God, all of life takes on a brand-new adventure and excitement, knowing that no matter what happens, I’m going to become closer and more like my Father in each and every situation.

This is the foundation for a great life,, marriage and family. it makes for a stability, a joy, and the love that permeates a family and a marriage with the sweetness and a sanity that is rare and precious.

To call this Walk with God a “tool” is to misrepresent and underestimate what’s being written here.

This Walk with God is the life-giving, dominant feature of the dedicated Christian family and individual. With God at the vanguard of our lives, life really becomes worth living.

• meet God—still your heart, ask for His presence. Concentrate. You may wish to praise Him with a psalm. Take a psalm and look for things in it for which to praise Him.
• listen to God by reading a passage from His Word.  Don’t choose more than a chapter.  Read it carefully, reverently, intelligently, and read it more than once….is there a promise to claim, a sin to confess, a command to obey, an example to follow, or an error to avoid?

• talk to God through prayer. Praise and thanksgiving… be specific.  Search your life in your mind for things. Thank and praise Him for them.   Requests for self and others…be specific. Confession… search your life for sins committed and asked for cleansing, then thank Him for His full forgiveness through Christ’s blood.

How do I get started?

• make a contract right now to begin a daily quiet time.  Be consistent in the time and place… start with 20 minutes. It should be unhurried and quiet. Morning is ideal.
• use a notebook.  Expect dry periods.. that’s no excuse for stopping.  Change your format or the book of the Bible you are reading… avoid stagnation. 
• share what you are learning in a quiet time with other Christians.  Get a hold of a good quiet time guide that will give you good ideas to include your time with God.

Use the ABC method

• first pray, second  read, third, study
• A…. Analyze… get just the basic facts
• B…Best verse… choose a verse that convicts you, inspires you, or enlightens you the most… meditate on it… look at it from different angles
• C…Contract…. apply the teaching by asking, Is there a new thought, promise, command, or pattern to follow? What is God telling me about this?…. and write out a specific plan for obeying the truth.
• Choose your best verse of the week and memorize it…

A quiet time is a time of direct contact between your mind and God’s, using the Bible and prayer as a time of dedication, cleansing, instruction, strengthening, and delight.

Bible study and prayer are not simply for our sake. God deeply desires our fellowship and worship– and it gives Him joy and pleasure.

Communication with God must be daily.  To know God, not just know about God, is the goal. How we pray, delight, and think on God is the only true measure of whether our relationship with Him is alive.

The maintaining of a daily quiet time is perhaps the most consistently difficult duty of the Christian life.  Its difficulty is a humbling reminder of our lack of commitment to Him.  It is an unalterable principle, however, that a quiet time is necessary for Christian growth and obedience.

What are the goals of a quiet time?

• worship… to get to know Him, to be humbled by His Holiness, comforted by His love, and strengthened by His presence.
• change… to root out sin and establish Biblical attitudes and actions for your life
• to hear God… to be open to listening for God’s still, small voice.  To be a listener, not just a talker.  God gave us two ears, but only one mouth.

Meet with God, talk with God, listen to God, and obey the things He impresses on your heart and you will grow in your walk with God…

• a father who daily oversees my struggles, needs, flaws and life and still enables and helps me to be more and more like his son Jesus
• a friend who speaks to my weaknesses, depression, and tribulations with a word of hope and encouragement and a trust for a future with Him
• a Savior who I can trust to forgive all my sins— past, present, and future, and remove my guilt and condemnation as I walk with Him
• a provider who always has my back when times are tough, people are mean, situations are dire, and circumstances don’t add up

God is all this and more to me.  My challenge and my privilege is to walk with Him daily, listen for His still, small voice, and obey the Word in every situation to the best of my ability.
It is then, I find, that God shows up, and I see His fingerprints all over my life.
"We know that God works all things together for good to those who love Him, for those call by His name"