my goal

One of the great feelings in life comes from making and then meeting goals!  I have come to realize that there are actually very few things in life that I control.  However, how often I get on my bike and what I do on my bike is one of those things that I do control. 

I would love to one day be able to bike all around Taiwan . . . you know, an entire island trip on my bike.  But I have other goals before that happens, I want to bike to Meinong this fall and then Kenting maybe next year.  This June I just want to bike about 48 km and do it in a little over 2 hours.

Yesterday I averaged 23 km per hour for about a 20 min ride.  My full 50 min ride average though was 19.6 kmph. 

The thril of doing something you have never done before cannot be replaced!

my perspective

There are giants living in the land.  The land is great, but the people there are huge and scary.  God says this is the land I give you, but we say "thanks but no thanks.  It's just too frightening."

Why is it that I consistenly fail to see the world the way my heavenly Father does?  When we look at the world from a human perspective, we make judgements based on things that are not accurate. 

I know His ways are not my ways.  I know His thoughts are not my thoughts.  I know that mankind's greatest wisdom is His most foolish thought. 

Father, give me your eyes.  Help me to see the world as you do.  Help me to see myself and others as you do.

my perfectionism

Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
- John Wooden (mountain climber)

Why is that we allow our limitations to define us?  As humans, we tend to look at the things we can't do and mourn our weaknesses.  Instead, we should focus on that which we are able to do and celebrate that achievement.  This is easy for me to see when I am reading the learning journals and logs of my students, and yet so hard for me to put into practice myself.  My tendancy towards perfectionism denies me the freedom to acknowledge that I have strengths worth celebrating.

Moreover, it is in my weaknesses that I am able to find joy in an all-powerful God.  He completes me.  If I struggle to fill me . . . I will forever be struggling.  If I acknowledge that I am unable to be perfect, He becomes the center, the focus, and not me.  This is a relief.  This is a joy-giving, freedom-bringing realization.  So, why, therefore, am I perpetually forgetting this?

Father, be strong in my weaknesses.

"Instead, God has chosen the world's foolish things to shame the wise, and God has chosen the world's weak things to shame the strong.  God has chosen the world's insignificant and despised things--the things viewed as nothing--so He might bring to nothing the things that are viewed as something, so that no one can boast in His presence.  But from Him you are in Christ Jesus, who for us became wisdom from God, as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, in order that, as it is written: The one who boasts must boast in the Lord."  (1 Corinthians 1:27-31)