The best laid plans that were meant to fail

Christopher Johnston — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 19:01:40 +0000

Many times in life we pursue things for weeks, months, or years and have no success at them. We may be left wondering why we pursued those things. I believe that God may have lead us to those activities or pursuits for several reasons. We may have acquired a skill like sales, public speaking, or conflict resolution that we can use in some other pursuit later on.

We may have been lead there so that we could cross paths with other people outside of out normal circle of friends or acquaintances. For instance, I worked with the Primerica organization for several years and never had a tremendous amount of success but if it would not have been a part of that organization I would never have been invited to Church of the King. I would never have joined a men’s small group from that church and made connections in that group that forever changed my life.

Sometimes the best laid plans were never meant to succeed. Proverbs 16:9 (NLT) helps to explain why

We can make our plans but the Lord determines our steps

Take some time today and think back on supposed failures in your life and see what skills you learned or connections you made and how you may have benefited from those.

Getting kids into the outdoors

Christopher Johnston — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 16:09:44 +0000

I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to my childhood and the fondness I had for nature. I grew up in the suburbs but there were fields and canals near my home that I played in as child. My father took me hunting when I was 13 (a tradition that is sadly dying as we become a more urban culture). Until I was 10 we went fishing almost every weekend so I spent a lot of time in the marshes of southeast Louisiana. My children aren’t having these same experiences.

Apparently they are not alone. There is something called Nature Deficit Disorder and more and more kids are afflicted with it. Below is a video from the man coined the term.

I’m trying to figure out exactly how I can create change in this area in my own community. Leave a comment if you have any ideas.