by pupski

Location: Tinley Park, IL
Total Read Time: 8 minutes

“If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.” – Jesus of Nazareth

After a week full of organic red meat, simple sugars and fantasy football drafts, my mind wanders through this clutter trying to find productive moments. I find myself staring out my lounge room window as if I were looking for something. Maybe it was the cloudy-fog-mist mixing a fairy tale in my mind. It was if if my brain was telling me, “hey, you see that fog outside? That is what I feel like this morning.” Before I figured out I was talking to myself, I realized the time and searched for a blast of espresso from Give Love Coffee. (Thank you to Shannon LaFrance).

Video clip from the film The Soloist. This is a remarkable segment by 60 minutes, on the real characters of the film. Mr. Ayers is played by Jamie Foxx, and Mr. Lopez by Robert Downey Jr.

Mornings are mornings and we all have routines – or lack of – as we begin to turn on our internal mainframes to begin our day. These are the moments: when you walk through an airport early in the morning, when you can view these human processors at the slowest of speeds. It can be quite hilarious watching our fellow species haze through the morning in search for their legally addictive, stimulant of choice.

Moving on to bigger and better things. I said all that to pick through my own personal haze of this past weekend. There we are! Ok, so, let me roll the dice on the game board of life to see if anything relates.

I heard this quote this past week which I think is paramount for many of us. (Thank you in advance to Pastor Kent Munsey of City Church Chicago) “You will always find a boat heading in the opposite direction.”

The character which this quote derives from is a prophet named Jonah. If you remember Jonah and its story, you can skip this section:

(Brief History of Jonah courtesy of Wikipedia)

Jonah son of Amittai appears in 14:25 as a prophet from Gath-Hepher (a few miles north of Nazareth) active during the reign of Jeroboam II (c.786-746 BC), where he predicts that Jeroboam will recover certain lost territories.

Jonah is also the central character in the Book of Jonah. Ordered by God to go to the city of Nineveh to prophesy against it “for their great wickedness is come up before me” [1] Jonah seeks instead to flee from “the presence of the Lord” by going to Jaffa and sailing to Tarshish. A huge storm arises and the sailors, realizing this is no ordinary storm, cast lots and learn that Jonah is to blame. Jonah admits this and states that if he is thrown overboard the storm will cease.

The sailors try to get the ship to the shore but in failing feel forced to throw him overboard, at which point the sea calms. Jonah is miraculously saved by being swallowed by a large fish specially prepared by God where he spent three days and three nights (Jonah 1:17). In chapter two, while in the great fish, Jonah prays to God in his affliction and commits to thanksgiving and to paying what he has vowed. God commands the fish to vomit Jonah out.

God again orders Jonah to visit Nineveh and to prophecy to its inhabitants. This time he goes and enters the city crying, “In forty days Ninevah shall be overthrown.” The people of Nineveh believe his word and proclaim a fast. The king of Nineveh puts on sackcloth and sits in ashes, making a proclamation to decree fasting, sackcloth, prayer, and repentance. God sees their works and spares the city at that time [2].
- – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – -

Simplicity is so beautiful; it needs no ornaments. You will always find a boat heading in the opposite direction. Jonah was looking at 2 different boats. One was heading the way which God told him to go and the other was heading the opposite way. How many times have we known what we were supposed to do and headed the opposite direction?

“Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.” – Albert Einstein

I pulled out my iPhone and began hyper note taking. I began thinking and checking myself as to how many times I jumped aboard the wrong boat. How many times, how many places and what kind of person had I become for not realizing this simplicity?

It is now 11:30pm and a buddy of mine asked me earlier in the day if I wanted to pray at 6am? My mind now flashes to Call Of Duty and 4 barrage of thoughts: lack of sleep, my day off, I don’t need to pray early in the morning to prove anything to anyone, am I praying because I want to feel religious, “…You can’t even pray for an hour, you don’t know anyone else who will be praying, what if it is one of those weird prayer meetings, prayer should be done privately and between you and God, you will be too tired to pray and it won’t count, stop trying to act holy…” and so on and so on.

You will always find a boat heading in the opposite direction.

I love how my brain becomes addicted to short term memory loss patterns. Less than 12 hours after taking notes concerning the prophet Jonah – and how he boarded the wrong boat – I am now staring at this same boat. My mind pinball’d to “…yes I’ll go (and then) no, I don’t need to.” This must have happened for 5-10 minutes. There was some serious MMA mind fighting happening. I knew exactly what I was supposed to do but yet I allowed this battle to continue.

Brain Speed
The speed of a thought is around 300 milliseconds. That’s how long it took a volunteer to begin to understand a pictured object. Add to that another 250 to 450 milliseconds to fully comprehend what it was. Total speed of thought: between 550 and 750 milliseconds. This is what you have juggling inside your brain at any given moment of the day. John Hopkins Study of neurology.

Finally, the decision was made and the alarm was set for 4:45am. I gave myself flex time to grab an espresso and head out. As I laid my head on my pillow, set my iPhone on the floor and plugged it in the charger, I laid on my right shoulder looking at our pale white walls. The only thing I could do was pray to God and ask for his help. “Lord, I want to pray and know you more. Please get my lazy *** out of bed.”

The marimba alarm sounded and a few 9 minute snoozes later. I was up, alert and grinning slightly. I was boarding the right boat. We prayed that day from 6-8am and it was exactly what my soul needed. There was not a weird moment except when I listened to my flesh tell me how dumb it was too pray this early in the morning. I was encouraged, empowered, humbled and thankful.

Do something different. Change your routine and put yourself through pain so you can taste something new. Don’t be scared, it is actually quite an exhilaration. Life becomes illuminated.

“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.” – Martin Luther King Jr