Time to Choose!

Pressure doesn’t make me who I am, it reveals who I am. Pressure magnifies the real and in times like these the real comes to the surface. There is no question that difficult times have come to many people these past few years. Some have lost loved ones to sickness while some are hard pressed to keep the lights on.

Stop! Take a moment out of your day and do an inventory of your life. How are you doing on the emotional scale lately? How are you treating your closest relationships? What’s going on with you? Questions I’m asking myself regularly lately in the light of hard times. I have noticed one real issue that keeps appearing in the course of a day. I am seeing something in myself and others that I personally know are struggling. Indifference! How many failures does it take before indifference sets in? The common thought that pounds the brain in an attempt to convince us to altogether quit is “what difference does it make anyway”? After a moment of indulgence, overspending, verbal conflicts, the thought comes. What difference does it make anyway? This is a question that needs no answer. As a matter of fact, the correct response to these mischievous clattering’s in the brain is nothing. Don’t respond to it because it is only a trap. Everything matters regardless of an automatic result or not. Whatever I chose to do, that is what I will serve in the days to come. One peak of the pictures or movies that I know will expose me to something tempting doesn’t just go away. One, two, or three donuts, cupcakes, fast-food favorites will open me up to want more. That is not a judgment, but a simple impulsive equation. If you don’t feed it…you don’t have to fight it. The name of the poison that every person begins to drink after the first taste is called “indifference”.
Your mind will conclude that it doesn’t really matter and then your heart will fill with whatever comes next.

Hard times are not forever. One of the only real constants in this life is change. Don’t let it get you down and complaisant. One bite leads to a hundred and the struggle that comes with indifference will be a hundred times harder that the hard we are experiencing today. Just breath, take a break, know that change will come in time and resist indifference.

Looking ahead,

Darrell

The 2 Minute Drill

 

Football…one of the greatest sports every imagined by the male race.  Back and forth from offence to defense the game muscles from line to line with grunts and groans of sheer power the teams push the pigskin ball.  First and goal like sledge hammering a brick wall the offense pounds the door to the goal line for a coveted score.  “No…You can’t come in”, say’s the defense while forcing their opposition to kick the ball and take what they can get.  Have you ever seen a team down by two touchdowns with little time left in a game, but suddenly through a high pressured two minute drill scores the points needed to bring the game back to a winnable state.  I have wondered why these teams don’t just run the two minute drill the whole game.  Well, the reality of that last statement is the game would not go well for the team that attempted to run a two minute drill for two hours.  There would be too many errors and turnovers resulting in a frazzled team.  Steady success in anything you do all hinges on timing, planning, and most importantly refreshing the players throughout the game. 

Ok, here is the life application for those who are like me trying to make life happen in business, family, church, and such.  I truly do have more success and better results from my daily plays is I plan, strategize, and make time to rest rather than trying to run the two minute drill day after day.  Don’t make the same mistakes I have by running and going as fast as you can without rest.  Six days with one to rest coupled with an occasional extended reprieve or sabbatical is the key to better days.  I realize it doesn’t sound like deep revelation, but as a man I constantly find myself running the two minute drill with hopes of scoring.  Keep it handy for the high pressure moments, but don’t get caught in that high octane mode.

Refresh, restore, and renew your mind, soul, strategies, etc. to keep a healthy stride for a healthy life.

Baseball Wars!

 

I am a baseball coach!  No, I’m not a professional or a for pay coach.  I’m a coach pitch little league volunteer.  My three sons all play ball in Southlake, TX and I have coached there for several years.  It’s funny how something like a sport played by seven and eight year olds can totally change your life.  The game is made up of players and rules and appears to be very mundane, but don’t let that fool you.  No two games are alike. 

Recently, my team the Giants was playing the Twins in what you would call a normal routine game.  We had the better standings and you would think (since we were the only team to actually beat the #1 standing team) playing the number seven team (the Twins) against our team which is the number three team would be a cinch.  Wrong, we were in the fight of the season.  The Twins had us beat for five innings when we started our sixth.  The Twins were the “home” team which means they bat last.  We were up to bat and were 3 runs down.  The Giants needed to score four runs to get the lead and then we had to hold them at their last up to bat.  Pause!

On the sideline where I was standing there was another game going on.  It was mine.  All week-long things were hard with my work.  The problems I was having at work were, at this point, working on me.  My heart had melted inside me and I desperately wanted to quit.  I especially wanted to quit on this little league team.  After all, what difference did it make anyway? 

Well, inside my heart I felt the Lord whisper something to my spirit.  It sounded like He was saying, “Is this going to be your worst moment or your greatest?”  I immediately knew what He was saying.  What was happening on the inside was reflecting in my team and at that moment they looked like what my heartfelt.  I had to get bigger on the inside than all the pressure I was feeling on the outside.  Suddenly, the baseball game my team was about to lose was no different from my losing work week.  It matters!

I quietly said in my heart, “Ok Father, let’s push back on this feeling.”  What happened next changed my life and set the standard for my whole company.  The Giants came in the dugout and took a knee.  I looked them in the eyes explained to them what it would take for us to come back and win this game.  I utter the common mantra all lying parents say to their kids in little league sports, “it’s not all about winning”.  However, my next statement would set the new standard when I stated, “but we didn’t come here to lose on purpose”!  My men (the Giants) rallied to score five runs and held the Twins to a three up and three down shut out for an awesome victory.

Back on a knee just after everyone shook hands and expressed what a good game it was, I had one more speech to give.  I looked the guys in the eye and asked the question, “When is the game over”?  It was rhetorical but open at the same time.  I finished my thought to my Giants with the words, “Not until it is over”.  You see, winners aren’t those who never fail, but those who never quit.  Amazingly, my next week for my business was strong and smooth. 

Who would have known that little league baseball could change someone’s life?  I am convinced that the game between my Giants and the Twins that night set a standard in me and those eleven boys for the rest of our lives.  Fight to win!  Never give up!  Get bigger on the inside and let it show on the outside.  Life gets messy but don’t stop playing until the game is over.

Take the day,

Darrell Jarrell

Training Ground

You may not know but I like watching ultimate fighting. The sport is very tough and about ten steps past boxing. The thing that attracts me to the sport is not the brutality, but the disciplines. These men are the strongest, toughest, and most sincere guys in sports. There is not a lot of money available in the infancy of this sport and the guys exert themselves toward being the best in the world.

The men who actually achieve the highest marks in ultimate fighting are not the biggest or the strongest. They are a combination of those things along with being very intelligent craftsmen. One of the things I noticed about the title holders this week was the way they train. Along with a rigorous schedule of body forming drills and calisthenics, these guys actually fight.

What they do is line the ring with the best fighters in the world who possess all types of fighting skills. As the current champion trains and spars about every 60 seconds the sparing partner comes out of the ring and a different man is sent in. At the end of the day, the man training (who is the actual title holder) in the ring has fought every man in the gym. In the champions own words, “when I get to the main event to fight the guy who wants my title, it is actually a relief to only have to fight one guy, it’s easier). This is how he develops his ability to stay on top.

Do you see it? These guys didn’t originate this concept, Father did. Does “let patience have it’s perfect work in you, that you would be perfect, complete, and lacking nothing” sound familiar? It should; it is God’s way of sparing spiritually to prepare for the fight that will attempt to take your title.

What title, you say? How about the title of husband, father, business man, deacon, pastor, leader, righteous ruler, son of God, friend, blessed, overcomer, and the righteousness of God. Ultimate fighting is a physical battle, but we do not train to fight the natural things in this world.

Let’s sharpen our steel today and over train in preparation for the actual enemy. The more men you sharpen against, the more diverse your skill.

Fighting to win,

Darrell

Mind vs. Heart

March 24, 2010 – A much needed declaration.  Show me heaven!  I have been pressed against this word to sell my house and buy land in Grapevine.  The word inside me wars against the doubt and confusion.  Battles won by heaven don’t usually pose much natural understanding.  It just happens as you walk.  I am amazed to witness such a struggle inside myself over believing.  Why am I so compelled to calculate life on my own?  Why do I fight against the supernatural inside myself when I know I have no control of outcomes?  Trust is such a fleeting commodity.  Today, I have little, last week I was immovable.  My human frailty is a constant reminder that I can’t live more that one day at a time.  As much as I think I want to know what happens next, the omniscient’s of God forever stands between me and my tomorrow.  Take a deep breath today and know without seeing that the thing inside you that you struggle with (your mind) has no right to rule the day.  There is another thing inside you that does.  God!

The Ball Trick

I saw a magician at the zoo several years ago.  The audience was mostly children and the magician invited a little boy on stage to assist him in his next trick.  The audience looked on as the magician took a red ball in one hand and held up the little boys hand as if to place the ball in his palm.  He said, “watch the ball”, as he began to raise and lower the ball on his palm in a seemingly hypnotic motion.  On the third count the ball disappeared.  What the little boy didn’t see was where the ball went.  However, the audience was allowed in on the trick where we could see everything.  As the magician raised the ball on the third count, just above the forehead of the boy, he would toss the ball over his head and the ball would land behind him.  It was so simple and very funny.  We all laughed and the boy was amazed.  How simple!  How easy it was for the magician to amaze the boy with something that looked so impossible.

I have been that little boy many times where I faced an impossible situation.  Some how and some way, God would come along like that magician and amaze me with something I never saw.  I’m at that place again where something impossible stands in my road as I wait for the magician (God) to come and blow my mind with and amazing feat.  I’m not praying for the Lord to show me how He is going to pull this one off or how this will work.  I’ve decided to stay like that little boy and just say, “do the ball trick again”.  I have spun my wheels in the mud of “trying to figure things out”, and only end up in the same place every time…lost.  Honestly, who really cares how God is going to amaze us?  The comfort doesn’t come from the “how” part  anyway, it comes from the fact that He will.  If God says not to depend on my understanding, but to acknowledge Him, then I’m going to do just that.  One more time…please.  Do the ball trick again.

Darrell