But there’s something a little different about Froning. He’s a believer.

A real believer. Not just in a name but in deed. His behavior, attitude, actions and witness have been an inspiration to all who follow him. One of his contemporaries and friends Dan Bailey is also a believer. This year, Dan Bailey has his eye on the prize as the Fittest man on earth, and I think he has a good shot at it. It’s exciting to see two of the top competitors who are such outspoken believers.

In this photo after the first day of events, where both Dan and Rich broke world records, you can see on Rich Froning’s headband the reference to Psalm 18:29-36. Below is that passage:

²⁹ With your help I can advance against a troop^[a];
with my God I can scale a wall.
³⁰ As for God, his way is perfect:
The Lord’s word is flawless;
he shields all who take refuge in him.
³¹ For who is God besides the Lord?
And who is the Rock except our God?
³² It is God who arms me with strength
and keeps my way secure.
³³ He makes my feet like the feet of a deer;
he causes me to stand on the heights.
³⁴ He trains my hands for battle;
my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
³⁵ You make your saving help my shield,
and your right hand sustains me;
your help has made me great.
³⁶ You provide a broad path for my feet,
so that my ankles do not give way.

What an incredible passage. I can visualize the warriors of old, relying on the strength God provides. It’s inspring to see modern day athletes who rely on God for strength, and glorify Him for it.

Or so I once thought.

About a year ago I decided that I needed to incorporate some type of fitness routine into my life. I had tried running and hated it, I tried going to the gym and participating in a class and was embarrassingly  out of shape. I tried just using the equipment at the YMCA and was terrifically bored, not to mention out of place and confused. Then along came CrossFit.

I woke up today at 5:15am. I rolled out of bed and put on my workout clothes. After drinking my cup of coffee, a glass of water, and a piece of bread with peanut butter, I drove the 15 or so miles to our local CrossFit affiliate.

Today I set a new record for my back squat at 215lbs and I did 100 pull-ups in under 10 minutes.

I never thought of myself as “the type of person who would get up early”, or “the type of person to do CrossFit”. But I am. And I’m loving it.

This experience has helped me to look at my surroundings, and my self-imposed labels, and see that my character and behaviors are not in line with the self-imposed labels I had. I am a good husband, a good father, a responsible adult, I manage my money responsibly and sacrifice the things I want for the things I need. I work hard, and try to do the best job I can. I eat healthy foods, and I workout several days a week, half of that time is before the sun rises.

CrossFit has changed the way I see myself, and the way I see fitness. The workouts we do at CrossFit, we do together. Each person to his own ability, we compete against the clock, against ourselves, and against our previous records. We are unified in the goal of progress and self-betterment. To be really cliche’, CrossFit has not only changed the way I look, it has changed the way I look at my challenges.

Some videos of CrossFit show only the top-tier athletes and how hardcore it is, this video really speaks to the spirit of CrossFit.

I especially loved the takeaway at the end.

We have new tools at our disposal to make communication easy, facebook gives an at-a-glance summary of what everybody from your childhood’s been thinking/doing for the last hour, twitter tells us anything in a vast array of details, from what’s going on in Japan, to how someone’s not very impressed with their breakfast burrito. In addition to that, we have skype, instant message, text messaging, every one has cell phones, and it seems like email has almost taken the place of the traditional “snail mail”.

I just got back from a conference called South by Southwest, where everyone was demoing their new social networking site that ‘was better than facebook’, or ‘really would be the next youtube’. I propose that instead of creating social networks, we just socially network with real people.

I never thought I’d be concerned that when my daughters were teenagers that they wouldn’t talk on the phone. But I am. There was a girl in front of me at the store texting her friends who described talking as ‘awkward’. Granted, she was probably just grabbing for the right words to describe a phenomenon becoming less and less common, but still, it bugged me.

When I pump my gas now, I can conveniently use my checkcard to never leave the side of my car. This was created for convenience, speed, and efficiency. I experience a similar interaction at the grocery store, and the drug store, and just about everywhere I shop. I hand the clerk the items, they slide them across the scanner, tell me the total, and I slide my card, enter the magic numbers, and the receipt prints on my side. We’re done, and I didn’t even have to look at the clerk. I can rent movies from a kiosk (redbox if you don’t have it, they rock) and never interact with a human being — great for agoraphobs I’m sure. But not for me. It bugs me.

I love my iPhone, it provides me with anything I need to know, when I need to know it, but it also presents a tremendous distraction from everything around me. This past weekend at SXSW, there were several moments when I walked into lounges where there would be people sitting alone, with their iPhones, because that was actually a lot easier than talking to people they didn’t know (which is actually extremely easy at SXSW). I admit, it is easy to “look busy” when you have a smart phone, but it bugs me.

I think the beautiful thing about life is that we go through it bumping into others. I think it’s the combination of all those bumps that make any single person. I once worked for a guy who said, “yeah yeah yeah” all the time when you tried to explain something to him. It irritated us, so we had a pact that we would always call each other on it. Because we were looking for it, we noticed that we were doing it all the time. I don’t know how many things about “me” are actually things I picked up from being around others. Body language, facial expressions and sayings that may seem unique to anyone who doesn’t know their origins, but they’re not, they’re a conglomeration of interacting with other people.

I don’t want to be an automaton. I want to be a human being who interacts with other human beings, even in the small scale. So for the past few weeks, I’ve been taking the time to intentionally look the store clerk in the eyes, to ask “How’s your day going?”, to actually attempt to connect. Sometimes it’s a little awkard, sometimes they don’t know what to do with me, but other times, it’s refreshing, and they appreciate the gesture. Even if they don’t, and wish I would go away, I need to know that we can preserve communication, for it not to become “awkard” as the girl in the grocery store put it.

No man is an island. We were not designed to be automatons because that is a lonely existence.

I heard this song the other day. It literally moved me to tears. The lyrics are true and beautiful. At the end of the song, the lyrics change to “Father Lead me…”:

So Father, give me the strength
To be everything I’m called to be
Oh, Father, show me the way
To lead them
Won’t You lead me?

To lead them with strong hands
To stand up when they can’t
Don’t want to leave them hungry for love,
Chasing things that I could give up

I’ll show them I’m willing to fight
And give them the best of my life
So we can call this our home
Lead me, ’cause I can’t do this alone

Sometimes I’m tempted to hurry my day along to get to the things that I want to do, things I never have time for. For my own time. My daughter is two right now, and she’ll only be two for a year. I have little time with her considering I work all day, and come home for a few precious hours before she goes to sleep. In reading Phillipians, I came across this verse which I felt echoes what I want to be my desire:

But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you.

Philippians 2:17

Even if I am to be poured out, for my name to mean nothing to anyone but my daughters, my wife and my friends. To have no notoriety in the world, it’s worth it for my family to know they are beautiful, valuable, and worth giving up everything for. But I can’t do that alone. I have to tap into the power source so far greater than myself to achieve that goal.

Create a viable tv/movie viewing option for the iPhone.

Isn’t there something like this for the iPad?

Anyway, some company may have created this, but I want to give netflix the money instead. This could be another tier in their plans, mobile viewing through webkit enabled devices and iphones. I think it’d be great, but its not a huge bummer if they don’t allocate their resources to it.

Hulu on set-top boxes.

Seems like this would be a good move right? How much more would you use this service if it weren’t only through your computer? I realize that some folks only use their computers for entertainment, but it’d be really cool if this option existed. I’d use it like crazy.

Although, I guess that’s what TV is.

Build-your-own entertainment plan.

If there was an option to pay like 5 bucks a month and choose any channel. I think I’d be up for it. I enjoy Discovery Channel and Food Network enough that I might shell out 4-5 bucks a month for each.

My Idea: The network channels would just stream the feed through an internet connection. The channels would run 100% like they do now, including all the advertisements at programming. The networks would get a cut of the cost to make it more appetizing.

Rent movies with a 24 hour limit

I don’t understand why this is not currently available. I realize that Xbox Live and Amazon.com have on demand watching capabilities. But they’re both too high. Redbox is $1 a day, and they use DVDs, is bandwidth cost so much more (seriously, would it be more expensive? I honestly don’t know).

My Idea: When you rent movies (older movies $1, $2 for new releases), the rental fee is added to your account.

This past winter was very frustrating with all the snow. We were stuck inside a lot and with a one-year-old, it’s not much fun being cooped up in the house. As soon as the spring came we felt liberated from the oppressive weather of winter. The sun was out and we could be outside, since then, we’ve spent most of our days playing in the sun with our daughter.

Since we decided that we would be staying in our house, we’ve found so much more appreciation for it. When we came home from vacation two days ago, we were so glad to be home. One real benefit of living in a townhouse when my daughter is this age is that our Saturdays belong to us. So instead of mowing the yard, I’m playing in the pool.

We inflated my daughter's large pool and hung out in it for a couple hours. Its all we need.

And after a wave of nostalgia covered me, I changed dinner plans to accommodate this last night:

I went to the grocery store to pick up some things and saw these long coney dogs. I couldn't resist

It’s been over a month and we haven’t had one person come to see our house. This past week my wife and I have both resolved to stay, and I’m ok with that. It is the case that when you want something, if you wait, the desire subsides and appreciation for the conservative path emerges. In this case: staying in our current house.

I put a years worth of work into this house. For a full year, from three months before my daughter was born until three months before her first birthday, I would come home, and every night spend 2-4 hours working in my basement; framing walls, pulling electrical cable, laying insulation, hanging drywall, flooring and painting.

It’s been almost a year since I finished, and we are going to have a baby in October. In hindsight, it makes me very glad I put all that time and energy into adding this space. We are now at a place we weren’t before (with regards to square footage/rooms).

I love our home, I love our neighbors and our neighborhood, and it’s pretty cheap. I’m happy here, there’s a huge yard for my daughter to run and play, we can take walks through the neighborhood in the evenings, and enjoy the ease of not maintaining the yard.

This whole process of putting our house up for sell has been far different than I anticipated, and surprisingly emotional. It’s taken me on an interesting journey, and is currently about being happy with what I have.

I’m now finding myself able yo relate to them more than I realized even today. Our home has been on the market since Monday (7 days at this writing) and hasn’t had any activity at all. To make matters worse, there are 8 homes for sale in my subdivision alone.

It’s easy to become discouraged with the situation, especially when I find a house that I like but am unable to have any bargaining power b/c my house isn’t close to selling. Last night I saw a nice home at a very nice price (looks like it was a foreclosure property) and was filled with an insatiable sense of urgency and desire. I told my wife, “I can’t know about these things. When I can’t do anything. It makes me so frustrated.” She replied, “Well, who do you need to be talking to about it?”

Good advice.

This is not to say that the house I like won’t sell while we’re waiting for ours to sell, but it does mean that this is yet another opportunity to grow in my dependence, trust, and knowledge of God.

He is in control of this situation, and even though I wish I could see him a little clearer sometimes, I know that he’s with us and have to trust him. That is how our earliest biblical leaders were taught to live, and it still applies today.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

Proverbs 3:5-6

1) I didn’t know how much work this would be

I realize that probably sounds silly, but it’s true. Showing your house is not dissimilar to waiting for a baby to be born. You never know when you’re going to have to get out quickly, and you’re always trying to stay prepared. For us, right now that means cleaning up after ourselves and Hannah constantly. It’s a habit I’m glad to adopt, but it doesn’t make for easy Saturdays. We’re also always waiting for the phone to ring in hopes that it will be someone who wants to see the house. So far, we’ve gotten no traffic…it’s day 6. We’ll see how it goes.

2) I’m reminded of how much I want to control the situation.

I realize that my trust, security, and faith should be in God to take care of us in this process, that the unknowns I have to leave up to Him, but I continually find myself stretching out to try to control what is unknown…”How can I plan ahead to buy what we want? Is there a way to earn several thousand dollars before we actually buy one so that we can have a larger downpayment, thus a lower monthly one?” All these things that I know in my head are spinning my wheels. And that’s where I’m at.

Our home now is small, but we’re happy with it, and aren’t really cramped for space, we like living here, we like living below our means, but as I’m shopping for houses, I find myself wanting more. It’s kind of like how I’m not concerned about a big screen TV until I go to Wal-Mart and see ‘em, then I want one. Except I won’t pay for a TV for the next 30 years of my life.

God, help me to be still, and know that you are present. Give me the strength to let go of the things I hold so tightly to. Allow me to see clearly that all of my efforts fall short to your plan and provision. You are in control, not me. Make my heart understand what my head already knows.