A problem with a water pump and not much else happened today. Jim & Kate took a group to pray on a mountain.

I will not lie to you. I am not a man of faith. There are times I shake in my shoes and there have been more restless nights than restful ones over the last year. Change is never easy. I can remember when I graduated from  the Univesity of Florida and we packed and cleaned our home for the final trip back to a great job in Louisiana.

There was a mixture of joy and sadness as I was so comfortable in Gainesville. Although I took classes, taught classes, wrote a dissertation and had an extremely ill child Gainesville and UF were a walk-in-the-park. I knew what I was doing daily. Dottie knew what she would be doing each day. Friends, church and athletics kept us busy and interested and there was little thought of the outside world or of the future. We were so comfortable.

In fact my best memory of Gainesville was gathering with friends in our home to watch Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. I was in the stadium when LSU WALKED into the stadium to play the Gators. Instead of running onto the field they walked as if to a funeral.

The Gainesville paper Sunday morning read something like “LSU walks in and then began to run over the Gators”. It is always so comfortable to have a routine. Of course I brought those headlines to church with me that Sunday morning.

The transition is the correct thing to be doing. I wish it were smooth as glass but it has been bumpy. My backing off has not been easy. I told Dottie that for the first time in my life I feel useless. I suppose I am feeling like General George Patton or Alexander the Great. They needed another war. They hunted for another battle. They desired another conquest.

Patton and MacArthur would have brought on World War III with Russia if it had not been for George Marshall and cooler heads. Some warriors just cannot slow down and smell the roses.

I watched my grandfather retire at 58 due to heart disease only to pass away 3 months later. I want to be busy in “retirement”. I want to run a long race. Your daily prayers for me need to be that I can slow down and smell the roses and yet be a useful servant in the kingdom of God.