Yesterday we here in the U.S. celebrated the 4th of July, Independence Day. We Americans love freedom!

Most Americans will tell you we’re the freest country in the world. In many respects we are. We enjoy broad freedoms of speech and expression. We have the freedom to follow whatever religious beliefs we choose. For the most part we have the freedom to live wherever we want, associate with whoever we want, and pursue whatever sort of work we want.

While we’re free from most external constraints, millions and millions of us are abusing our freedom and losing it. We’re creating our own personal prisons with invisible bars.

1. Personal debt – Abusing our freedom to spend & borrow.
2. Unfulfilling jobs - Locked in because of fear and debt.
3. Addictions – Abusing free access to alcohol, prescription drugs, pornography.
4. Poor heath – Self-inflicted through obesity, smoking, STDs.
5. Over-commitment – Misusing freedom to control our own schedules.
6. Guilt – Living in the past, bound by regrets and “what ifs”
7. Loneliness – Using our freedom to abandon relationships and community rather than work through issues and problems.

Underlying all of these are the dynamic duo of personal imprisonment:

8 ) Pride – The belief that we can handle all of these things on our own or that we can’t possibly know that we’re struggling with one of these things.

9) Fear – The belief that the devil we’re living with is better than taking a step into the unknown to escape it.

Personal and Societal Problems

What’s sad is that these problems are mostly self-inflicted. And while we might refer to them as “personal problems,” when they reach epidemic proportions as they have in our culture, they affect everyone.

For those of us who recognize that these are societal problems that affect everyone, there’s often a strong desire to fix the problem. We try to legislate and reduce the freedom that’s being abused. Or we condemn and ostracize those whose self-inflicted problems become public.

We are quick to point out the speck in our brother’s eye, while ignoring the log in our own. I say if we’re really concerned about these self-inflicted problems coming from abuses of freedom, let’s start from the inside out.

• Me - Take personal inventory. Where have I been abusing my freedom and hurting myself. Where do I need to get some outside help?
• My family – Am I encouraging and supporting my spouse to live responsibly? Am I raising my children to understand the responsibilities that come with freedom?
• My friends & extended family – Who do I love and genuinely want to see make the most of their life? Who have I earned the right to speak frankly too.

These are huge issues that we can’t afford to take lightly. Let’s reduce the emphasis on trying to change and regulate other people and instead focus on living the best life we possibly can. And let’s not do it out of fear of the negative, but rather because each of us matters. Each of us was created for a unique purpose.

You are too important to get caught up in and stay stuck in any of that junk!

[image by move-at-light-speed]

I hinted at it yesterday on Twitter…

Trying to go without coffee today. Not much fun. :P

March 14, 2011 2:01 pm via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@paulsteinbrueck

Paul Steinbrueck

And mentioned it again this morning…

Starting day 2 with no coffee. Hoping a run will wake me up.

March 15, 2011 6:46 am via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@paulsteinbrueck

Paul Steinbrueck

Since several people have asked, here’s the scoop: I’m giving up coffee… and beer… and soda… everything except tap water.

I got this email from my pastor on Friday:

Hey anybody interested in joining Jacque and me in doing a little good for some people in desperate need of clean drinking water? If so…read on…

As you know Cypress is partnering with God to write ‘A 1000 Stories of Faith, Hope and Love over the next two years. And one of our objectives is to get a source of clean drinking water for the 400 children in our partner school and the 500 people of the church there. (Just a reminder that more than half of the deaths in Haiti are attributed to water borne diseases as is about eighty percent of the illnesses. People in our partner church died in the last cholera outbreak.) The good news is we are third on a list to get a well dug. The bad news is we don’t expect the water we hit to be potable so a purification system will be needed.

And here’s our little idea: it is Lent…a season to pray, fast and give. A season when many Christians sacrifice something to remind them of Christ’s great sacrifice for us. So Jacque and I are going to give up all beverages except tap water for a period of time between now and Easter and then give the money we would have spent on coffee, sodas, juice and so forth to the Cypress Haiti Water Fund.

I wish I could say I started with altruistic motives. But, here’s the truth. When I got that email, I was finishing up an exhausting week in which I had stayed up until 5 AM the night before and was drinking 4-5 cups of coffee a day just to keep going.

My immediate thought, “That’s not gonna happen.” Delete.

Over the weekend, I realized that once again I have been living at an unmanageable pace. There’s a lot going on at work, I’m trying to lead a team on a trip to Kenya this summer, I’m coaching baseball, and I’m trying to be a good husband, father, elder, small group leader, and so forth. It’s easy for me to fall into the trap of trying to do more, sleep less, and drink as much coffee as I need to to make things work.

My pastor repeated the challenge during the Sunday service. But, considering it was time-change Sunday, I was even less inclined to participate.

I went to bed early Sunday night. The next morning when I woke up, my wife, Jennifer, had already left for her morning workout. Usually, she sets the timer on the coffee pot the night before. But when I woke up, there was no coffee in the pot. I figured she was probably doing the challenge, so to help her avoid the temptation I decided I wouldn’t brew any coffee either.

Monday’s are killer for me – meetings all day followed by a 2 hour class in the evening, but somehow God got me through the entire day without coffee.

Now I’m on to day 2.  For how long? I have no idea. 2 week, 5 weeks, maybe forever if I feel better and more energetic.  While a big part of the reason I’m doing this is still for my own health and to better manage my energy, why not do it to help the families of our sister church in Haiti as well?

By blogging and tweeting about it, I’ve gone public and I’ve got you to hold me accountable.

If you’re a part of Cypress Meadows, would you join me in the Haiti Water Challenge?

If you’re not a part of Cypress Meadows, why not join me anyway? It’ll be good for you and for some families in Haiti who are not all that different from yours except that they lack clean drinking water.

Added 3/23: Or if you want to help us dig a well & put in a filtration system in Haiti, you can donate here.

This morning I met with my orthopedic doctor to review the results of the MRI I got after my soccer injury.  Unfortunately, the results are not good.

I’ve got a torn ACL and partial tears in both the lateral and medial meniscus.

I’m scheduled for surgery next Thursday, April 15th.

On the bright side, it will probably seem painless compared with paying taxes that day.

If you’d like to know more details about the injury, rehab, my biggest concern, and five things I’m thankful for, keep reading.

My understanding is that the big wild card is going to be the meniscuses. If a meniscus tears away from the blood supply then it’s not possible to repair it and it has to be removed.  If it’s not torn away from the blood supply, then it can be repaired, but the recovery time is much longer.  The doctor won’t know whether the meniscuses can be repaired until he’s doing the surgery and able to see them.

Once the surgery is over, then the real fun begins.

I was surprised by everything that’s going to be involved in the rehab.

Physical therapy starts the same day as the surgery.  A physical therapist will come to my house that day and the next 2.

Monday 3/19 I go back to the doctor for the post-op appointment.

Then later that Monday I go to the physical therapy center, where I’ll have an hour of physical therapy 3 times a week for the next 4 weeks.

As if that wasn’t enough, they are also delivering one of these “cold therapy” gadgets and one of these gizmos so I can do my own rehab in between PT session.

Are you still with me?

This is obviously going to require a lot of adjustments

• There’s a lot of time involved in all this physical therapy.  I am going to have to take time off of work and adjust my work schedule during the weeks after the surgery.
• I won’t be able to play soccer or run for months.
• I’ll have to find other ways to do cardio workouts and try to stay in shape as best I can.
• My knee modeling career is probably over.

The good news is that I should be able to walk fine in July when we’re planning our trip to Kenya, so I won’t have to cancel the trip.

My biggest concern in all of this…

…is for the extra burden it is going to put on Jennifer.  She is already so busy doing the lion’s share of the care for our 3 kids, her diabetes research work, and her serving in the early childhood ministry at our church.

I hate the thought of having to ask her to drive me to and from physical therapy 3x a week for 4 weeks.  Plus not only am I not going to going to be able to help out with kids and housework as much as I do now, but I expect I’m going to need her help to take care of me.

Jennifer will go from sharing the load to not only carrying the load but carrying me as well.  I don’t like that.

But despite it all, I’m not discouraged.  In fact, what comes to mind is

Five things I have to be thankful for

1. Knee surgery is not that bad.  There are a lot of people who have a lot bigger health challenge than this.
2. I have a wonderful wife who is going to go through this with me.
3. I have a great job that allows me to work from home and work flexible hours.
4. I have a fantastic extended family & lots of good friends who I know will be praying for me and encouraging me.
5. We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)  So, I look forward to the good God is going to do through this situation.

Pollster and author George Barna posted a thought-provoking article this morning on the health care reform debate going on in the U.S.  He takes a look at how Americans want to address heath care and how Jesus dealt with the sick people he encountered.

First, according to surveys, the vast majority of Americans think health care deficiencies should be solved by the government more than any other entity or group of people.

Two-thirds of adults look to the government to solve issues related to poverty – including health care deficiencies. Just one out of every five adults believes that solving poverty is an individual duty, and a mere one out of 25 people assigns that task to non-profit organizations, and another one in 25 assigns it to churches.

Second, Americans help those who need health care, but only at arms length.

the most common responses are for people to give money, food, and clothing to someone else to get the job done. In contrast, the most personal responses are the least common. Relatively few Americans talk directly with the needy, tutor them, build homes for them, visit them, befriend them, or engage in other types of personal activities to address the issue.

Barna concludes that the predominant attitude in America  towards helping those without adequate health care is “it’s not my fault and it’s not my job, so let the paid professionals deal with it,” oh, and don’t raise my taxes to do it.

Barna then cites 7 principals that underlie Jesus’ health care strategy as found in the Bible.

1. Jesus healed people because He believed that good health matters.
2. Jesus invested Himself in their healing because He loved and cared for people.
3. Jesus healed everyone who presented a medical need because He saw no reason to screen some out as unqualified.
4. Jesus healed every kind of illness He encountered.
5. Jesus pursued them because He saw Himself as a servant.
6. Jesus allowed them to disrupt His schedule because He realized that people’s pain and suffering was their top focus in life.
7. Jesus expected His closest followers to heal others.

Jesus personally attended to the health care needs of the poor and disenfranchised and he called on his followers to do the same.  There’s nothing in scripture that says government programs can’t be part of the solution, but Jesus never passed the buck to the government when sick people were standing in front of him.

My first thought was, “Yeah, well, if I had the gift of healing and through God’s power could instantly cure people with blindness and leprosy (or if I at least some medical training), I would be more personally involved in helping those who need health care.”

Maybe there’s something to that.

But I also know that I have the same 24 hours in a day that Jesus had and a lot more financial resources than Jesus.

So, what’s your response to those with insufficient health care?  Who do you think should be helping them?  If you think it’s primarily the government’s responsibility, how do you square that with how Jesus’ approach?  And if you oppose a government solution, what are you doing to help those with health needs?

You can read the full article here.

I’m fortunate not to have to do a lot of driving on a regular basis. My home, work, church, and kids’ school are all within a couple miles of each other.  So, it wasn’t until this past weekend while I driving across the state of Florida for a long weekend in Daytona Beach I noticed latest driving distraction.  I saw at least 3 people sending text messages while they were driving.  This was not stopped at a light but while their car was moving.

If you’ve ever texted while driving or if you have a teenager who drives, please watch this video.

Pretty gruesome, huh?

According to this (Sarasota) Hearald Tribune article:

Research at the University of Utah shows that texting car drivers are eight times more likely to crash than drivers who aren’t texting. The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that truckers who text while driving are 23 times more likely to cause a crash or near-crash than truckers who don’t.

Isn’t your life, the lives of your passengers, and the other people on the road worth pulling into a parking lot if you really need to read or send a text to someone?

Thanks to Michael Hyatt for posting about this.

I spent last week with my extended family in Helen, GA – my two brothers, their families, and my parents.  If you’re counting along at home, that’s 8 adults and 7 children under the age of 10 all sharing one house for a week.

There was really nothing normal about the week.

We were in a different state with different climate. We stayed up late and got up late. We ate different foods at odd times.  We shared bathrooms.  Our kids shared bedrooms.

And no one tried to kill each other.  Crazy, I know.

(It also gave me lots of material to blog about, so stay tuned.)

Whenever you take a trip of this magnitude you’re bound to forget something, and we forgot the worst of all possible things. The one thing that absent would make our entire trip miserable…

Aryn’s “passie.”  That’s toddler for pacifier.

Aryn is now 2 ½.  We cut her older sister and brother off on their second birthday.  But for reasons I won’t go into here, we decided not to tackle that issue with Aryn at that time.

In retrospect, I’m not sure that was the best idea. You see she started out going to bed with one passie.  Then a few months ago she started grabbing a second passie to hold in her hand.  Then in the last few weeks she was demanding a 3rd passie. It was getting out of control! We were starting to consider paciholics anonymous.

So, you can imagine the horror when we arrived at our rental house, got the kids ready for bed and realized… we had forgotten to pack any pacifiers.

The interesting thing about it, though, is that Aryn only asked for her passie once that night, and then not again the rest of the week.  The oddity of sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor in a strange room of a strange house helped her break her passie addiction. I’m happy to say she’s been passie free for 12 days now.

I found that breaking routine doesn’t only work for 2 year olds. I’ve gotten into the habit of drinking coffee throughout the day while working. But with all the stuff we did during the trip, being in and out of the house, I only ended up drinking a half cup of coffee a day. And I didn’t even miss it.

If you want to break a bad habit, it helps to put yourself in a different setting and keep yourself off balance with different activities.

On the downside, however, I also neglected a lot of my good habits.  During our 9-day trip I didn’t exercise at all, I didn’t read the Bible, I forgot to take my multi-vitamin, and I didn’t journal or blog.

The trick is to keep the bad habits broken, while re-establishing the good habits.

How about you? Have you broken a bad habit by getting out of a familiar setting and routine? Do you have a bad habit you’re trying to break?  Are you changing your setting/routine to help do that?

January is the time when I usually reflect on the past year, assess goals that I set the previous January, and set new goals for the new year.  Ideally I’d like to do that during the week between Christmas and New Years.  Unfortunately, once again I had projects for work which were due in early January and I ended up working crazy hours around the holidays.  Only in the last few days have I had a chance to come up for air.

So, Friday morning I finally got around to looking over the goals I set for 2008.  The last few years my goals haven’t changed much from one year to the next.  Usually I’ll just copy the previous year’s goals and then after some thought and prayer delete a few goals and add a few new ones.  I was about to something like that when I realized it was 6 AM and I needed to head out on my Friday morning run in order to get back before the kids wake up.

While on my run I noticed a church sign.  Now my experience is that church signs are notorious for cheesy, irrelevant, and even offensively trite quotes, but this one made me think.  It simply said…

IMAGINE

(Cue the John Lennon music)

I realized that too often when I set my goals, I start with the clutter of existing goals and obligations.  I start with last year’s goals and then think, “Yeah, that seems to be working.  I’ll just keep doing that.”  Or “I think I can do incrementally better next year.”  Or “My plate is already so full, I can’t possibly add anything new.”   But if my goals for this year are the same or incrementally higher than last year, then I should expect at the end of the year to basically be in the same place or perhaps an incrementally better place, right?

So, what if instead of starting with existing goals, current obligations, and what I’m already doing, I start with a blank sheet of paper… and imagine.

• Imagine who I’d like to be a year from now physically, spiritually, and mentally.
• Imagine what I’d like my relationship with God to look like a year from now.
• Imagine what I’d like my relationship with my wife to be like a year from now.
• Imagine what I’d like my relationship with my kids to be like a year from now.
• Imagine what Id like my job to look like a year from now.
• Imagine how the difference I’d like to make in other people’s lives over the course of the year.
• Imagine the experiences I’d like to have this year.

Forget for a moment what seems possible or impossible.  Don’t get into how to make it happen yet.  Resist the temptation to immediately evaluate whether it’s a good idea or not.  Just imagine.

Write down these dreams.

Then in a couple of days I’ll come back and balance them with reality and set goals.

What are some of your dreams for 2009?

In just a few hours my wife, 3 children, and I will be on the road for the 2 hour drive to Disney World.  And 24 hours from now I’ll be standing around the starting line of the Disney Marathon waiting for gun to go off.

Shifting my sleep cycle seems to have worked.  I ended up going to bed at around 9:30 last night.  I set my alarm for 4:30 but woke up at 4:20.  I think tomorrow morning I’ll set my alarm for 3:15 and arrange to have a taxi at 3:45.  If I have everything laid out and just need to get dressed and eat something, I should have plenty of time.

The Weather Factor
I’m a little disappointed in the way it looks like the weather is going to turn out.  Yesterday morning I looked at the forecast and saw there was supposed to be a low of 50 on Sunday and a high of 70.  I was really excited about it being 50 degrees at the start of the marathon, because that’s about the perfect temperature.  I even when out and bought a pair of light gloves and packed my ski headband.  Then last night I looked at the hour by hour forecast on weather.com and it says at 6 AM it’s supposed to be 62 degress and 97% humidity.  There will be a cold front moving through and if it gets down to 50 degrees on Sunday it won’t be until the end of the day.  Oh well, at least its supposed to be cloudy.  Hopefully it won’t rain.

Video Documentary 
I decided I am going to try something I don’t know has ever been done at the Disney Marathon.  I am going to run with a video camera to document the experience.  Yesterday, I happened to be driving by my local CompUSA, which is closing down and has everything 15%-30% off.  I stopped in and found a Pure Digital Flip Video camcorder at 15% off.  This thing is about the same size as a still camera and stores an hour of video on internal memory.

While browsing forums discussions on Disney lots of people have recommended bringing a camera on the marathon.  A lot of the Disney characters are out along the route and you can get your picture taken with them.  When I’ve seen people write that, my thinking has been I don’t know that I would want to stop running, hand my camera to someone else, pose for a picture, and then start back up again.  And considering how crowded the marathon reportedly is it’s likely you would have to wait for a person or two in front of you as well.  So, now I’ll just video tape the characters as I run by them.

I read a very cool mile by mile report of the Disney Marathon by Charles Wait and my hope is to do something similar but do it on video.  I want to capture the sights and sounds of the marathon itself, but also be able to record my thoughts as the marathon progresses and how I’m feeling.  It hope it will also give me something else to think about to pass the time.

Looking for a Pace Team
After talking with a few other people, the other thing I’m going to try to do is run with a pace team.  I’ve been placed in corral L, which I assume is one of the last if not the last corral.  I’d lke to run with a 4 hour pace team, but I don’t know if I’d ever see them starting way in the back.  When I stop by the expo today to complete my registration, I’ll see if I can get moved up.  Generally, you have to have some kind of proof of time in a previous half marathon or marathon.  Since I never received anything in writing from the Blue Moon Half Marathon, I don’t know if they’ll move me up, but I’ll give it a shot.

Well, it’s 5:45 and I’ve got to go pack the car…

Yesterday, I started looking around the web for more advice specific to the Disney Marathon.  The official  Disney Marathon website is good and offers a lot of important information, but I was looking for some unofficial information from people who have done the Disney Marathon.  I found a very helpful site where I got most of my questions answered.  I’ll talk about that in a bit, but there’s one big question I’m thinking through this morning…

The marathon starts at 6 AM, and the official Disney Marathon materials say runners should be in the Epcot parking lot by 4 AM.  That means waking up somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 AM.  I’m used to going to bed around 11 PM.  And considering I’ll be sleeping in a hotel and excited about the marathon the next morning, chances are I’m not going to sleep all that well.

It’s a bit concerning to me that I’ll be taking on the most physically demanding task of my life and lack of sleep could be a significant factor.

Great Disney Marathon Site
Yesterday, while searching online for information specific to the Disney Marathon, was very excited to find DisneyRunning.com which has a excellent, highly trafficed forum.  Yesterday, I posted several Disney-specific questions about how to get to the marathon from a non-Disney hotel, when do I really need to be there, when should my family try to get to the finish line to get a seat in the bleachers, and so forth.  I got responses from several Disney veterans.  (Thank you!)

Back to Sleep
So, as I was saying about sleep… I am an early riser, but the prospect of getting up at 3 AM has me concerned that I’ll be really tired even before I start the marathon.

I’ve started trying to shift my sleep schedule.  Monday night I went to bed at 10.  I got up at 5 and did my last run before the marathon, a short 3 miler.  Tuesday and Wednesday I went to bed again at 10 and set my alarm for 5.  (Having 3 kids under the age of 7, a couple of hours of quiet before everyone else wakes up is kind of nice.)

I think I’ll try to go to bed at 9:30 tonight and get up at 4:30 tomorrow morning.  Then Friday night I might shoot for going to bed at 9.

It will be tough to go to bed at 9 Friday night.  My kids don’t always get to bed before 9.  We’ll be doing the 2 hour drive from our home to Orlando Saturday morning and I know there will be a strong desire to get everything packed the night before.  My wife is an early packer, but I usually don’t get to packing my bag or the car until after the kids go to bed the night before we leave.

If I get up at 4 AM Saturday morning, though, that should give me plenty of time to pack the car and still leave at a reasonable hour.  And it should leave me tired enough to go to bed by 9 PM Saturday night.  If I can get 6 hours of sleep the night before the marathon hopefully that will be good enough.  It’s probably the best I can hope for.

I’d be curious to hear from other marathoners.  Is sleep the night before the marathon a big deal?  Do you try to shift your sleep schedule the last few days before the marathon?  Any other sleep-related advice?

It’s been 3 months since my last blog post.  I added several new things to my plate in the fall including training for my first marathon, helping to coach my son’s soccer team, and serving in a couple of new capacities at church.  Those things along with work and family just became too much.  I just couldn’t do it all.  Some things had to give, and blogging was one of them.

I did keep up with my marathon training (more or less), and now my first marathon is less than 4 days away…

I ran my first half marathon, the Blue Moon Half Marathon in Dunedin, FL, October 29.  I finished around 2:04:20.  See the results. 

My best training run was probably December 1, a 20 miler.  I reached the 13 mile mark at 1:51, just over an 8:30 pace.  I slowed down after that, but still finished the 20 miles in 3:06, for an average pace of 9:20/mile.

Training became difficult in December, though.  In addition to the normal busyness of life, plus the busyness of the Christmas season, I had a huge work deadline December 12.  I actually worked 90 hours that week.  After working 18 hours on Monday and then sleeping only 3 hours, I still managed to do a 6 mile short run.  But after working 2 more 18 hour days on Tuesday and Wednesday I couldn’t run Thursday morning.  I did a long run Sunday morning, but I ended up cutting it short (after about 15 miles if I remember correctly).

The following weekend my wife, 3 kids, and I joined my wife’s family on a cruise to the Bahamas.  The cruise was good, but not very condusive for a long run.

I did my last long training run Saturday December 29.  I decided I was going to do 22 miles no matter what.  Everything was going well through the first 16 miles.  I was running just under a 9 minute mile pace to that point.  Then I had to visit a restroom for several minutes.  After that my legs just felt so heavy.  I ended up alternating running for a minute or so and then walking for a minute or so for miles 17-19.  Then I just walked the last 3 miles.  The 22 miles took 4:08.

So, I’m a little disappointed in how I finished my training.  When I did my first run of 20 miles and finished in 3:06, I started thinking that maybe after another month of training I would have a shot at doing my first marathon in under 4 hours.  I know that’s not going to happen now.

But I’m still excited about the marathon and very much looking forward to the experience.  At this point my goal is to simply finish my first marathon.  I will try to avoid walking as much as I can, but I’m not shooting for a particular time.  Just finishing will be quit an accomplishment. 

With less than 4 days go go, I’m trying to get as much rest as possible and trying to get as much advice about running a marathon, and in particular about the Disney Marathon.  So, if you have any race-day tips, especially if they’re specific to Disney, please post ‘em.