Love These Emails

Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. 

Your challenge is to accept yourself as less than perfect and don't be afraid of letting someone down.  You are still valuable as a person, even if you fail.  It is through our failures that we learn how to be successful.  Hard work earns the respect of others and overcomes failures.  Do me a favor and go out and practice and play like your're not afraid of making a mistake.  You are going to get called out on things, but what they're really looking for is to see if you can work and get better.  You've got the talent you just need to overcome the challenges in your mind.  You can do that!!!!  And in doing that, you will have more peace and joy in every aspect of your life.  
Maybe find some quotes you like and hang them in your locker or put them on your phone as a constant reminder.  
I love you!   
Mom

A Mom Thing

This past week has been so incredibly busy for me! From sun up to sun down its football. That's a lot of football. Being that my mom is so great she sends me these daily emails with thoughts of the day kind of theme. This one is awesome. Being that it is so awesome I want to share it with you guys:

There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing. –Aristotle
Criticism can help us to reflect, self evaluate and push us to grow!!

Also, here's a thought for you today....

Jock vs Nerd

$ Michael Jordan having "retired," with $40 million in endorsements, makes $178,100 a day, working or not.
$ If he sleeps 7 hours a night, he makes $52,000 every night while visions of sugarplums dance in his head.
$ If he goes to see a movie, it'll cost him $7.00, but he'll make $18,550 while he's there.
$ If he decides to have a 5 minute egg, he'll make $618 while boiling it.
$ He makes $7,415/hr more than minimum wage.
$ He'll make $3,710 while watching each episode of Friends.
$ If he wanted to save up for a new Acura NSX ($90,000) it would take him a whole 12 hours.
$ If someone were to hand him his salary and endorsement money, they would have to do it at the rate of $2.00 every second.
$ He'll probably pay around $200 for a nice round of golf, but will be reimbursed $33,390 for that round.
$ Assuming he puts the federal maximum of 15% of his income into a tax deferred account (401k), his contributions will hit the federal cap of $9500 at 8:30 a.m. on January 1st.
$ If you were given a penny for every 10 dollars he made, you 'd be living comfortably at $65,000 a year.
$ He'll make about $19.60 while watching the 100 meter dash in the Olympics, and about $15,600 during the Boston Marathon.
$ While the common person is spending about $20 for a meal in his trendy Chicago restaurant, he'll pull in about $5600.
$ This year, he'll make more than twice as much as all U.S. past presidents for all of their terms combined.
Amazing isn't it?  However...
$ If Jordan saves 100% of his income for the next 450 years, he'll still have less than Bill Gates has today.
$$$ Game over.  Nerd wins.

Love, Mom

Gotta love moms emails! Hope you guys are blessed throughout the day, love Zane

Reflection Monday 9

It only takes one drop to start an insurmountable current, and it only takes one person to start a revival.

Prayer Request

Today we officially checked into fall camp which is awesome. I am definitely ready to try and show everyone what I got, but at the same time the nerves are starting to set in little by little. So I want to ask for your prayers. Prayers that my body will hold up and that God would give me the ability to preform at the highest level that I possibly can in order to bring glory to HIS name not mine. Thank you so so much for your prayers!

In Love- Zane

Summer Workouts

So tomorrow is our last summer conditioning day and I can not be more excited for it! This summer has been a wake up call to say the least. A lot of sweat, a lot of pain, and ALOT of hard work. Part of me wishes that I did stay home to enjoy my summer with family and friends, but the more that I think about it, the more that I realize is how that would have been the easy way out. That sure as heck would have been a lot more comfortable for me then being up here working like a dog all summer, but would it have been beneficial? You see as the end of summer approaches fast more and more freshman are coming in and slowly starting to go to workouts. They look like me on my first week. In pain. Therefore I am soooo glad that I gave up my summer to be up here to workout. In our walks there is one of two roads that we can take. We can stay in the comfort of our house and enjoy our "vaycay" or we can walk into the lions den where we may not be comfortable and in may seem impossible, somewhere where we can hardly find the strength to take another step. You see when we put in the work we see results. We become an insurmountable current ready to take out any mud bank that lies before us, overturn every pebble. So while the work may cause you to sacrifice your time, effort, money, and resources.....when we start to see that light at the end of the tunnel we still have the strength to sprint through that finish line without letting up.

Reflection Tuesday?

Mowing Straight Lines

So the other day my dad asked me to mow the yard. Besides the fact that it was a hundred degrees outside I had no problem doing it. Infact I actually enjoy mowing my yard. The neighbors.....not so much, probably because I sing along to my iPod way to loud! The one thing that drives me crazy when I am mowing is when the lines aren't straight. IT DRIVES ME INSANE!!! The downside about this being the thing that bugs me is how unbelievable impossible it is. Lots of factors play into this. The wind, an uneven mowing surface, an itch, or even a sweat bead can throw you off your game. You can imagine my frustration. Until I figured out the key that is. The key to mowing a straight line is not to look only a couple feet in front of the mower, but to instead shift your eyes directly down the line towards the end of the yard. (Warning the first couple of times you try this it may lead to extreme levels of anxiety) but after those intital moments of anxiety it becomes second nature. So as I was relaxing and partially laughing in my head thinking that I had defeated all of the worlds problems a car of friends drove into the neighborhood and laid on the horn. Quickly I looked up and threw up a wave. As I returned to my mowing I was horrified. You guessed it, my line was messed up. I think it is so easy for us like when we are mowing to just tend to look only a couple feet in front of our faith walks because looking far ahead my cause some anixety that we may not always want to burden. We tend to forget that the goal is to mow straight lines, not to only think about mowing them straight, but also like in the mowing we can never get to comfortable in our walks, we always have to keep moving towards the goal and when we do tend to relax and get comfortable we may take our eyes off of the prize. Paul said in 1 Corninthians 9: 24-27 "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified." When we mow our yards, or walk by faith, or even play scrabble all we can do is remember the goal at hand and put it into action and when we do that we end up with a nice yard and a happy Zane.

Busy Busy Busy

Of late I have been really caught up and busy! I came home for like 5 days and I have been trying to see everyone, unfortunately that leads to me forgetting certain things like my daily post! So I'll keep this one short and just ask you guys to really be praying for me to remember my priorities in life. Ya friendships are so special and needed but at the same time I really need to step back and ask myself what really is inportant in life to me. 

Music Friday 5

This song is so cool. Has made a bunch of my athletic warm-up CD's.

Zane Black

A Simple Post

Simple post today. I moved today, and to say the least I wasn't to excited to do so. You see all this summer I have been stayed in nice upperclassmen dorms that had air conditioning. Today I moved into poopy underclassman dorms with no air conditioning. Not cool. The one thing that did pick my sprits up was all of the help that I received and not just from my teammates. Almost everyone that I saw asked me if I needed any help. A random Grandma was parked close to the door and she offered to hold it open while I carried loads inside to my "prison cell." This shocked me, and it meant more to me then any of them will ever realize. Just that fact that they offered is incredible to me. I have found that when you really try to see the good in everyone, it almost never disappoints you.

A Running Redue

Today during our running workout some of the guys weren't finishing the drills all the way through the lines, this led to coach restarting the whole day, warmup and everything. Basically what was suppose to be an easier day of running turned into a harder one. The only good thing to come from this whole ordeal was that it got me thinking. Thinking about life and how we as human handle it. We were fortunate as a team in being able to make up the run and have a good workout, but in life are we that fortunate? At the end of your life you go one of two places. Heaven or Hell. The great part of that is that YOU get to decide that with a simple "Jesus is Lord and Savior of my life" or "This Jesus guy just isn't for me." Whichever one that you decide will reflect what Jesus says to you a the end of your life. Either "Well done good and faithful servant" or "Away from me I never knew you." He doesn't stand there and say "well you meant well and you did give ten percent. And lets not forget about every Christmas and Easter when you did go to church. Those were all outstanding and you did put semi effort into those. I'll give you another chance sport." One chance, one shot. Are there going to be times when you fail and don't give everything you have to him? All the time. But here is the great news. It isn't about winning or losing or even succeeding! It is about giving your life to God! It's about returning the art back to the artist. Not letting the story of the cross go untold. After the death of Jesus the Corinthians went "insane" they sold all of their possessions, gave away all of their money, and spread the word of God like a wild fire! Obviously that's not something we would do now because we need those things to survive. We need them to function. But didn't the Corinthians need them too? Wasn't wealth and eating and having a home to live in just as important back then? What's the difference? Why were they willing to sell everything and give it to the poor? They saw this guy named Jesus rise from the dead on the third day like he said he would and they realized that nothing matters except for this simple FACT that God has risen from the grave. They had to tell everyone and they realized that the things that were important to them at one point weren't so important to them anymore. Now if you and I  really believe, I mean truly believe that God is a living God, that he is not a distanced God, why do we work so hard to live "comfortably," it seems like we try to build up this really save and easy life so we never feel any pain or hurt. In life most people are going to try and find the least time consuming, minimal finical bounding easy way out. Good for them, but I don't want to go where most people are headed! I want to give till it hurts. I want blisters on my hands. I want to have to rely on God so much that I have to ask him for the strength to take another breath. I don't want to live comfy, that's for the people that are focused on the here and now only. I want to live radically, that is for those who are living for their next life. I only get one shot at this life, and I would do anything to hear Christ say "well done Zane."

Reflection Monday 7

Still proud?

Read The Flap, Not The Cover

So today I continued my church search process. One thing that I have realized in going to all of these different types of churches is how little I actually know. I find myself constantly calling my mom and my uncle with questions about what is "good" and what is "bad" about this and that denomination. And honestly there have been churches where I think "man I would really like to visit that one" but as I do more research on it I rule them out because of what their "reputation" might be. I am so glad that my God doesn't do this with me. While some of the raps that these churches may pertain possibly could be true they also may not even be close to what they believe. As a "non-denominational believer" I don't even think twice about clicking on the link to a Lutheran Church or a Catholic Church. In other would I judge the book by it's cover. We all do. I have a good friend named Colin who raised Mormon. If he where lets say on a road trip and wanted to go to a church would he pick a Catholic Church? No he would look for a Mormon Church because its what he knows. Same with all of us. We flock to what is familiar. But what if familiar isn't the best? I don't know if you know this about me but I am a really picky eater and it use to be terrible. I always liked noodles though, but there was something about the sauce that people put on the noodles that I didn't like. To be completely honest I never tried it. One day my mother talked me into trying noodles with Alfredo sauce. If you know me at all then you would know how much I LOVE noodles with Alfredo sauce. You see noodles with cheese is what was familiar to me, and at the time it seemed like it was the best thing for me. Then I tried noodles with Alfredo and while I like noodles with cheese still I prefer them with Alfredo now. This experience led me to try more types of sauces, some I liked. Some made me want to lick the dogs butt. Sometimes we get so caught up in label of "Catholic" or "Baptist" and etc....... that we don't stop to at least read the book flap in the front or the intro. I think we are called to be "spiritual rocks" and the great thing about a rock is that wherever people may throw that rock it will never lose its form. So whatever church I may be at in that moment if I am a "spiritual rock" I will never lose my form.

Messy Paint

I want you to make a list of your top five things that you like to do in your free time.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Got them? Here's mine...

1. Netflix

2. XBOX

3. Reading

4.Eating

5. Sleeping

I guess you could say that I'm a typical guy! You see I have been feeling very convicted by the spirt of late, I always find myself doing these activities. Now don't get me wrong here; there is absolutely nothing wrong with me doing these activities, it's the manner that I am conducting in these activities that is making me question myself right now. My whole 5 item list are what I would call "secondary joys" the reason that they are "secondary joys" is because Jesus Christ is my "primary joy." The same reigns true for you. Everyone's primary joy is a so-to-speak "God" of some sorts whether thats Jesus, or Allah, or even basketball. Everyone has a so-to-speak primary joy in their "God." Everything else that we do is a "secondary joy." Secondary joys are intended for us to enjoy. That's why God created them. For our pleasure. Of late my secondary joys have started to bridge the gap between them and my primary joys. This is a big problem. To give you a visual picture think of colors. Everything in your life is a color. So your "primary joy" lets say is yellow, and eating is green. XBOX is orange. Reading lets say is blue. Netflix is red of course and sleeping is brown. The list can go on and on. So right now there is a CLEAR gap between your "primary" joy and your "secondary" joy. All is good. But lets say that your "secondary" joys begin to bridge that gap between them and your "primary" joy. What happens? What happens when you mix every color together? It turns black. Black is a color of chaos and disarray. When we let our "colors" mix it's like telling God that Netflix or eating, or even breathing is just as important as he is. If we truly aim to make God number one in our lives it all starts with a good brush.....You are the brush.

Music Friday 4

Gifts come in all forms. Have a great day!

Prison Break

So for the past few weeks I have been totally obsessed with a show called Prison Break. It has captured my every moment of free time. 80 episodes total and I fished the last one about an hour ago. When you engage in such a show completely it totally captures your heart. You find yourself cheering for the guys that you like, on the other hand you find yourself yelling at the tv when something goes wrong! It's a delicate balance to say the least. The reason that I am posting this blog is not to give you some movie critic's analysis on the show, its to talk about literally the last 4 minutes out of the episode. Michael, the main character, is trying to break his wife Sara out of prison. When they reach the final door, the one barrier left standing in the way of their freedom it won't open. The only way to open it is to electrically override the system......manually. This will instantly kill the one who chooses to do so. Michael bites the bullet for his wife AND his soon to be son. This is a true and one of a kind example of a fathers love. Christ bit the bullet for me and you just like Michael did for his son and wife. A father's love is very special and very unique. Nothing on earth can compare to it. Its boundaries know no end and would go to any lengths for the ones that they love. True love knows no bounds.