Billions and Billions Served

I’m old enough to remember McDonalds when they would change the number on their sign every once in a whilee from Millions and Millions served to 250 Million served to 300 Million served to 750 Million served to the day I noticed they said 1 Billion served!  It was a huge landmark for the restaurant chain.  Do you know how much a billion is?  It’s a crazy-big number.  In the whole USA, there are only about 300 Million people.  We’d have to cram 3 times as many people into our country just to be 1 Billion.

India has a billion.  China has almost 2.  Hmmm, between those two countries it’s almost half the world!  Wow!

Anyway, it was a McDonald’s landmark.  Then I no longer saw frequent updates.  I just saw the signs go to Over A Billion Served, then Billions Served, until the current Billions and Billions served.  It took then decades to get there, but what a landmark!  Some of those burgers were the little tiny sandwiches that have more bread than meat, and some of them were double quarter pounders with enough red meat to make a grown man groan.  But they got there.

This is my 100th blog post on this blog.  Woo hooo!!  Should we give out a prize?  Maybe change something to have sparkles or banners?  Nah, no big deal out there in the real world.  But it is a landmark here.  Just because it’s a marker on the road forward.

Scanning back at the posts, there were some really meaty posts that had some deep stuff in them.  And some of them were like a kid’s meal burger with more bread than meat.  But it’s okay.  The truth is that this blog wasn’t started to get all preachy all the time.  This is To Be Perfectly Honest, and if we are (being perfectly honest) then we have to admit that every single second of every day is NOT spent concentrating on spiritual things.  We brush our teeth, tie our shoes, put gas in the car, rake up the dog messes outside…not very spiritual, huh?

On the contrary: a great many of the things we don’t consider spiritual really are catalysts to our spiritual well-being.  Take a look at some:

Husbands, live with your wifes in an understanding way so that your prayers are not hindered.  That means work together and not as antagonists all the time.  Show love and actually care about her opinion and interests.  Not very spiritual.  But if you don’t, the spiritual side of your life can get blocked up.

Eat right, exercise, and get enough rest.  Spiritual things tend to gett filtered through our minds when we’re walking day to day.  If our mind is weary, if we’re having to muddle through slothfully poor health, well…how can a person make good decisions when he’s not on his game?

Those are just 2 examples of “non-spiritual” actions, but they sure have an effect on our spiritual lives, huh?

Take inventory of where you’ve been compared to where you are.  Is it 275 Million served?  Okay, then press for 350.  But do it one at a time.  And if it looks like those numbers take forever to change, then mark the smaller landmarks like 10 days without pastries, or fasting once a week for one month, or even hitting 100 blog posts. 

The progress is all around us, and trust me: it can get discouraging when you’ve got grand goals and the progress seems slow and disappointing at times.  However, we HAVE to celebrate the little victories, or we’re only going to celebrate once in a really long time.

I guess that’s what this blog is about: celebrate!  Take a look at some small consistent victory and celebrate it.  It’ll give you the momentum to take up the task and keep pressing on.

Come on 200!!