John Gunter

Thoughts on Life and Living

The Christmas story in 5 words

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ChristmasEvery year, I do it.  Every year I commit that NEXT year I will spend the entire month of December thinking about Christmas.  The real Christmas.  The Christmas which celebrates the wonderful story of God becoming flesh and dwelling amoung us.  The babe in swaddling clothing and all that stuff.

Every year I get all the way to Christmas Day before I read “the Christmas story” of the Gospel of Luke.  This year, I was determined that this year would be different.  So today I escaped to a local coffee house to simply read and think about this awesome, earth shattering event of Christmas.  The real Christmas. [Read more…]

The vitality of “leaning into pain”

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Phil Autry, Troy Coons, and I during our marathon "taping session" two days after Philip Clarke's passing.
Phil Autry, Troy Coons, and I during our marathon “taping session” two days after Philip Clarke’s passing.

As I pulled up to my house just off of the Georgia Tech campus, I was excited to get home and see my roommates. I had been in Florida for the previous two days celebrating my Grandmother’s 82nd birthday. It was a good time.

My friend Phil Clarke and I had gotten into a habit of often walking around the campus at night and simply “processing” the day. This night walk would take on the added interest of my “exotic travels” to Central Florida.

Upon exiting my car on the street, I began walking to the house. Almost immediately my friends David Moon and Phil Autry pushed open the screen door of the house and began walking towards me. They had strange, puzzling looks on their faces and they seemed to approach me with a purpose.

My immediate response; [Read more…]

Battling for “thankfulness”

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I took this recently in the city in which I live. Nothing to do with this post, but I do like the pic!
I took this recently in the city in which I live. Nothing to do with this post, but I do like the pic!

Maybe it is the rapid pace I have kept the past few months.

Maybe it is the culmination of various stresses and pains which seem to be swimming around me.

Maybe it’s just life and this is the way it is. [Read more…]

My dangerous cycle of fatigue (and what I am doing to counteract it)

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I took this while out motorbiking a few weeks ago. The weight of fatigue sometimes causes me to tip over like this truck (yes, I am proud of my creativity here!). . .
I took this while out motorbiking a few weeks ago. The weight of fatigue sometimes causes me to tip over like this truck (yes, I am proud of my creativity here!). . .

As I sit down to type this, I am tired.  After three weeks of constant motion, jumping of time zones, meetings, meetings, and more meetings, I am finally back in Asia.  It’s been a great few weeks, but they have been intense in every imaginable way.  As a result, I am fatigued.

I would like to say that this fatigue with which I am currently stricken is unusual.  It is not.

Perhaps my worst habit (some would say addiction) is that of overwork and/or over activity.  This is actually a result of an unhealthy outworking of a wonderful blessing in my life.

You see, I really have enjoyed my jobs and calling over the years.  When you enjoy your vocation, it often does not feel like work.  This is a great thing for me. 

As a result, I am prone to running, running, and more running until I can run no more.  I crash. . .and it is not pretty.

My worst “crash” came about 5 years ago. [Read more…]

An open letter to the World…thoughts on finding contentment

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Josh Irby is a tremendous writer, musician, basketball player, and basic all around renaissance man.  He has also been a good friend of mine for more than 15 years.  Josh is hosting an Open Letter Challenge  contest on his excellent website.  He asked me to participate, so here is my attempt.  The following letter is my response to An Open Letter to You from the Rest of the World.”  Would love your thoughts at the end!Open letter to the rest of the world

Dear World,

Let’s learn to be content in all things!  The older I get, the more I see quality of life wrapped up in this little concept of contentment.  Allow me to explain.

As I have shared several times in my blog, contentment is somewhat of a theme in my life.  Rather, I should I say a pursuit of contentment.

I currently live in an Asian culture where the dominant world-view is atheism.  It is taught from birth with religious zealousness.  At its ideological core, this philosophical system teaches that this life is it.  You live and then nothing. [Read more…]

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