Thoughts On Being A Servant

I recently read Cure For The Common Life by Max Lucado. There's a lot of good take-away material from the book, but one topic got my attention (because I needed to hear it I'm sure). The book is about finding your place in life, figuring out what God has equipped you for, particurally work-wise, but Lucado included a chapter about the importance of being a servant regardless of your occupation. To quote Lucado:

"Don't be too big to do something small. Don't focus so much on what you love that you neglect what needs to be done. The world needs servants. It requires no specific skill set or degree."

He goes on to give three ways to practice serving: loving the overlooked, waving a white flag, and doing something everyday that you don't want to do. I was nodding my head and heart in agreement until that third one. Loving the overlooked sounds generous and compassionate and who doesn't want to be seen as generous and compassionate. Waving a white flag of peace sounds noble and just, which fits nicely with the image I want othes to have of me. But then we get to 'doing something everyday that I don't want to do', and that sounds down right hard and uninviting.

Suddenly the warm fuzzies are no where in sight and I realized that serving is not about making me look or feel good but about doing what needs to be done (in Jesus' name no less). Ouch. The practical application (for me, right now) came to mind almost immediately: wash dishes. Sounds simple. But I don't like washing dishes. My point exactly.

2007 Book List

Ok, I think I will try again to maintain a book list for the year. Here goes:

Mind Games by Matthew Paul Turner-- At only 119 pages, this makes for an easy and informative read. Turner shares parts of his journey as he tackles the mind games that we all have played or are still playing. Chapters cover the topics of possession, independence, passiveness, codependence, lies, distraction, manipulation, and surrender. Written with much humor and grounded in a biblical worldview. I learned a lot and highly recommend this one.

Work Types by Kummerow, Barger, and Kirby--Based on the Myers-Briggs personality types, this book applies "type" information to various work situations. Fairly easy to read and understand if you are already familiar with the "types."

The Brethern by Beverly Lewis--This fictional story set in an Amish community made for a good, quick read. I'm sort of intrigued by the whole Amish thing, so I enjoyed reading about that way of life. As you might expect, there's a love story or two thrown in, but it was tolerable. I'm discovering that I like fiction more than I thought.

Hearing God by Dallas Willard--Willard is not the easiest author to read, but this book was worth the effort. Willard attempts to answer a couple of questions, such as, "Does God speak to individual believers today?" and "If so, what would that look (or sound) like?" One of my goals this year was to learn more about prayer and since listening is an often neglected part of prayer I found this book very helpful.

Believing God by Beth Moore--This book was great! Moore writes about the life-changing practice of actually believing God, as opposed to just believing in Him. She has an easy to understand style of writing and offers some practical help in making it a reality in your own life. This book would go on my "recommend to everyone I know" list.

Not As Crazy As I Seem by George Harrar--Fictional story for teenagers (but it held my interest) about a 15 year old boy with OCD. Since I was once a 15 year old girl with OCD, I could relate to some of the story. A short and entertaining read that could actually help people understand what someone with OCD deals with.

Boundaries in Dating by Henry Cloud and John Townsend--I've read this one before, but it was definately worth re-reading. Written from a Christian perspective, this book offers good advice for handling dating (and any relationship really). I've read several books by Cloud and Townsend and highly recommend them. It's like therapy without the $80 per hour price tag.

365 Manners Kids Should Know by Sheryl Eberly--I think this book should be re-titled 365 Manners Everyone Should Know because there is a lot of good information in here. I learned plenty from reading this, though at times I wished the auther would have gone into more depth with the explanations. As you might guess, the book is arranged into 365 short readings-one for each day of the year. They are arranged into categories such as, Family Time, Introductions, Table Manners, etc. As I said, this book has a lot of good information, but, in my opinion, is not really practical if you are looking for a manners/etiquette curriculum to use with kids. I will definately keep this one on the shelf for reference though.

New Year's Goal Setting

As much as I love Christmas and my birthday (shameless I know...I'm such a big kid), New Year's Day may be my favorite day of the year. A list-making idealist at heart, there's just something about new beginnings, clean slates, and fresh starts that energizes me. It's why I love mornings, Mondays, and God's mercies (they are new every morning...see Lamentations 3:22-23). Each new day brings with it the opportunity to do things better. Maybe I like starting over so much because I mess up so much. I like having another shot...and another...and another.

Needless to say, I love the idea of resolutions. It's the follow through that trips me up. I used to make vague lists of resolutions, but a couple of years ago I switched to setting goals because a well-worded goal that's specific has a much better chance of getting accomplished. I also forced myself to narrow down the list considerably, as in only two or three items. And of course, one of the best ways to ensure you make progress is to enforce some sort of accountability. Posting my little list here on the blog probably only counts as some form of pseudo-accountability though. The best way to create accountability is to share your goal(s) with someone else and give them permission to harass, uh, I mean ask, you frequently about progress.

So, here are my goals for the year along with the reasons:

1. Learn more about prayer. Prayer is definately a discipline I struggle with, but this year I want to learn what God has to say about prayer, meaning I want to take a fresh look at what the Bible actually says. I was inspired in part by Richard Foster, who wrote in his book Celebration of Discipline, about taking everything Jesus said regarding prayer in the Gospels and putting it all together to take a good look. I figure with the help of biblegateway.com and a printer I may be able to do this too. And along with the "learning about" I hope to improve my "practice of" prayer.
2. Conduct experiments in healthy living. Yeah, the terminology is odd, but I chose it on purpose and here's why: experiments never actually fail. Experiments are, by their nature, designed to test a theory or hypothesis, therefore, you can't fail. When you conduct an experiment, you either successfully find something that works or something that doesn't work. A simple distinction, but an important one. I like the idea of applying this to healthy habits. I'm going to "experiment" with foods, activities, and thought processes and see what works. The details are still a bit fuzzy on this one, but I'll get there.
3. Learn how to do something new. There are a couple of crafty things that I'm really wanting to try, and I'm itching to get my hands on a guitar, and it might be fun to know how to cook something besides a hot pocket. We'll see how this goes. :)

So, there you have it, way more than you wanted to know about my goals for 2007. How about you, what are you trying to do in 2007?

Motivate And Track Yourself

For those of you looking for a little motivation and help with your New Year's goals, I humbly submit this list of things I found online:

8 Spark Plugs To Start Your New Year--Short article offering some thoughts to help jump start your year. The best part is the admonition to, "live for Christ today."

31 Questions--Short article giving you 31 questions to help you "consider your ways." Tackle them all at one time or do what the author suggests and contemplate one question per day for the whole month.

43 Things--Make a list of things you want to do. See what other people have on their lists. Add and subtract things as necessary. Somewhat interactive. I found the website a bit difficult to figure out at first though.

Tadalist--Create a list of your goals and/or as many other lists as you like. Share your lists with others or keep them private. Not as interactive as 43 Things, which, depending on your taste, could be a good or bad thing.

Bellygraph--Make a graph to track your progress in some area. Cool.