My Famous Disappearing Act

Yeah, so it's been a long time since I posted...again. I seem to be good at randomly disappearing from time to time. I've actually been researching Wordpress a bit lately and trying to decide whether to move my blog there or not. Am I even allowed to say that on a Blogger blog?! I'm very obsessive when it comes to researching something like that. I like to find out as much as possible before I make a decision, even a small one. Maybe I'll take the Wordpress plunge soon...if so, I'll post the link here as soon as possible!

By the way, I have been updating my 2007 reading list, so feel free to check that out.

The New Blogger

Well, Blogger has forced me to switch to the new version, so if you see anything odd around my blog, that's why. I'm not sure how all the new stuff works yet, so things could be in upheaval until I figure it out. Please stay tuned.

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.

Joy To The World

Every year I have the intention of focusing on the spiritual significance of the holiday and every year it proves to be a struggle. I never did manage to get an Advent wreath and candles put together this year, but I did rediscover the beauty of a classic Christmas song: Joy to the World.
As you read the lyrics below, try to do so with fresh eyes (meaning do your best not to mentally hum the tune) and think about the message.

Joy to the World
by Isaac Watts

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And heav’n and nature sing,
And heav’n and nature sing,
And heav’n, and heav’n, and nature sing.

Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.

As I was reading, I couldn't help but notice how much of it applied not only to Christ's first coming at birth, but also His second coming. As monumental as Jesus' birth was, His return will be an equally unparalled event and one of great joy for His followers.

I was reading about redemption the other day and how it is both a present and future reality for God's people. Jesus' birth brought us the possibility of being truely redeemed and His return will usher in the completion of redemption. The Bible speaks of the whole of creation crying out for redemption because since the Fall of man everything exists under the curse. This song seems to give us a picture of what that might be like; heaven, nature, and mankind rejoicing. Joy, blessings, truth, and grace. What a picture! When redemption comes it will reach "far as the curse is found" and that really will bring "joy to the world." Merry Christmas!!

5 Minutes With Me

Discipleship Journal magazine recently started a new feature in which they conduct a five minute interview with a Christian author, speaker, etc. As I was reading in a recent issue I started wondering how I would answer the questions asked of the interviewee...so I decided to find out by asking and answering the questions right here. (the questions are paraphrased to avoid any "issues")

Q: What have you been learning from God lately?
A: I feel like I've been getting some answers to questions I've been wrestling with over the past few months regarding the character of God...things about God's goodness and the way He works in our lives. I feel like I was getting to a "make or break" point in some ways, but God has been faithful to give me what I need to know. This is not always everything I want to know, but it's enough.
I've also been working on a Bible study about contentment, so I'm learning about that and the thought process necessary for a life of contentment.

Q: What's the most important thing you've learned about following God?
A: Grace. Not only am I "saved by grace," but I must walk in grace. Anything good that I have or am is by the grace of God. Jesus summed it up well when He said, "Apart from Me you can do nothing."

Q: How do you keep spending time with God from getting dull?
A: I gave up trying to have a "quiet time." Before you label me a heretic, let me explain. No where in Scripture are we told to have a "quiet time." We are told to know and meditate on God's Word and to pray. Well, there's more than one way to do this. Do I read and study God's Word? You bet. Do I spend a certain amount of time during a certain time of day doing this? Nope, and I no longer feel guilty for that. There's nothing wrong with having a schedule and sticking to it, but if you don't or can't, it doesn't mean you're a bad Christian.
Also, on a more practical level, I've been reading up on various spiritual disciplines and am slowly trying to implement more into my life.

Q: Who has been influential to your spiritual growth?
A: My family. That would be the place I first learned the fear of the Lord. :) I also had a great-grandmother that was a real prayer warrior. That leaves an impression. My pastor, who is an excellent teacher of the Word. In a broader sense, I would say many Christian authors/writers, because I love to read and God has used them to teach me a great deal.

Q: Do you have a mentor now?
A: No...other than those writers/authors I mentioned above. I think I would benefit greatly from a mentoring and/or accountability type relationship though.

Q: If you could experience an event from the Bible, which would you choose?
A: Hmmm...there's so many to choose from. I think I would choose to see Jesus in action, teaching and healing people.

Q: What do you think people would be surprised to know about you?
A: Probably how sensitive I am to certain things and how much I do care about other people. I'm just not always good at expressing it, at least not in a way that makes sense to other people.

Q: Someday I would like to...
A: ummm...be normal, see Israel, play guitar, and mostly be able to look back and see that I made a difference somehow, in some way, in somebody's life.

So, how would you answer any or all of these questions?

Questions

I've struggled over the past few months with aspects of God's character, specifically His goodness. I've wrestled to understand what exactly it means that God is good and what that means for our lives. What can we expect from God? What can we pray for? I have recently begun to feel that I'm getting some answers to my questions. During this time several books landed in my lap through no real choice of mine (they were not on my wishlist) that in one way or another addressed these questions. Coincidence? Not likely.

One author's words seemed to jump off the page at me, and while not directly answering my questions, spoke to the topic of "questioning" itself. To paraphrase/quote:

"Give up excessive questioning and reasoning. We are not going to figure God out completely. Our job is not to understand God, but to trust and obey Him. Trust always requires unanswered questions."

This got me thinking. Was I guilty of excessive questioning and reasoning?? Probably. I was trying to understand God completely, forgetting the limits of my finite mind. I wanted a detailed rationale for His actions. I'm the kind of person that likes to understand things. I want to know that I "get" it, especially when it comes to matters involving God. This is not a totally bad thing but something that must be kept in check because knowing about God can easily get in the way of knowing God. And if I was forced to choose, I would want the relationship rather than the tidy theological treatises.

That being said, I don't think it's wrong to seek answers, afterall, we are told in the Bible that the Spirit will lead us into all truth. But there is a point at which our questioning becomes excessive. We then refuse to act on what we know because of what we don't know. This seems to be the point that some people walk away from the faith unfortunately. They decide they simply cannot live with the tension of trusting a God they don't fully understand. (But that's another post!!)

So, I guess I'm learning (slowly) that I have to make peace with the reality that some questions will not be completely answered this side of heaven. They may not even be answered on the other side of heaven! My decision becomes painfully simple at that point: either I'm going to choose to trust God OR I'm not.

I hope this post doesn't seem pessimistic because as I said earlier I do feel like I'm getting some answers but I'm also learning to let go of my demand to know everything before moving forward.