Figuring it all out one day at a time
Last Sunday, Oakway United started a new sermon series entitled “One Day…Some Day.” This was inspired by a blog post from Pastor Steven Furtick. For week 1, New Year’s Day, the topic was procrastination elimination. As a rural pastor, one of my goals is help people achieve their God given dreams. Here are some great quotes I found on procrastination elimination:
“Until you value yourself, [Read more…] about Procrastination Elimination
A month ago I wrote the 100th Post Confession talking about my struggle with my weight. Several people have expressed an interest in forming a group for online accountability for this and other issues. It’s time to get this started.
1. I will be accountable for my weight by posting a weigh in every two weeks and reporting on my eating habits. I am taking the following action steps:
2. I will have a weekly date night with my spouse.
3. I will blog about my devotional life. I would love it if we all were going through the same scriptures together. I’m starting in James Monday.
4. I will celebrate the Sabbath. I can’t wait to share how God uses this to refresh me. The day may change from week to week, but it will be there.
5. I will play with my children. I intend to post pics and tweets of all the fun and mayhem!
6. I will be faithful in my work. For me this means setting goals, completing to do lists, and building relationships. It means putting an end to procrastination.
Joining in means doing the following things. First, comment on these posts and leave a link to your blog if you’re posting your action steps there. Sign up for the newsletter for extra encouragement. Agree to join the health and wellness blog carnival where I will give a topic for you to blog about and link to it from here(once a month). Finally, pray for each other. Support each other. Encourage one another. Celebrate with each other.
I look forward to hearing how God changes our lives. Are you excited? Are you in for the adventure?
Eric Ebbinghaus and I have been having this back and forth conversation about the Sabbath. He’s currently doing a youth series on the topic and I’m starting one in April. In previous posts(1 and 2), I’ve discussed the “rest side” of the issue, but now I want to look at the other side. This was all prompted by something I heard a pastor say on TV the other day. “Ladies, the Bible says to work 6 days and rest on the 7th, but if the man you’re seeing is too lazy to get off the couch and get a job then you need to send him packing because he is a LOSER.” It was Valentine’s Day message on the type of man a single woman should be looking for. What caught my attention was the “work 6 days” part. Here’s what Genesis 2:2-3(NIV) says:
2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
Two things I see. First, God had been working hard and secondly, He had finished His work. He clarified His position in Exodus 20: 8-11(NIV):
8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
“Labor and do all your work…” God spent that first Sabbath enjoying a tremendous sense of accomplishment at what He had created. When the next week rolled around He wasn’t worried about what He put off doing the week before. He was ready for new challenges, tasks, and adventure. It seems to me that procrastination wasn’t part of the equation until after the Fall. It seems to me that we can’t fully enjoy the Sabbath until we’ve given ourselves fully to our work. Why aren’t we giving ourselves fully to our work?
What did I leave out? What are you struggling with? My prayer is that all of us would be passionate and focused about what we have been created to do. That’s what chasing your lion is all about. God was the inventor of Work Hard, Play Hard. Over the next few weeks, I’ll break down these issues and find solutions to get us all on the right track. Thanks for reading.
Sabbath Resources:
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Finding Your Maximum Happiness A Study of the Ten Commandments
By Wilbur G. Williams Maximum happiness! That’s the subject of this study. How does one get it? After one gets it, how is it kept? If one has it and lost it, how is it regained? These are questions we will try to answer. Basically everyone wants happiness out of life. God wants everyone to be happy. Then why are so many lacking in this area? One might expect poor people – who have little of this world’s goods – not to have it, yet many of them do. One might expect people who have everything money can buy to possess happiness but many of them don’t. To study how God planned for us to obtain happiness, let us first ask, on what does true happiness depend? In brief, maximum happiness depends most heavily on one thing: relationship. It is the by product of that and that alone. In the focus of this book, it is a law guided relationship based on a covenant made with God first and foremost. There is a sense in which we never “find” happiness by seeking it. But by seeking God, happiness finds us. |
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Sabbath: The Ancient Practices
By Dan Allender Does resting on the Sabbath mean to cease all activity? In his new book Dan Allender presents an insightful and fascinating look at the origins and purpose of the Sabbath day. Serving as volume three in The Ancient Practices Series, Sabbath examines the key issues of this oft-misunderstood day of the week. This “day of delight,” as instituted by God, has become a dirge for millions of believers. For many, it is simply a break from the busyness of the work week. So, what keeps us from properly understanding, sanctifying and celebrating this important day? Allender looks at not only the history of this discipline, going all the way back to ancient Israel, but also at the modern manifestations and misunderstandings of its practice. Drawing upon the Hebrew word Menuha, Allender bases his premise upon the forgotten definition for this word (best translated as joyous repose, tranquility, or delight) and what it truly means to rest. |
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The Year of Living Like Jesus: My Journey of Discovering What Jesus Would Really Do
By Ed Dobson Pastor Dobson chronicles his year of “walking in Jesus’ sandals.” He eats what Jesus ate. Prays as Jesus prayed. Observes the Sabbath, attends Jewish festivals, and reads the Gospels every week. It’s a journey that takes him into bars, inspires him to pick up hitchhikers, deepens his understanding of suffering—and changes his life forever! 304 pages, hardcover from Zondervan. |
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Rest: Living in Sabbath Simplicity
By Keri Wyatt Kent In today’s fast-paced society, we’ve forgotten an essential truth . . . that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Inviting you to find a balance between work and refreshment, Kent explores six aspects of this Christian spiritual practice—resting, reconnecting, revising, pausing, playing, and praying—to help you experience renewed energy, grace, and joy. 224 pages, softcover from Zondervan. |
Several things have happened in the last week that have compelled me to make some changes in my life. I was tired of being a procrastinator with a messy office whose adult ADD always seemed to be in overdrive. I had been tired of this before but was never moved to action.
A senior in my youth group is doing an internship this semester with me from 8 am-10 am Monday-Friday. This forced the first of many changes as there could be no more dilly dallying around in the morning. Rather, I would need to get my son to the church daycare by 8 am so the intern and I could get to work. This lead to change number 2. Fortunately, the intern is a neat and organized person. We spent her first day cleaning off my desk(I have to pay her $5 if she ever finds it covered and cluttered again) and trying to create a good working environment. I was also faced with the issue of figuring out what she was going to be doing for the next 4 months.
Over the weekend I read two great books(Crush It and the 4 hour work week). They really challenged me in finding the balance between being a youth pastor, husband, father, and blogger. FYI-I sped read both these books with a technique I’ll be sharing some other time. Both of these books talked about the importance of eliminating useless things and focusing on the important tasks at hand. I also looked back on my notes from when I read 7 Habits of Highly Effective People for even more direction.
Finally, my wife and I have been enrolled in Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. February 1 started our new life on a budget using the envelope system. I told Karen that I felt like February 1 was going to be the first day of the rest of our lives and was running with adrenaline all weekend raring to go only to have a massive snow storm hit that has had us homebound for 3 days and counting.
Without further delay, here is a list of the things I did and am doing to Chase My Lion and catch that sucker.
1. Made a list of everything I have(and want) to do in a given day, week, month, and year.
2. Made a list of all the projects I am currently working on.
3. Made a weekly schedule that gave a specific amount of time to all of these things.
4. Started living on a budget as a family.
5. Made a list of the time wasters in my life like news sites, sports sites, negative blogs, random TV watching, talk radio, logging into Facebook once an hour, google reader, and email.
6. Eliminated some of the above while scheduling a specific amount of time for the rest. Email will get checked twice a day along with Facebook and Google Reader. Drudge Report is out along with other news sites. Information overload is like meth for someone with ADD.
7. Vowed that I would stick to the schedule and started day 1 by sleeping in since it was a snow day. By noon I was caught up and ready for lunch. I vowed I wasn’t going to do any blog/twitter/affiliate marketing/anything computer related between 4 pm and midnight. #epicfail
8. Today is a snow day as well, but I’m on schedule so far. I just need to pencil in “make it up to my wife that I gave my time for her yesterday to Oprah and a domain redirect problem.”
So, what action steps do you need to take?
