Concerning Hustle and/or Bustle

Donald Miller made an interesting observation of humankind as a civilization, race, or what have you, in his newest book “Searching For God Knows What”.He puts it in the perspective of an alien, visiting our planet, for the first time. The alien concludes, after some time was spent analyzing our race by what kinds of things are important to us, and what makes us tick, that we entirely get too distracted by comparing ourselves to each other. The whole Joneses thing.

It’s a legit paradigm, I think. How many of our day-to-day decisions are made based on what others expect of us?

My thought is simple : Our God-given destiny will only be fulfilled when we ignore what others think is the ‘right’ thing for us to do, path to take, etc. We are here on this earth to grasp what God has planned for us. Completely. Only then is our potential reached. But once success inevitably comes after making this decision to embrace His path for us, the glory must be His.

I suppose this is why so many ministers, teachers of the Bible, pastors, to name a few, end up with lives left askew. Lives that metamorphosed into chaos. Maybe the success went to their head? Got complacent and comfortable? Felt privileged and accomplished enough to push the boundaries of what they could get away with? I think so.

 

The point is that I, just like everybody else, has been kept awake at night by the question “What should I do next”? Like something inside us has a tendency to base our decisions on what the ‘status quo’ is. Screw the status quo. Set your own standard. Raise the bar.

 

Soon, you will have a crowd following you. You’ve raised the expectation, and a mob will always gather where there’s a change in a system. Whether that be social, political, or economical, humankind, like moths to a flame, will gather around whatever or whoever challenges what the crowd is doing. The key here, as the par-setter, is to not let the newly acquired attention of the crowd interfere with your humility and selflessness.

 

So, in conclusion, we should not be an easily distracted moth, but more like ants. Like the scripture in Psalms. Ants do what they are meant to do, without any attention made to what the other ants are doing. There is a camaraderie among us that is healthy. Actually it’s essential. But our comparison must not be based on who of us has done or accomplished the most, but who is pursuing Christ and fulfilling our potential, being empowered by Him.

Recession-Proof

Let’s face it, the economy sucks right now. You can either let the economy ruin you, or bring out the best in you. I’ve chosen to do the latter, and so can you.

I’m a firm believer that God will give you ideas to help you succeed in life. You can use these ideas to build wealth, build relationships, and bring an overall satisfaction with life. God wants you to prosper, so He’ll give the ideas and tools to become prosperous.

God gives His kids ideas every single day. I’ve had to learn how to listen and pay attention to what He tries to tell me. It’s a skill, and it can be honed. Remember the scripture that tells us to listen to the voice of our Shepherd? That verse applies here. Don’t become content with where you are now. Our Creator wants to bless our socks off, and He’s telling us how to do it! We just need to listen. Then we need to ACT.

I work full-time with a real estate company but I’m running an apartment locating business, too. This is a business I can operate during my lunch hours at my full-time job. At first, I dedicated as much time as possible to running the business, but that has changed. Now, I only put in 2-3 hours per week on it and the dividends are starting to come.

He’s also directed me to do certain on the management of my money. Honestly, I’ve SUCKED at managing my money for a very, very long time. I’ve tried different systems and none of them worked, although I never had the dedication to MAKE it work. God’s told me some things on budgeting, saving, etc, etc, but I had to have the dedication to put them into practice. I had to learn how persistence overcomes resistance. I’ve been so blessed as a result.

This is only two examples of how the life of the believer can be. We are MEANT to lead extraordinary lives. We are ambassadors of Christ, overcomers, more than conquerors. This recession is an opportunity for us to shine. What ideas have come to you lately? Have you thought they came up on their own, because they didnt. What are you doing to put those ideas into reality?

Brings to mind the scripture that tells us faith without works is dead. Believe all you want that God will bring you that better paying job, a bigger house, the money to travel, blah blah blah. He’s telling us how to accomplish these things, but nothing will be done if we sit on our couches eating cheetos.

A truly and completely focused Believer is unstoppable. So start focusing, and not worrying. Your outlook determines your outcome. Change your outlook, and your outcome will follow suit.

God and Web 2.0

It’s actually been like 3 months since I wrote my last post. I’ve been ‘churning’ through some fairly in-depth subjects to write about, but have felt a bit overwhelmed by thinking trying to write about all of them.

Here goes.

Let’s get a thought out of the way so we can come to an understanding before I continue. Human beings are here for a reason. We have a supreme requisite to get in touch and get to know the Guy who created us (i.e. God). It’s what we are here for. Without going through life and KNOWING that we are here for His purpose, life has no meaning.

We can’t stop at just knowing God exists. What are we going to do about that? Personally, God has so supernaturally and wonderfully CHANGED me, that I must help others know Him.

From that comes a desire to help and love people in any way we possibly can. We must ask ourselves, what can I do to make the most significant impact on the world around me?

So I propose that we steal some ideas from the world’s ‘smart’ people. People like Tim Ferriss, Michael Port, Dave Ramsey, Barack Obama…dudes who are masters of ideas and know how to deliver those ideas to the world and create change. How can we implement their ideas and strategies and therefore becoming better and more effective ambassadors of Christ? Study Jesus. He was moving and making stuff happen and turning the world upside-down DAILY. He had, what, 5 years of actual ministry on the earth? He’s still controversial over 2000 years later! Guys have been in ‘ministry’ for 20+ years and are content with their own little circle of influence and don’t come close to the kind of impact Jesus had. GREATER things these will we do! Have you done greater things than Jesus today? Have I? Many of us haven’t scratched the surface of what God is capable of through us.

We live in an increasingly complex and exciting world. I love it. Even in the middle of a recession, there are opportunities EVERYWHERE to create change and impact society.

The point is this: Facebook, Twitter, and any other social networking or ‘information transfer apparatus’ can be used as a powerful tool to show Christ to  the masses. Why don’t we do it more? We should. It’s not enough to just go to our local church and expect the lost to walk in the door by themselves. I do believe that God is on the move. He always is. I believe He moves in local churches to reach the lost. But realize that times are MUCH different than they were 30 years ago. We should take advantage of that.

How about this: If Jesus were on Twitter, how many followers would He have?

I am on a non-stop quest to increase my influence and my impact on this world. Life is short. Ever heard that ‘Dust in the Wind’ song? Yeah, it’s like that. We are just dust in the wind. We have, on average, what like 73 years on this earth? Make it count. Let God fill you with His plan and His purpose for your life. Ask yourself DAILY, what can I do today to expand the Kingdom of God? Use any means necessary.

A Challenge

“All things other than what he talked about is as filthy rags.” That’s what my very stirred mother said after we were about to leave our church’s Christmas program last night.

The actual musical portion of the program was probably just like any other Christmas program across this nation. A childrens and adult choir sang carols.  It was actually quite beautiful. Nothing like some good ol’ harmonies to jerk some tears.

But it was the guest speaker that set apart that night from many other Christmas-centered events. His name was Bill Wilson. If you’ve heard of him before, you can already imagine the kind of impact he had on not only me, but my entire church.

I’m at work right now so I can’t go to in-depth here but I’ll sum it up. He hit the point home that Christians are NOT doing all we can to show Christ’s love to the world. Most of us are not going to where the people are hurting the most. Our daily lives are not completely and utterly dedicated to “healing the brokenhearted and binding their wounds”! A buddy of mine told me the other day “Missions is what we do and what we’re here for”. Nothing else matters.

We talk about a revival coming. We talk about Christians doing ‘greater things’. We talk with each other about how our jobs are doing. But we should be people of action! Start asking God what part HE wants you to play in His next revival! And it will come. Do not doubt it. God is looking for people who are not CHRISTIANS AS USUAL. He is looking for the ones who are willing to DO WHATEVER IT TAKES.

Start small. Dream big. Do things in God’s timing. You know you’re in the right state of mind when you declare reasonable what was impossible.

Inspirational Speeches

I found this pretty epic (and pretty funny) montage of 40 inspirational speeches in two minutes, put together by Matthew Belinkie.

Product Placement and Spiritual Growth

I’m terrible about returning messages. Sometimes I go a week before I check my voicemail. Just terrible. This made me look up scripture that teaches about integrity. You may think that returning messages and phone calls do not correlate with integrity. I humbly disagree! Are you known for promptly returning calls if you can’t speak to them immediately? Are you known for ignoring them? This may not be an important issue for some, but I’ve known I needed to make some changes for quite a long time. Being in direct, open commmunication with people is directly related to how trustworthy you are perceived.

The book of Job is practically dedicated to integrity.

Job 6:29 – Relent, do not be unjust; reconsider, for my integrity is at stake.

It’s interesting to realize how important Job’s integrity was to him! It seems as if it was a matter of life and death!

Anyways, I was fortunate enough to receive a Blackberry cellular device about a week ago. Yes, I went off on a tangent earlier. Sorry. My point is that you have to realize what your weaknesses are and compensate for them. The important thing here is self-awareness. So, I realized my ability to keep in direct, open communication with people was not where it should be.

So I got a Blackberry. It’s changed my life. That sounds pretty dramatic, but seriously, it changed my life. I have my e-mail, text messaging, and Facebook all in one easy-to-access place. I’m on the ball now.

It’s amazing how man-made technology can be included synergistically with our everyday lives, and sometimes promote our spiritual growth.

This concludes my product placement for the Blackberry Curve.

Pissy

I just got done talking to my enrollment counselor with the University of Phoenix. It’s amazing how a situation can turn from joyously positive to downright pissy. I’m not sure if ‘pissy’ should be in my ‘Christian’ vocabulary, but it adds the necessary emphasis for present happenings

As I touched on before, I was doing classes with UOP but dropped out. This left me with a couple thousand dollars of payable student loans. Come to find out, I have to apply for a new student loan. Which means the existing loan counts for NOTHING. Absolutely NOTHING. Wasted money.

So, I let my enrollement counselor know I’m going to hold off for now because I don’t want to incur additional student loan debt. Makes sense right? I also asked her a couple other detailed questions. She then proceeded to let me know how the decison made her ‘feel’ (sad, disappointed, etc). She did not answer my questions. Her ending sentence was “Well, I guess…take care”. And that was it. Seriously? So I emailed her back. I compared her to a “used car salesman trying to meet her quota”. I said a lot of other stuff which I don’t have time to expound on.

Now I’m waiting for her response. But then I realize, how in this situation am I conveying the love of God to her? Don’t get me wrong, I think I responded fairly, accurately, and unemotionally. I was pissed, but I was fair. But maybe I could’ve added something that would let her know I still cared about her as a person. If I was in that situation, I may have done the same thing. If I had a quota to fill, I might try to make someone feel guilty about holding off.

John 13:34 – A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

This love thing can be hard. It takes effort. Maybe I wasn’t as loving as I thought.

-J

Day off? Hardly.

Ok, so here’s my first post. I find it hard to know exactly what I’ll be writing about! I have this large, grandiose vision of where this blog could go but I think it might take a while to get my mojo back when writing.

 

I have a day off. It’s been wonderful. Slept in til like 11. But, there’s plenty I have to do today. So I got out of bed, strapped on my music playing apparatus of epic proportions (iPod shuffle) and ate.

I’ve been swayed back and forth like a crappy sailboat with this decision I’ve been trying to make lately. I started going to school again. Online. University of Phoenix. The timing was terrible, so I dropped out. So now I’m re-enrolling today and I’ll be getting my Associate’s in Business. I’m super psyched about it, actually. I’ve learned that any investment you make in yourself is a good investment. My only concern is that I’ll get burned out quickly. I have the tendency to get bored uber-quick. Albeit, I’m staying positive and am excited about the future. 

Scriptures that have been encouraging me…

1 Cor. 13:7 – [Love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always PERSEVERES.

1 Cor. 9:24 – Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.

Thank you Lord for bringing to me a spirit of constant improvement.

PS – Is that the right use of ‘albeit’? I have no clue…