I don’t have time for this.
Or anything else this week that's not on my to-do list, as a matter of fact. Yet, here I am.
There is so much going on this week. I have a lot to accomplish. For the first time in my life, I'm finding calendars and task lists to be useful. I used to balk at people who had that much to do, now I've become one of them 
Historically, I'm terrible at time-management. But it seems like the more I have on my plate, the better I am at it. I'm good at getting things done, the only variable is how much stress I allow myself to encounter while getting the things done. Having a to-do list to organize my day, and break the week down into smaller, much more manageable goals and tasks gives me purpose, and the pleasure I get from checking things off a to-do list (like Google Tasks, which draws a line through finished things, like this) gives me additional motivation.
I talked last week in our college group about the difference between short-term and long-term goals, and that short-term goals usually have a much smaller scope than the long-term ones do. It's funny how I'm eating my own words this week, or rather reflecting on them. I love how God will give me a word that not only speaks to other people, but will relate to me usually later that same week. Even just thinking about that idea has helped me to organize my week. And yet here I am doing something that wasn't on my to-do list.
I wrote myself a 'future mail' to remind me to renew my domain name. I wrote it the beginning of November and I threw in the little note 'good luck with the wedding planning.' Of course, I knew I was going to be planning a wedding at this time, but it was funny reading that little email from myself from a few months ago. At that time, my fiance didn't know that I was planning on proposing when I did. That made me laugh.
I heard the song 'Every little thing' by Hawk Nelson this morning on my way to work. In that moment, I realized just how amazing it is that I'm marrying this girl who, before I ever realized it had 'every little thing I wanted.' And even more importantly, every little thing I needed. I know it's easy for me to sit here and say 'it's totally worth it to wait' and someone out there, much like I was just a short time ago, who doesn't have someone that they're in a relationship with is gonna balk at me and say 'oh yeah, I'm sure.' But really. God has the right person, just wait for his delivery.
I'm going to build a website for the wedding, but as I've made clear, I haven't had time yet. I'll let you know when it's up.
Hope everyone is having a blessed week.
Why I love Christmas (Part One)
Christmas is here! For me, Christmas is a long season. It starts shortly after Halloween and ends sometime in March. Well...March is usually when I get around to taking down the lights and the tree anyway.
Whenever I get excited about Christmas, I get a lot of moans and groans from people who 'hate the holidays.'
Every time I hear that it breaks my heart. I understand, people get stressed out and upset and don't have enough money and can't afford presents and don't know what they're going to do blah blah blah.
My Girlfriend decorating the Christmas tree at her house.
I'm not going to sit here and pretend I'm above presents. I love Christmas presents. I love giving them, I love getting them. I love shopping for them. But, I am also distinctly aware that presents are not the original motivation for the holiday. There are varying schools of thought on why Christmas is on December 25th, some claiming that it seems the most likely date of Christ's birth, others noting its proximity to the Roman sun holiday, claiming it was a paganization of the holiday in an attempt to appease the Romans and entice them to Catholicism. Regardless of why other people celebrate it, I celebrate it because it is the day I choose to recognize that my savior came down to live a human life to ultimately die for my sins.
What's so remarkable about Christmas is that it's the one holiday that focuses on the humanity of Jesus. Sure he was the Son of God and always carried that with Him, but He was also a little baby. Nestled in the arms of his mother on cold nights. He was a little kid who ran around and got dirty and messy. He was a 10 year old. He was a teenager. He lived! He walked around on the same terra firma that you and I are on right now! This, to me, is the essence of the holiday.
When you allow yourself to understand that Jesus really did live here, he really did deal with things that humans deal with (granted, they were ancient Hebrew things, not 21st century American things, but still) it lends a lot more credibility to the statement that Jesus truly understands you.
I'll concede that Christmas has been over-commercialized and consumer-ized to the point that most people wouldn't mention Jesus when asked 'what is Christmas about?' But I will still put up lights and give presents to those I love.
Relient K's 'Celebrate the Day' sums up my feelings on Christmas quite well:
And the first time
That You opened Your eyes did You realize that You would be my Savior
And the first breath that left Your lips
Did You know that it would change this world foreverAnd I, I celebrate the day
That You were born to die
So I could one day pray for You to save my life
So if you're broke, skip the presents this year. If you're hungry, ask your neighbor if you can eat with them. If you're lonely, go to church. Someone there would be happy to take you in as their own this year.
I love Christmas.
Back to normal.
Though I know no one did, because I get reports every day, if anyone had visited the site yesterday and somehow managed to avoid my tracking, things looked a little bare. I screwed something up and it took me a while (overnight) to figure out why and how to fix it. But rest assured, it's all working now.
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes…
It's finally cold here in Phoenix. Seriously it's about time! Last week we still had a few days in the 90's. Now for at least 3 months I get to wear a sweatshirt everyday. All too soon though the temperatures will start creeping up again. Oh well. I'm going to enjoy it for now.
Seriously though, the only way people in Phoenix know the seasons have changed is because Starbucks has new cups and the mall suddenly has a lot of red and green stuff hanging from the ceiling. 'Oh it's November. Guess I'll stop wearing shorts and tank tops now, even though it's still 90 outside.'
Don't get me wrong, I love it here. It's just...hot. Most of the time.
So! Onto other matters. I have a new job! I now work for Grand Canyon University and I LOVE it! I get to go to school for free, and so will my wife, when she becomes my wife. It's about 20 minutes from my house, and I only work 4 days a week! It completely rocks. God has been blessing me beyond belief the last few months.
Also, I'm back at Streams. The past 3-4 months have been an interesting, if convoluted journey. I think a lot of things happened that caused me to wander a bit. I got caught up in the notion that because a lot of things were changing, everything had to change. This, as it turns out, was not and is not true. Incidentally, I did learn quite a bit during the wandering. I learned that I NEED to be pouring into people in order to be fed. What's funny about this revelation is at the time I decided to stop pouring into people in a metered environment, I claimed I wasn't getting fed. I still don't feel like I was, but I think that was more due to my own failings than anything.
I suppose you're reasonably caught up. Things have a tendency to get wildly out of hand during the holidays, so we'll see what else happens to change in the next month or two. Above all I'm excited at some things on the horizon, and I'm anxious to see where God leads me.
What I did on my vacation…
So I quit my job to have a little break between the old one and the new one I'm starting. I had plenty of vacation time and thought I could use a good wind-down before I got back into the swing of things at a new job.
I had big plans for this time. Coffee and bible reading every morning. Lots of prayer and studying.
Let me tell you what actually happened.
10.30-11.30: Wake up.
(Mon, Wed, and Fri.)11.30-2:30: Hang out with girlfriend.
2:30-11: Video games.
Repeat. Tuesday and Thursday were similar, except with the video games and girlfriend time switched around.
Looking back on the week, I can't figure out why I didn't spend one spare minute with God. I picked up my bible a few times, but not like I always say I would 'if I had the time.'
I definitely enjoyed the time off, but what did I really get out of it? Very little, right? I'm pretty disappointed in myself. I really needed some time to reconnect with God on a level that I've been neglecting the past few months.
I'll fix it of course. Today is the last day of the vacation, but being on a schedule again will allow me to really pencil in time for God, and make sure that I follow it. I am a creature of routine, I have my mom to thank for that. Routine is very important, and things that don't get into the routine on the ground floor rarely make it in at a later date. So when I write my new routine I'll be sure and include bible/devotion/prayer time.
Interesting fact about recessions…
They end.
There's a billboard near 40th street and Broadway in Phoenix/Tempe that says this.
I think it's probably my favorite billboard ever.
Someone, or some company, or some church, bought a run on this billboard and put this on there.
Just that. No URL, no phone number, no product name or company plug. Just that simple phrase.
It gives me hope in humanity that there's at least one person out there who has decided that the depressing news is enough, that the dark cloud hanging over the economy is just part of the economic weather shifts. An 'El nino' of money, if you will.
It got me thinking this morning about what I'm doing to offer people hope on a daily basis.
Jesus brought hope. Every day He was on this world, he restored hope. He told people it was going to be alright, that yes, things might get hairy, but they'd always turn out well under His protection.
Especially in times like this, its not our duty as followers of Christ to participate in the gloom and doom and the naysaying, but rather it's our job to give hope to the hopeless through our faith in Christ Jesus.
For those of us who for anytime were unemployed (or still are) in the midst of this recession, this seems an impossible task. But for you, for us, it's doubly important.
I was laid off last year as a byproduct of the recession. I'm now employed again, so it would hardly help for me to say I have hope. 'It's easy for you to say, you FOUND a job, before the recession got worse.'
True. Those of you still searching for a job should do so with a smile. Put your faith in Christ and when people ask where your joy comes from in such times, you'll know exactly what to tell them.
Admittedly, I got a little depressed at the beginning of my time among the unemployed. But after a week or two, I began to understand the work He was doing in me. It was through that job loss that I learned to trust my God with everything. I had no choice!
For those of you who are employed and are still looking to improve world-wide morale, there's a simple solution.
Pray for people. Everyone. Anyone.
If you had an unlimited amount of money, and you could give it away without feeling it yourself, and it would do only good to those you gave it to, would you not give it out freely and constantly?
Prayer is much more powerful than money.
Pray for the guy who cuts you off.
Pray for the guy who hands you your coffee in the morning.
Pray for the people who are crossing the street as you wait to make a right turn.
Pray for the people you talk to at your job.
Now I don't mean stop and pull them aside and put a hand on their forehead. If you feel the spirit pulling by all means obey, but I'm just talking about a quick prayer.
"Lord please let that person find an unexpected blessing from you today."
"Lord wherever that person is heading, please get them there safely."
"Lord give this person whatever their looking for today, and write your name on it so they know it's from you."
They'll never know it was you, but they'll feel it.
Take heart and be encouraged. Recession or not, Christ is still King.
Let’s keep it moving in a forward motion…
Motion is relative.
If you're sitting in a car at a stop light, and a large bus pulls up next to you but doesn't quite stop, just keeps slowly rolling, your brain occasionally tricks you into thinking it's you rolling, not the bus.
This is because the bus is so big that you can't see anything else. You have no other frame of reference.
Just the opposite is true too. You might assume that the bus is moving, when in fact it's you rolling slowly into the busy intersection.
Motion is relative.
Why is it that so often we fail to apply the principals of our physical lives to our spiritual lives?
I'm one to complain that I'm not moving. I complain about that a lot.
I complain that things have been the same, nothing is changing, I'm not getting it, I don't understand, why is it this way.
Motion is relative.
I've discovered in listening to this song [several thousand times thanks to the long song life that Christian stations tend to have] that though I may feel stuck, motion is relative. And for anyone who can see around the huge bus next to me, I am indeed moving. Slowly, painfully, but moving. Progress is being made.
It is crucial that I [we] remember this in our daily lives. We must remember that it's all relative, and what looks obvious and boring and stagnant to us is a completely necessary journey for us to complete.
I find myself praying daily that I see with new eyes the lesson I'm missing, the key factor that's keeping me here in this spot. For the first time today did I truly allow myself to realize that perhaps this experience is the lesson. That there's nothing more to learn than just to lean and wait. Stop looking for the next step and embrace the current one.
This hardly means that I'm welcoming this revelation with open arms, as a matter of fact, it is an equal part frustrating and encouraging. Encouraging to finally see for sure that God is in fact working on me (while I never doubted this, it is easy to become discouraged) frustrating because it means this step has a good chance of lasting longer than I want.
In my desire to 'move on' I've lost sight of the one goal of my life. Its sole purpose is to serve the King of Kings. Serve Him by loving his people. Unconditionally, happily, not grudgingly. It's hard to do that when you're complaining.
So what next?
Well. Let's keep it moving in a forward motion. We'll stop complaining and embrace the reality and gifts the Creator has blessed us with. I'll see beyond the bus and notice that it is me moving. That I am rolling slowly in the direction that He has determined.
I won't, be afraid, Your hands they cover me,
It's so worth it, 'cause it's worth it?
I can't let it fade
My hands are high and, raised, 'Cause it's worth it
Mental Drought
I guess I've been experiencing a mental drought of late.
I've tried more times than I can count to come back here and post something worth reading, but nothing has come to me. It's almost like the writing part of my brain has been...shut down. Or at least silenced.
Or maybe just drowned out by the sea of change I'm currently swimming through.
I just have not felt inspired in the slightest lately. I had a flash of something last week, but I neglected to write it down, and now it's long gone into the ether.
I'm moving this week. I hate moving. I'm excited about the move, but it's also the end of an era. I've been living with my current roommate for 2 years now. May not seem like a long time to most, but considering I only moved out of my parents house a short (or is it long) 4 years ago, it can be said that half of my independent life has been spent in that apartment. Or at least in that living situation.
He had to go be a jerk and get married (I'm kidding, or course) and I had to find a new place to live. I'm excited for the future with my new roommate, but also taking this week to look back at all the growth I've experienced in the past 2 years.
I find that often the chapters of my life are defined by one clear characteristic. i.e., when I was in high school, or when I worked at such and such. I believe the past two years of my life will be defined as 'when I was living with Jared.'
Such a clear end to an era is a strange thing to view. Before me I see the horizon of newness, behind me the vista of memories.
One can't help but be a little nervous before a move.
In other news, I've picked up my daily regimen of Bible reading once again. It's almost shameful to say that I ever abandoned it, but when I was no longer pressed to come up with something enlightening or at least relevant to talk about on Tuesday nights, I let my personal interaction with the Word become less of a priority. I think this in no small part contributed to my mental stagnation.
The Word has an interesting side effect of engaging parts of my brain no other literary work can touch. When I read the Bible, and I mean sincerely read, not simply view the words on the page, I get stirred up. It's like reaching back through history and placing myself in the courts of King Solomon, or King David, or wherever it is I'm reading. The point is, no book or manuscript or leaflet has ever engaged me the way the Word does...when I let it.
That's the other interesting thing. The Bible is not some passive piece that has reached completion. God knows my attitude when I approach His word, and if it's anything other than receptive, I will get little out of it. When I truly engage all my senses in the act of digesting the Bible, the fruits are instant and only end when I stop reading, or lose my fervor.
I heard an interesting sermon on the Word yesterday. Churches will always tell you to read your Bible, but rarely will they tell you how to actually accomplish that. It may not seem to some like something that really needs to be instructed on, but I disagree. I am guilty of pushing the benefits of reading the Word regularly without actually providing a plan, or even suggestion, for doing so.
Personally, I read one chapter a day five days a week. This is often, though not always, supplemented by downtime where I just pick it up for the sake of picking it up. During times of crisis I 'read for depth' or in other words read til I find an answer.
The key is to plan something that you'll stick to. If it's a verse a day, a page a day, a chapter a day, a book a day, whatever it is, do it and stick with it. I find it's easier for me to do a chapter a day 5 days a week because I get up at a consistent time on weekdays. Now, it usually only takes me about 5 minutes to read a chapter of the Bible, some days closer to ten depending on the chapter. So really, I could do this seven days a week and not 'lose' any time.
Anyway, I'm getting away from the point here.
I don't even know what my point was anymore. Read your Bible. That was it I reckon.
As I write, the quite part of my mind that has been so slow to respond lately is lighting up with ideas.
Maybe we'll see more of each other.
The Dating Game
I read this article over at Relevant Magazine today. It talks about some of those who 'Kissed Dating Goodbye' at the heart of the craze and are now wondering if that was the best decision.
I always found my parents stories of high school dating...interesting to say the least. I never had any experience that even close to mirrored what they had.
No dates on Friday nights, no dates on Saturday nights. The only time I ever had a 'date' was to a dance.
And those of you from Loyalton can attest, there wasn't much variety in our school...if you chose to date someone in your class, you were dating someone you'd known for virtually your whole existence.
Having that kind of upbringing, I never put too much emphasis on dating itself, rather I found myself wanting a girlfriend. I think there is a distinct difference here. By the standard definition ('Dating is any social activity undertaken by, typically, two people with the aim of each assessing the other's suitability as their partner in an intimate relationship or as a spouse. The word refers to the act of meeting and engaging in some mutually agreed upon social activity. Traditional dating activities include entertainment or a meal.' <--thank you wikipedia.), I really did a lot of dating in high school. Granted, we did it in a group, but all of us, whether consciously or unconsciously were sizing each other up as potential mates. Maybe just temporary, maybe for the long-term.
I think society has branded 'dating' as something that followers of Christ should in general seek to avoid. 'Dating' to a lot of people means casual hookups. From a Christ-centered perception, I consider dating to be seriously evaluating someone for marriage. To the point that I'm spending time with this person practically praying for God to show me if/why they aren't right for me.
After one relationship that I FORCED to work as long as it did crashed and burned, I decided I was going to let God lead me to my next partner. And along the way, I tried to force some other things, but God was a little more stern in holding me back. Since then I've resigned myself to His will, and I'll just tell you, His faithfulness is not a joke. He is faithful beyond anything you can imagine.
All this to say that those of you who consider yourselves 'socially inept,' take heart, because God designs us with strengths and weaknesses. Even if you don't have any dating experience, God has someone for you. And that person will likely have the same amount of experience you will. It's a journey you'll get to take with that person you eventually end up with, instead of sharing pieces of it with the world. Inexperience among both parties garners intimacy.
What’s your role?
I had a strange dream last night about nuclear war.
I don't know who was involved, but I was at a bible study, and two nuclear bombs went off somewhere not too far in the distance it was very realistic. I ducked and held my breath as the heat wave flew over me, then grabbed onto something as the shockwave hit.
Then the real strange thing happened.
I took charge.
I got up, made sure the people I cared about were okay, and then started barking out orders.
I decided that my group was going out into the forest to set up camp and provide shelter and food to all who needed it. I immediately assessed all the skills in my group and made assignments accordingly.
In a matter of a few minutes we were preparing for the next blast and gathering supplies to set up a sort of home base/headquarters.
When I woke up, aside from being greatly relieved that it hadn't actually happened, I realized that in a crisis, be it global, personal or just in my group, I have the skills to take charge and be the calm head. It was almost like God was showing me, in a fairly dramatic fashion, that that was what he was calling me to be.
The challenge for me now is to find the spots to step up and actually embrace them.
I can't say that if a bomb dropped today, this morning, that I would be quite as level-headed as I was in the dream. Part of the ease of the dream was that those that I cared about were centrally-located. They were all with me. There was no uncertainty about anyone. That enabled me to cross that off my mental to-do list and go into action mode on everything else. My loved ones are quite scattered at the moment, so that would take some time to get settled, but once that settled, I do believe I would move int o action mode and make some things happen.
Regardless, I realized that to a certain extent, I should be the level-head in a crisis situation. God usually has to employ a little hyperbole to get my attention and to show me what He wants from me, I think this was a case of that.
What would your role be in such a situation? I think some people would be tending to the hurt and wounded. Others would be making lists of supplies, others would be aggresively moving to actually procure those supplies. I think this situation, while dramatic, provides an enhanced view of our intrapersonal skills.
I also remember in the dream thinking 'This is it. There's officially nothing else to live for but to make sure as many people as possible come to Christ before it's too late.'
I remember a few months back talking to my high school boys about 'what's holding you back' I asked them, and myself, what they would do if they knew for sure that Jesus would be back in a year. Most said quit whatever they were doing and spread the gospel. Then I asked them why they're not doing that now. Jesus could be back tomorrow. That talk continues to knock on my heart. Especially on days when my attitude doesn't match my heart's desires.
So think about it. A) What's your role, and B) What's holding you back?
Meet the Author
Joshua Davis
a.k.a. the kid with the cape.
joshua at joshuascape dot com
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Latest Posts
- Post Wedding Thoughts
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- I really just wanna go home and play Fallout 3 and hang out with my wife and puppy. Not be at work.
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