Why resolutions don’t work

Its simple…

#1. They don’t work because if something isn’t at the center of your being, it isn’t something you commit to. Let me put it this way. If I say I want to lose 10 lbs in 2011, it doesn’t address a deeper need from the center of who I am. If I say, I need to become healthy in my life, exercise, eat right so on and so on, from this place my I have a better chance of success.

It comes down to vision, and if my vision doesn’t run with meaning and purpose then it will fall by way side or will not have any lasting impact.

#2. We don’t take time to reflect on how we are doing. Few of us ever really reflect on anything. But with resolutions for sure how often do we take time to reflect an reevaluate what we are doing well or not well and then adjust.

See pretty simple.

If you want to succeed at your new years resolutions its better to call the ‘troops’ together and have a revolution in your life.

Friday Five: five things necessary for a great vacation

My good buddy Phil Bell, posted something similar this past summer, which you can read here, but from returning from my little vacation I wanted to give five things necessary for a great vacation. This was possibly one of the best get a-ways I have had in a long time (minus our honeymoon on a cruise where we had no connection). Some of the following reasons are why it was such a great vacation.

• Turn off your smart phone. This is a no brainer, but far to often we forget that being connected back to where we left causes us to never really leave. I love that with my iPhone I can just put it on airplane mode and go about my vacation. I can still use twitter, still take pictures, play games with my nieces, but I don’t have to worry about that phone call or that email that could draw me back in to the place I left. This simple tip helps you fully engage where you are. ADDITIONAL TIP: If you are so consumed by your phone a follow up tip is to set a time each day where you check your email and voice mail. You allow for that one or two hours then off it goes again. I’m against this because depending on what it is, you can be pulled back and never be able to ‘return’ to your vacation
• Work ahead the week before. I found this to be super helpful this time around. As a pastor things don’t stop when you are away. That is why so many feel the need to keep their phone on to check in. I took a few hours the day or two before we left to think through the week ahead. Gmail has a great new tool called Boomerang which allows you to do a whole lot more with your email. It allows you to schedule when things go out, how and when they come back to you if people don’t respond and a whole slew of other things I haven’t played with yet. I was able to set up emails to go to people for the week ahead as if I was still working. But in working ahead it allows you to breath easier while you are a way.
• Plan for doing the unplanned. Every vacation I go on I take two or three books with me with the desire to crank through them. I seldom do. I end up, most times, enjoy the unstructured so much I say to heck with my plan and just enjoy what ever comes. Planning is great and necessary to really ‘disconnect’ and have fun, but I have learned to leave room for the unplanned because it makes things so much more enjoyable.
• Be around joy. This is something I learned this last visit home. It is so imperative that when you go away on vacations to be leaving with joy and excitement and to if at all possible be in a place that fosters that same joy and excitement. Other wise you are in a place that is draining you.
• Understand the purpose of your vacation. I have had to learn this hard lesson of establishing a real rule of understanding the purpose of our vacations. If I am going home to either Wisconsin or Oklahoma, it will not be restful! I end up staying up late talking with people, reliving old memories, running around and just having tons of fun. If I take a few days of vacation to go up to the a cabin or up the mountains I know I am going for peace and quite to think or ‘detox’ myself. Understanding the purpose of your get away will save lots of frustration upon your return when you realize you didn’t get out of your vacation what you wanted out of it.

Super simple, but super practical for having a great vacation. What would you add to this list?

12 Days of Christmas: a journey in the footsteps of Christ

Well Christmas is upon us. It is here!!! It has finally come… wait? You aren’t that excited either? This season of Christmas really got the jump on me personally. Stacie & I were talking yesterday and we realized this year the anticipation was not there as it has been in years past. We realized that part of that had to do with the fact we didn’t get one another gifts this year (we bought and built a house). That anticipation of seeing the joy on your spouses face, that excitement of opening a gift from a loved one, that wasn’t there for us this year. Which is totally fine. The problem is we know, or should know, its not about any of that. Where has all the excitement gone? What about the birth of the Christ child? The celebration of the our Advent, His return?

Well honestly, it get numbed by all the ‘other things’ I ‘need’ to get done. I have not taken time this year to prepare my heart at all. I have been so focused and excited about our services, and preaching on New Years, getting amped for my 2nd promotion in less than year on staff here at church and other opportunities going on to have slowed my heart and prepared it for this season. My mind is so far and focused on the when and what next that I lose sight of the now. But when I get caught in the now there are things that come forth reminding me why I spend so much time in the future instead of the present tense of now.

Stacie & I had a wonderfully difficult chat the other night about some things in both of our lives. One of the key things I was reminded of is that God has blessed me with incredible amounts of discernment and vision. I have eyes of God to see whats going on in peoples lives, see through the muck and out exterior, and even ears of God to hear the deeper issues, hear the future of what is next. What I lack greatly though is God’s heart. I lack the heart of Christ that gives life and meaning to those other great gifts.

I came this realization on Thursday night when I realized I had not been showing compassion to so many who were in need of it. I had cast judgement on them because of their actions, actions that the world could justifiably say “Yeah I see why you would think that about that person”.

I realized that night that my flesh of cynicism  and negativity had begun to rear its head again. These are traits that bring others down and just aren’t helpful for anyone. These traits keep me from loving people like Jesus, from seeing the greater good in everyone, from really connecting with others, and they keep brewing toxicity in so many ways that it becomes harmful for so many around me.

So, here is where things WILL be different. I going to be taking a journey through 12 days of Christmas as I practice what it means to show Christ’s compassion, Christ’s love. There are a few Spiritual Practices of what is called International Living that I will be doing. Each day I will journey into the foot steps of Christ in seeing how He interacted with others, how He responded ultimately through compassion and love.

My prayer is that this reflective time of living it out will be so transformative for me that it will be a milestone for me in my faith.

Look at your own life these 12 days of Christmas (December 25-January 6th) what area or areas in your life might the Spirit be calling you to lean in and follow the steps of Christ more closely?

Saturday Simple Pleasure #1

Just realized a simple pleasure that I absolutely love. Its the simple pleasure of setting your away message email notification. It is that simple realization that you are about to head out and not be in contact with the ‘every day’ that brings simple pleasure.

May you find the power of simple pleasures can move you in powerful ways!

Friday Five: Five Signs of Being Busy

I can not believe that it Christmas is in 2 days!!! That is just absolutely crazy to me. It seems just like yesterday we were celebrating Thanksgiving, and before having an open house for our new home, and then closing on the house and before that celebrating our Year Anniversary.

Man so crazy to think that the celebration of Christ’s Birth is here. I have realized over the past few days that the days seem to just come at me, sneak up on me, these days. Sadly I don’t think this is an oddity for many of us. We become so busy with things (some good things) that we notice days are just flying by. Special days are still ‘special’ in nature but the joy of the day might have lost power and possible even some meaning.

As I sit here at 12.20am thinking about some ‘life-changes’ for my self, I am reminded of a sad destructive recurrence in my world. I am so darn busy. Here are 5 signs that you or I are to busy. I pray we can do more than just acknowledge them but actually look to change them

• Taking time for the little things: By these little things, the things that bring you joy, enjoying a nice hot chocolate while reading a book, not downing your drink before your next meeting or reading 4 chapters before the test that is happening in 2 hours. The little things that bring us joy are the life givers in the day in day out grind of life. If these little things begin to wane it can be clear sign we are being to busy to take these things in.
• Wooing my spouse: I am reminded of this from time to time, to simply take time and woo my spouse. Those little notes of I love you, buying flowers, helping around the house in little ways. Its not that I have lost my love, its that in being busy I have neglected one of the most important things in life, wooing (constantly perusing) the blessing bestowed on me from God, my spouse.
• Taking time ‘commune’ with community: ‘Wait, let me look at my calendar and let you know if we hang out.’ I sadly here this more and more from folks. I realize its a busy time and that in being busy our calenders-life- it gets filled pretty quickly. More and more I realize we are being busy that we don’t have time for simple interactions within our community. Whether it be a faith community, your work community, college community,  home community, when we are being busy these relationships get put on a back burner and we look out 2-6 weeks before simply having coffee with someone.
• Being tired: “I just can’t seem to get enough sleep” ” There isn’t enough coffee or 5 hour Energy in the world to get my energy level up”. There are days lately where I just come home and want to go straight to bed. Not because I have had a rough day, just that I feel so darn tired I want to go rest. Being busy pulls on our ‘coat tails of rejuvenation’  and causes us to not get the rest we really need feeling tired all the time.
• No time to reflect: This is something few do, or do well (including myself). When we are being busy it becomes repetitive in that we can’t break the cycle of being busy if we can’t take time to reflect and understand why we are being busy to begin with. Its not a matter of no time to reflect its more a matter of not being able to set out the time and make it happen. This  can be one of the most dangerous sign because if we can’t reflect, can’t stop to look back and understand where we were and need to/should be going we continue on in the same path, mostly to being busy.

Being busy is a lure for many things – feeling important, needed, useful, biding the time, climbing the ladder, getting away from the pain of … – it is a trap that gets to us all. But we have to break the being busy in order to truly live. I am curious more and more as I look at my busy life, how much of it is truly living?

How many of these signs resonate with you? What would some of your signs be? How do you over come and slow the being busy to simply being?

Teach me to Pray!

I have the privilege of teaching our 7th graders about the Life of Christ this year. I have created a pretty awesome syllabi I have to say. Over the past few weeks we have been going over what we call the Lords Prayer found in Luke 11.1-4. My class has really been enjoying picking apart each word and what it meant then and what it means today.

Prayer is such a powerful and beautiful tool in our daily lives, and how often do we daily pray? I honestly don’t as much as I should. I am always thinking about God & His Bride, talking to Him, but I realized today as I drove to work, praying actually, I don’t do it nearly enough.

It was so refershing to let what is in my heart actually hit my lips and be carried to the ears of the only understanding, compassionate provider, God. I am reminded by Psalm 45.1 My heart is stirred by a noble theme as I recite my verses for the king; my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer. There are moments when my heart is stirred and the only way to respond is through speech (either to God or to family) with the occasional writing found here.

But maybe you are like me sometimes and like many others saying “I just don’t know how or what to pray for”. I get there a lot myself so just acknowledge God and go on my way. This isn’t bad, but our hearts can and want to still speak to God even in these moments. Romans 8.26 tells us ‘In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.’

To learn to pray from our spirit is sometimes the best prayers. We can find it in breathing, in crying, in screaming, in sitting silent. I have a few posts here & here about prayer and ways to pray. I wanted to share this last thought that got me thinking this morning from my devotion.

There was a Jewish farmer who, through carelessness, did not get home before sunset one Sabbath and was forced to spend the day in the field, waiting fo rthe sunset the next day before being able to return home.

Upon his return home he was met by a rather perturbed rabbi who chided him for his carelessness. Finally the rabbi asked him, “What did you do out there all day in the field? Did you at least pray?”

The farmer answered, “Rabbi, I am not a clever man. I don’t know how to pray properly. What I did was simply to recite the alphabet all day and let God form the words for Himself”

When we come to celebrate we bring the alphabet of our lives. If our hearts and minds are full of warmth, love, enthusiasms, song and dance, then these are the letters we bring. If they are full of tiredness, despair, blandness, pain and boredom, then these are the our letters. Bring them. Spend them. Celebrate them. It is God’s task to make the words!

Ronald Rolheiser

I pray these words bring you enough comfort to know that the letters of our life are for God to form the words of our prayers! Take time today to ask God to teach you how to pray, to show you your letters, to reveal the words that need to come from these letters, and to be bathed in the beauty of knowing our God is a God who answers His people.