Why am I doing this?
It’s a valid question to ask yearly, monthly and even daily.
More than ever, I see how important the WHY is in every aspect of my life.
Why am I working here?
Why did I get married?
Why do I follow Christ?
Why ask why?
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From Condolences To Congratulations
The week before my wedding I was sitting at my work desk. I was busy handling last minute preparations for my week away from the office. Since my back is to the door, I have a rear-view mirror so I don’t get scared out of my shoes when people walk up behind me.
I spun around as he strolled up to my desk. He covered the talking end of his cell phone and whispered:
“My condolences”
The Allure of Depression
No one could ever say they like how depression feels. That would be crazy, right?
I can’t say I have a vast amount of experience with depression but it did hit me pretty hard a few years ago. Strangely enough, I liked it.
It’s difficult to explain but I try to do just that today over at my friend Alise’s blog. I shared my story as part of her Not Alone series. The series was so popular that she got a book deal for a collection of stories that people have shared with her.
Head over to her blog to read the rest of my post on the allure of depression and let me know what you think in the comments.
Continue Reading “The Allure of Depression”
Confident Humility
Pride and humility are more closely linked than one would imagine. Some would say the two are in direct opposition. I say they are the same thing, just with different sources.
In James 4:6, it says that “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Many will look at a confident person and consider them proud. However, pride and humility are both confidence. Humility is confidence in God, pride is confidence in self.
Humility is the key to unlocking grace in our lives. When we realize that we don’t have to trust in ourselves, we can tap into the Source of all confidence.
3 Things Grace Is Not…
I hear a lot about grace. I sing songs about it. I read books about it. I write blogs about it on occasion. I know what grace is. It is unmerited favor. I’ve also heard it defined as supernatural enabling power. But the other day I was thinking about what grace is not.
I haven’t heard many people talk about what grace is not so I thought I would share 3 things that I’ve identified.
Amnesic Grace
I don’t shave much. Consequently, I don’t buy razors very often. There are times when I go months between shaving. But every once in awhile, I like that smooth-as-a-baby’s-bottom feel and I replace the clippers with the razor.
I buy those cheap, disposable razors. These go dull pretty quickly but inevitably, I still try to shave with them. It doesn’t matter how many times I cut up my face with a dull razor, I continue to return to the one that’s there. It’s not that I don’t know better, I just seem to forget what happened in the past.
There are some areas of my life for which I have selective amnesia. It doesn’t matter how important it is, if I haven’t responded correctly to the consequences of my actions, I’ll continue to repeat my mistake.
I Suck At Evangelism
In my last job, I worked at a Christian web design company. We were doing a lot of what WordPress does today. Ten years ago, not many people were doing web design with a content management system as the back end. I worked as a project manager and consultant. I loved my job and I was good at it.
Then I tried sales. I will tell you one thing. A salesman I am not.
I would refer to myself as what Malcolm Gladwell calls a “maven” in his book, The Tipping Point. Gladwell refers to mavens as “information specialists”, or “people we rely upon to connect us with new information.”
Finding Freedom In Distraction
I hate distractions. Mostly because I am self-diagnosed ADD. I blame the Internet. What I’ve realized though is that no matter what I do, I will always find a distraction if I’m looking for one. It’s like when you’re in a quiet room and you look at the clock; next thing you know, you hear every.single.tick.
Distractions abound in my church because there is a culture of freedom. For example, we have a nursery but if a woman wants to keep her baby in the meeting with her, she can do so. I’ll be the first one to raise my hand and say that I’ve been guilty for throwing eye-daggers at a woman that let’s her baby cry for more than .07 seconds without leaving the meeting.
The Messy, Beautiful Church
One of my guilty pleasures back in the day was the MTV show, The Real World. Before reality TV was basically staged like it is today, this show gave us the fly-on-the-wall look into the lives of real, every day people paired together with complete strangers. It was one of the greatest social experiments of our time.
I loved wacthing the beginning when you would see these radically different people meet each other. Things usually started off very polite and everyone bonded at their shared amazement of the gorgeous house they got to live in.
The Best Motivator
I conduct a lot of interviews at my job. One of the questions I typically ask is, “What motivates you to do your best work?” The answers range from recognition to compensation to a simple thanks. All of the answers do help in small ways but I always find that in the long term, those things don’t sustain motivation.
I’ve struggled with motivation in my own life. I’ve looked at various ways that I’m compelled to do my best work. I’ve tried those listed and I’ve looked at others such as love, honor and friendship. However, I’ve seen many situations where those elements are present and I still don’t feel one single ounce of motivation.