Not Impressed By Your Little Fame

I'm in an industry with a lot of self-promoters. No small percentage of my peers are writing books, and they are very excited about it. Having already been through the book writing process and knowing what the publishing industry is like, I can say that, if your excitement is more than "I finished it! It's out there! What a great process!" then you're about to be disillusioned.

Most books sell very little, especially business books. A biz book that sells 5,000 copies is exceptional.

I will say that a lot of people who haven't written books are very impressed by those who have- and it will increase your fees for service or speaking, etc.

But you're not going to be famous because of your one book, and you're not going to reach that many people with it. Some blog posts are read by more people than most books.

So I would say- watch you ego- make sure this book thing is not about your insecurities or vain ambitions. Write a book to clarify your thinking or to be a support material for your work, even to prove to your self you can do it, but not to be famous and not to get rich, or you'll be disappointed.

Thank you Lord for your opinion of me. You see me as much more important than even I do. You value me with love, without me having to do anything. Your love matters more than any person's. You fill my heart with a joy that no worldly success or recognition could.

Pause in the Middle of Work

It's great to remember to pause about four hours into your day.

Even if you start the day with God, you may get off track or just need refreshment halfway through.

Take some time, outdoors, in the Word, pray to God, reconnect.

Thank you Lord for meaningful work and for the sustenance and protection of me and my loved ones. Help me keep my eyes on you through the work day. Let my actions and words be worthy of your Spirit. Give me the right words and inspiration throughout my interactions, phone calls, and writings.

Wake and Shake

When you wake, shake off your sleep, shake off your worldly ambitions, shake off your fears, shake off your hurry, and think of God.

The morning has always been tough for me. I always wanted to sleep in. When forced to get to a job earlier than I wanted to even be awake, I had to do all kinds of things to psych myself up- mainly caffeine.

A lot of Christians think, and the Bible seems to agree, that we should get up early. And by inference, or perhaps even explicitly, we only do sin late at night.

After my most recent misery just 5 days ago, and a weekend of renewed focus on God, this morning it took me 40 minutes after waking to remember God. That is the very quick backsliding that I want to change. That's why I immediately came up to write this, to focus on my relationship with Him.

Lord please readjust my sleep cycle, let me sleep deeply and wake refreshed, thinking of you. Take from me all the thoughts and plans I have that are not your plan. Place in my heart your peace and let me think of the things that you would have me do this day. Thank you for another day, for keeping us safe, for your love and grace. Thank you for Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Swearing and Holiness

I was super-holy the first year or so of my Christianity. I even had a 14-day period where I spent and hour a day or more on Bible reading, journaling, and prayer. At that time, I was quieter and more sensitive to swearing and anger. A friend of mine showed me a website that allowed you to dress up Jesus the way you would a doll. I felt soiled by this and later that day had a physical spiritual experience where I saw a powerful lifelike vision of Jesus on the Cross. I felt this restored my faith after that website.

Now I have become more glib, more likely to swear. Even when I did stand up comedy for 8 months in 2007, I was mainly a clean comedian. I did not use dirty jokes or routines that came to mind. I sorta felt it was a shame because I was really good at that. But I felt they were also too easy and that the real craft was being hilarious while not resorting to swear words or sex. Many comedians disagree and say the art cannot be restricted. I say you will speak about what is on your heart. And if your heart is filled with filth, that will come out. Mine is clearly not as pure as it has been at times.

God Doesn't Care Yet

Because no one has come to the blog since the first day of writing.

Helplessly Irritable

My cross to bear seems to be sudden inexplicable irritability. Sometimes I get very sensitive to sound. I also get tinnitus. The sound of a dog eating is like the dog is in my ear- right in my ear. Someone revving their lawnmowing is somehow doing this to me personally. My wife singing while the cat's meows for food go ignored is like a horror movie.

I don't know why sounds hit me so hard. Maybe it's something biological like Lyme's disease. Maybe it's a spiritually malady from not going to church. Maybe it's my musician's ear. Maybe it's low signal to noise ratio because of a temporarily bad neurochemical mix. No clue.

Definitely don't act spiritually when that happens. The best thing I can do is not say or do anything in anger.

But I'm an irritable guy. If it feels like there's something in my nose or if the headphone cord keeps hitting my forearm hairs, or if I think there are hairs in the bed, I want to freak out.

Some Mondays feel like Mondays. Today is one of those.

Do you ever think about lonely old people?

Your life is exciting now. You have friends, family, useful work.

But what about all the older people who no longer can work, or have to take menial jobs, whose friends have died, who the family sees maybe once a year?

My grandma is 99 and she doesn't want to bother anyone. I imagine she spends about 98% of her time alone. She loves to watch Charles Stanley's sermons on TV. She loves to play dominoes with us when we visit. She still shovels snow off her porch. But she's very independent and strong willed.

We have a good friend who is in her 60's and many of her friends are dying. She's suicidal. I'm praying for her. Please pray for her also.

We don't consciously reject these people- we just accidentally ignore them because we're selfishly pursuing our own fun, and because we fearfully anxiously cannot leave our work.

The American dream and nuclear family has created a huge class of disenfranchised older family- and they'er the luckier ones, because the unmarried older people without kids are even more cut off.

My Imminent Internet Church: Instant Gratification Addiction

I want a thousand people reading this blog now. Already.

Yes I just started it today.

Yes I have unrealistic and demanding expectations.

If it's important, everyone should know NOW.

It will be very tempting to use my internet marketing tactics to promote this. You see, I already have rationalizations:

• Why treat it different from any other blog?
• You know how many blogs don't have any traffic or readership?
• Are you just condemning everything good and Christian to obscurity?
• Do you really think God does SEO?
• If it's not even indexed by Google how can anyone find it by searching?

Those are very convincing.

And what will my worldly goal be? (I'm telling you this to show you how crazy I think about this stuff)

• Once I have traffic, I need comments to prove that people read it and like it
• I need to be pursued by Christian journalists and radio people so that they'll interview me and talk about how awesome this blog is. Why is it awesome? Because I wrote it, of course- unrestrained ego and pride- entitlement
• This blog will become so popular that I will launch a national internet church based on it and have a radio show and books and God will bless it hugely just because I started a blog today, which there is a high chance I will never write on again after this day.

I am crazy.

Christian Introverts

I was looking at my post that suggests my strategy include LOVING and GIVING and I was thinking...

I suppose I'd have to get out of the house to do that.

Which I thought was funny.

I work from home and I don't leave much. I travel for work and speak around the country sometimes, but after speaking I stay in the hotel. Trust me, I've tried hanging out with people at conferences, and usually I find its superficial and annoying.

Talking to people for more than a few hours makes me tired and gives me a migraine.

I've always been an introvert. I've been on the computer since I was ten years old. I've always preferred deeper relationships. I feel like to really talk to you, I have to get to know you, and that's going to take hours. Otherwise, we're not really going to say anything important, and we might as well not talk.

Can I be really giving if I can't leave the house? Is introversion not of Christ? Some of the Great Men of God have been pastors who speak to many at a time- do they also spend twelve hours a day talking to individuals?

What Makes Me A Weird Christian

I've always felt like a weirdo. I was short and shy and bullied as a kid. I was too smart, too ADD, too creative, and too curious. I didn't like team sports.

Unfortunately, I've continued that everywhere I've gone. The rebel, the punk, the outsider. Somehow I feel like an outsider in every group I try to join. It's probably my own fault. I hold back.

Church has been no different. My wife has been a career woman and we don't have kids. I actually like to study the Bible and debate it so we can arrive at the Truth. This alienates us from many Christians. The normal Christian I've observed is like this:

• Married.
• Husband works, is quiet, doesn't study the Bible.
• Wife is focused on family and kids.
• They tend to be unquestioningly conservative in their politics
• War is American and therefore Christian. Everything that is cherry pie American is considered Christian, from country music to the military to the NFL.
• Time at Church is limited, worship is constrained and polite.
• Of course, I'm talking about white people, because I am white, and Churches are incredibly segregated. From what I hear of black churches, there is a lot more joy and emotion in both worship and community, and the Church experience takes many hours more.

Here's why the average Church doesn't work for me:

• I love good sermons, but I find more variety online and on the radio. If I need more than one sermon a week, I can't get it from one church.
• I love worshop music, but I am a musician so my ear seizes upon mistakes and becomes critical- it's hard for me to worship when the band sucks. I have been in a worship band in the past (as the guitarist), but I found myself focusing on the music, not on Jesus, which did not feel like worship. So I have trouble worshipping through music in any form at church services.
• I love a Bible Study where people are open-minded and inquisitive, but most people are not big readers, have little background in literary searching, have no experience in intellectual debate and discussion- in other words, usually only the pastor and I are talking and everyone else is silent. Many people are uncomfortable with critical debate (which is not antagonistic or negative, but simply asks hard questions and looks at multiple viewpoints, evidence, etc.). People who are lost or confused by this kind of discussion view me as really smart or just difficult. I feel different. As a result, these groups don't feed my desire to know the Lord more through the Bible and I'm forced to study alone.

Add to this that for a church to work, both my wife and I have to want to go and be involved.

• The church my wife liked the most didn't have a Bible Study that fed me. They had a men's group in which most men were silent and one man with pastoral aspirations but unfortunately not a lot of academic or intellectual skill talked about 70% of the time and said a few things that were ridiculous, but most of the group didn't know any better and I was new and didn't want to look difficult by arguing with him.
• The church I liked the most had killer music and great sermons, but was filled with a lot of old ladies whose sense of smell has diminished, so they put too much perfume on and don't realize it, and my wife who is more sensitive health-wise spent every service trying not to sneeze and feeling horrible for hours afterward.

As a result, I've given up on trying churches, because I've lost faith that any church will work for us.

Still, I think there must be other weirdoes like us- career wives, couples with no kids, intellectuals- and I wish there was a place for us, or I could create one.

Godly Internet Marketing

Even though I know lots about various forms of Internet Marketing, including SEO, I think I'm going to just let God promote this blog.

If it's His will that people read it, they will. I'll pray and leave that up to him.

If you've ever read George Mueller's Autobiography, you know that Faith can affect the World. God does act here.

Vis a vis my post on the ultimate futility of worldly strategy, I think I'd rather just let God's Spirit determine where this blog goes and who reads it.

:-)

Endless Joy: I Cannot Teach The World The Most Important Thing

I love to teach.

I want to teach the world the most momentous thing.

But I seem to be only able teach the world how to get stuff.

The deepest wisdom is to know God, be humble, and GIVE

(love God and love others)

The world will only do this to GET things. It's all selfishness.

I must turn it on its head and give with faith and see what happens- no idea how to do that.

The World wants its goal. It uses its strategies to achieve its goals.

JOY is the ultimate selfish goal, but it cannot be won by worldly means. Only happiness, which is fleeting, comes from worldly strategy. We are too often chasing happiness, grasping at the wind. Read all of Ecclesiastes.

Worldly strategies allow us to achieve things that make us LOOK happy and successful, but they do not change our inner experience. They do not assure joy.

 ¹² People who work hard sleep well, whether they eat little or much. But the rich seldom get a good night’s sleep. -
Ecclesiastes 5:12 (New Living Translation)

So, I say:

Become stupid.

Make your strategies to Love, Give, and have Faith.

The Prodigal Son Cycle I Keep Repeating Endlessly

Coming back to brokenness and the Word, the insight I find is that I keep repeating this stupid cycle. Can I ever break free of it?

See how when we are broken and humbled, we go to Prayer, which gives us Faith and Joy?

But the danger of that Joy is that we start to take credit for the Joy and the Blessings God has given us.

"If I can make THAT happen, what ELSE can I make happen???"

So we dream bigger dreams of greater selfish glories, greater achievements, greater blessings, and we begin to plan HOW we will make that happen, but we have already started with lust and selfishness, so chances are that our methods will be sinful and have Consequence.

As soon as we experience Consequence again, we are humbled and go back to God.

What a waste of time! Why are we so stupid? We will never be perfect on this earth, so we will continue this, even if we don't create huge obvious Consequences in the world, we will still see how we don't measure up and we will be ashamed internally.

We are constantly reminded of God's Mercy and Forgiveness- we feel delivered by him since we know that without him we are mean and deserve nothing.

Awake Sleeper, from The Internet: A Challenge to The Christian

When I feel closest to God, I am

• journaling with PEN AND PAPER, or
• praying on my knees in a closet, or
• driving appreciating the beauty of creation listening to anthemic positive Christian music

Online though, is a mess of attention deficit disorder emails, notifications, text, images, videos- the research shows that Social Media makes us temporarily more ADD than normal. And we flit from one thing to another and most of them are worldly.

4 Obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes -- these are not for you. Instead, let there be thankfulness to God. 5 You can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the Kingdom of Christ and of God. For a greedy person is really an idolater who worships the things of this world. 6 Don't be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the terrible anger of God comes upon all those who disobey him. 7 Don't participate in the things these people do. 8 For though your hearts were once full of darkness, now you are full of light from the Lord, and your behavior should show it! 9 For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true. 10 Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, rebuke and expose them. 12 It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret. 13 But when the light shines on them, it becomes clear how evil these things are. 14 And where your light shines, it will expose their evil deeds. This is why it is said, "Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light." - Ephesians

Weird Christian Blogger Debut

Call me stupid. I'm starting another Christian blog. Stupid because this is the fourth one. I didn't keep up with the others.

Every so often I have a spiritual conviction - I am wrong, bad, a bad christian. I go back to the Bible and to journaling and praying. I have a renovation. Then I think about blogging.

Can we bring Christianity online? Christianity online is on websites that look like they're from 1995. Can't we make it cooler?