I started reading Proverbs yesterday and in the first chapter I read verse 7.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.

There was a footnote on the word ‘fools’. The footnote said that the Hebrew words rendered fool in Proverbs denote one who is morally deficient. I thought ahead in the book of Proverbs and remembered all of the comparisons of the wise to fools that I am going to read. When Solomon picked his word for fools, he wasn’t talking about just being silly. He was talking about a much deeper character issue of foolishness or moral deficiency.

I used to read the Proverbs and always put myself in the wise position, but when I really look at myself, I see how often I have been the foolish one. I often find myself morally deficient in the ways of discipline. I want to be more disciplined in my life with my health, finances, and my relationship with my wife and kids. But I find it so easy drift off to do things I want to do instead of what I should be doing. It is hard to draw a line sometimes because the things I drift to are not bad things necessarily, but I should be doing other things. Discipline is hard because I see it as something I don’t want to do. I want to eat whatever I want and I want to spend money on whatever I want. But it just brings me more trouble. I feel like asking God to give me discipline is like asking for patience. He will gladly give it to me, but it is never what I expect and it is usually a painful process. And I know that if I would just get started, it gets easier as I go.

Proverbs Chapter 1 ends with the following:

For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; but whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm. Proverbs 1:32-33

I am going to read Proverbs like I have never read it before and I am praying that the lessons I will learn will really take root in my life. Bring on the pain of transformation.

Do you ever have one of those days where you just give up? Yesterday was one of those days for me. They don’t happen very often and it usually coincides with my pace of life being high on the RPM’s. We have been traveling and throwing parties and running the children to VBS. I have been pulling a lot of late hours and getting up early. I have been writing it off to some major hustle in trying to get things done while my kids are at home for the summer. And yesterday was one of those days where I just ran out of gas. The days are running together and our schedule keeps changing. In the midst of all the chaos, I have not allowed myself to rest and prepare enough. Today I had planned to get caught up and just had zero motivation to try. I just wanted to sleep. So I went to bed early last night and hopefully today is a much different kind of day.

When is the last time you had an I give up day?

Compromise is defined as a settlement of a dispute by concessions on both or all sides.

This can be a good thing when there is a disagreement between individuals. Disputes can be settled fairly this way. In fact we have become so accustomed to such compromises that it is spreading to the rest of our lives. Specifically, I want to investigate how we compromise in our faith.

I have discovered that I have compromised a lot of things in my life that I should not have. I have compromised my health, finances, and my faith. I justify my poor behavior and do the things I want to do guilt free. I have listened to the lie and believed it to be true. Because of this I am now trying to fix big problems that could have been avoided with better choices. I am overweight and need to lose about 100 lbs. I have credit card debt that I need to pay off and it is crippling the rest of my finances. And I have allowed sin to take root in my life where it can be hard to weed them out. I have compromised in so many ways and it is preventing me from being the best of what God has planned for me.

I am working against these things and it can be difficult. It takes discipline and a great amount of support and encouragement. I will fail at times, but if I stick with it, I know that  I can find my way out of it.

I spent the last 7 days in Nashville, TN. I have just finished the drive back. It is now Sunday night at almost 11:30 PM. The kids are tucked in bed and the car is unloaded. I didn’t feel like writing tonight, but I am trying very hard to write something every week day. And I don’t want to just throw some random post at you. So I am going to write about recovering from these types of events.

Why should I take time to recover? My kids are going to bounce out of bed in the morning and have as much energy as they did the day before. I am not sure I am ready to take that on tomorrow. The good news is that they haven’t played with their toys at home all week, so they will be pretty entertained remembering all of the cool stuff to do around here. I don’t plan on pushing things too hard tomorrow. I will unpack and readjust to living at home life. But after 24 hours or so around here, we have to get back into gear. So it is important that I get good rest tonight and try to ease back into things tomorrow.

When I was working the normal 9-5 job, I used to take an extra day off after vacation to recover a little bit. Or we would come home a day early if I didn’t have the time off. It is no fun to come home from a fun trip and turn around and jump right back into work. We have done that before, and it takes me days to get unpacked. Then I feel like I didn’t get anything done that whole next week. But if I plan for that recovery time, it goes so much smoother.

The point of a vacation is to take a break from work. But often vacation feels like work. When you spend the end of your trip driving and packing and hauling and loading and unloading, there is nothing relaxing about that. So if you are coming off of a busy season or a big event with family or work, don’t forget to take time to recover.

Faith and I have finally signed up for Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. We have been on and off of the total money makeover plan for the last 4 years. We have lacked the gazelle intensity. It also doesn’t help when we lost an income about a year ago. We have been adjusting over the last year and we decided it was time to get back on track.

We have never signed up for the course because Faith’s work schedule could never guarantee that she would make all the classes. So now we have decided that doesn’t matter because we probably will never take the course if we wait for our schedules to work out. We are finally ready to get gazelle intense. I don’t recommend waiting 4 years to get gazelle intense. You should try that from the start. We have made progress on our debt reduction, but the snowball has been really slow for the last year. I hope that the FPU class will help us to really get going with this.

The gazelle intensity that I am talking about comes from Proverbs 6:4–5, which says,

“Give no sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids. Deliver yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, and like a bird from the hand of the fowler.”

I am getting anxious just thinking about it. I know that there will be things that I don’t want to do. Sacrifices will be made that I don’t want to make. But I am determined to break free this time and not slow down. I have been really thinking about this gazelle intensity and this verse in Proverbs for the last few days. I have realized how beneficial this is for me to run screaming from my debt. But I have also thought about how I can apply this to other areas of my life where I need to break free. I have asked myself questions like this:

• Am I gazelle intense about losing weight?
• Am I gazelle intense about following Jesus?
• Am I gazelle intense about my responsibilities?
• Am I gazelle intense about loving my wife and my children?
• Am I gazelle intense about my dream?

This feels like a lot to me and I don’t plan on trying to knock out everything at one time, but these couple of verses are really sticking with me now. And I plan on trying to apply that concept to much of what I do.

Are you gazelle intense about anything?

I really want to write encouraging blog posts, but sometimes I look back at what I wrote and it feels negative and critical. I think it is in my nature to identify flaws and try to correct them. So sometimes I think my writing comes off as being too critical when I want to be more encouraging. Often I delete those posts and start over. I know not everything that comes up here is critical, but sometimes I worry that I come off differently then what I hear in my head.

So I want to apologize if you have ever felt I was tearing things down instead of building things up. I hope that my future publications are more encouraging and in the business of building the kingdom of God.

And I promise to always be real with you here. I will share my heart when it is joyful, frustrated, or whatever I am feeling. I hope that whatever I write always brings value to you.

That was on my mind, so I thought I would share it with you.

I still haven’t figured out what I want to be when I grow up. Sometimes I wonder if I missed my chance at some great career. Right now I am staring at a whole year of unemployment behind me. I am currently needed at home where I am at. I have been more successful as a stay at home dad then I ever thought I would be, although I have a long way to go with that to consider myself successful, just ask my wife. I am about as uncertain about my future as I have ever been in my entire life.

Every day brings something new. I new idea, dream, or goal. I have a clean slate to work with so I could do about anything that I want. So I take a step in a direction and put forth some effort only to find road blocks and discouragement everywhere I turn. This whole thing started about a year ago when I told God that if he wanted me to work for his church, then he was going to have to fire me. So that happened 3 days after our little chat. I never thought I would get so excited about getting fired. So I have tried working for the church. I have applied for jobs, I have done some networking. I even took an internship and spent 30 hours a week serving at a church to get some more experience. But nothing has turned up. I honestly don’t know what else to do other than to just keep doing what I am doing.

Some days I feel like I am pushing a boulder up this big hill, but the hill never ends. I feel like I am waiting on something, but I worry that there is something that I must learn before it will come to pass. I know that God is working on me, but I feel that I am getting nowhere no matter how much I seek God. So if its on me, what can I do? And if not, what am I waiting for? I am tired.

So I don’t know where to go from here other than here. I am clinging to my faith that God has a plan. I am different than I was a year ago and hopefully I am better for it.

Just a little ranting. Comment if you feel like it.

Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 1 Timothy 6:12

Right now, I am in the fight. Each day presents a new challenge. I often feel like a target. But this fight is not something that can be seen by those around me. It is a war for my soul. And if I don’t fight the good fight of the faith, I only find trouble.

After years of corporate IT work, I am finding myself well positioned at this stage of life. When I was laid off, I didn’t know that Faith would start her clinicals for nursing early. I never thought that I would make a good stay at home dad. But now I see that this is where I am supposed to be right now. Right now I have to do the hard thing because it is the right thing.

I choose to keep fighting the good fight of the faith. I choose to trust God with my life. This is harder now than it ever has been. I find comfort when I have control and right now I am far from that comfortable place. But God has provided for all that was needed. And I believe that he is working on something great while he is transforming me right now. Only time will tell. So I am hanging on and soaking up all this adventure has to offer.

Are you fighting for your faith?

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of you mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good pleasing and perfect will. – Romans 12:2

We are to be different from the world. Conforming to the ways of the world is easier than what we were made to do. In the end this world has nothing to offer you. The Kingdom of God  has everything to offer you. Once you understand this and allow for renewal and transformation, you will know the will of God.

You know what bugs me? When people try to be something they aren’t. I will refer to them as posers in all future references in this post.

First let me say that I am just as guilty of this as the next person. I went to Jr. High School. I wanted to be a cool kid with the right look. I wanted acceptance. So I tried to be what I thought was the accepted personality. I failed miserably. I was the kid that tried on all of the cliques to see what fit. None of them did and I found myself in between all of the time.

I do not like Jr. High me. I was a poser. Instead of trying to figure out who I was, I let different groups of people decide for me. I gave them the power to build me up or tear me down. I have no idea why I or anyone would want to do that. It just sounds silly when I look at it that way.

Fast forward several years. I got tired of finding my identity in others, so I went on my own for a while. But later I made a connection that my identity is found in Jesus. The clouds parted and a ray of sunshine beamed upon my acne infected face. It all made sense. But only for a while. So I started to really invest in relationships with other Christians. After a while though I learned that people didn’t stop being posers when they turned 18. And now I was faced with Christian posers. Ok, so I know that Jesus is all about grace and mercy, but people who say they love Jesus and then go act completely different really piss me off. I am not saying that I am a perfect Christ follower. I piss myself off when I see my own hypocrisy. After I punch myself in the face a few times, I feel a little better but sore.

It just really bugs me. I try very hard to be as real as I can be with people. I don’t always share the gory details of my sinful self with everyone that I meet, but I won’t try to build myself up to be perfect. I still feel the urge to try to fit in. I see what other Christians are doing or studying and I find myself jumping on board. This is all fine and well as long as I don’t forget to be who God made me to be. I have found lately that I am once again, trying to be something that I am not. And fixing it is as simple as remembering to be myself. If you aren’t sure what that is, then you need to ask God about that.

Jesus wants an authentic relationship with us. And he wants us to have authentic relationships with each other. So let’s stop being posers, and get real.

When is the last time you felt like you were being a poser? For me it was just last week.