Making Decisions

Over the past few weeks Andy Stanley completed a series called "Your Move." The series was based on how to make good decisions. Over the past year I have been faced with many decisions and have a lot of others to make in the upcoming months. Andy gave 4 specific questions to ask anytime you are faced with a decision no matter how big or small.

1. Am I being completely honest with myself.

2. What story do I want to tell?

3. Is there a tension that needs my attention?

4. What would be most honoring to God?

On the surface, the first question seems obvious. We like to think that we are always honest with ourselves. But when I dig a little deeper, I think back to a couple of times in my life where I have had to make decisions and I know now, looking back, that I was not honest with myself or anyone else about the situations. In several of those times, I avoided the truth because it would have made the decision harder or would have been more painful.

The second question, "What story do I want to tell?" opened my eyes to a new way of thinking. Andy described our life as a series of stories. Looking back, high school is now just a story I tell. The same for college and grad school. Everything that happens in our lives eventually becomes just a story that we tell. When making decisions, we need to decide how that decision is going to change our story. If our decision is not going to be something we will want to tell our children or grandchildren, then it is probably the wrong one.

Question 4, "Is there a tension that needs my attention?" I wasn't quite sure what this question meant at first. This tension is representative of that little voice in your head/heart/gut that lets you know there is something that you should be weary of. A lot of times we may feel this tension but ignore it. The important thing to learn here is to pay attention to that little voice because it is there for a reason.

Thus far all of the questions seem easy enough to ask before making a decision. Then that last one comes up and hits you pretty hard. "What is most honorable to God?" God should be the person that we put first when making decisions in our lives. Are the decisions we make everyday honoring God?

I really enjoyed the series and believe it will help me in making decisions in the future. I wanted to pass it along so that it may help you too.

Activate! Week two

I wish I could report that my Bible study had gone as well this week as it went last week. Last week I was very excited and extremely motivated. This week started out that way, but towards the end of the week I had a few struggles. I had to be at the hospital at 6am one day this week, which is a good bit earlier than my usual 730am. What I have been doing is getting up and doing my bible study and quiet time from 530am-6am, then getting ready for work. When my schedule changed for that day it threw everything off. I decided to take a shower the night before that way it would give me more time in the morning. I went to bed early and set my alarm for 5:00am. Then I laid there and laid there and laid there. I tried to shut my mind off and stop thinking about stuff. I played my progressive muscle relaxation mp3 which usually is the perfect antidote for my insomnia. Embarrassingly enough, I even tried counting sheep. Nothing seemed to work. I'm not sure what time I finally dozed off, but when my alarm clock went off at 5:00am, I wanted to hide my head under the covers and pretend that I didn't have to go in.

As I have mentioned before, each night before I go to bed I lay out my Bible and my Activate! book on the dining room table so I am ready to go when I get up. I think this helps me stay focused on the task at hand. So after turning off my alarm clock, I throw the covers back to get jolted by the freezing degrees in the house. So now I haven't had nearly enough sleep and I am so cold that all I can think is how much I hate Ohio and its weather. Poor pitiful me. Here is where the poor decision making comes in. As I go into the dining room I think, I would be so much more comfortable and warm if I just did this morning's study in bed, under the warm covers.........right. I was obviously thinking very clearly. I grab my study material off the dining room table and pad back into the bedroom right back under the covers. I settle back under the covers and flip through the book to remind myself what I learned the day before and to evaluation how I applied that lesson during the day yesterday. Next on the schedule is to pray and ask God to open my heart and let the scripture speak to me as I read. I close my eyes to start my prayer and all I could think about what how warm it was in that bed. Then another thought hits me. The challenge with this Activate! class is to have quiet study time with God 5 out of 7 days. In my fuzzy thoughts I thought this was a stroke of genius. Why hadn't I thought of this last night? I can skip today's study as long as I get up and do it on Saturday. So, I reset my alarm clock and went right back to sleep with my Bible and Activate! book in the bed with me.

This is where everything went wrong. I had the worst day! Everything I touched broke. Every patient I saw was grumpy. I thought God was punishing me for not doing my Bible study that morning. Throughout the day I tried to pray and recenter myself. I was asking God why getting up was so hard that morning and why my day was going so terrible. During the day God revealed 2 things to me. The first was when I was struggling about why it was so hard for me to get up and complete the Bible study like I normally would. As I was praying and meditating, I asked, "Why didn't you help me this morning when I needed it?" God very plainly spoke to my heart and said, "You didn't ask." This took me back a step and I recalled back to the morning and what all had happened and I realized, that not one time when I was struggling to get up this morning or making the decision to do my Bible study in bed did I ask God to help me get up and stay awake. All I did was focus on the reasons that I should be able to go back to bed. The second thing he said to me is what are you applying today. What concept are you thinking about and how are you using that concept to be a better Christian today. I realized that I wasn't doing anything to strengthen my Christianity or to be a light to other people that day. I was so focused on how everything was going wrong for me that I forgot to think about all the things that were great. I lived for another day. I had great friends and family to be thankful for. I can see, taste, smell, hear which are things that some of my patients can't do. I had to stop and just thank God for all the things that were great in my life.

Good reminders this week.

1. We can't blame God for not giving us what we need when we do not ask for it. It doesn't matter how small you think the need is, you can still ask God to help you.

2. Do not take anything for granted. We are blessed a thousand times over compared to the majority of the population yet we find less joy in the little things.

3. What are we doing everyday of our lives to be different, to show people we are different and to draw closer to Christ. When you are applying lessons or sermons or scripture to your life it not only impacts others but it impacts you and your perceptions.

Memorization

During each of our Activate! daily readings, we are given memorization verses for the day. Since I started the class, the memorization hasn't been my strong point. You would think after acing grad school this wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately, since graduating I think my brain has started refusing to convert anything into my long term memory. But never fear, I have come up with plan. Throughout the day I am going to randomly twitter my memory verse for the world to see. Hopefully, after a couple, well maybe, a few tries I will help force my brain to work again.

If any of you have good memorization methods/strategies please share.

The Hurry Sickness

My Activate! class this week was based on the the "Hurry Sickness." Most people I know are affected by this underlying need to accomplish things from their long term goals to everyday tasks as quickly as possible. I will be the first person to admit that this fits my personality to a tee. I love schedules. I love having my day planned out. I love carrying around my day planner. I get excited each time my computer syncs my Google calendar with my Desktop calendar. The problem is when one of the events on my calendar goes over the time that I have given it, I give into this hurry sickness. I'm panicked and stressed out that I am not on schedule and everything I think should be completed isn't going to be completed in the amount of time that I think it should be done. This has the capability to turn into complete madness. As I look back, I can count a thousand other situations where I have focused so much on getting through in a timely manner that I have missed the joy in the situations. One good example I can think of is college and grad school. Did I really grab hold of my college experience, take time to enjoy it and not feel the need to rush through? Absolutely not. I took as many courses as I could take each semester (one semester I had to get approval of the dean to take over the max of 24 hours). The time I wasn't in class I thought I had to be involved with something else. Work, church, family stuff, volunteering, shopping just to name a few. I look back on that time in my life and I remember very little down time. One thing that I have learned over the past year or so is that I need some solitude time. Apparently it took God moving me 10 hours away from everything I know to make me realize that, but I finally understood that I need to slow down and give God some of the schedule (other than scheduled services) that I was keeping so full. The main problem I was having is that I thought everything had to be completed according to my timeline not God's.

A great example used in class today was the story of when Jesus came to visit Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42). Martha was so worried about the setting and the food and making everything perfect for the Lord that she didn't take time to focus on just being with Jesus like her sister. This reminded me of something our pastor described in the morning service. He talked about the 2 parts of ourselves, the inner self and the outer self. The inner self is our soul, conscious and our relationship with God. The outer self is focused on beauty, perfection and physical belongings. In this story Martha was very focused on the outer self where her sister Mary was focused on her inner self, being her relationship with God. We all, myself first and foremost, need to focus more on our inner self and stop being preoccupied with our outer selves.

As class was ending today and I was gathering my belongings, I was thinking to myself: "Self, this week we are going to be patient and not focus so much on a schedule and just let the Lord lead us according to his timeline." I was very confident that I could achieve that goal for the week. Well......that lasted approx 10 minutes. After church I got in my car, got on the highway and stopped at a red light. It wasn't until the light turned green that I noticed that I was behind a transfer truck. As the truck slowly started turning his gears in effort to accelerate, I noticed that 4 cars in the next lane had already blown through the green light. Just as I said out loud "You have got to be kidding me," in response to the slow moving truck and my rush to get home (for no reason in particular), God just reminded me that I needed to slow down and not be so concerned with my timeline and just let him be in control. Just to help myself learn patience, I stayed behind that slow transfer truck for the next 10 miles, even though I had ample opportunity to switch lanes and blow right past him. Hopefully, this taught me a lesson.

This week try to remember that we are living on God's time not our own. Let him guide your schedules this week.

OSU football

Since I moved to Columbus, all I have heard is about how crazy everyone is about Buckeye football and "just wait...it gets crazy." What most people do not understand is that I am from the south. Like most people who live in Georgia, I partially define myself as a GA Dawg. A weekend long celebration, tailgating, crisp weather, and 90,000+ fans screaming "Gooooo Dawgs. Sick'em woof woof woof." This are things that I am used to.

Although I am a lifelong Georgia fan first and foremost, the ones of you who know me best know that I have always had a place in my heart for the Buckeyes. This secret fanhood started when cheering at my first college football bowl game. Miami vs OSU in the Fiesta Bowl. For some unknown reason I felt a connection with the Buckeyes. Granted it could have been that I was a teenager and the boys were really cute and very nice to us as we watched them practice and talked with them after a practice earlier in the week. Little did I know that 10 years later I would be living in Buckeye country. Now don't get me wrong I think the Big 10 has a long way to go to meet the standards of the SEC, but as far as Big 10 teams are concerned, OSU is the best.

All of this brings me to my newest adventure to share with you. Today I went to my second (but really first as just a fan) OSU football game. I had envisioned madness and crazy fans all over the place and was kind of disappointed. Sure there were a lot of tailgaters and the ever present shirtless, painted band of boys, but I didn't think the fans were anymore loyal or crazy than GA fans. There were a couple of times where I thought wow. . . that takes community. For instance, one of the popular cheers was for the fans to scream out O.. H.. I.. O. Not all together mind you. The south end zone of the stadium was the O. They would stand, give the overhead circle of the arms indicating an O, and scream "O" at the top of their lungs. The visitors side of the stadium were the H. Following in line with the yelling and the H symbol. The north end zone, where I was seated, kept the fun going by being and screaming the I. The buckeye's side of the field finished up the state name with the last O. There wasn't just a few people participating either. The first time the cheer went around. I wasn't ready. I had no idea what was happening. Needless to say I was the only one in the entire stadium (minus the small but loyal Wisconsin fans) that stayed seated. Everyone around me gave the I all they had. You should have seen the looks that I got from those die hard fans. It was like I was from another planet. From that point on I was on my guard and ready for that I like it was my only goal for the day.

We arrived at the stadium early, because that is what everyone says you should do. We found our seats at 60 minutes to kick off. This is what the stands looked like at that time.

Not too full right? We just assumed that every one was still out tailgating. We had plenty of time before the game started so we decided to walk around. Just like any college or professional game there were a lot of shops who had foam fingers, wigs and clothing for sale. There were also carts selling Donato's pizza (a pizza place new to me when I moved, pretty good though if you are ever near one) and AT&T agents. Closer to game time we took our seats. By that time the stands looked like this.

I do have to give snaps to the band and cheerleaders because the pre-game show was very entertaining. Here are some shots of that.

The band marching out

The O formation

The band showing off their timing skills

And how could I forget Brutus. Brutus was the most energy-filled mascot I think I have ever seen. He commanded the stadium and brought the crowd to their feet.

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After the pre-game show the military guys marched out in their perfectly crisp uniforms carrying the folded flag.

Out of all the games I have been attended, I was the most impressed with the way they raised the flag. First they unfolded the flag. . .

Marched it over to the flagpole. . .

attached it to the mechanical pulley....

Then as we belted the national anthem the flag rose up and took it's place high in the stadium.

Next was the entrance of the players . I didn't know what was happening at first. All I knew is the decibels doubled in about 1 second. It went from everyday back ground noise at 60 dB to the threshold of human pain at 120 dB. At that point, I saw the OHIO flags waving and the running of the players onto the field. I was also thinking to myself that Dr. O'Rourke at GSU would be scolding me for not bringing ear protection.

Then the game started. The first quarter wasn't so interesting. The game was slow and there were a lot of turnovers. That first quarter I just stopped to take in sights, the cheers and the overwhelming amount of pride that this crowd had for their team. Quarters 2-4 were more exciting. The teams actually started to score. Other highlights included being seated in front of the cheerleaders...

Brutus crowd surfing....

and the band coming into the stands to play about 3 feet away from me... (again...ear protection needed)

Overall I had a great day. It was a fabulous experience and I am thankful that I had the chance to go.

Week one complete

I am proud to announce that my goal this week of 5 days of consistent quiet and study time with God each morning has been accomplished. Not everyday was easy, but through prayer I was encouraged to get myself up when the alarm clock went off and devote the first 30 minutes of my day to God. I would like to thank the ones of you who called or sent me emails of encouragement. The quick prayers that you sent up and the emails kept me motivated.

One thing that I noted earlier in the week was a weakness in sharing my faith. I focused on that during my prayer time this week. I am happy to say that God provided me with 3 different opportunities to talk with co-workers about Jesus. I will not say that I did a fantastic job of thoroughly getting my point across, but I do believe that a seed has been planted in those people. A couple of Sunday's ago my pastor made the comment that you should always plow the ground, you sometimes plant a seed, and eventually you will reap the harvest. I thought this was a great analogy for my week. Everyday I do the best I can to lead a Christan life and to show others that I am different. This week I had a few opportunities to plant some seeds. Even though I may or may not ever see those specific seeds being harvested, I know I have done my part to plant the seeds and I will have faith that those seeds will eventually be harvested.

Our lessons over the past week were based not only on your relationship with God, but your relationships with other believers and your involvement in ministry. One specific focus was defining your spiritual gifts. This was hard for me. I definitely can say that communication is one of my spiritual gifts. I love any type of outreach where I can be involved with people, but does that count as a spiritual gift? I'm not sure. I pray that throughout the next week God will really open my eyes to what spiritual gifts I possess and may not be aware of. I do feel that God has something special planned for me, but I need his guidance in figuring out what it is. My prayer request to you this week is that you keep me in your prayers and pray that God will help me find my spiritual gift to lead others to him. My challenge to you this week is that you will look at yourself and define what your spiritual gifts are then use those to help others. Let me know how it goes.

So far so good...

To give you an update on my progress, so far I am 2 for 2. As soon as my alarm went off Monday morning, I jumped right out of bed wide awake and went to the dining room where I had my bible and study materials out and ready. I poured myself a big glass of orange juice and started my morning time with a quick prayer to prepare my heart for change.

This morning I was not quite as bright eyed and bushy tailed. I must have been a little anxious about getting up on time today, because I woke up pretty much every hour last night to check the clock and make sure I hadn't overslept. When the alarm finally did go off, I honestly wanted to shut it off and go back to sleep. Instead, I asked the Lord to help me wake up and help me get through the day. By the time I made it into the dining room I was awake and ready to grow.

I have noticed that, thus far, my days have seemed a little more cheerful and a little less stressed. I am positive that is a direct result of my 2 days of accomplishments. There is so much more to say about what I am learning and reading about, but I have to get to bed tonight so I can be up and awake for my appointment with God tomorrow.

Activate!

As some of you may know I started a new bible study this week called Activate. This class is something that I have been looking forward to over the past couple of weeks and something that I think will greatly benefit me. The class is focused on making your relationship with God more personal, being able to pray more effectively and becoming comfortable with sharing your faith with nonbelievers. After the foundation (introduction) section of the book, the author gives you the honor of doing a self-evaluation. I know that everyone loves to honestly evaluate and critique where they are and to identify their weaknesses, right? I don't really love the word weaknesses. It seems a little negative. Let's use "areas of growth" instead. During my evaluation time, I realized that sharing my faith with others is a big area of growth for me. Thinking back on my almost 9 months in Ohio (geez, has it really been that long), I have only straight forwardly invited 3 people to church. To me, that is kind of sad. I see a lot of people on a daily basis. What is holding me back from sharing my faith with those people. Is part of it rules about appropriate behavior in the workplace? Absolutely, but that is an entirely different post.

Now that my self-evaluation is completed, I move on to the challenge of the first week. This week's challenge is to set aside a specific time (preferably in the mornings) to complete your reading and quiet time with God. Our leader in this class urged us to find an accountability partner. This person is someone you can check in with who will hold you accountable for your challenges. Hello accountability partners! Given that in the past I have tried similar things on my own and due to the lack of will power have not been consistent, I am now making myself accountable to the blogosphere and anyone interested enough to read this blog. I have chosen to do this for a couple of reasons: (1) I will feel pressure to complete all of my quiet times because I plan to update the blog everyday with my outstanding consistency and (2) this is one step I can take to share my faith with others. Granted only my family and some close friends read this blog, but I am making a stand and will try to befriend and invite nonbelievers to the blog.

My prayer for this week is that God will provide the opportunity to share my faith with someone and help me be faithful in my daily devotion time. I would greatly appreciate any prayers that you guys could get up for me.

If anyone is interested in completing the series with me or at another time, thus far I highly recommend the book. The title is Survival Kit: 5 Keys to Effective Spiritual Growth. It can be purchased at Lifeway Christian bookstores or at Amazon for under $10.

As soon as I spell check and click publish, I will be setting my alarm clock for 5:45 so I can do my quiet time in the morning. I will let you know how it goes. Good night!

Brittany