Chapter 1 of My Journey, Take Two

Last week I finished reading chapter one, and this past week I took the time to thoughtfully answer each of the end-of-chapter questions and to carefully walk through the challenges. By putting forth the effort regardless of how busy my week was, I believe I set the tone for how serious this journey is for me. It's not just a journey I want to hurry up and be through with, it's a process I want to grow and mature from: spiritually, mentally, emotionally, financially, and physically.

The questions and challenges in Chapter 1 set the foundation for the entire book. Here are a few questions that were thought-provoking to me:

• What is the difference between Balancing Your Blessings and Stewardship?
• What does having order mean to you?
• What does it mean to live a surrendered life?
• What do you want your life to look life after you have completed this book?

here is a snippet of my response to the last question:

"... I want to be a better and do better; I want God to have more control over my everyday life rather than the people around me, my circumstances, or my environment..."

My "Balancing Blessings" Covenant is now a wall paper on my smart phone until I complete the challenge, so more than a few times a day I am reminded of my commitment, once again, to change.

Next Week's Goal: Read Chapter 2 or Step 2, and start chapter questions.

Read more...

Chapter 1 of My Journey

This week I finished Step 1: Getting Geared Up, and after my initial start last week I'm still pretty excited about going through this book once again and "jotting my journey" for all to read. I hope by sharing my journey I will encourage more readers to join me. At the very least I want to inspire someone in cyberspace to change one or two things in their life that would have the most significant and the most positive impact on their day-to-day life.

Speaking of life, what spoke to my heart most in Chapter 1 was on living a surrendered life--"releasing possessions, resources, and oneself to be wholly and completely used to glorify the kingdom of God." Boy has that been hard for me! I'm known for constantly getting in God's way or stepping on God's toes in pursuit of my goals, only to come back to the realization (time after time) that I'm nothing without God and I can do nothing of godly value without God's grace, mercy, and endless support.

Step 1 forced me to revisit areas in my life that I have failed to surrender to God. I had to ask myself: "How can I once again begin that process of daily surrendering myself to God, and how can I be better at surrendering this time, than last time?" Then it dawned on me that surrendering is a daily process of denying myself and taking up my cross daily (Luke 9:23), and asking the Lord each day to give me this day my daily bread (Matthew 6:11)—the strength, the energy, the courage, the means, the passion, etc. so that I might glorify Him daily.

Next Week's Goal: finish Chapter 1 questions.

Read more...

Getting Ahead of Myself

Although this past week's goal was to read chapter 2, which I did. I quickly realized, I was getting ahead of myself. I really needed the time to meditate on what had been said in chapter 1, and then time to completely work through the questions and action steps. I guess I really wanted to be able to check a goal off as being completed in my mind without it being completed in my heart--kinda like cheating on a diet, but the only person I was hurting was myself.

Next Week's Goal: Finish chapter 1 questions and action steps.

Read more...