At this juncture five weeks means something… it’s much too long a time.

A recurring theme in my devotions and meditations for the week has been the idea of whole-heartedness and zeal when it comes to the Lord. In fact the theme that I seem to be dealing with can be applied to any area of life.

My mother and I used to remark often on the main reason that diets are so hard - consistency. It is easy to work up this fiery energy to commit to something but the difficult part comes in the uselessness of committing part time. You can be self-controlled and be passionate about that diet for 23 hours a day 7 days a week but if you blow it just that one hour every day you are wasting your time and energy.

Likewise God is not interested in a part-time commitment or an on again off again relationship with His children. He says that if you are lukewarm He will spit you out of His mouth. It gains us nothing to put in our 3 hours a day and our 2 services a week if the remainder of the time we cast Him aside. How sad that we would even be tempted to do such. Why would we desire to live outside of His presence if  even for a brief moment?

Beyond this, there is no such thing as an ambassador being off the clock - a diplomatic ambassador cannot disregard his purpose even for a moment lest he chance casting a shadow on the country he represents. So it goes with those of us who claim Christ’s blood over our lives. Scripture says that our home is not of this world but that we are ambassadors to the King. How we hold ourselves remains under the scrutiny of all who regard our claim whether inside the confines of the church or out.

Myself included I cannot see wanting to live a ‘half-way’ abundant life, or in ‘part-time’ freedom.

The chips are down..  and I’m all in.

So I have been studying temptation this week and what I believe I have found is this defense method quite similar to our fight or flight intuition. This being said I believe that there are times we must stand firm against and fight temptation. But I think that too often we say this and then allow ourselves to be tempted unnecessarily. There are time that we should flee the temptation before it becomes something that can overtake us.

When Joseph was propsitioned by Potiphors beautiful wife he did not stand firm or reason with her, he fled… One of the sermons I have written is about -the other cloak- the theory of fight or flight…. The deal is that everyone knows about Josephs mulitcolored coat, but how often do people talk about the coat he left behind when he was so desperatly fleeing a temptation at hand.

I think too often we put ourselves in certain situations because we think that God will give us the strength to stand the temptation… but when you walk into it when you don’t make an effort to avoid those things you know will tempt then you may be using the wrong strategy. Fight and flight work togethr on this one.

Teach me, O LORD,

Give me understanding,

Direct my path

Psalm 119 is an incredible passage - a very full passage, and one often quoted. But I am beginning to see it in a light that I had not noticed before. God placed a word on my heart and I have been looking through scriptures since on this idea that though we often seek direction, guidance, or a word from God, we don’t accept what He offers.
We declare with our lips and in prayers that we trust Him and will do anything He asks, yet that which He has already given us to do we ignore.
So often there is a portion of our lives we desire God to move in, and yet that area He is pointing out to us we ignore.
We have our pet sins, our lazy flaws, and our hidden indulgences.
While Psalm 119 speaks of God uplifting us, strengthening, and guiding, it also shows action on our part;”I obey your statutes, for I love them greatly.  I obey your precepts and your statutes, for all my ways are known to you.” I obey, I delight in Your commands, I yield, pursue, follow…God will always uphold his promises…We don’t need to beg for His help and guidance when He so deeply wants us to have it - God gives us Scripture, discernment, and the exhortation of fellow believers in order to guide us… for us to know what we are to do and not do it… is as plain a sin as any other.Is it so very hard for us to realize that we can know what we should be doing simply by what we know today… we don’t have to see a mile ahead because God put’s the light at our feet and He knows where the path will lead.If we walk in His will there is no need to manipulate our own plan.

I am very very very tired at the moment, however, I want to hold myself to this personal commitment. I am going to try once a week to post about something I have been focusing on in my daily devotions.

I invite anyone who reads this to help hold me to this commitment.

Ok.. I feel better now I’m going to bed.

So I have been on this kick with working out. This stuff that my dr. has me on has a side-effect of gaining weight, so… I’ve been working out 5+ times a week. So it has become part of a social thing for me - since I am working out anyway I try to get others to do it with me. I get to spend time hanging out while doing something that needs to be done.

Today, however, I had it all come one after the other. Marybeth and I have been supposed to do an ab workout for the last few days and it keeps getting postponed, I was supposed to meet someone at the gym today, and I had the day off and wanted to do something with the boys. Soo…

today I went to the greenway with Zay, Joshua, and Jonathan - we rollerbladed for three miles - a half hour later I headed to the gym for an hour of group power (a kick butt program at the gym that targets every major muscle group with weight training), when Marybeth got home we did the P90x ab-ripper program, then because I had been talking it up with Jonathan he wanted to do the arm and shoulder set (another hour).

Whew… I feel really good but I have an idea I’ll be a little sore… esp since MJ and I are supposed to be at the gym tomorrow morning for the Sat. group power class.

The thing about rollerblading that was weird is that it was so tough - I can run an hour on the eliptical and be fine but rollerblading KICKED my butt today. I WILL get in shape though

So my last business trip was long and I had to work over the weekend, so…. I took the day off and Marybeth and I went out for some pampering. I had never gotten a professional massage and let me tell you…. wow… amazing. We got an ex-foliating back scrub (called the baby back package) a full body massage, and a chocolate something foot treatment. This was a package for Nature’s Nook that we had found through groupon.com.I would encourage anyone to look into it if you find a similar deal.  At first I was a little wary because of the building’s location and appearance, but once we got inside none of that mattered. They were professional, courteous, and did their best to make us feel pampered. It worked.Other things I did today:Went to the gym, took a nice nap (haven’t had one of those in a while). Got some work done that had been backing up, went to the car show and dinner with Joshua and Dad, and watched a movie.All in all it was a spectacular day!

So I’m still in Chicago - day 6. I have decided that to my surprise I prefer Seattle to Chicago. I’ve had a lot of let downs from what I expected from this city-mostly I’ve just picked the wrong places.

I feel like I’ve really learned a lot at the usability conference this week - http://www.nngroup.com/events/chicago/agenda.html

I feel like such a nerd for enjoying the training sessions so much.

Anyway I’m exhausted and don’t have the mental brain power to write anything worth reading so I’m going to go…

I’m in Seattle again and am at the moment enjoying my first experience with the Cheesecake factory. I think it’s absolutely fantastic! I had never had a shrimp sandwich but it turned out to be really really good - had bacon, shrimp, cheese, and all the trimmings. For dessert I brought back a red velvet layered cheesecake (what I’m eating now).

The weather here has actually been very very pretty which is very un-seattle to my mind, although I spent most of the time in meetings so I didn’t really get to enjoy it.

Tonight I’m going to go see Brian Regan perform so that’s going to really be my fun part of the trip - can’t wait!

Christ declared that He came that we may have life and life more abundantly. Scripture states that we should not live in defeat and that we are to bring every thought into captivity.

Besides the inherent importance placed on these ideas because of their author, these are again instances in which science has affirmed our Lord’s design.

Why, if we are to live abundantly must we bring our thoughts into captivity? Every person experiences what is called ’self-talk’. In most individuals the majority of this chatter when undirected is negative and self-defeating. Although there is a great amount of variance in opinions as to the speed at which this ’self-talk’ takes place most of these numbers fall between 600 and 7,000 words per minute which even at it’s lowest is easily twice the speed of our speech. This means that the majority of what any one person ‘hears’ are those negative thoughts which we allow ourselves.

If we have any choice in the matter of what we think, and I would tend to believe we do, then we are the most influential person in our own lives. Our mindset matters. Scripture declares that He came that we may have life, and have life more abundantly. So I’m speaking out my identity in Him, away with eloquence, I’m plunging in,

So here goes…

I am a child of the King
An heir to His Kingdom
Bought at the highest ransom in history
through this was redeemed,
made righteous
and pure.
I am free from condemnation
and a stranger in this land
the salt of the earth
the light of the world
and His long awaited bride.
I am blessed with all He is,
now perfect in His sight
I am priceless
matchless
and for no other reason than because He loves me.. my identity, my worth, was found that moment he chose me, that he chose death… How can we ever say we’re anything less than exactly who He made us to be, that we are anything less than exactly enough.

We don’t have to prove anything, to shape up, buckle down, do better, be more, He doesn’t want your success, your striving, your vain pursuits, He wants you!
I will not settle for living in myself. I will not settle for life, when I am meant to live life more abundantly.

I refuse to live in mediocrity!

I refuse!

So I was very tired but couldn’t sleep so decided to get on here and write… then I noticed my last post sad. I suppose I need to make time for real posts.

So update… I’m leaving again for Seattle this Wed. I will be in seattle for three days and then will be heading straight to Chicago until the 25th so I’ll be gone 11 days straight… little hard to pack for since everything’s business-wear which is usually a little heavier to pack.

I am very very excited about the Chicago part of the trip. I’m going to a usability training conference. I love to learn and have been gaining a great deal of experience recently. I can now sit down and create the design for and all of the html & css for a site in the span of a few hours with notepad++. I could do it before but the process was laborious and the results shaky although that they may still be. But all of the application interface design I was doing was very new to me. So I’ve held off on the upcoming few projects in that area until after this conference. Hopefully it I will be able to learn a great deal.

Management-wise I still feel new to logistics but am also losing the main person I was working with who actually became a fun friend. I’m sad to see her go, but I’m very excited about her opportunities. So it’s just been hard trying to determine how much of my -everyone has to like me mentality- should be reigned in. I enjoy working with people I get along with. I think work can be ok when you can have fun and conversation. But on the other hand I’ve been told I can’t be the softy… I need to be… not

tired and cannot sleep…

Just got back from my Seattle business trip. Long, long trip there but it was exciting to plan layout our up and coming projects It was very cool to treated as sort of a big shot coming in so that was fun and I got to visit my family out there so that was absolutely fantastic. The dry air was difficult for me just because I’m unaccustomed to it, but the weather was actually nice while we were there.

A fun note - I think I actually may be a little more allergic to squid than I thought… at least I’m thinking that’s what must have happened since it’s the only thing I’m aware I’m allergic to. We went to a sushi place for lunch one day and when we got back into our meetings I started to have a reaction and my throat started to close, yikes!! I politely excused myself from the meeting and tracked down some benedryl then was just a little short on breath for a bit then fine but it was a little shocking.

I’m going to be doing a bit more shopping in the near future, looking forward to that. I’m exhausted for the evening so I will leave you with this picture (taken from my phone really late at night and far away but it’s still pretty

Couldn’t help myself, did a few more tonight.

Today I’m packing for a business trip to Seattle, and I did a fun little mini shoot with my sister. Which means… of course I have to let you preview a few. She’s so beautiful and so much fun!

Ok so yes of course we had to capture this it’s what she wore to get to our location…. it’s so very classic Marybeth…

She’s such an absolutely Gorgeous girl. This next one is my favorite.

Anyway that’s my sister!

Just another day.

So today it was absolutely GORGEOUS outside and I went out to take pictures of my brother’s gorgeous family. These are just the first three as a sample of what we did:(above) we obviously had to do one focusing on the newest member of the family.

(below) This one isn’t really out of focus even downsized and I can’t really figure out why it is showing that way here. But it is a beautiful happy family regardless.Had to show off Amanda’s work a little, she just did Anady’s gorgeous hair!

So I have always been a project oriented person. I can have several projects at once but I’m driven to do them well, to spend a lot of time on them, to constantly tweek and brainstorm… and with my current job that’s hard. Luckily my position is very project driven, however, I have a set schedule, I come in work at it for x number of hours, then leave. While I am more than happy to leave when quitting time rolls around I get wrapped up in the project and don’t always want to let go of the brainstorming and planning etc… I feel like when it’s a more monotonous or same routine job it is easier to walk away, but since my job is about developing about an idea and implementing a design it’s a bit more difficult. Does anyone else have trouble with that? Suggestions?

I want your opinions. Holidays such as Christmas have very obviously been pushed by corporate America to increase sales etc., but I still feel like it is something that holds more meaning to those who choose to remember what it’s about….

Valentines day, however, seems like much more of a marketing thing and when you take that away… really who cares about feb.

14th…right? wrong? thoughts?