:: In.a.Mirror.Dimly ::

It’s been a solid two weeks since I’ve even thought about posting to my blog at the start of some much-needed time off. It seems I may not even remember how to use Twitter or Facebook.

What is it the Twitter anyway? Is it like e-mail on the interwebs?

My time off has been both helpful and strange in personal and professional areas. While some ideas have had time to form a bit more, I feel like this break has, in some ways, led to a series of setbacks that I’ve only been recovering from in the past few days. Actually, it’s better to say that some junk got stirred up in my life. In fact, it was always there, and I needed to deal with it.

However it all happened, here are a few thoughts from my break, especially from the end of it:

Scripture Breathes Life

When vacation comes my typical schedule goes out the window, but this time I didn’t work very hard to keep myself in the scripture each day. BIG MISTAKE. It’s frightening to see the difference when God isn’t using the words of scripture to guide, convict, and shape my life. Christianity stands and falls on the power of God, but in living day to day the words of scripture are an indispensable tool.

Focus, Dang it!

My head is spinning with ideas. I’m at a place in my life where I’m still trying to figure out the best way to pursue my goals. I don’t have the balance down yet, I’m investing too much in peripheral projects, and I’m tangling myself up in stuff that isn’t my bread and butter. Over the following month I’ll need to get better at focusing on what’s most important and hammering on that (writing books, blogging, and speaking), while leaving the right amount of time for secondary but important things (writing for magazines, writing ebooks, and networking).

That means I’m cutting back on book reviews and perhaps I won’t even call what I do a review. Perhaps a reflection or reaction to a book instead. I don’t have time to do a real review, and to be honest, I don’t think there’s a lot of value in lots of bloggers rehashing all of the same material in a book.

Jesus Doesn’t Act on Our Terms

Am I the only one who keeps finding out that Jesus is quite different than I expected? Jesus doesn’t need our lousy stuff to bring his Kingdom, he serves from the bottom up, and his way to the cross is riddled with uncertainties. I’m hitting on some of the uncertainties right now, as well as trying to figure out if I should take some steps that I find intimidating. Well, Jesus never said taking up one’s cross would be easy…

Walk with the Spirit

At a church meeting this past weekend a number of folks talked about walking with the Holy Spirit side-by-side, turning where he (or she) turns and stopping when he (or she) stops. It’s like Paul said that we should keep in step with the Spirit. That image has been helpful for me. One friend of mine tells me he begins every day by asking, “What do you want me to do.” I feel like every day I don’t ask that question doesn’t compare with the ones when I do.

Come to think of it, I think I’ll pray that right now.