so spoiled

Tonight on my date night, Brannon and I argued in jest about our favorite Bible translation. I like NLT for readability and NASB for accuracy plus I use Biblegateway online to sort through about a dozen choices to handpick the verses I use in my kids' curriculum. He sticks with ESV for being a nice combo. It struck me how amazingly privileged I am to have such a conversation. God's Holy Written Word at my fingertips in any translation, color, binding, any feature I want.

Right now, at this very moment possibly, my cousin is tediously working with a small team to complete a project to compile what they call the "Forty Stories." This will be the first chance for the Dong people in China to hear God's Word in their own language ever. God is so marvelous and so vast, yet so gracious to speak to us through His Word. I want to live in a way that honors His lovingkindness.

what are your prayer requests?

What are you seeking from God during this fast? What do you hope to hear? Who or what needs a breakthrough? What do you want your relationship with God to look like in 21 days? Or by the end of 2009? Share your thoughts.

what are you fasting from?

I don't know if "fasting from" is really the right terminology, but what are you giving up? What are you planning to go without? What will you be focusing on instead? Share your plan.

the Daniel fast

So I got a group of friends to do a 21-day Daniel fast with me. I'd like to write them a little devo of some kind each day to encourage and inspire them to use the resulting discomfort and or inconvenience to grow closer to God.

For these 21 days, I'm going to ask myself this question before I do anything:
Will this deepen my relationship with God?

Then as far as food goes, I'm going to ask two questions:
Did this grow from a seed? and, Did man pollute or process it?

That's basically my fasting plan. For me, I think the first question (which cuts out TV, movies, secular music, etc.) will be just as hard as the second two. But, for the effectiveness towards my goals of hearing God clearly about some directional questions, I think it will be even more effective than suddenly becoming vegan. But we'll see. My previous fasting record was a 9-day juice fast. By doing that by itself, I didn't notice a very significant spiritual impact.

Anyway, the devos should be cool. I think just writing them will help fill up the void left by the absence of late-night Seinfeld reruns. I'll make them my posts for a few weeks.

down time

I'm trying to take some "down time." Last year I got an email about not taking enough time off so this year I'm attempting to work half days for the last two weeks. In my down time, I've also thrown a big "out of debt" party (completely, no mortgage, no nothing! Woo hoo!), torn out my master bathroom, cleaned my house three times, run an endless list of errands, and last but not least, eaten enough to sustain all of Burkina Faso for a day. That leads to the main purpose of my next few rounds of posts.

One, Burkina Faso. Even know what that is? It sounds like a person or some kind of exotic plant. Actually, it's the poorest of the poor African nations. A few weeks ago, my family chose five beautiful Burkinabe children to sponsor through Compassion International. I think I'll write about them a lot.

Two, the gluttony. I'll be writing about that a lot since I plan to do a 21-day "Daniel Fast." For all of the friends and family that I've coaxed into joining me, I'll probably write some daily fasting devos here.

to blog or not to blog

So many people I know have a blog. Even so, I have managed to maintain a lean 2-a-day blog diet. I read Craig Groeschel's blog Swerve because it's challenging and he's my pastor and I like to hear what God's saying to him in between Sundays. I also read Stuff Christians Like because it's funny and I have become friends with the author so I like to hear what God's saying to him. It's like the dessert after Swerve. So, because I know there's such an enormous glut of blogs to read and I only bother with two, that made my decision not to blog pretty easy. Also, honestly, I think I would get vain if even a few people ever read my blog. And since pride is already in the top three things I struggle to kill off in me (along with the ever-popular patience and oft-overlooked independence), then it seemed safer not to bother.

If you want to know the God's honest truth about why I started this blog, it's because it's late on Chistmas 2008 and I just checked my two fave blogs and realized I had a blogspot link on my name to a blog I forgot that I started in March. That's really just embarrassing. Nice commitment. So, to bury that one, and to turn over a new leaf, here goes another fresh start on blogging for me.