A Year In Review

This year, I have begun to learn a lot about idolatry. God has been showing me that I have placed a much higher priority on THINGS than I have placed on Him. I continue to do so. I am getting better. I see that 2007 is going to be a wonderful time of refocusing and revitalizing my Christian life as I continue casting off these idols in my life and begin renewing my dedication to growth in Christ.

Some of the key areas of growth have been in my:

FINANCES
This has been the most noticeable area of change in my life this year. God has allowed me to learn how to manage my money and live on a budget. I am learning still, but it is an awesome ride. He has allowed me to be able to begin supporting the missions efforts of my church fellowship as well as sending money to a couple of other organizations on a monthly basis to support the ministry of the Gospel here in Texas as well as overseas. I recently received a letter from one of the missionaries whom I personally support in India telling how he has been passing out tracts, books, and New Testaments to some who violently oppose the work of Christians and his ministry. This is something I never would have been able to share in if I had not learned how to manage my money.

I am planning on opening a video production/website design business this spring. Money will go toward paying down debt, car maintenance, giving to God, and minimal business expenses.

SPIRITUALITY
In the area of spirituality, I have not seen as much growth over the past year as I would like to have seen. I did some fasting. I did set aside some things that needed to go. I have begun to focus much more on the way that THINGS get in the way of my fellowship with the Lord. It is good to see those things beginning to come to light. The trouble is that I haven't seemed to get rid of them as quickly or effectively as I would have liked to. One huge thing that has happened that is a tremendously positive step is that I got rid of my internet for four months from July through October. Send me a message to learn more about specifically why I would have done this. This helped me to be able to refocus more on priorities and helped to pry away my computer-dependence that I have allowed to establish itself in my life. I got internet access back in November, but now I have two internet filtering programs to help keep me safe from myself. If you do not have content filtering software on your computer, you are playing with fire. Send me a message to learn more and get recommendations.



RELATIONSHIPS
The longer I live in a hispanic-dominant culture, the longer I realize that people are more important than schedules. God has thoroughly transformed my social interaction abilities and skills over the past three years. Those who knew me then would have a tremendously difficult time believing that I am the way that I am now. It is all an answer to prayer. This year, I have continued deepening those friendships that I have here. It is awesome to see how God has brought about this change. Truly awesome.

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
In April, I became the treasurer of a local Christian organization. We run an interdenominational Christian teen center that is open one night each weekend. I wrote a letter to the editor of our local newspaper about the high school band. As I have now personally been the band director for over 450 students here, I also am beginning to be more recognized as I go in public. It happens even more immediately after I go to visit the various elementary campuses here. Kids just kind of look at me. It's kind of eerie sometimes.

I am making friends with more of the band parents and am beginning to incorporate myself more into the community. I am very heavily involved in my church. I run the media ministry, I play keyboards in the worship team, I open the services up from time to time. I taught a Bible study in the mornings last fall and early this spring. I am working on an advertisement for the church fellowship to play on the local television stations.

PERSONAL GROWTH
The personal growth that I have experienced this year has been broad in its impact. I am coming to a point where my focus is MUCH less on me and my pleasure, and I am focusing far more on others -- especially on mission outreaches.

As a teacher, I feel like I have learned a great deal more about running a band program. I have been graciously allowed to have another band director to work full time teaching beginning band with me. This allows me to teach him more about the job as well as it alleviates a lot of the time-constraints that I have had in the past because of administrative work. I also got the classes sorted into like-instruments and I have really been able to learn a lot about teaching the individual instruments much more. All in all, this school year is the most fun year of teaching I have ever had.

I have come to the realization that reading nonfiction books is vital to my continued growth and success in life. Since June, I have read about a half dozen of them, and I anticipate increasing the amount of time that I spend reading in the spring.

Speaking of which, this spring will be one of casting off shackles and old habits that keep me from being closer to Jesus. It's a regular clearance sale: everything mst go. Very few things that I do in my personal time are beneficial and so many of them need to be greatly reduced or eliminated entirely. I have been bingeing for far too long, now it is time to purge.

HEALTH
I have come to the realization that no amount of money that I save in order to get out of debt is worth sacrificing my health. I spend more money on food now than I did for a while, but it is not spent eating out nearly as much as it is on fresh vegetables and soups and other kinds of healthier foods. I walk my dog nearly every morning for about 20 minutes also. This is one area in which I have struggled for years, and it an area wherein I will see tremendous progress in the coming year. Ask me about it and keep me on track.

Re-evaluation

Wow, what a difference a month and a half can make! I just reread my last entry and quite a few things have changed. The most obvious for me is that I have decided to get internet access at home again. I downloaded the American Family Filter from bSafe online to keep me from spending too much time online and to keep me from getting to websites I don't need to get to.

Another major shift is in my attitude toward mission work. I wrote that I wanted to go overseas. That was before I read K.P. Yohannan's book, "Revolution in World Missions." In the book, he writes about the native missionary movement in India and around the world. I had no idea how much more effectively money can be spent by native missionaries - people who are accustomed to living in the same miserable condition as those to whom they are ministering.

Whereas I would love to go overseas sometime, I would much rather send $1,000 to Gospel For Asia or Voice of the Martyrs to have them equip a missionary or missionaries to evangelize for months at a time. A two week short-term mission trip can run into multiple thousands of dollars and is over when it's over. Sending a native missionary to Bible college for the same price or less can have literally many hundreds of times the results.

The most awesome thing about Dave Ramsey's plan is that I now have money that I can send to missions agencies and really begin to use God's resources correctly.

The Blessings of Obedience

I am amazed by how easy it has been for me to completely get rid of my home Internet access. Just as with most things that we do, the challenge lies not in doing it, but the challenge lies in beginning to do it. As strange as this may sound, it seems more frightening that it has been. There have been a few minor adjustments, though.

I have to pay bills with checks in the mail rather than online. I have to wait until I get my bank statement before I can reconcile the accounts. I have to find new ways to fill my free time; things such as cleaning, spending time with friends, listening to sermons, doing my job more effectively, walking my dog, and other things that normal people do (or at least things most people did much more often ten years ago).

Technology is both a blessing and a curse. I love being able to take my notebook up somewhere with wireless internet, and catch up with friends from home or friends who have moved away from here. It takes me usually about 30 minutes a few times a week to do all of that. I now struggle to remember how I spent entire days online in the past. And yet I have been known to do just that more than a few times. Perhaps it is just a problem that I have.

On the other hand, I am excited to see financial matters beginning to shape up. I had two wisdom teeth removed a couple of weeks ago and will have some other dental work done in a couple more weeks. I will be able to pay for it all (over $1,000) with little difficulty. It slightly delays paying off my credit cards, but it is something I've needed to have done for nearly 5
years.

Finally, I seriously want to go overseas this summer to do short-term mission work. A friend of mine went to Equatorial Guinea this summer to evangelize and help build some there with some missionaries that our church supports. If he goes back next year, I want to be able to go with him. Getting my finances in order will be a great way to be able to comfortably do that also. When I decide to do it, I will begin seeking financial assistance from friends. If you read this, feel free to pray for direction with that whole thing also.

Philosophizing

More Dave Ramsey

I will be taking no more vacations until I am out of debt.  The one possible exception will be family Christmas gatherings.  I turned down an invitation to go to lunch after church today because “it’s not in my budget.”  I came home and ate a sandwich and frozen dinner.  It felt good!  I have been listening to Dave Ramsey podcasts this weekend.  I’m getting pumped up again.  Great stuff.

Yesterday, I went into Quicken and put in realistic numbers and it looks like I will be able to have my $1,000 baby emergency fund set up on the 15th of this month.  It will be incredibly tight, but it should happen.  After that, it looks like I will get around $2,000 of credit cards paid off by the end of the year.  That will leave me with two credit cards totaling around $8,000 and a student loan and other loans adding up to around $12,000.  So that means that I am well on my way to get completely debt free by the summer of 2008.  That is ridiculously exciting.  More realistically, I am anticipating my net income going up between $100 and $200 a month very shortly after I get a raise and get rid of my cash value life insurance.  That could put me out of debt by the end of 2007.  I think that may be my new goal.  It will be hard.

Seven Habits

Stephen Covey’s Habit 2 is “Begin with the End in Mind.”  In this situation, that means that looking at the goal of being DEBT FREE is what guides my financial decisions.  Similarly, looking at the goal of being HEALTHY is beginning to guide my culinary decisions.

Hypocrisy

Hypocrisy

I know I am probably far behind everyone else on this.  I have just realized something.  Hypocrisy is not exclusively saying one thing while planning to do another thing entirely.  That is hypocrisy, but so is saying something, planning to do that same thing, and yet for whatever reasons doing something quite the opposite.

Specifically, the first instance would more accurately be called duplicity and the second instance could be called insincerity.  But they are simply the two natures of hypocrisy.  From one standpoint, duplicity is the most harmful because it is done intentionally by one person to another.  On the other hand, for the person who is unintentionally insincere, the insincerity can be quite deceptive.

Consider weight loss.  How many people proclaim that they are “turning over a new leaf” or embarking on a plan to lose X number of pounds only to gain X number of pounds instead or at best maintain the same weight?  How many people begin an exercise plan and do nothing to follow through.  Personally, the answer to both of those questions would be innumerable.

So I come to discover that I am hypocritical in far more areas than I had previously realized.  God help me!

Comprehensive Change Continues

As I begin to get my financial house in order, I have noticed some major inconsistencies in my life. I work very hard at my job. I do an exceptional job and produce very good results. But in my personal life, discipline is missing in a number of areas. Understanding that deficiency is a good beginning. Now the time is coming for me to get control over these areas one at a time.

Target Practice

A few weeks ago, I went to a friend's house and he got out a couple of rifles. We went out back and crossed a property line so that it was legal, and began shooting up a storm. I envision the same thing happening as I undergo dramatic, cataclysmic transformation in my life. This is far more comprehensive than any change cycle I have ever attempted before, and the change here is coming from the inside out. Stephen Covey refers to a need for paradigm shifts to come from the inside out, rather than from the outside in. Most of the attempts I have done before have been externally motivated to one degree or another. This is different.

Evidence

The proof is in the way that I feel now compared to the way that I have felt before when I have tried these kinds of things. I am clearly in control. Before, it has merely been a "well, let's give this a try" kind of feeling. Here, it is fundamentally different. There is no question in my mind that the motivation is there. I simply need to correlate some of these other issues into the intrinsic drive that is under way in getting out of debt.

Essentially, I don't want to wake up in a year and be struggling with the same junk that I have been struggling with for years. I don't want to wake up in a year and still be completely out of shape, overweight, financially controlled by debt, spiritually controlled by my flesh, and living a life of occasional victory, occasional failure, and constant fear. Perhaps this is an oversimplification of my condition, but black and white works best for me. I have begun working on the finances, now I must begin working on the health.

Because a rich person who has spent all his time acquiring wealth at the expense of his health would give all he had to regain the health that he lost. I am tired of being afraid to look at pictures of myself. I am tired of avoiding certain stores because of the number of mirrors they have in them. I have a handful of health problems that contribute to poor breathing. Asthma, a lung that collapsed 9 years ago, the other lung that had a tumor pressing against it, etc. Being overweight and out of shape merely add to the problems, and I am tired of all that junk. My heart is tired, too. If I were to lose a single pound a week for the next year, I will weigh 50 pounds less at the beginning of July, 2007. Very conservative plan.

Patience

I am extraordinarily competetive in a lot of what I do. And yet, God has been teaching me over the last three or four years that patience is definitely a valid character trait that I have so oft neglected. The tortoise beats the hare. Dave Ramsey says that "the best way to get rich quick is to get rich slowly." The best way to lose weight fast is to lose weight slowly. Methodical and consistent always beats out flash in the pan. Our microwave culture wants the quick fix. It frustrates us if the cable company gives us a two hour window in which to install the cable. We are a sad lot, aren't we?

Vacation

"No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance." -- Atwood H. Townsend

I have recently come to the realize that success depends on knowledge. Knowledge comes from a handful of places. The key storehouses of knowledge are found through experience, trial and error, and reading. Obviously, the quickest and least frustrating of the three is simply reading.

Rewind

I have never been a prolific reader of books. In school, I don't remember fully reading as assigned book after I finished seventh grade. There are lots of good fiction books that I wish I would have taken the time to read, but I never really like people telling me what to do without telling me why to do it, and I was always able to figure out a way to pass without doing the assigned readings. Perhaps I would be more cultured if I would have spent that resourcefulness rather doing what was asked of me!

Christ Enters

When I tasted of conversion and began to truly live for God back in 2000, I began to read the Bible a lot more than I ever had before. I also began reading Christian nonfiction books. In fact, at that time, I read some of the Left Behind fiction books. I liked learning what I learned in the nonfiction stuff. Since that time, I have collected quite an array of the so-called Christian Living books. I also have a handful of biographies. I have experienced times when I've read and times when I've not read. Up to that point, I had never really had a desire to go out and read books. I really hadn't read many magazines or newspapers either. I simply didn't read. Not for school, not for entertainment, not for learning, not for nothing.

Summer Precipitates Change

I have lately started quite a few books, but very often do not finish them. In June, I got a copy of Dave Ramsey's latest book, The Total Money Makeover. I read it in less than a week. I also have been finding quotes from some of the people that he references and they seem to be very high on reading. So I've looked into it more. In that same month, I borrowed a copy of his book Financial Peace and read it, too, within a week. I went to a discount book store the other day and bought copies of about four or five books. I have completed two more books this week. Maybe one day I'll get a bookshelf to hold all of them in instead of filling an empty closet with them.

FREEDOM

I am sitting at a table outside of a hotel down the street from my home. I kicked the cable company out of my home. It is one of the best feelings I have had in a while. In fact, I feel so much more in control now than I have in years regarding my personal life.

For some people, having an internet connection at home is not a problem in the least bit, and it provides little to no temptation. For me, this is not the case. I did some work on my car's engine today, I have been playing with my dog a lot more lately, and I went tubing in a river yesterday. These are things that having the comforts of cable and internet do not encourage me to do. I know it all sounds pretty pathetic, and honestly, it is. But now I am exercising freedom and power and control over these things. I am focused more on God. It will be an incredible journey. At least a year, and we'll see what happens after that. Freedom is an incredible thing. My personal Independence Day is June 30th. Praise God.