Hello all! I now it’s been awhile. I am still working out the “kinks” in my plan to blog more frequently and so far it’s not working too well. Rest assured I am trying so bare with me. That said, I must admit I have been feeling a bit “down” lately. My Dad likes to refer to these moments as the “Blue Funk”. After talking with friends and family and doing some self reflection, I can pin it down to couple of primary factors:

**I Spend Way Too Much Time Worried About Politics

I am a political junky…I’ll admit it. The main reason is because I’m not an idiot and I can clearly see the direction our country is headed. Our government is dysfunctional, our society is at odds with itself, and America is slipping further and further into a darkness that seems almost impossible to come out of. Because of what I see before me, I tend to read and listen to a lot of political stuff in order to test the premise that I might be crazy and that it’s all in my head…well it’s not.

I have come to the conclusion that I spend far too much time “worrying” about what is going on and not enough time doing something about it. I don’t want to take the time to develop this entire thought here, but I know that worrying gets me nowhere and I need to start doing something about it. About the only thing I can think of to do is to write about it and I recently discovered that I have a freaking fulling functional blog…on the internet…that people can read! Go figure. So, that’s what I am going to do…start using this awesome thing that I keep telling everyone I’m going to use (I know, “We’ve heard that before, believe it when I see it…”) so stay tuned.

 

I Spend Way Too Little Time Connecting With God

This is a huge one, especially since I proclaim myself a Christ-follower (or Christian if you prefer but Christ-follower is more to the point…) My faith calls on me to not just believe in Jesus and proclaim the good news (Gospel) of His story but to live a life that reflects that belief. Now I am not going to jam my “religious” views down anyone’s throat, I believe what I believe and you are free to believe what you want to…that’s called tolerance, by the way. I just hope that most of you out there will be kind enough to not ridicule or punish me for my beliefs and I will do the same for you…OK? (of course if you’d like to know the fullness of my faith, feel free to comment below and I’d be happy to discuss) Anyway, part of my faith demands that I spend time with God. My spirit desperately wants to spend time with God but my human nature is always filling that time with “more important” things. Of course, there is NOTHING more important than God but the “natural” part of my seems to think the exact opposite.

I have tried praying silently, praying out loud, journaling and I just find I get so distracted and lose focus. I already make it a point to read scripture every morning. Right now I’m reading through Psalms, but I feel there needs to be more. So, I have decided to embark on a new quest in journaling. This time, I am simply going to write letters to God. Actually, I am thinking of creating an email account and “emailing” God every day. I know, it may sound incredibly corny and nuts to you but if it gets me talking to God again on a more frequent basis that’s all that matters. I am an IT guy that has an affinity for computers ya know…

So What’s It All Mean?

If you were paying attention, you’ll noticed that I italicized a couple of words: Worried and Connecting. What’s that all about? Well, I have concluded that the less time I spend connectingwith God the more time I spend worried. Now following a simple train of logic, then the more time I spend connecting with God the less time I’ll spend worried about politics (or anything else for that matter). So, for me, the answer is this: Get connected with God, change what I can and accept what I can’t. Sounds an awful lot like the famous Serenity Prayer, so I leave you tonight with the full text of this great prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr: