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Rumination

Live|Dead Worship: Day 5

February 26, 2012
Live|Dead, Rumination

(Sunday, February 26, 2012 as part of our “Follow” series at Riverside Community Church)

Bill Ellis, our lead pastor and speaker for the day said that “worry about tomorrow keeps us from the will of God today.” This is such a  deep struggle for most Christians, wouldn’t you agree?

Jesus didn’t tell us to reduce our stress, anxiety or worry solely for the sake of our health (although it’s important that we honor God with our bodies); He told us to focus on serving and carrying out the will of God today. It’s difficult to carry out God’s will today when we fret about tomorrow.

God’s presence is here now – in the present. And He will show up again tomorrow. He has been faithful to us in the past. He is faithful to us now. And He guarantees us that He will be faithful… always…

Do not worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?

And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?

So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of Godt above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

(Matthew 6:24-34 – New Living Translation)

What do you worry about? What keeps you up at night? Do you have any irrational fears? Are you decreasing your joy, peace, productivity or potential today because of something that may not even take place tomorrow?

The Prayer of Serenity by Reinhold Niebuhr:
God, give me grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things which should be changed,
And the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right, if I surrender to Your will
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.

Live|Dead Worship: Day 4

February 25, 2012
Live|Dead, Rumination

This morning (Saturday Feb 25) we talked about what it means to die to ourselves so that we may abide in Christ. Romans 6:1-12 speaks about what it means to live dead. We identify ourselves in the death and resurrection of Christ… Just as Christ died we also must choose to die- daily as the Apostle Paul said- and as we daily die to ourselves then God will also raise us to life just as He did with His glorious Son.

Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death?

For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God.

So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus. Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires.

Do you see any value to dying to yourself during this season of Lent? What do you expect that dying to look like? I like this quote from The Live|Dead Journal (which you can purchase here) from Day 6 devotion titled “Expectations: What Have I Signed Up For?”

What do you expect dying to self will feel like? Do you think it will be pleasant? Painless? Problem free? What do you expect it to feel like when you live dead? Do you expect people to understand, support you, praise you, clap for you? Do you expect the devil to cheer and every demon in hell to yield to your noble aspirations? Do you expect to be welcomed or affirmed by your peers and understood by your parents? Do you expect people to get in line to support you financially? Do you expect that your plans will be changed, your timing delayed, and your will continually crossed?

Do you expect to surrender once in an air-conditioned church, kneeling on a carpeted altar with a handy box of Kleenex perkily waiting to be plucked … and then from that point on to sail without contrary winds into God’s sheltered will? Or do you expect God to wring the self out of you in a painful and lengthy process using circumstance and shattered expectations – and then surprise you with how good it feels to have His image stamped deeply onto yours.

Wow.

Wow.

Wow.

Let God speak.

The Pomodoro Technique

February 7, 2012
Rumination

I came across this recently.. You may have heard of it already – The Pomodoro Technique? The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method that can be used in any context or for any tasks – but you don’t want to use the method for what you would do in your free time.

I like this because its the opposite of multi-tasking. Multi-tasking is something that creatives have long been bucking against; however, productivity research has made a strong case that multi-tasking is ineffective for most people.

The ticking clock anxiety that you feel especially when a deadline is involved is nothing new. I am taken back to cram sessions in college, laptops on my lap at bedtime, and skipped lunch breaks in my office.

“The aim of the Pomodoro Technique is to use time as a valuable ally in accomplishing what we want to do in the way we want to do it, and to enable us to continually improve the way we work or study.” [pomodorotechnique.com]

I found the following information from a cheat sheet provided by pomodorotechnique.com:

Step 1: Start the Day with a Plan
You need to maintain an Activity Inventory where you list and estimate your tasks. Estimations are expressed in number of pomodoros – more on that in a moment.  (max 7 pomodoros per task)

Each new day you select a number of tasks and write them on your daily To Do Sheet. That’s your commitment for today.

Step 2: Tracking and Executing Pomodoros
Choose a task to complete and start a Pomodoro timer for 25 minutes, then focus on finishing that task. Again, until that timer rings or buzzes… focus on the task! Don’t start other tasks or take interruptions or breaks.

Distractions are the most important thing to avoid if at all possible. Wait to look at the text message, don’t “jump on the Internet to check something out real quick” and you can wait to go to the bathroom!

If you finish the task before the timer rings, continue reviewing the task, and draw a line through the task on your sheet when the Pomodoro rings.

Step 3: Reward Yourself
After you’ve completed a pomodoro – take a 3 to 5 minute break before you begin the next pomodoro. After you’ve completed 4 or 5 pomodoros, then take a longer break such as 15-30 minutes.

Step 4: Recording (for nerds like me)
Recording is about listing your daily observations such as the number of pomodoros that you’ve completed that day. You can also record the number of interruptions, distractions and voided pomodoros.

The Rules:
1. Once a Pomodoro begins, it has to ring or it becomes a VOIDED POMODORO!

2. If a task takes more than 5–7 Pomodoros, break it down.

3. If the task takes less than one pomodoro, add it up, and combine it with another task.

4. The next pomodoro will go better.

So here’s what I’m going to do as I try this system out for myself.. I am going to experiment with a day of pomodoros. Because a lot of what I do is outside of my office and I am not as administrative and glued to my desk as others may be, I will use my administration day as the beta test for this method as it pertains to me.

I will set a goal on my first day of accomplishing 4 pomodoros in the morning and 5 pomodoros in the afternoon.

Does this sound like something that you’d benefit from trying? How will you experiment with this technique as it applies to your work day and productivity?

Life in a Day

January 26, 2012
Relation, Rumination, Salvation

Recently I watched a crowd-sourced documentary film titled “Life in a Day” produced by Scott Free Films and the YouTube video sharing site. This film captured life around the world on a single day – that day being July 24, 2010.

This documentary was the first of its kind because the raw footage was shot by average people across the world and uploaded to the YouTube video sharing site. In all there were over 4,500 hours of footage submitted in 80,000 clips from 192 countries.

Director Kevin Macdonald told The Wall Street Journal that the project was initially conceived as a way to commemorate the fifth birthday of YouTube, and that he wanted to “take the humble YouTube video, … and elevate it into art.”

I would say his mission was a success. The video captures the essence of humanity in a single day. It broadened my perspective – you know, that perspective that we are really bigger and more important than we actually are.

As the film comes to its final “hours” of the day – it appropriately reflects on fears that we as humans collectively share.. The fear of being lonely.. The fear of losing what we hold onto the most.. The fear of sickness and death.. The fear of this short life coming to its closing hour.. The fear that we will not have made a difference in the world, that our existence – as brief as it is – will not be remembered.. The fear that our lives will have been lived in vain.. The fear that there is no God and that when this life is over, nothing will remain..

Director Kevin Macdonald said that the film focused on a single day “because a day is the basic temporal building block of human life—wherever you are.”

We live by the clock and the calendar. It’s a mathematical mechanism – this brief time here on this rock called Earth. With each passing hour and each passing day, our time reserve lessens but our experience and memory tank fills. What does it all count for? What does it all end up as? What will we feel in our closing hours?

I pray that you and I would spend each day, each building block, for a greater purpose.. Not that everyday is special because of something out of the ordinary – but that we would find something special in the everyday ordinary..

If you want to watch it, click here.. http://youtu.be/JaFVr_cJJIY

 

Copyright © 2013 Dave Longstreth. All rights reserved.

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