character

this week at our new denver men's bible study we talked about character.  what does it mean to be a man of character (or a woman)?  we tossed around some ideas of what we thought it meant to be a man of character.

you know:

• honesty
• courage
• doing what is right when no one's watching
• love
• patience 
• surrounding yourself with other people of high character (though this was debated for awhile)
• keeping your word (let your yes be yes and your no be no)

photo via

we spent some time talking about other men of character.  like, who from the bible had upright character.  interestingly enough, most men we look to, outside of jesus, had some major flaw in their character.  they weren't perfect.  just like you and me.  i'm not sure about you, but that gives me some hope!! 

it's funny though.  it wasn't until the end of our group that we recognized we missed one really big trait of character.  servanthood.  jesus modeled that one pretty well for us, right?  why do we forget that?  is it that it shows weakness to serve others?  is it that we're too me focused?  or is it that it's just too hard?  

who can we choose to serve this week?  because, as humans, often times serving is a choice.  if we stripped away all the niceness of ourselves it goes something like this: "i love the idea of serving...but only if it's super convenient to me.  only if it's easy.  only if it fits into my schedule."  

i'm just gonna throw this out there: working on our character, trying to be more like christ isn't easy, it's not convenient, it's not easy.  apart from a miracle, which is possible, it's a choice. 

take a look around your life.  where can you step in to opportunities to serve?  to model what jesus modeled so well for us...will you consider making the choice to serve?   

much love.  

social media fast

for a little bit now, a few friends and i have been "choosing" to be present when with each other.  in other words, we choose to not text, tweet, update, draw, or whatever else you do on a smart phone when we're in each other's company.  we're trying our best to be present and have real and meaningful conversations/relationships.

sometimes we're good at it.  other times we're not.  but we're good at reminding each other.  haha.

friday night, a bunch of us from new denver church were hanging out after our softball games.  one of our pastors, norton, was hanging with us and the topic of twitter came up.  norton, who has intentionally stayed off of twitter/facebook and rocks a text/call only cellphone, challenged us.  he challenged us to give up social media for a month.  there was a lotta push back.  you know, we jokingly called him an "old crotchety man," "old school," or stuck in the "dinosaur ages."  i jokingly joined in on the push back.

photo credit: gethiredfast.com

to my surprise, norton affirmed that social media is good, that there are benefits from it...to a certain extent.  but he also made the letgimate point that we're not as intentional with our relationships now that we have social media.

like i said, at first i kinda pushed back.  but as he was saying it, i realized i resonated with him.  i realized that it's a lot easier to shoot a text, update, tweet rather then pick up the phone and call someone or to sit down with them over coffee, lunch, whatever.

so, i decided to give it a go.  a month without twitter, facebook, instagram.  i mean it's not a big deal. but it kind of is.

here's what i felt as i decided to give it up:
-relief.  weird, but i felt relieved that i didn't always have to be checking/updating/tweeting/liking, etc.
-worry.  admittedly, i've worried that i'll "miss out" on something or that i won't be "in the know."

i'm 24 hours in to the "fast" so it's too soon to make any solid analysis of it.  that said, i'm kind of embarrassed to admit that i've definitely, out of habit/routine, pulled my phone out to check some piece of social media on several occasions.  and while working on my computer, i've definitely typed "f-a-c-e-b-o-o-k" in my browser bar a few times.  it's habit.  weird.

soooo...now that i'll gain at least an hour a day...who want's to be intentional with me?  ;)

much love.

(and the jury is still out on whether or not blogging is social media.  writing/blogging is an "outlet" for me so i will do it from time to time, just not "obsess" over comments, stats, etc.)