How are you? "Can't Complain."

What's your battle?  One of my continuing, ongoing, life-long battles has to be criticizing/complaining/judging.  All three of those things are facets of the same sin.  Sigh.  It's one of those things that I can't seem to get a handle on once and for all.

Maybe I need to draw a public line in the sand.  That seems pretty scary to me.  This idea came to me after reading a book by Phil Callaway called To Be Perfectly Honest.  The subtitle is "One Man's Year of Almost Living Truthfully Could Change Your Life.  No Lie."

The cover doesn't look like something I'd normally read, but I like humor, so I thought I'd give it a try.  I'm so glad I did!  Phil's publisher asked him to write a book about what it's like to go for entire year telling the absolute truth all day, every day, for a whole year.  And he even told his friends and family what he was doing.  That meant they could ask him all kinds of questions and he'd have to answer truthfully.  The results are funny, touching and revealing.  As a comedian, Phil has a way of saying things that made me constantly say to whoever was in the room, "Ya gotta hear this!  It's so funny!"  But he also deals truthfully with life situations like his mom's dementia and the betrayal of a friend.    And yes, the whole book is written from a Christian perspective and he's not afraid to deal with difficult stuff like anger with God.  The book ends up with Phil deciding that he's not ready to back down after a year.  Truth-telling is a way of life he comes to appreciate.

This brings me back to the criticizing/complaining/judging:  could I maybe just stop it for a period of time?  Like Phil Callaway, I'm sure I would find a commitment like this extremely challenging and there would be times of failure, but what an opportunity to learn and grow.  (If you think you are already totally honest or totally uncomplaining, I wonder...)  And just like striving for honesty, it's not like it should be an option for a Christian to strive for victory over complaining and criticizing!  We act like we "can't help it", but if God commands something, we are supposed to do it.  Let's see, what are some commands with regard to criticizing, complaining and judging?

Remember what happened to the Israelites after they complained about the lack of variety in their miraculous food supply?  They ended up wandering around in a desert for 40 years and missing out on the Land of Milk and Honey entirely.  Then there's Philippians 2:14  "Do everything without grumbling or arguing."  And Luke 6:37 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven."  

Well, I'm not going to write a book right now... I'll just let you know how it goes.  And feel free to come right out and ask me how it's going.  Accountability is good.  I realize I haven't put a timeline on this, because I'm still concerned about a total crash and burn failure.  I'm a work in process-- a LOT of work!

Here goes... no more complaining about the weather, rising property taxes, hot flashes or stupid drivers. No criticizing people for not being up to my "standards" or judging them for having different opinions than mine.

Besides trying to develop a more Christ-like character, this should further my quest to be a sweet old lady someday.

The other day I asked a 5-year-old how old he thought I was.  He said "99."  (Then he asked when I was going to be 30 like his mom).  You see, the "old" part of sweet old lady is inevitable.  The "sweet" part is not a given.

By the way, the book review included in this post is in return for a free copy of the book from Waterbrook Multnomah Publishers, but the review is honest and not swayed by this fact.

Blue Cat-Eye Glasses

I have a great desire to focus.  When I was nine years old, I got my first pair of glasses because I couldn't focus.  They were blue cat-eye glasses (hey it was the 1960s and the optometrist said they would look great with my blonde hair and blue eyes.)  There's not many pictures of me in them unfortunately, because they'd be pretty funny now.

  But after a year or two, things got out of focus again and I needed a new pair.  Can you find me in this picture with my hip brown frames?

 This is a whole group of cousins from my mother's side of the family.  I am the one sporting the yellow shirt, purple pants and green belt.  Woohoo!  I would say this is around 1970 or 71.

When things are out of focus, you lose details.  Things fall through the cracks.  They get fuzzy and indistinct.  See this?  Terrible picture.  But you can still tell it's an apple at least.

I don't want to live my life that way.  I seek focus.  I want to know what's important.  Wasting time on trivialities and distractions irks me.  Therefore, I just read a book called Focus (believe it or not!) by a guy named Leo Babauta.  He's written a bunch of books and has a blog on minimalism, simplicity and that sort of thing.  He has six kids, so he's had to really work at finding simplicity.  This makes him a little more believable than some authors.  He doesn't write from a Christian perspective, but he has some valid points to make.

Some of you know that I have talked about mono-tasking (which is much easier than doing mono-tasking).  Babauta writes about it too, only he calls it single-tasking.  This is simply doing one thing at a time.  Do you know how hard it is to do that?  Of course you do!  It takes a tremendous amount of focus.  Yesterday I sat down at the computer to do some work.  Before I knew it, I was chatting with my son, texting my daughter, emailing a friend, answering the phone, and answering the door-- all at the same time!  Yesterday I allowed all these other distractions to draw my attention away.  I was fairly effective doing all these things, but I was also fairly frazzled when all was said and done.  AND I didn't get anything done on the project at hand.  Everything I was doing was good and needed to be done sometime, but I wish I had mono-tasked and saved my sanity.

Well, Mr. Babauta's lessons on focus had not taken effect with me yet.  According to him, I should have cleared my desk of everything but the ONE THING I was dealing with at the moment.  I should have turned off the ringer of my phone and ignored any incoming emails while I was online chatting.  Maybe he would forgive me for answering the door, I don't know.  All this would have certainly helped my sanity at the time.

Now fast forward to the present.  I wanted to spend time with God this morning and I wanted to create a blog.  I followed Leo's advice and this is what I did:  I cleared my kitchen table of all but the necessities of life for the time:  Bible, Kindle (it has devotionals on it), notebook, pen, coffee, grapefruit-scented candle and volume control for my mellow Celtic tunes.

 It's a wonderful dreary day outside, very conducive to contemplation.

 Now comes the hard part.  I TURNED THE RINGER OFF!  And put my phone in my pocket.  I actually have been having moments of panic about this.  What if someone needs to reach me?  Ok, I confess.  I have actually checked it a couple of times.  Some calls and texts came in but nothing that couldn't wait.  Maybe with practice I can quit being distracted by the fact that my phone is off.

For now, the scene is set.  And it works!  I have not yet checked email today because there will certainly be things in there that will distract me.  And I am blogging which is something that I want to do and never seem to get around to.
Here's the thing.  Focus is difficult.  It takes preparation, dedication, determination.  It's a fleeting and fragile thing (at least for me, so far).

But God's been trying to talk to me about my priorities, my frantic pace of life, my false guilt, my real guilt and His plan and purposes for my life.  If I don't FOCUS and listen, I'm the one who's going to miss out.  All my activity is worthless if it's not what God wants me to do.

You can stop reading here, or you can stick with me a while longer, because this is sort of 2 blogs for the price of 1 today.

God's been trying to refocus me on what He wants me to spend my time and efforts on.  Here's the work-in-progress that He's been impressing on me:

God calls me to:
--love Him, to develop and maintain my relationship with Him.  Reading His word, being quiet, listening, learning, waiting, praying.
--love other people.  I'm supposed to take care of my husband, my kids, our parents, my friends, and actually anyone I come in contact with.  By "take care of", I mean caring for them in tangible and intangible ways, offering help and encouragement as needed from me as wife, mom, friend, neighbor...
--love myself by eating right, exercising, resting and playing.
--stewardship: fulfilling my responsibilities with regard to our home and finances.

I believe God calls us all to engage in those four areas.  His Holy Spirit also gifts us each with the ability to serve Him in ways that are unique to us as individuals.  Here's what He has gifted me to do in His service to build up His body-- and activities that bring Him glory if I do them with a dedicated, joyful heart:
--study and teach His word.
--mentor and encourage women.
--do bookkeeping (yeah, seriously.  I think the actual spiritual gift is called "administration" but in me it's manifested in using Quickbooks).
--provide a haven of hospitality.

Yep, that's it.  If I FOCUS on those areas, I believe God is pleased.  Nothing else is more important.  Looking at my to-do list through the lens of God's one-of-a-kind plan for me makes even the most mundane tasks take on new importance.  When I do laundry it means I am being a good steward of our clothing, and it means that I can show love for my family in a practical way.  When I write this blog, I am actively engaging gifts which are to be used to study, teach and encourage.  I don't have to feel guilty for taking the time to sit here and ramble on about my thoughts.  I just need to pray that God uses these words to encourage or teach someone something.

Thanks, God, for helping me focus this morning!  Please continue to show me how and when to remove distractions and to move forward into your perfect plan for me.

FOCUS.

Ok, I'm ready to "turn on" the distractions now-- one-at-a-time of course!