Today (10/11/12 by the way) marks the end of my 40 day fast from Facebook and my focus on praying for and reconnecting with some important people in my life. Here's a quick run down of the various groups of people that were involved, followed by some brief thoughts about successes and failures and the whole experience in general.
5-8 Parents (mine and Kim's)
9-10 Grandparents (mine and Kim's)
11-15 Siblings (mine and Kim's)
16-20 Best friends (just mine)
21-24 People from Community Christian Church in Ft. Lauderdale
25-28 People from churches that I have served in the past 10+ years
29-30 Professors and friends from Florida Christian College
31-40 People at my current church, First Christian Church in Erwin, TN
All listed out like that it probably looks like each of the past 40 days for me have been a thoughtful and meaningful stroll down memory lane. The truth is, the past 40 days have been a tangible reminder of my incredible lack of focus and discipline in simple things like praying and connecting with people I care about. I had already prepared for some distractions to begin around day 7, because of a retreat that I would be going to. I came back from that planning to get back on track around day 10. I did OK through day 14 or 15, then by 16 or so I was doing little more than trying to remember to pray for the people I had scheduled for that day and all the ones I had missed so far. I did almost none of what I originally had in mind to reconnect with some people and near the end even many of my prayers have been relatively quick and shallow. Discipline is hard!
Some good news of the whole experience though is that I did faithfully stay completely off of Facebook for the entire 40 days. It was difficult on a few occasions, specifically some things related to my work when I might have been able to communicate something with a person or group more easily than I ended up doing. I also found myself wanting to talk about some experience or share some opinion on current events or post some link to something and not having an easy outlet to do so with Facebook on lock down. Overall though, I didn't really miss it that much, and there were plenty of other things available to do with my family or to waste time with (like Fantasy Football).
Despite not doing quite as much as I planned, the past 40 days have really been a meaningful time to at least acknowledge some of the important people in my life in a small way. Everyone on "the list" was thought of and prayed for at least once in that time, and I'm not entirely giving up on my original ideas to reconnect with people, even though the official 40 days has passed. I highly recommend to others the practice of fasting from something unimportant in order to make room for things that are important but tend to get squeezed out of your schedule. It was a useful experience, even if I was not entirely successful. In fact, my failure at it may be the most useful thing about it. I learned from it and will work at improving some things that are still lacking in my spiritual life.
Thanks for reading! In my next post I'll tell you all about my new smartphone and how I'll be living my wildest nerd dreams AND saving over $1680 in the next two years over typical unlimited smartphone plans. Sadly I'm not even joking about this. My first time back from the Facebook was with my newest distraction. Hosanna Lord! :-D
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
40 Days: Days 1-4
Immediate Family
Day 1 - Kim
Day 2 - Hannah
Day 3 - Noah
Day 4 - Elijah
I have decided to go ahead and journal a brief summary of how my 40 day experience is going at a few points along the way. In most cases I'll probably be more vague about the specifics of what I'm doing and with whom but I'll start off sharing some more detail from my first 4 days which, in addition to things I'm doing to more faithfully connect with God, I have set aside to focus on my immediate family.
Without rehashing some of the same things I've said before about my family in previous blog posts, I'll just make the blanket statement that I think my immediate family is AWESOME! They are seriously my favorite people on the planet to spend time with. There are different things I enjoy doing with each of them individually and together as a group more than any other individual or group of people. Rationally you would think that when given the choice I would almost always choose to spend time with them.
Realistically, it doesn't always work out that way. I was going to list out a brief description of what a "typical day" (whatever that is) looks like, but just take my word for it, we're busy. If I get 1-2 hours of quality time together with everyone it's a good day. Sometimes it's the demands of my day, sometimes it's the demands of theirs, other times it's simply all of us too distracted by our own things to pay attention to one another.
In fairness, we already do set aside some significant amounts of time to do things together as a family. Compared to some American families who might routinely spend absolutely no time together, even to eat a meal, we probably seem pretty noble in our efforts. It's also not as though our ideal is to reach a point in which all we ever do with our free time is spend time only with each other as a family completely isolated from the world. We value other relationships with extended family and friends greatly.
What I think my immediate family would all agree on though is that our time together is so uniquely valuable compared to the time spent on other relationships and distractions, that it should hold a place of higher priority than the options we tend to choose on our own or allow to interrupt us because of someone else's priorities. Right now that's not happening.
So in an effort to correct that I'm trying to be a little more proactive in carving out time that is set aside for my immediate family. In the past four days I have been specifically thinking about and praying for one family member each day according to the schedule I listed above. I have also been planning some special things to do with each of them individually and all of them as a group.
On Saturday morning, Hannah and I went on a daddy and daughter "date" to a local kid's museum. Since it was just the two of us I made a conscious effort to talk more directly with her during the drive and play along with her at the exhibits. Then we went out for lunch at Chick-Fil-A and talked some more, and Hannah got to hug the big cow. It was all simple stuff that we've done many times before, but we both loved it and will have that experience as a great memory forever now.
Later the same day, Noah and I took our inflatable boat and fishing gear out for an afternoon at the lake. He got to swim and chase ducks while I pumped up the boat and enjoyed watching him. A few minutes of rowing and we were away from the Labor Day weekend crowds that had filled the swimming and picnic area and in our own peaceful relaxing cove surrounded by birds, mountains and blue skies. After some unproductive fishing we rowed to the beach, went for a swim, then explored the island a little, scouting out some possible places to camp at some future time. When we got home Noah couldn't wait to tell mommy and Hannah about our adventure. I wouldn't trade those 2-3 hours with my son for anything.
There is more I don't have time to share about doing things with Kim and Elijah and the whole family together over the past couple of days. There is only so much I can actually "do" with Elijah at this age, and Kim and I still have a hard time arranging someone to watch all our kids for us to have some time for just the two of us. Sometimes it's not as much a big event as just some moments to sit quietly together or talk about life. By removing some distractions, like Facebook, and just making a simple effort to pay attention to each other though it's been a great 4 days for me, and I hope all of us.
Though these 4 days have been relatively easy and natural for me to do the things I already want to do for the people I love the most, I'm convicted by how I still have a bad habit of neglecting something so obvious. I decided to focus on my immediate family first primarily because of the priority God gives the immediate family in the Bible. In 1 Timothy 5:8 Paul says, "If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever."
There is a clear connection between my faith and how I care for my family that I don't want to ignore, for both their sake and mine. As this 40 day journey continues for me, I want these first 4 days to be the start of some better habits in my home that will continue indefinitely. I also believe this includes my relationships with my extended family, so I will be thinking about, praying for and working on improving those relationships over the next 11 days.
Day 1 - Kim
Day 2 - Hannah
Day 3 - Noah
Day 4 - Elijah
I have decided to go ahead and journal a brief summary of how my 40 day experience is going at a few points along the way. In most cases I'll probably be more vague about the specifics of what I'm doing and with whom but I'll start off sharing some more detail from my first 4 days which, in addition to things I'm doing to more faithfully connect with God, I have set aside to focus on my immediate family.
Without rehashing some of the same things I've said before about my family in previous blog posts, I'll just make the blanket statement that I think my immediate family is AWESOME! They are seriously my favorite people on the planet to spend time with. There are different things I enjoy doing with each of them individually and together as a group more than any other individual or group of people. Rationally you would think that when given the choice I would almost always choose to spend time with them.
Realistically, it doesn't always work out that way. I was going to list out a brief description of what a "typical day" (whatever that is) looks like, but just take my word for it, we're busy. If I get 1-2 hours of quality time together with everyone it's a good day. Sometimes it's the demands of my day, sometimes it's the demands of theirs, other times it's simply all of us too distracted by our own things to pay attention to one another.
In fairness, we already do set aside some significant amounts of time to do things together as a family. Compared to some American families who might routinely spend absolutely no time together, even to eat a meal, we probably seem pretty noble in our efforts. It's also not as though our ideal is to reach a point in which all we ever do with our free time is spend time only with each other as a family completely isolated from the world. We value other relationships with extended family and friends greatly.
What I think my immediate family would all agree on though is that our time together is so uniquely valuable compared to the time spent on other relationships and distractions, that it should hold a place of higher priority than the options we tend to choose on our own or allow to interrupt us because of someone else's priorities. Right now that's not happening.
So in an effort to correct that I'm trying to be a little more proactive in carving out time that is set aside for my immediate family. In the past four days I have been specifically thinking about and praying for one family member each day according to the schedule I listed above. I have also been planning some special things to do with each of them individually and all of them as a group.
On Saturday morning, Hannah and I went on a daddy and daughter "date" to a local kid's museum. Since it was just the two of us I made a conscious effort to talk more directly with her during the drive and play along with her at the exhibits. Then we went out for lunch at Chick-Fil-A and talked some more, and Hannah got to hug the big cow. It was all simple stuff that we've done many times before, but we both loved it and will have that experience as a great memory forever now.
Later the same day, Noah and I took our inflatable boat and fishing gear out for an afternoon at the lake. He got to swim and chase ducks while I pumped up the boat and enjoyed watching him. A few minutes of rowing and we were away from the Labor Day weekend crowds that had filled the swimming and picnic area and in our own peaceful relaxing cove surrounded by birds, mountains and blue skies. After some unproductive fishing we rowed to the beach, went for a swim, then explored the island a little, scouting out some possible places to camp at some future time. When we got home Noah couldn't wait to tell mommy and Hannah about our adventure. I wouldn't trade those 2-3 hours with my son for anything.
There is more I don't have time to share about doing things with Kim and Elijah and the whole family together over the past couple of days. There is only so much I can actually "do" with Elijah at this age, and Kim and I still have a hard time arranging someone to watch all our kids for us to have some time for just the two of us. Sometimes it's not as much a big event as just some moments to sit quietly together or talk about life. By removing some distractions, like Facebook, and just making a simple effort to pay attention to each other though it's been a great 4 days for me, and I hope all of us.
Though these 4 days have been relatively easy and natural for me to do the things I already want to do for the people I love the most, I'm convicted by how I still have a bad habit of neglecting something so obvious. I decided to focus on my immediate family first primarily because of the priority God gives the immediate family in the Bible. In 1 Timothy 5:8 Paul says, "If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever."
There is a clear connection between my faith and how I care for my family that I don't want to ignore, for both their sake and mine. As this 40 day journey continues for me, I want these first 4 days to be the start of some better habits in my home that will continue indefinitely. I also believe this includes my relationships with my extended family, so I will be thinking about, praying for and working on improving those relationships over the next 11 days.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Fast
Ten things that are fast:
10. Getting dinner from Little Ceasar's (5 minutes there and back with a Hot n Ready pizza)
9. Usain Bolt (27 mph)
8. The ThrustSCC jet-powerd vehicle that holds the current land speed record (763 mph)
7. Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird aircraft (2193 mph)
6. Light in a vacuum (670,616,629 mph)
5. The speed in which information travels the world
4. The speed in which anyone can contact me and I will contact them back
3. How quickly I neglect maintaining relationships with friends and family who have shaped my life
2. How quickly the time I have left for my wife and kids at the end of most days passes
1. How quickly the time I have left for God after that is given to other distractions.
For these and other reasons I have decided to "fast," that is abstain from one thing in order to reaffirm the priority of another. In this case I want to reaffirm that God is first in my life, my family is second, and everything else is somewhere behind that. The thing I am going to abstain from should fall somewhere in the 1000-2000 range of my priority list, but it has somehow managed to weasel it's way up to undeserved amounts of attention. You know what it is before I even say it, Facebook!
Go ahead and moan out loud and roll your eyes at yet another person who is so self-centered that they feel the need to announce to the world their planned absence from a social media site so that people are "prepared" with tissues and emergency supplies for the impending devastation that will surely befall the planet during their "Facebreakation" (<-- it's a real word. Look it up on Google). I deserve the scorn, because I am pretty self-centered. I know my ultimate motivation for writing this blog is not as arrogant as it appears, but in all honesty there is a part of me that hopes that my Facebook friends will grieve my absence. I would be a little disappointed if when I log back in to Facebook on a future date there are no messages, friend requests, or even annoying requests to do some digital deed to improve someone's imaginary life in "The Ville."
Therein lies the problem and my motivation for this fast. Since when did I become Pavlov's dog by responding to dings and white numbers in little red circles or message bubbles or people silhouettes in a moment's notice? Why can't I sleep until I have checked the latest news from the "Custom Van Appreciation Society" (yes it's a real group I am part of :-D)? What does it say to my family and my God when I choose to hit the refresh button to see if there is anything new posted in the past 30 seconds from one of the 420 or so people on the planet who mean less to me than them rather than closing the laptop or turning off the tablet? These questions reveal something somewhere deeper in my life than merely my time on Facebook, but the journey to find out has to start somewhere.
So here's what I'm doing. Starting midnight on 9/1/12 I will not be logging on to Facebook for 40 days and 40 nights. I'm deleting the Facebook app entirely on my tablet. I'm deleting links and using a filter to block Facebook in my browser. I'm giving permission to my family, co-workers, and friends to verbally or physically rebuke me in whatever way they see fit if I even mention the words "face" and "book" in the same sentence. I suspect some of them will look for opportunities to entrap me to test the limits of the punishment I will allow.
Simply ignoring Facebook for 40 days and 40 nights isn't necessarily beneficial so I have also decided to proactively plan out something for each of those days to address the issues presented in my top 3 items in the list. My top priority in that time is to listen to and be led by God through additional times of worship, prayer, and study. I will also be going on a 3 day retreat from 9/6-9/9 where I will be "off the grid" so to speak from even my family, but that has been planned for several months.
Additionally, I have made a list of some people in my life that I consider to be among the most valuable relationships I have had in the past and/or currently have in my present. I am dreaming up some ways to either reconnect or deepen my bonds with those people. Some of you reading this may be on the list and will learn more about that later. Many others didn't make the list, maybe even some that deserved to, but right or wrong I chose who I chose for my own reasons. I am considering possibly sharing some of what I end up doing and what happens as a result of that in future blog posts.
Don't be mad at Facebook. I'm not. Facebook is just a tool, equally capable of performing good and evil depending on the character of the one using it. I'm more mad at myself for allowing myself to get to a place where I feel the need to do such a thing to straighten out what I've made crooked. Don't assume that Kim has put me up to this just because she tried this same thing not too long ago (although she helped spark the idea in my head). Our relationship is not in turmoil and neither of us has had some sort of great moral failure that required us to leave the big FB. In fact both of our decisions have had more to do with choosing a better available option than trying to escape an "evil" force of social media. I currently have every intention of returning to what I hope will be a healthier use of Facebook somewhere around October 11th. (Mark your calendars! :-D)
Likewise, my faith and hope in God is not in doubt. It's not as though I have abandoned all the spiritual disciplines of our relationship and am about to crumble into a rebellious and bitter life. If anything my love for God has grown deeper in recent years and maybe it's brought me to a more mature place where I can acknowledge that I can and should be doing more to walk with Him than what I and others have been content with so far. My goal has never been to do good enough but to do the best I can. I am pretty excited about the opportunity to worship God in this way over the next 40 days and nights and for those of you willing to pray for me during this time I would be grateful for you to do so.
I shall leave you with these wise words from Philippians 3:10-16:
10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. 15 All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. 16 Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
10. Getting dinner from Little Ceasar's (5 minutes there and back with a Hot n Ready pizza)
9. Usain Bolt (27 mph)
8. The ThrustSCC jet-powerd vehicle that holds the current land speed record (763 mph)
7. Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird aircraft (2193 mph)
6. Light in a vacuum (670,616,629 mph)
5. The speed in which information travels the world
4. The speed in which anyone can contact me and I will contact them back
3. How quickly I neglect maintaining relationships with friends and family who have shaped my life
2. How quickly the time I have left for my wife and kids at the end of most days passes
1. How quickly the time I have left for God after that is given to other distractions.
For these and other reasons I have decided to "fast," that is abstain from one thing in order to reaffirm the priority of another. In this case I want to reaffirm that God is first in my life, my family is second, and everything else is somewhere behind that. The thing I am going to abstain from should fall somewhere in the 1000-2000 range of my priority list, but it has somehow managed to weasel it's way up to undeserved amounts of attention. You know what it is before I even say it, Facebook!
Go ahead and moan out loud and roll your eyes at yet another person who is so self-centered that they feel the need to announce to the world their planned absence from a social media site so that people are "prepared" with tissues and emergency supplies for the impending devastation that will surely befall the planet during their "Facebreakation" (<-- it's a real word. Look it up on Google). I deserve the scorn, because I am pretty self-centered. I know my ultimate motivation for writing this blog is not as arrogant as it appears, but in all honesty there is a part of me that hopes that my Facebook friends will grieve my absence. I would be a little disappointed if when I log back in to Facebook on a future date there are no messages, friend requests, or even annoying requests to do some digital deed to improve someone's imaginary life in "The Ville."
Therein lies the problem and my motivation for this fast. Since when did I become Pavlov's dog by responding to dings and white numbers in little red circles or message bubbles or people silhouettes in a moment's notice? Why can't I sleep until I have checked the latest news from the "Custom Van Appreciation Society" (yes it's a real group I am part of :-D)? What does it say to my family and my God when I choose to hit the refresh button to see if there is anything new posted in the past 30 seconds from one of the 420 or so people on the planet who mean less to me than them rather than closing the laptop or turning off the tablet? These questions reveal something somewhere deeper in my life than merely my time on Facebook, but the journey to find out has to start somewhere.
So here's what I'm doing. Starting midnight on 9/1/12 I will not be logging on to Facebook for 40 days and 40 nights. I'm deleting the Facebook app entirely on my tablet. I'm deleting links and using a filter to block Facebook in my browser. I'm giving permission to my family, co-workers, and friends to verbally or physically rebuke me in whatever way they see fit if I even mention the words "face" and "book" in the same sentence. I suspect some of them will look for opportunities to entrap me to test the limits of the punishment I will allow.
Simply ignoring Facebook for 40 days and 40 nights isn't necessarily beneficial so I have also decided to proactively plan out something for each of those days to address the issues presented in my top 3 items in the list. My top priority in that time is to listen to and be led by God through additional times of worship, prayer, and study. I will also be going on a 3 day retreat from 9/6-9/9 where I will be "off the grid" so to speak from even my family, but that has been planned for several months.
Additionally, I have made a list of some people in my life that I consider to be among the most valuable relationships I have had in the past and/or currently have in my present. I am dreaming up some ways to either reconnect or deepen my bonds with those people. Some of you reading this may be on the list and will learn more about that later. Many others didn't make the list, maybe even some that deserved to, but right or wrong I chose who I chose for my own reasons. I am considering possibly sharing some of what I end up doing and what happens as a result of that in future blog posts.
Don't be mad at Facebook. I'm not. Facebook is just a tool, equally capable of performing good and evil depending on the character of the one using it. I'm more mad at myself for allowing myself to get to a place where I feel the need to do such a thing to straighten out what I've made crooked. Don't assume that Kim has put me up to this just because she tried this same thing not too long ago (although she helped spark the idea in my head). Our relationship is not in turmoil and neither of us has had some sort of great moral failure that required us to leave the big FB. In fact both of our decisions have had more to do with choosing a better available option than trying to escape an "evil" force of social media. I currently have every intention of returning to what I hope will be a healthier use of Facebook somewhere around October 11th. (Mark your calendars! :-D)
Likewise, my faith and hope in God is not in doubt. It's not as though I have abandoned all the spiritual disciplines of our relationship and am about to crumble into a rebellious and bitter life. If anything my love for God has grown deeper in recent years and maybe it's brought me to a more mature place where I can acknowledge that I can and should be doing more to walk with Him than what I and others have been content with so far. My goal has never been to do good enough but to do the best I can. I am pretty excited about the opportunity to worship God in this way over the next 40 days and nights and for those of you willing to pray for me during this time I would be grateful for you to do so.
I shall leave you with these wise words from Philippians 3:10-16:
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