Living Unfiltered for God

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Here we are! The start of a new year! Hopefully you've taken some time to reflect on the last 12 months... What you need to learn from and remember and what you might need to just leave in the past. But now is the time to fix our minds and focus on the future! What do you think God might have in store for you in 2015?  My wife and I enjoy speculating about what the future may bring - we call it "scenario building". Over the years it has been cause for many laughs because we never seem to get things just right. God always finds ways to show up and move in our lives in ways that we never expected. For example, one year ago today, I in no way thought that I would now have this magnet on my car... While I had started running the year before, we never would have thought I would complete a half-marathon in 2014! It took God moving - through one of our daughters and through a good friend - to get me to even consider, let alone train for and compet...

One of the great traditions around Christmas is putting up the Christmas lights. Depending on your tastes and family traditions you may put up so many lights you can see your home from space! Or maybe you're more reserved so there are just a few lights here and there. Either way, I've always thought it interesting that this is something that we do.  The idea of putting light on Christmas trees started in the 18th century in Germany. The idea really took off though, with the discovery of electricity. Thomas Edison first used lights at Christmas as much for publicity and marketing as anything else, in 1880. Several years later, a colleague of Edison's, Edward Johnson, used the electric lights on his Christmas tree, ( more details here ). The rest, as they say, is history. Interesting history indeed, but I see something more symbolic going on. While I know that there are probably non-Christians who put up Christmas lights, one would suspect that when you drive by a ho...

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak to some college students taking a class in statistics. Their professor had asked me to come in and share with them about my background and career in the area of statistics and marketing research (my day job.) I have taught classes like this myself in the past, so I was happy to spend some time with them, tell them a few stories and offer some guidance as to how to navigate some of the waters ahead of them in their schooling and future careers. I was almost taken aback at how eager they were to learn! At first I was concerned they might not be engaged, but from very early on, they started asking all sorts of questions. It was amazing to me how much they seemed to enjoy hearing from someone who had been where they are now (albeit many, many years ago!) and had to make some of the decisions they're currently working through. Afterwards, their teacher told me that she had never seen their "personal side" like she had just witnesse...

Earlier today, while straightening up and rearranging our library a bit, I came across one of my favorite books,  The Call by Os Guinness. It's been nearly ten years since I first read it. It was then that I was introduced to this idea of "the Audience of One." In the chapter dedicated to this concept Guinness writes, "Most of us, whether we we are aware of it or not, do things with an eye to the approval of some audience or other. The question is not whether we have an audience but which audience we have."  So who is your audience? Who are you trying to please? At some level most of us would say our family (spouses and children) is one part of our audience. And it is admirable to try to please them. Also, as Christians, the Bible gives us direction as to how to do that in such a way that it honors God. Many might also say that their employers or their careers in some way provide the audience. Regarding this, the apostle Paul suggests that we are to "......