Why this blog? I'm challenging myself to make 2011 a year of holiness. I'm daring myself to find out what it's like to live according to God's plan for my life. I'm committed to writing something in this blog for 365 straight days in order to better understand my Christian faith, and to what extent I'm called to be a leader in the faith.
What inspired all this?
For some reason...perhaps many reasons...after having 34 'fun' filled and aimless years, I begin wondering what it was all about. I began envisioning my death and having this sinking feeling that it was all going to be for naught. I felt motivated to understand whether there was any hope for this life. I didn't want to be at the end of my stay on Earth, wondering if I lived to the utmost.
In 2007 I began to embrace the hope that can only be found in the risen Christ. I found fairly quickly, once you come into contact with the living Christ, many of your former pastimes become trite in comparison. Which is actually quite good when you're hoping to quit boozing, carousing, womanizing, and all the other things that go along with an inflated ego and too much free time.
Along with this blog, I'll be praying for an hour a day. Some people work out, I'm going to be pumping the spiritual iron. 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes at night. Not a big sacrifice when there's 24 hours per day. Devoting somewhere around 5% of my time to the God that created not only me but the universe...well, it doesn't seem like it should be too hard. I also want to devote time to this set prayer, so that I can praise God without doing it only when I need him for something. All too often I'm communing based on a spur of the moment desire for help. That's not good enough.
There will also be time devoted to my church of course. I am absolutely in love with the group of people that I worship with every Sunday. We worship and commune with God in the Anglican style and it has been a perfect blend of spirituality, evangelism, and liturgy. I've learned a lot through the blessings of some great, young, spiritual leaders. Part of the purpose of this year is to determine whether I am cut out to lead an Anglican Church. And more importantly, am I being called to do that?
Professionally, things are really starting to become promising. I have a lot of opportunities for worldly success and the time to seize those possibilities will be ironically...at the end of this year. In December of 2011, I will need to decide whether God is calling me to a life of service, or rather...is he encouraging me to continue on in my very worldly profession as a devout and orthodox Christian.
These journal entries will help me to evaluate the process.
Location:Rosehaven
