The next big thing.

This game will easily ruin your
social life. Beware!

I was at a restaurant the other night and I saw a family eating dinner together. Well, together is a relative term. They were sitting at the same table, yes. But one of their kids was on their Nintendo DS, and the other one had headphones in. That's not the craziest part. The craziest part was that this appeared to be completely acceptable and normal to the entire family.

Like most times in life, I thought about how this is applying to me personally instead of casting that impatient judgment on the non-together family. I see a lot of this in my own life, but it comes out in different ways. One way happened that same night as all of my friends sat down for a meal together. At one point, I was playing Candy Crush for my friend Hannah to try and level her up and my friend Ryan was texting our other friend and my friend Austin was watching one of the 300 flat screen tv's on at the restaurant and my friend Hunter was trolling his twitter feed. We were all together, but were we really together?

I am thinking about this today because I think it gets dangerous. I am reading David Platt's new book and I think it's dangerous. He wrote "Radical" and he is a radical guy. He is most certainly the guy that says "drop everything and follow Jesus" which turns into a geographic challenge from him to "quit everything and move to a third world country." That's where it gets dangerous to me.

Yes, that is God's plan for some. But not all. Yes, that is God's call to some, but not all. The flip side of this movement is that I think it's creating a generation of us that can't connect to the here and now because we are always thinking of the there and later.

What is the next best thing? Is there someone else that has texted me that I need to reply to right now instead of talking to the person across the table from me? Where will this job take me later? How long will I have to do this in order to get to that?

We are asking the wrong questions. The only question I think we should be asking is this: "God, what will you have me do today?"

I hope you are in a place where you know you are loved right now, where you are. Because that's where God is. He is right there, where you are. And as far as I know, our only calling is to love God and love others.

Everything else is just geography.

-Liz

Own it.

As I get older, there are a few things that I need to own.

One...I'm not an adventurous type. Rollercoasters and skydiving and bungee jumping don't get me excited. They get me nervous.

Another one...I like to go to bed early. I like to get up early. I have a routine and I really like it. As my dad used to tell me "Nothing good happens after 9pm." He was and still is SO right.

I am reading a book called "One Thousand Gifts" by Ann Voskamp. The premise of the book is this woman, who was surrounded by death in her family, got lost in the darkness of it all and was challenged by a friend to write down on thousand things she was thankful for. It's amazing. The subtitle is: Dare to live fully right where you are.

I like this subtitle SO MUCH because I feel like, all around me, is this attitude: I can't wait for what's next. I miss how it used to be. I wish for more, I want for different, I long for how it was.

Whatever happened to living in the present?

In the book, the author cites Exodus 3:14 "God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you." She goes on to say...God is so serious about living in the present, that He calls himself I AM.

He doesn't call himself "I will be" or "I was". He is I AM. But here we are. We are "I wish for" and "I was" and "I hope to be."

I am owning my weight loss progress in this light. I lost a lot of weight last year. But then it slowed. And then it stopped. And then one bad decision turned into a lost weekend turned into a good few days turned into a bad few months. This weekend I went to Dunkin Donuts and got a dozen donuts. Just for myself. I haven't told anyone this. But I need to own this decision, so there you go.

I have been limping along, not committing, not owning a decision either way. Do I want this, or don't I? And I mean NOW. In the present. It can no longer be "I did well" or "I will do better" it HAS to be "I am doing well." Today. Right now. In the present. I AM DOING WELL.

Just like everything else, this change for me is an ongoing dialogue with God. God, how can I do this? How can I keep doing this? How will I feel in a week, a month a year? But I did so well before, remember back then? Can't we focus on the past or the future?

And you know what God's answer is every single time? I AM.

I AM.

Read that book, One Thousand Gifts. It will make you thankful for the present. And then deal with the present. The today. Because this is where God wants to meet us.

I AM. He is. So we are.

-Liz