No Social Media September

Last year, during the month of September, Charity and I ate no added sugar. It was a great experience of self discipline and a time we used to seek God more. It was really hard but really good! As September approaches us (tomorrow) I'm going to do a new No Something this September.

This one will be No Social Media September

The thoughts racing through your mind right now:
"Are you serious?!"
"How can you do that?"
"Think of all you're going to miss out on!"

Let me answer all of those

Yes, I am Serious
This is not something new for me. I've done many stents away from social media. I think the first was about 3 years ago when I was on sabbatical. It was a freeing time in my life! I've found in my life that it becomes a very natural thing, when I'm bored or have down time, to simply grab my phone and scroll through social media. While I don't think this is a bad thing I do think it's become a habit in my life I want to break.

I am sick of seeing people walking around staring at their screen
I am sick of seeing parents ignore their children
I am sick of missing out of my life because of a screen in my hand
I am sick of being distracted by things that are useless to me
I am sick of feeling tied to "knowing" what is going on every where

With God's Help
This isn't going to be something easy, at first. For the first week, probably the first 3-5 days, its going to be the most difficult. This is basically a fast. I am going to do this with God's help because I am going to replace the time, or as my friend Shawn Bagley taught me, "I'm going to redeem the time."

Social media has become a natural part of our day. There is a show I enjoy watching and one of the characters in the show always has her phone in her hand; ALWAYS. This is going to take some time to break something that is so natural in my life but I'm really excited to do it!

Think of All I Gain 
Some might think of all I'm going to miss out on. Trust me, what I'm going to gain is more than I'm going to miss. I want my life to be more personal interactions with others. Interactions that are face to face or on a phone call. I want to not just "like" my friends pictures, I want to hear what is going on in your life.

Now this might be a lofty goal to accomplish seeing that we have three children and it seems like our lives are going at a rapid rate of movement. But I am going to gain so much. I'm going to gain because I'm not just giving something up to give it up. I'm giving this up to seek God more, to spend more time with my kids and to pray.

I've been convicted over the last couple months
I've had hard conversations this summer
I've been sleep deprived and I need to hear from God

I'm excited for what there is to gain from this! Who knows, maybe you will join me! Its not too late.
Give me a call this month and let's chat!

Chasing God- Book Review

Title: Chasing God 

Author: Roger Huang

Publisher: David C. Cook

Pages: 244

Quotable: "The hunger for money and security was being replaced by a hunger to set people free."

Last year City Impact gave this book out at our church. I took a copy and it sat on my shelf for many months, just sitting collecting dust. Then for some reason I was looking for a book to read; something not too heavy but a light read. I grabbed it a week ago and couldn't put it down. This rarely happens to me.

The book starts out describing the pain Roger saw in the Tenderloin district in San Francisco. He quickly turns to the immense pain he dealt with as a child growing up in Taipei... but the story is far from over. Rodger grabs your attention and then shares openly and honestly about the pain and struggle of his life. He shares about beatings, meeting his wife, meeting his Savior and the radical call to go into the city.

Most people in San Francisco are looking to get away from the Tenderloin, God called Roger to the Tenderloin!

If you are looking for a book that is going to reveal the grace of God, the honesty of a Christ follower and seeing the radical work of God at play I encourage you to grab this book and open it. Once you open I have a feeling you will be like me and find it tough to put down.

No Sugar Added

I’ve been trying to find different ways to deny myself.

Earlier this year I took a month off Social Media. During the summer I took a month off of watching TV. During that time I had been toying around with the idea of not eating sugar for a month. I brought the idea up to Charity during July because I knew if I was going to be successful I needed her buy-in. I pitched the idea of eating no sugar in August, to which she reminded me we had Sophie’s birthday party and should hold off until September.

September first it began, it was the month of what I call “No Sugar Added September”

The Goal
The goal of this month was two-fold.
1) I wanted to do some sort of fasting. I hate fasting. I like to enjoy all the good things life has to offer but I began to notice I was enjoying somethings in excess. For example: instead of having a bowl of ice cream as a special treat, I was eating ice cream almost every night after dinner. In my office we have candy readily available and I found myself heading straight to the candy dish after lunch. I wanted to deny myself and choose to focus on God to meet my needs instead of candy.

2) I wanted to loose a little weight. I’m not going to lie about this part of the diet. I thought cutting added sugar out of my diet would help me loose a few pounds. I was shocked at how quickly I lost five pounds. Now, loosing weight was secondary to connecting with God. But I do think this helped me get my mind clearer.

The Strategy 
For anything to be successful there must be a strategy. When I say “No Sugar Added” this could mean many things. Some people thought I was only eating celery with organic peanut butter or rice and beans for every meal; this wasn’t the case for how we planned our fast.

The fast would include removing items from our diet that added sugar to what we felt was normal and healthy. For me this list includes, but is not limited to:
Skittles
Slurpees
Milk Shakes
Jelly Beans
Donuts
Syrup
Creamer
Cookies

What we didn’t remove were foods we felt had healthy sugar. Foods like: beets, banana, apple, etc. For the most part my food consumption stayed the same, I just removed foods that I knew were high in sugar. I still ate oatmeal for breakfast or a smoothie. I still had sushi or a sandwich for lunch. I didn't examine the bread for sugar because we already buy healthy bread. I can go into more detail if you would like to talk about it.

The Conclusion
It was tough at the beginning. I would say for the first 10 days I had a pretty good headache at night. I found myself taking more Advil to help with the pain, but it soon left. Yesterday was the last day and I think it was a successful decision of giving something up to focus more on God. You may ask: "When do you start eating sugar again?" The answer: "I don't know, I'm not ready today..."

What do you think?