Reolutions...are they worth it?

So every new years eve people make promises they call resolutions. I would bet that these resolutions are the number one broken promise in the world. (Even higher than the promise that someone looks good in a really bad outfit) These broken promises leave us with nothing other than us saying we'll try again next year.

Why not make this year different? Check out the links below for some help in making this new year one where changes actually happen.
Photo by Kozini/Shutterstock.



Antiresolution  - This site, hosted by meyouhealth.com, is all about changing the way we look at resolutions. For many, they are too broad with no direction and that is why they never work out. Antiresolution takes that large idea (they only have a few but everyone should find at least one that works for them) and gives you some suggestions for smaller steps to help you keep that resolution this year.

Its all in the mind - This article from the Cincinnati Enquirer helps gives you some helpful hints at making sure your mind set is right both when you decide on a resolution and when you are trying to complete it.

Lifehacker's 10 Easy-to-Keep Resolutons - Trouble picking a resolution? This article, from one of my favorite blogs, gives you 10 ideas to pick from for a resolution. They are all great ideas and range from what I would say is easy to difficult (not in that order mind you). Each idea contains links to help you accomplish that resolution. Be sure to check out their article on tips for keeping your resolution too

Hopefully these articles will help your resolution.

Party safe and have a Happy New Year

Crazy Food Stuff From This Past Year

As the new year closes in on us, we start recounting the many different things that have happened over the past year. One of the coolest that I have found is this article on Crazy food stories. It contains links to articles about a donut maker, coke's secret formula, what's actually in hot dogs, and making an egg in a waffle maker. Check them out. They are some pretty cool articles.

SYM - Trading Things

So Christmas is over and we are all taking inventory of the different gifts that we received. Did you get some unwanted stuff for Christmas? Stuff that you can not take back? Instead of stuffing it in a closest and forgetting about it. Try out this unique site to get rid of the stuff you want and get some things you might actually use.

Swap.com "is where you turn what you have into what you want." You register for the site (they have the option to use facebook to do that) and then you can either look at what other people are trading or post your own items for trade. If you want  to swap just send the person a message with an offer or a question. Hopefully  this will help you get things you will actually use instead of that sweater your great aunt made you...surely someone out there will like it. Maybe?

MMM - The Bible

So I was thinking about today's post and decided that I would use the Bible as this weeks meaningful media. This time of year (ending Christmas and begining a new year) we hear a lot about the Bible. The Christmas story is told many times and we make plans to read the Bible more in the coming year.

The ultimate source of encouragement though is the Bible so I want to encourage you to really commit to reading it more often this coming year. Most people make open commitments that they never really fulfill. They start with good intentions but end up leaving it behind before really getting into it. Here are few ideas/tips to get you going:

1. Pick a schedule that works for you and stick to it. It doesn't have to be every day or even a scheduled time. Whatever works for you the best but still gets reading done. It doesn't have to be daily, especially to start with, but the more often the better. If you haven't do it much or have had trouble in the past I would suggest start with a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule.

2. Pick a plan that fits your likes. There have been so many plans on Bible reading that it can be hard to choose one. If you like reading, pick one that is of the whole bible. If you like history, find one that puts the Bible in Chronological order. If you have trouble following the way the Bible reads you can try to out a new Bible style that takes out all the verse and chapter numbers and makes it more like a book. If you have trouble understanding what you are reading then it might be the version of the Bible you have. Try picking up a New Living Translation (NLT) of the Bible. It is easy to read but still an accurate translation.

3. Pray. Prayer should be a major part of life and reading the Bible is no exception. Pray that you will learn what you need to and what God wants you to while you are doing your Bible study.

May God Bless the rest of your holiday season and may you dive into His word in the coming year.

Almost Missed It

(Adaptation of message by Kenny White River Hills Christian Church East Campus 12/23/2011)

This time of year so many things are going on...buying presents, planning parties, helping others, making sure no one is forgotten, seeing family and friends that you haven't seen in a long time. None of these things are bad (I'm not going into a rant about that). Even if all of them are going on at the same time (which for most of us they are) it is still not a bad thing. However if you let it get in front of the true meaning of the season then it is bad.

Now you are probably like "Oh great, another guilt trip at Christmas just what I need." or maybe its "Heard this one last year, and the year before, and like a dozen years before this one." I hope you'll keep reading though cause my goal is to make this one a little different from what you usually hear. See most often we are told not to forget about Jesus and honestly we do pretty good with that. We think of the little baby in a manger, with shepherds and kings worshiping him. (won't even go into how that is actually wrong lol). Truthfully if you do that you are on the right track but I think Christians can do better than what we all ready do.

See often times we almost miss it. We are doing our holiday thing and then its Christmas eve and its off to church only to rush home to finish our Christmas parties or wrapping or whatever we still have to do. We come so close to just missing the mark. Oh we might get on the target but do we really hit where we should? Are we focused on the bulls-eye? In the story of  Jesus' birth, the inn keeper/head of house just missed it. He could have played a major part in the Christmas story but now he is just a man who turned them away. (See Luke 2:7) Many people today just miss it as well, but like I said even if we get it, all to often we almost miss it.

Another part of the story illustrates this almost missed idea (at least in my mind). The shepherds were tending sheep on a quiet night. Now if you have never been out on a hill at night away from everything. It is very quiet and very dark. These shepherds were just sitting around their fire more than likely when all the sudden a bright light appeared and a shinning figure was standing in the sky. The Bible said that when they saw this they were terrified (see Luke 2:9) Now what do most people do when they are terrified? I believe the answer is RUN! I have no doubt that this is what came across their mind. If they had done that they would have missed the birth of Jesus. Whatever the reason they stayed; whether they were frozen in fear, held captive by the beauty, or worried about the livelihood if they left their flock, I think its safe to say they almost missed it.

Now its easy to say "Well I don't miss it; I help with the church Christmas pageant, volunteer at the local homeless shelter and spend time with my family, and read the Christmas story every night before bed for a week before Christmas. I don't miss it at all." I'll agree you sure don't miss the spirit of the holidays but that's just it. Outside of it being church functions some, aren't you just doing what everyone else does this time of year.

Here's my point. Whether you almost miss it, just miss it, or you completely miss the target, this time of year is to remind us of Jesus' birth but it shouldn't stop there. Jesus grew up, he didn't stay a baby; we don't pray to a "eight pound, six ounce, Newborn Baby Jesus." So shouldn't we look past that even at Christmas time. I mean shouldn't we really be trying to live like Jesus, not just at Christmas when we remember him as a baby (almost missing it) or going to church during this time of year because "its what you do" (just missing it).  Every day of our lives we should be trying to hit the bulls-eye with our lives. It won't all ways happen, we're bound to miss the mark sometime. I mean the Greek word translated as sin, literally means missing the mark and Romans tells us that all people will miss the mark. (see Romans 3:23)

My hope though is that we use Christmas to evaluate how close we are coming to the bulls-eye all year round, not just during this season.

Merry Christmas everyone and may you hit the bulls-eye more in the coming year.

Check Out This Nifty Gadget And The Site Its From

So Gizmodo posted a blog about this nifty little device. I was intrigued and still am with it. Its' pretty sweet but what I found while looking for that was even cooler. Have you ever wanted to help create something but never really had the creativity for it? Do you work better in large groups? Have an idea but need some friendly help in getting it ready? Well the site that this spoife (or maybe it should knifoon) comes from is a commuinty inventor site. The products there are thought up by people and then the site members help make it a viable product including design and cost help.

Check it out...the item above is found here....the site info is found here. To see the products they already have (and there are some really neat ones) go here.

It Really Comes Down to What You Like

So we all know about the bitter war between At&t and Verizon on who is faster, who has the better service, who has the nicer phones. Well we all know that phones and even the service comes down to preference. (Unless its the iphone but I won't get into that now) Turns out there are so many factors when it comes to network data speed that no one network really is faster (or at least not easily determined). Data is influenced by the number of people on the network (especially locally), the device you're using, and where you are at. So really there isn't a definitive answer to the who is faster question. Check out more details on the reason here.