…Youcef Nadarkhani faces the possibility of being executed for his faith and refusal to renounce Jesus Christ.

What courage!
What faith!

I feel great sorrow for Youcef and his family. I feel great shame for myself and the lack of boldness I have in my proclamation of Jesus absent any persecution.

We worry about so much in the American church. So much pointless crap.

I pray we start worrying about what matters.

The Glory of God, for the good of all people.

Pray for Youcef. Pray for his family.

“And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness” Acts 4:29

Pride.

Pride causes us to look at every quiet conversation as if it is a conspiracy. Pride would have us to believe that every change and decision is about us. Pride would love nothing more than to lead us to believe that we somehow deserve anything that we have.

But humility teaches that if our security is in God, then the conversations of others should never threaten us. Humility declares that change, even IF it seems like it is about us, ultimately isn’t about us.

Humility reminds us that it isn’t about us and we don’t deserve anything that we have.

Our spouse
Our house
Our job
Our position
All of it is God’s

It’s my prayer that God keeps me humble. No matter what that means. That pride would be ripped from my life, even if painfully.

What about you? How do you fight the secret enemy of pride?

One of the weakest areas in my life is my ability to manage my time and focus on tasks. I’m by nature a guy who is easily distracted, so when you throw in things like Facebook, Twitter, and really, the entirety of the internet, it’s a miracle I get anything accomplished. What’s odd is that I meticulously schedule every hour of my day so that I can get things done, but by the end of the week my planner looks like a glorified procrastination tool complete with lines and scribbles as I moved items from one day to the next.

I’m completely confident that if I forcefully pulled myself away from all of the meaningless nonsense, that I could get so much more done. Especially as it would relate to Kingdom work. But here’s the hook…

why do I even wrestle with this?

Why isn’t my hearts desire always to do the things of God? Why would I rather waste time away on social networks than cherish time spent in the word? How is it so easy to come up with catchy 140 character sayings, while struggling to get down on my knees and have a conversation with my Father? Why?

I don’t want it to be like that. I want to be a man of God who is pursuing Him constantly. Not just when I need some good spiritual tidbit to pass on to the people of Crossroads so I’ll sound super holy.

So I’m rearranging some things. And I’m not talking about priorities. I’m talking about the condition of my heart. I’m making a promise to God to purposely step away from all the distractions and instead seek Him. I’m limiting myself on daily social network checks and using all of the extra time to labor for God. At least that’s the plan. And I’m confident that God can provide whatever I need to accomplish it.

This is going to be my first step in allowing God to change my heart and I’m starting now. This will also be the first step for those at Crossroads who are going on a journey of Awakening.

Help me out here. What do you do that helps you manage your time to give more to God?

God is still God. God is still Good.