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I’ve just been taking some time to reflect on all the things that I’ve learned this past week. The one thing that may be the most shocking to me is how my selfish nature manifests itself into envy and jealousy. I didn’t realize this until this past week when I stepped away from going to the Saddleback Radicalis conference and instead choose to go to the National Church Information Technology Round Table Conference in March.

I’m confident that I made the right decision, but to be quite candid, the week started out as a struggle for me to happy for my teammates who went. Jamie Stolp and Becky Albertson are two of my closest team members at Celebrate. I work with them in the youth ministry and I LOVE serving by their side! Jamie and Becky are both incredible servants of God. They operate out of such a love and a desire to see the Celebrate Youth come to know Christ, that it spurs my stagnant heart to desire the same things! Their leadership in my life at this time, is the sole reason why I became involved with Celebrate Youth and I would never want to do youth ministry without them!

But – when they started tweeting about how great the weather was and the good food they were eating while in California, I became beside myself with envy and jealousy. All sorts of crazy and wrong thoughts began to creep into my head as I read their tweets. It’s as if I had the perception that they were not tweeting worthwhile things because they were enjoying themselves. I felt myself becoming more and more bitter and legalistic in my thoughts as I read about the fun they were having.

I quickly realized this was going to be a problem the first day they were gone, so I immediately removed them from automatically updating my phone so that I would be able to make it through the week. What pushed me to making that decision was the realization that if I was bitter and jealous with them being at the conference, then how, when they came back to South Dakota, could I ever hope to learn and apply what they’ve learned at the conference with an open mind? How could they teach me when my heart and mind was filled with envy and jealousy? Once I made the decision to block them from my phone, everything got better. I found that almost instantly, once I removed the source of jealousy from my life (i.e. the instant updates to my phone) I could then be excited for them and pray for them while they were at the conference.

One other lesson that I learned this week was that if I truly trust God and if I truly believe the words of the Bible, then I have to know that God has a plan for my life and that nothing happens without God knowing about it first. So my fear of missing out on some information that might help me in my ministry, is just that – a fear.

And as a fear, I know that it is not from God and allowing that fear to run rampant in my mind is something that I cannot allow. So by removing the things in my life that were causing that fear to creep up, I was then able to have an attitude of great joy and thankfulness for my teammates!

God knew that I was not going to be at that conference and He purposely placed the right people to attend that conference to help grow His Kingdom. I also imagine that God knew that I was going to recognize this envy and jealousy in my own life and be able to stop it before it got to far out of control! So totally thankful that I serve a God like that!

Everytime I watch this commercial – I just about wet myself! Enjoy!

Wal-Mart Clown Commercial

I’ve got a new niece. Her name is Briley Ann. My brother texted me that she was born and added the comment – can you build her a website?  My initial question is – what does an hour old infant have to say? I guess we’ll find out.

It’s interesting that my family thinks technology first. We’ve been this way as long as I can remember. My Grandpa Howell always saw more than other people and could wrap his mind around most problems to fix. My dad and brother are the same way – both brilliant in taking difficult and obscure details and compiling them into a workable and easily understood tools or resources. I believe that I have that same skill, although it’s manifested itself in the field of ministry and technology. I don’t know where this skill comes from, but I’m thankful for being able to be aware and to see things that others don’t. My one concern is that I hope I’m seeing the things I should be seeing and not just the things I want to be seeing.

• A woman digging deep for golden treasures in her nasal cavity at a red light.
• A mother and daughter who looked and talked exactly alike with the same facial expressions.
• A former rock star talking with a young man about being a guitar player.
• A young man tying a bed onto the top of his SUV while his wife talked on the phone and pointed.
• A older man standing in front of a GIANT TV while looking at his calculator.
• A senior citizen talking on her cell phone while driving a cart SLOWLY around Sam’s club.
• A husband looking annoyed at his wife who’s driving a cart around while he’s trying to shop.
• A young Hispanic man with pearly white shoes while the rest of us suffer with slushy/dirty shoes.
• A cashier with a great smile and a small birthmark that looks like a permanent dimple.
• A big girl talking about sneaking up on people like a ninja.

That’s what I saw – about about you? What did you see today?

So for my first post of the year, I thought I’d ask a philosophical question. Do actions really speak louder than words? Some might say that we must preach the gospel at all times – that’s a true statement. Others might say that we must live out the gospel at all times – also a true statement. Which one is more important? Which one works to build the Kingdom the best? Which one is more difficult?