Month: January 2010

study vs. passion & the Word of God

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This will mark the halfway point for this little “series.” God continues to teach me so much, even as I’m still mulling over what He started teaching me months ago. I has been extremely healthy for me to write through my thoughts, it helps the revelations stick a little better in my mind!

So far, I’ve written about:
Staying Excited about Salvation

Being Vulnerable vs. Being a Pushover
and
My Thoughts on the world of Christian Women

My goal is to move a little faster and get through all of my thoughts by the end of the month, so here we go:

Study vs. Passion

Let me start off with a little disclaimer here: It’s not really a competition. Both are valuable. Both are necessary. There are also not opposites. Passion is often spurred by study, and study often increases passion. I’ve just been considering that there may be a time for one or the other to be more prominent.

Study

For about a year and a half, I was in a Bible Study. Not a small group, a connection group or an accountability group, but a straight-up Bible Study, where we studied the Bible hardcore. We outlined every book, then we went back and looked at the details of each one. We didn’t get through a ton of the Bible over that year and half, mostly because we worked so arduously on each book, but we got through over half of the Old Testament. It was intense, hard work, and I loved it.

While at that time I was learning so much about God, His Word, His character and His purpose in creating the earth, I can’t say that “study” helped me connect with God personally. Everything I was learning was so…educational. It was if I was in a history class, granted it was the most impacting history class ever.

I once heard a very wise speaker (I can’t remember his name) while taking some Junior Higher’s on a Student Life Retreat. He taught us how to study the word of God, asking us to study God’s word everyday. He recommended having a Bible Dictionary by your side while you, each day, looked deeply into the context of the Scriptures. His method was simple and effective and, after applying it to my own daily routine, I found myself getting a lot more out of the Bible.

I love studying the Bible. In fact, I highly recommend it.

Passion

Do you know that word? It starts with a “d…” Ah, yes, discipline. Well, I’m going to be the first to admit how little discipline I have when it comes to the study of the Word of God. I’m awful. I put it off, make excuses, you know the drill.

It’s always been hard for me. And frankly, at least in the last few months, the thought of waking up early so that I can research and study the Bible just doesn’t motivate me very well. I’m a horrible person. A horrible Christian!

So, I’ve been trying this new thing. Every morning, I attempt to read one chapter of scripture and just listen. And I’ve heard so much.

I have felt so much more passion about His word. It has been absolutely wonderful to hear His voice so often. I just don’t get that when I read the Bible like it’s a history book.

Eventually, I hope to find a balance between the two, because I love both equally. But for now, I’m in a season where instead of studying Him, I simply need to dialogue with God, talk to Him, and hear from Him.

where have you been the last three years?

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Loving life, loving you.

There’s more!
If you think I might be crazy for being in love with a phone, let me just explain that I’ve been waiting three years for a new one. For the last two years, I’ve have to carry around a phone charger with me, because I couldn’t have a phone conversation lasting longer than three minutes without the battery dying. Yes, I got a new battery once. It lasted about a month and started the same cycle over.

So, yes, I’m in love with my new phone.

It’s name is Bertha. Because Bertha is the type of name you don’t mess with.

2010 Theme

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My theme for 2010 is simply this:

be diligent

I stumbled upon this amazing word when I was “designing” my daily to-do list. I was trying to think of something to inspire me to get things done, in a smart way. I thought of the word, “diligent” but I went to look it up to see if it really described what I needed to see everyday.

diligent [dil-i-juh nt] – adj.

1. constant in effort to accomplish something; attentive and persistent in doing anything: a diligent student.
2. done or pursued with persevering attention; painstaking: a diligent search of the files.

Yep, that’s exactly what I was looking for. I just love that first line, “constant effort to accomplish something.”

At first glance, it may look like my new goal is to be a busybody, I can see you’re point: She wants to constantly be doing things?

On the contrary, I want constant accomplishments. This year, I don’t want to just get things done, I want all my work to reach toward a higher goal, an accomplishment if you will. While my tasks for the day may simply be making a meal, doing the laundry or organizing the bathroom cabinet, my accomplishment for the day is serving my husband. While another set of tasks may be to call an old friend, text a few high school kids, and hang out with my little sister, my accomplishment is encouraging people I love.

As a woman who know the wonders of the Word of God, I searched for the word diligent in the Bible. I found these fitting verses:

“Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life an your doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.” –I Timothy 4:15-16

What a beautiful mantra for my life!

So that’s my theme for 2010!

This is what my Daily Task List looks like, you can click the picture to view it full-size.
(You’ll notice the definition and the verse in the top box)

2010 Financial Goals

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Bryan and I have pretty simple financial goals for this year, much like last year. We were, by God’s grace, able to succeed in all of our financial endeavors in 2009! It’s especially fun for me to start the New Year with NEW goals, rather then continuing with the old.

Primary Goal: Fully fund our Emergency Fund
We’d love to have 6 months worth of living expenses in our savings account by the end of June 2010. Why June? Because we hope to move to Iowa City in July or August. We’ve decided to move regardless of whether we find jobs right away or not, so that cash will certainly come in handy if we are unemployed for any amount of time. Also, I really think we can do it in six months! I guess we’ll find out!

Side Goal: Pay Cash for College
I married an amazing man who has worked his way through college thus far. He’s never had a student loan. We’d like to keep it that way and that’s our goal for now. We have enough saved to pay for Bryan’s next semester at Iowa State! As a side note, God has really softened my heart towards student loan with regards to Iowa City. It’s very possible that the one expense we won’t be able to completely cover will be Tuition when we move. I’m asking God to provide and maybe He’ll provide enough to pay for tuition as well, or maybe not. We’ll see.

LisaGrace’s Personal Financial Goal: Saving the Money I’m Saving
I’m not a saver in the most conservative way. I like saving money so that I can spend it. As soon as humanly possible. While I love quickly spending that money, especially after I’ve worked hard to cut our costs down, it usually ends up being a little disappointing. Because we don’t have a huge income, my savings can seem very minimal at the end of the month. I may have been $20 below budget on groceries one month, but $20 flies out of my hands so fast I usually can’t remember what happened to it!

Just for fun, here are the ways I’m currently making or saving a tiny amount of money every month:

Coupons: I’m not a huge coupon cutter to be honest, but I take advantage of the sales and pay enough attention to get some great deals using coupons and store sales. I’ve been consistently under budget on my groceries for the last 3 months or so!

E-Bates: I really do love this website, it’s such a great idea! Before I order anything online, I go on E-Bates first. I find the website I’m looking at, click on the link that takes me directly to the exact same website and order as usual. I’ve received up to 8% back on my purchase less shipping. It’s a small amount, but it’s fun to see that account grow with completely free money. Click on the link below to sign up:

Surveys: I take surveys for a company called Pinecone Research. I get paid $3 for an approximate 15 minutes of my time reviewing different products. I take 4-8 surveys per month, which isn’t really a lot of cash, but it always adds up more quickly then I realize!

Swagbucks: Oh how I love swagbucks! Swagbucks is a search engine that gives you “bucks” for searching through them. I’ve received 1-4 swagbucks everyday that I’ve searched through them. It only take 45 swagbucks to get a $5 amazon.com giftcard, which is my prize of choice! Since June 2009, I cashed in for $25 worth of amazon.com giftcards! I’m going to save up all of my swagbucks in 2010, we’ll see how many I get! Click on the link below to sign up:


Rebates: Separate from the aforementioned E-bates, I love taking advantage of rebates! It is usually pretty easy for me to work the deals into our budget, making the rebate check feel like free money! But those great rebates deals don’t come around too often and in the meantime, we have an easy way to get cash back for our purchases: a rewards credit card. I’ve mentioned this before, but I continue to maintain it as a great tool. On our rewards card, we receive 5% back on all of our fuel expenses, 2% back on all travel/entertainment expenses, and 1% back on everything else. In 2009, we received over $175 back in cash!

The Change Jar: I want to fill this baby up!

Sales: I would love to be as stuff-less as possible before we move across the state and one way I’ve been doing that is by selling books on Half.com. It’s super easy! I also want to take more clothes to the consignment shop.

So, basically, my goal is to save up all those little odds and ends and see what my total is at the end of the year, my hope is to have around $300. We’ll see!