Habits are hard things to break...and create

I'm still working through John Burke's Soul Revolution, a book that walks readers through his church's 60-60 Experiment. This experiment basically trains a person to become more aware of God throughout the day, by connecting with Him every 60 minutes for 60 days. The book includes lots of stories of how people's lives dramatically changed through their experience.

Whether 60 days is enough is debatable. Burke talks in one chapter about how people need to do something every day for 90 days for a new habit or way of thinking to take hold. But I suppose 60 days sounds more doable if you're trying to convince someone to take on the experiment.

I purchased an inexpensive kitchen timer (60 minutes) to try this. But during the dry run, I discovered that I have to cycle through every second to reset the timer for the next hour. That's a lot of thumb pushing, unless I decide to enter the "texting" Olympics.

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Another habit I plan to attempt to build is exercise. A local gym recently opened its doors and the cost was more than right: it basically removed all obstacles to joining. Since I'm pushing the half-century mark, and my family's medical history may start to catch up with me if I don't do something, I took the plunge and enrolled last Wednesday.

Then my wife and kids decided to visit friends in Connecticut over the weekend, leaving me with no car (yes, we did that on purpose). I planne to--and did--walk wherever I needed to go. I think I averaged about five miles each day. So I haven't made it to the gym yet. Today should be the day.

Vacation is great!

Spent four days away from the daily routines, visiting my sister and family. Their church currently lacks a pastor (long story there) and the speaker was the sound man! He shared his (brutal) testimony, focusing on forgiveness. Which was a kicker of a message given the guy's background.

My brother-in-law leads worship and invited me (since he knew I was coming) to join the worship band Sunday morning. I added my violin and whistles to the musical texture. I muct admit I had a ball. It is especially gratifying to play with musicians who are very good at what they do, but also know how to play with others, and understand music. Not everyone played every song the same way, or even all the time.

Part of vacationing for me includes avoiding the news: I don't even read the newspaper. I came back to the office this morning, fired up my computer, and deleted about 100 emails, including four doomsday warnings that the FCC will imminently ban religious broadcasting fro TV and radio. This sucker has been around since 1975 and remains false. I also discovered that the pressing national news item on Yahoo.com is what breed of dog will live in the White House.

Come on! Like that's news?! But then, given our culture's obsession with celebrity, I shouldn't be surprised.

We can be really dumb sometimes

"First of all, I urge you that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority..." 1 Timothy 2:1-2

I'm sitting here the day after a national election, considering what turned out to be a close election (popular vote). Only four percent separated the two major candidates. As a full-time employee of a church, I tread a careful line before the election, guarding my personal views. Now that the election is over, I can say most of the folks I voted for will be looking for new jobs soon.

Some observations on this "morning after":

• It will be trumpeted that America spoke and voted for change. Well, half of us did. Obama will do well to remember that almost half the country did not vote for him, so he does not enjoy strong majority support. In my over 20 years in the business world, change for change's sake NEVER ends up good.
• Elections should be about choice between ideas. Listening to the news and the pundits and anyone else who managed to get themselves in front of a camera this morning, this election was apparently about getting--finally--a black/minority president. That's all anyone talked about for the 45 minutes I had the TV on!
• We really need to abolish the electoral college. Yesterday's election results would not have changed, but when the popular vote is so close, but the electoral college is not, there's something wrong. Every other office in the country, no matter what level, relies on a straight popular vote: either the people voted for you or not. We like to pay lip service to the idea: one person, one vote. That's hogwash. My vote only counts if I happen to side with the majority, AND if my state carries enough weight to matter on the national stage. Eliminating the electoral college would force candidates to value EVERY voter, no matter his/her residency.

I admit I fear for our nation and the direction a mere majority seem to want to take it. But more importantly, we followers of Christ must take up Paul's exhortation (command?) to Timothy: pray for your leaders, wherever they are. Paul didn't qualify his command with "if you voted for him/her" or "if they think like you." Just pray for them.

Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress will need our prayers: that their decision-making will be infused with godly wisdom and truth (hey, it could happen!), but even more importantly, that they will, if they haven't yet, committ to following Jesus Christ.

Let's start today to pray.