It's In The Genes

I'm just not sure if they're mine or Ashley's.
Check out Caden the other night when he put on a watch; I guess the "bling" brought out his inner gansta:

Magic Dance Watch from Brian Goodban on Vimeo.

I Worried, Therefore I Doubted

It's hard living off of one income. In Southern California. With a child. I complain all the time actually; way more than I should because I'm actually so blessed. But honestly, it's hard to keep perspective when everyone I surround myself with has more material blessings than me. So...I worry. And when I worry I'm revealing the seed of doubt that has taken root. Maybe the only way to get rid of it is a little at a time, but I wish it was quicker.

I've been worrying lately about money, but when I do God gives me His Word:

"No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are?" (Matt. 6:24-26, NLT)
God will provide. Stop comparing yourself with others; you're looking in the wrong direction! Start living for the right Master and you don't actually need to worry about anything! And here's two blessings that God used within the past two days to actually show me I don't need to worry:

• My uncle gave me a random small "cash" gift
• Our tax return is more than enough to pay off a debt that I've been thinking about for months!

The Master is good...who else is like Him?! Nobody!

Check This Book out!

I've made up my mind: if you only read 3 books this year (by the way, 3 is NOT a lot), 1 should be The Relationship Principles of Jesus by Tom Holladay (the Bible should be another one & I'm still out-to-lunch on the third). And when I say "you" I mean you. Here's just a sample of it's profound simplicity and potent power from my first day notes:

Day #1 - Nothing Is More Important

• “Relationships are painful. Relationships are wonderful. We all live in the drama that plays out between these two truths.”
• “Relationships are filled with both wonder and pain.”
• “When Jesus came to this earth, he demonstrated that he understands both [wonder and pain]...Jesus came to show you how to enjoy a new way of relating to God and to others.”
• “...How easy it is to value things over people.”
• “Priorities become most important when we must make choices. If we had enough time to do everything, everything could be a priority. But we don’t…”
• “If we had the power to do every good thing we wanted to do, our choices wouldn’t be so important. But we can’t…”
• “When Jesus spoke about the priority of relationships, he could not have been clearer. He taught that relationships must be given the highest of values…”
• “He values our relationship with God, and he values our relationships with each other.
  “Your relationships with God and others will last all the way into eternity.”
• “A life without relationships may well be a simpler life, but it is also an empty life.”
• “The path to the greatest life possible and the greatest joy possible is found in the priority that Jesus taught us to keep at the top of the list: place the highest value on relationships.”

That is only the beginning! Personally, I believe that people all around me (including myself) that are in my age-group need to get the whole relationship-thing down because if we don't our lives will end up wasting so many opportunities and so much time in areas that are not as important.

Prayer for Today

To have silence.

I know that is a gift, but sometimes it feels like a curse; like something isn't right if I get too much of it. I feel awkward, like I'm not progressing, like I'm wasting precious time that has been given to me so I can accomplish the tasks of the day. Email, voicemail, snail-mail, texting, meetings, internet, TV, CDs, iPods, mp3's, car stereo, even reading. God, my prayer today is that I would grab the opportunities of silence because it is in those moments that I get a chance to hear your voice and drink your cup and feel your reality. To be still with you even but for a minute is a priceless gift worth opening.

For how can I move properly if I haven't stayed still long enough for you to move me. May I not be moved by anything other than your voice today.

Thank you for the silence.

Act, Learn, Refine...repeat

A big focus that I have this year is to learn more about who I really am; what God-given talents I have & what talents I don't have so I don't waste life and so I can surround myself with people who fill my gaps. I'm taking the wise approach and looking into many different areas for counsel (obviously Scripture as my top priority) and a huge help on the area of talent feedback is currently Now, Discover Your Strengths. Buy it. Read the 1st half, take the assessment, then read the rest.

Here's a great quote from the book:
"Building a strong life means that you allow performance to be the final judge of your strengths. Performance, properly measured, is implacable and unforgiving, and without doubt there will be times when your claims of strength are judged favorably." (p.127)

What are things I'm actually good at time after time? That's a great question to ask others to answer about yourself.

Mental Pause

I figured it out: how to turn my Bible memorizing up a notch.
This is an area where I'm actually ashamed to admit my current state, but give me a few weeks and that should be remedied. Thought I'd share my strategy. Here it is:
a. Read a Bible passage daily
b. Focus on a portion that "spoke" to me
c. Type that portion in a document template I made
d. Save that document as my desktop
My entire life is digital, why not have a digital way to get more of God's Word in front of my face all day. I call it my Pause Button. Learned that method while at Biola

PS. Read Wasting Time With God for further greatness