Sorry about the “S-word” in that video, but he just nailed this issue, so I’m sharing it.  This will be short and sweet…

I am “on” my iPhone too much.  Facebooking mostly.  But also texting, taking silly pictures, and just looking for stuff.  This needs to change.  I am missing out on life.  I am missing out on my wife.  This is ridiculous!  So, here’s the plan, at least as a starting point.

After 9pm, the iPhone goes to the charger and stays outta my hands.  And the one I’m really wrestling with is this one – Don’t get on Facebook unless I have taken the time to either write a meaningful blog post for the day or read something meaningful from a book for at least half an hour.  I don’t want to get legalistic about it.  Believe me – I know what an epic fail that path is for actually solving any kind of heart issues.  Been there, done that.  But I need structure, and this thing needs turning around.  My wife tells me I share too much on Facebook.  True.  Maybe this post is too much.  But I’m thinking some of you can relate and could use an encouragement and a helpful idea.  And you may start finding some helpful stuff on my website again soon.  : ]

#NeedFreedom

Great article from today’s Greater Baton Rouge Business Report!

And if you want some practical tips on cutting down screen time in your household, check out this great website / organization.

(Thanks to WAFB Channel 9 for inviting me to share this message with their viewers!)

Click here to watch WAFB bullying interview with Dr. Butner

Q. Is bullying becoming a worse problem in our society today?  If so, why?

A. YES!  It is clearly becoming a growing epidemic among us.  I believe the most significant contributing factor is the growing number of communication channels available that allow us to send powerful messages immediately, without taking time to think through our emotion or impulse.  There are two reasons this has given rise to more bullying behavior.  First, such digital communication is viral.  One message sent can quickly be spread to mass numbers of people in ways that were unimaginable to us back when I was a teen in the 80s and early 90s.  Second, such communication channels give an illusion of safe distance where it becomes easy to think of the message simply as fun comments, and not as a direct assault on a real live person.  As we become increasing consumers of digital communication, we will continue to see a rise in bullying, particularly cyber-bullying.

Q. What can we do about this?

A. Parents, teachers, coaches, school administrators, pastors, scout leaders, and the like must commit to a no-tolerance stand against any type of bullying behavior.  In addition to physically aggressive behavior and threatening messages, this includes hurtful name-calling, manipulative pressure tactics, deliberate exclusion and ridicule, etc.  Children and youth need to learn from an early age that the adult leaders of their community are standing together against such foolishness, thoughtlessness, and cruelty.

A. Parents can contact your school administration to find out what is in place to monitor and respond to bullying.  Challenge your school to be proactive and effective in their approach.

A. Parents need to take time to clearly teach and coach our kids in respectful behavior toward others, including face to face, phone conversation, texting, and online formats.  Don’t assume your kids will do the right thing.  Train them to do the right thing!

A. We must watch our own words and actions carefully.  For example, what message are you sending your kids when you scream and cuss at players, coaches, and officials during a football game that isn’t playing out to your liking?  How do you treat other drivers during traffic?  What kind of snarky comments and “likes” are you posting on your own Facebook page?  Any time we use our words and actions to tear down others, we are essentially giving our kids permission to be bullies.

A. Teach victims to respond calmly, rather than reacting emotionally.  Emotional reactions typically “fuel the fire” of bullies, bringing on more of the unwanted behavior.

A. Help victims find genuine strength and self-worth in their abilities and your love.

Q. What are some signs that your child might be the victim of bullying?

A. Sudden lack of interest in social activities.

A. Sudden change in Facebook/MySpace activity (You ARE keeping an eye on your teen’s Facebook/MySpace activity, AREN’T YOU?!!)

A. Lashing out toward siblings, pets, property, etc.

For much more guidance, information, resources, etc, check out Bullying.org

Book Recommendation: “The Wounded Spirit” by Frank Peretti

Moving right along…

4. Relinquishing our attachments to God and His will is tremendously freeing!  I hope I will never forget the moment in my truck as I neared the Hammond exit several weeks ago.  I had spent about 3o minutes of my weekly Thursday commute in conscience contact with God, praying for His will and thanking Him for the blessings in my life.  As I talked with Him about the whole attachment to Facebook issue, I so clearly sensed He was asking me, “Are you willing to give it up forever, if it is My will?”  It was a couple of minutes before I could sincerely answer.  Finally, a weak, fearful, but surrendered reply emerged from my heart and my lips.  “Yes, Lord.  If it is your will for me to let go of anything forever, I know it must be what is best for me.  Yes, if you want me to never return to Facebook, I will surrender to your will.”  The peace that came with that surrender was amazing.  It truly defies description.  The best I can say is that my spirit felt suddenly right and in line with God.  And it was VERY good.

5. I must continually seek God’s heart and voice and will if I am to have any hope of living the Jesus Way.  I may have a powerful breakthrough in my spiritual walk with Christ today, but if I do not continue listening to the Holy Spirit’s voice on a daily basis, I will likely become attached to my experience of God more than I am surrendered to the will of God.  I am gratefully and delightfully coming to appreciate this difference more all the time.  Specifically, my experience with God near the I-12 Hammond exit left me believing He had told me to walk away from Facebook forever.  Perhaps He will do so one day, and I hope I remain as willing to obey.  But as I have continued to prayerfully listen, I have realized He was simply checking my spirit to see if I was/am willing to make that sacrifice. Since then, I believe I have heard His challenge to take an even more difficult road – continue using this powerful medium, but use it His way rather than my way.

And again, I find my time window has closed.  More soon.

To be continued…

Jesus instructs us in Matthew 6:16-18, “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.  But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

It occurred to me just a few days after I had begun my Lenten Facebook fast that I had blatantly and totally missed the mark on this teaching from my Master.  For those of you who are not Facebook “friends,” the above picture is the one I posted for my profile pic the day before I announced my FB fast to the entire FB universe, which meant this is the picture that represented me throughout the fast.  I even commented that this picture represented how I felt about the whole thing.  This has really been a painful reminder to me today of how immature I really am, and how much I need to grow in Christlikeness.

Given this inauspicious beginning and the fact that I have already announced the whole thing throughout cyberspace, here are a few reflections gained from the past few weeks that you might as well benefit from, as well:

1. Apparently the “official rules” of Lenten fasting include some kind of Sunday loophole for the duration.  My Catholic friends insist this is legitimate and purposeful.  Maybe that works for many folks, and I am in no place to call them or the Church of Rome into question on this issue.  However, I knew how God had moved in my spirit regarding this FB issue, and this was no season for periodic indulgences.  There are certainly other areas and seasons in my life where I have taken indulgences of various kinds, but it was clear to me this was not the time to do so.

2. While my resolve to avoid sanctioned indulgences on Sundays held strong throughout Lent, my wayward sinful heart found other ways to indulge.  Namely, by going on frequent carb-binges in the kitchen at night.  I’ll get to the update on my “Biggest Loser” experience soon enough.  Suffice it to say, abstaining from Facebook was not good for my waistline.  This serves as a painful eye-opener of deeper spiritual struggles at play.

3. Man, I had been spending WAY too much time on FB!  I was amazed how much time I got back when I stopped giving it away to FB.  I spent more time reading God’s Word, talking with my wife, playing with our son, praying, and practicing my guitar, along with getting more work done at the office.

And now, I see it is time for me to move on to something else.  More reflections are on the way in the next day or so.

To be continued…

I find my self at Ground Zero.  Last night, I got my guitar out of the case where it has rested since Hurricane Gustav.  Wow – that’s been a while!  The short story is God has finally managed to break through the hardened crust around my heart to convict me to relinquish Facebook from my life.  In the ensuing addiction withdrawals, I have been replacing Facebooking with FaceStuffing, and have been putting on some unwanted pounds (see my previous post on The Biggest Loser).  I have a new structured exercise regimen that will begin next week – three workouts a week with a personal trainer, compliments of Pennington Biomedical Center.  But what to do with my fidgety self in the evenings?  Get out that guitar and start over!  And with that, I am re-posting the following entry.  These lessons really hit me hard as I read them again this morning.  Along with some really sore fingertips:

June 12, 2008

My lovely wife surprised me at Christmas with a guitar. My first guitar. A very nice Martin acoustic guitar – at that! She has heard me say over the years that “one of these days I’d love to learn to play the guitar,” so she decided there was no time like the present. My Dad played an acoustic guitar when I was growing up (and Mom played piano), and I’ve always been a singer, but I just never took the time to learn to play. And now I realize why.

It takes time, focus, patience, diligence – basically a lot of self-discipline. Hmmmm, where has the issue of self-discipline come up lately? But I really, really want to play guitar. No, that’s not quite the truth. The truth is, I want to be great with the guitar. It’s not that I have visions of being a famous performer with a huge following. (OK, maybe just a little – but it’s about as serious a dream as Fletch playing power forward for the Lakers!) I want to be great at the guitar, because music means so much to me, and I believe this will open up a whole avenue of experiencing and expressing my self. But what I really want to share with you are some of the life lessons I am learning from guitar lessons:

1. You don’t master anything overnight, no matter how much it matters to you. (I would argue that anything you actually can master overnight is not likely to make much of a meaningful impact on your life.) It takes time, focus, and determination to master anything worthwhile in life. Shortcuts and quick fixes do not lead to mastery. Only persistent, diligent, self-discipline leads to mastery.

2. If you really want to be good at something, you have to be willing to work on the stuff that isn’t fun and doesn’t come easy. If you are willing to toil your way through the parts that just aren’t fun and don’t come naturally, eventually you may just find yourself in the promised land where those things have become second-nature and allow you to enjoy life in ways you never could have imagined before doing all that hard work.

3. If you want to make big forward progress, you have to move at a pace you can actually sustain. Sometimes in our zeal to get where we want to be with a new life endeavor, we can push and rush ourselves so hard that we slide into the swamp of frustration and burnout, rather than steadily walking down the path to the promised land.

4. Sometimes you need to take a break and play, if you are going to have any hope of staying the course for the long haul. Just don’t forget that the playtime is a break, and that more work remains to be done. When practicing a Beatles song with rapid transitions from G to F to C have me wanting to make kindling out of my innocent six-string, it may be a good idea to blow off the Fab Four for a few minutes and play the really fun and easy chords of “Free Fallin” by Tom Petty, which requires very little thought or skill and has the benefit of leading me down the nostalgic path back to 10th grade. Ah, that was fun – now I’m ready to tackle George Harrison!

5. Humility goes a long way toward making real progress at any worthwhile pursuit in life. I can’t tell you how much I would love to quit going for my weekly guitar lessons until I have mastered everything my teacher has shown me so far. Then I could come back and really impress him! But I seriously doubt I would stick with it at this point, if I didn’t have that weekly lesson to keep me on track. And even if I did, I will progress much more quickly and learn much more, if I stick with a good teacher/mentor – which requires the humility to keep coming in week after week and demonstrate how at this point I’m not even worthy to change the guitar strings for a Hendrix or a Clapton or a Van Halen or a Vaughn. But I hope and believe that if I am willing to keep admitting each day who and where I really am, and who and where I really am not, I will grow a little better each day.

Many thanks to Ben “Obi-Wan” Hurley, my terrific guitar teacher at Zeagler Music. I am grateful for the many things I am learning from you, including guitar.

Step One: We admitted we were powerless…

Okay, God – you tell me what to do with Facebook.

Roger

Just wanted to let you know I have updated my “CHALLENGES” page – drawn directly from my posts on Twitter (to Facebook).  May you be blessed by the questions, challenges, and ponderings you discover here.  I would be grateful for your prayers as I consider taking steps toward publishing this work in a book.

With Hope in Him,

Roger

I know.  For those of you who have been following me on Twitter and/or Facebook, you realize this statement comes near apostasy for me.  But what you may not realize is that I grew up in Little Rock, AR, home of Jennings Osborne and family.  Click here to get a visual tour of the world record home Christmas lights display (year after year after year) that truly makes Clark’s efforts look about as bright as a matchstick at dusk.

Reading the account on the Osborne website paints the neighbors as Grinches and themselves as altruistic. I’ll take the middle ground.  It was truly something breathtaking to behold, but the traffic was an absolute nightmare, and I don’t even want to imagine being a next-door neighbor to the Osborne compound on Cantrell.

Between viewing Christmas Vacation last night, reflecting on the otherworldly light spectacle that grew exponentially for years on end at the Jennings Osborne compound, and reading Trey Morgan’s post this morning, I have been thinking about how over the top we can go about things that have such little eternal value.  Can you imagine a world in which followers of Christ were as passionate about living in the Way of the Kingdom of Heaven as we can be about decorating for Christmas, or cheering for our favorite athletics team, or watching entertaining movies, or posting stuff on Facebook that gets lots of comments, or generally eating, drinking, and being merry?  Sorry, John Lennon – that’s the world I want to imagine!

Here’s to the prophets of living on fire for Christ today – Shane Claiborne and Francis Chan and John Eldredge and Dallas Willard and Richard Foster and Eugene Peterson and…  Who else would you put on this list?