I just finished reading the book, Weird, by Craig Groeschel and I thought it was excellent and well worth the read. Since I check my books out pretty randomly (by God does knows when I am getting them!) it amazed me at how well it worked as a follow up to Radical. Craig is an awesome speaker and writer and his books are a good read.
This book focused on how normal is not working and how we are called to be weird. It totally challenged me on a few areas and we are making adjustments accordingly :) One of the things that David and I have decided to start doing is making sure we are intentional with our time. With him working during the week and me working on weekends, family time can easily get lost. We have decided to make Tuesday nights our "date night" with our kids. I take Ella out once a month and Brady out once a month. He does the same with each of them. We have also decided to make Thursday night "date night" for ourselves. Almost all of our dates will occur at home, it's just the season of life we are in, but we are going to be intentional about making sure after the kids go to bed, we spend time with each other. We are also making Thursday night (while the kids are still up) a "no electronics night". I am excited about these changes and am looking forward to having this family time on our schedule and honoring it.
He also spoke about being having a divine discontent (and recommended a book by Bill Hybels called Divine Discontent). He had some really great questions to make you think about what God was putting on your heart to be discontent about. What is something that God has put on your heart to be discontent about and to change? Is it helping the homeless? Mentoring a child? Feeding the hungry? The list could go on forever, but it really had me thinking about some of the things that God has put on my heart lately. He has made it clear to me what I have a discontent about and I can not just keep letting it happen. It really is my responsibility to do something, anything.
I am really excited about how God has been working on me and putting all of these things in my life. The best thing, by far, that I have been doing is reading the Bible every day. I read five chapters a day and I really look forward to that time. Sometimes it is so hard to think about sitting down and reading when all I want to do is sleep, but He always blesses that time and I never walk away from that time without feeling so much more connected to God. I really, really encourage you to spend daily time reading your Bible. It does not have to be five chapters, it can be anything, but just do it. I promise you, it is totally worth it.
