Living Above The Norm

The pursuit of a simple truth by an analytical mind.

Entries Tagged ‘choice’

When Habits Talk on Your Behalf

In a comment to my post on My Experience or The Bible, Peter wrote something that caught my eye – “But is it really possible to interpret Scripture without any sort of tradition.”
Every day I make decisions about how to live my life based on my beliefs. These decisions (often unknowingly, and simply by [...]

My Experience or The Bible – What Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?

Recently, in a discussion with another Pastor about some of the more difficult areas of the Bible (difficult as in hard to interpret), I heard a phrase that has had me thinking:
“Instead of letting what you haven’t experienced and your current understanding about what the Bible says define what you can experience, there might be [...]

When It’s Time to Delete Instead of Catch Up

Needless to say, it’s been a crazy few months.  With the addition of my son to our family back in August, our schedules have been completely turned up-side-down.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my new schedule and the numerous opportunities throughout my day to spend playing with my now 12-week old son are precious [...]

When You Budget the Way You Diet

Kathryn at Million Dollar Journey wrote an interesting article comparing the most common types of budgets.  I’ll save you the recap, just make the jump to her link above to see the differences.
What she did write that caught my eye was her comparison of budgeting to diets.  She writes, “Only you know yourself well enough [...]

Why This Is Harder Than You Thought

Procrastination can be a tough thing to overcome, especially when it comes to our spiritual life.  After all, we have time to fix that, right?  Or better yet, “I’ve got some other things I need to get right before I deal with that.“  What’s worse is that often times when we do start to address [...]

Picking the Better of Two Priorities

Ever heard the phrase, “Picking the lesser of two evils?” This is a little different. I’m sure if I were to ask you to list your various roles and relationships in order of importance or priority each of you could give me some very good answers with little thought. It would likely start [...]

How to Surrender Your Dreams

Yet again, another thought provoking image from Someone Once Told Me.
This time, it reads, “Never Surrender Your Dreams.”
Then I asked myself, “OK. So why then are you gambling?!?”
It’s Had Me Thinking
In his new book, The Principle of the Path, @andystanley teaches that its your direction, not your intention that determines your destination. In other [...]

Even These Guys Face Temptation

Recently, our Life Group has been following Pause, a Series that @andystanley did at Northpoint Church a while back. It’s great stuff. It’s been great talking about how each of us handles temptations in different ways and it has been reassuring at times to learn that other people deal with the same temptations [...]

Is Experience Really the Best Teacher?

I recently came across a pretty cool site, Someone Once Told Me So.  Every day, give or take, they post a picture of someone holding a quote.  The premise is this, “Someone once told me… [then they fill in the blank]“.  I’ve subscribed to the RSS feed so I don’t have to keep going back [...]

Preparing for an Abundance

Managing your finances can be a tricky thing. It seems like now, more than ever, people are being cautious of their spending. I’m always amazed at how “fiscally responsible” and frugal people can be when they start having more month at the end of their money. Why is it that we’re only [...]