Today was the first day of Advent and my first day of living The Christmas Manifesto. Here’s a brief update.

I posted the manifesto on my bathroom mirror and read it allowed this morning. I will read it again tonight before I go to bed. I can already tell that the Manifesto is reach going to reach further into my life than I had anticipated.  For example, during our hymns in worship I thought of my intention to carol with “boisterous gusto.” It changed the temperature of my singing. I pumped up the volume and was more engaged in the hymn. That was an unforeseen benefit.  Similarly, when I did a little last minute shopping for my son’s birthday I opted to by a gift that would honor God.  I bought him a book of inspiring Christian stories for teens.  He fell asleep reading it.  That made my heart smile.

I lived out the manifesto more directly in the following ways.  In order to sow seeds of love, hope, joy, and peace, my kids and I selected a tag from a giving tree at our church.  We are going to be buying a beanbag chair requested by a mentally disabled adult living in a nearby home.   I went and scoped out devotional guides available at  a local bookstore in anticipation of getting some as gifts.   I also, did my first day of reading and journaling about Jesus.  Specifically, I read the first chapter of Matthew.  My journaling prompted insights that I know I would not have had otherwise.  So all in all, I feel like I am off to a good start.  I will continue to share learnings from my efforts to live out the manifesto.  I can already tell that my efforts are putting me in a more positive frame of mind.  Blessing to you on your own advent journey.

In tomorrow’s post I will be sharing with you an awesome video from a website that concisely embodies the spirit of what I was hoping for in my manifesto.

When I start a new spiritual discipline I have a lot energy around it, but after a couple of weeks when the novelty of newness wears off I find that I start resisting doing it.  I discovered this past Sunday many of our youth are just like me.  They are still working hard at their prayer journals, but the second week it was harder to be motivated.  We are at the intersection of “wanting” and “committed”.   The difference between wanting something and being committed to it is whether or not you are willing to do whatever it takes to get it.

My experience has been that in every new discipline you reach a crunch point where you gain enough experience that you start questioning whether or not your really want to continue. Most people don’t consciously process this.  They tend to just start resisting the discipline.  If you start missing a discipline you may not be committed to it.  Another possibility is that you may just need some strategies to keep your momentum to get you past a very natural resistance.  In today’s brief video, I reiterate and review the importance of triggers.  You might not have found that necessary starting out, but now it could be your best friend for consistency.  You can also maintain momentum by altering your discipline slightly.  So, today’s video ends with a new addition to your journaling process.  Check it out and blessings to you as you strive for commitment.

Subscribers click here if you didn’t receive the video in your reader or email box.

Related Posts:   Prayer Journaling Orientation and Prayer Journaling 2, Difficulties and Solutions

Our youth have been prayer journaling for a week now using a method that I outlined in the Prayer Journaling Orientation video posted a week ago.  Last Sunday we discussed their experiences.  In today’s brief video I share 5 common difficulties they encountered and 3 “triggers” for being consistent.  They have had some really awesome God-incidence stories happen because of their prayer journaling.  I can’t wait to see what a couple more weeks of journaling is going to yield.  You can expect more video posts on the lessons they learn.

On another note…Today’s video has a cleaner , crisper audio signal with more volume range over prior videos.  Unfortunately, in my efforts to improve audio I ran into a technical difficulty resulting in audio coming through only the left channel.  My apologies to any of my readers who happen to be listening via headphones.  I know it’s annoying. I hope to resolve this issue prior to the next video.

Lastly, some of my email subscribers had issues with the last video not coming through with the post.  That is probably a hosting issue, but for your convenience, you will find a link below going directly to the post.  Enough about this stuff. You are here to learn about discipleship.  Go enjoy the video.

Click here if the video did not appear in your subscription