I designed the original site and after a year and a bit more direction on content we decided a refresh was in order. The previous design focused too much on the dates articles were released. The new design focuses much more on the actual content.

The new layout incorporates the following updates:

- Static layout, as opposed to fluid. All views have the same experience.
- Widgetized areas on the front page.
- More widgetized areas means more room for advertisements (we need to pay the bills).
- Different areas dedicated to different types of content (e.g. Theology, relationships, and random posts sections).
- Installed the Disqus plugin to increase discussion on posts.
- Facebook lightbox.
- Lots of random small stuff that isn’t worth mentioning.

Take a peak and tell me what you think!

Living within this state-of-mind forces one to focus on what’s next. When we’re in high school we can’t wait to graduate so we can get a job or go to college. When in college the desire is to turn in papers, get a good grade, and then get the paper—a diploma. Once in the workforce the desire is to make enough cheddar so we can retire peacefully. What happens is that the things we do in life become a means to an end that we never reach. We’re so focused on the next means that we miss the realization that each step is an end in itself.

To avoid this one needs to practice the art of contentment. I say ‘practice the art’ very intentionally because contentment doesn’t come naturally for most; it takes practice. However, practicing the art of contentment starts at a fairly easy to identify place: attitude. Simply put, contentment is a state of mind that one chooses to live in.

If your goal is contentment, here are some practices you can put into place to help make it a reality:

Be Still

When was the last time you just stopped everything? Sitting in front of a television does not count. So now, stop. Go outside and lay in the grass. Look up at the sky. Notice nature. Breathe deeply and slowly. Close your eyes. Don’t speak. Don’t even pray. Just be. What are you doing? I’m serious, go do this right now.

Another opportunity for stillness is to get the noise out of your life for a while. You could give up social media or media altogether for a period of time. Here’s another option: turn off your cellphone for a week. Not on silent or airplane mode, but completely off. But you ask, “How will people reach me!?” Actually, that’s the point. Sometimes it’s hard to admit that planet earth will continue to revolve regardless of the state of our cellular device. To find contentment you need to reflect. To reflect you need to be still.

Give to Others

Your life is better than you think it is. Here’s what can happen:

You’re blessed. You’re thankful for a while but the blessings eventually become commonplace. You begin to compare the size of your blessing to those with a blessing that appears bigger and better. You want an additional blessing. You get it. Then, after a while, that blessing becomes commonplace and so the cycle continues. It’s difficult to always be content with what you have, but generosity can help.

Generosity breeds thankfulness. When you give to others you’re reminded of your favorable circumstances and you just plain feel good about it. Researchers suggest that one reason giving may improve physical health and longevity is that it helps decrease stress, which is associated with a variety of health problems. In a 2006 study by Rachel Piferi of Johns Hopkins University and Kathleen Lawler of the University of Tennessee, people who provided social support to others had lower blood pressure than participants who didn’t, suggesting a direct physiological benefit to those who give of themselves.

“Poor is not the person who has too little, but the person who craves more.”
– Seneca the Younger

Simplify Your Life

The more we require or desire, the more difficult it becomes to achieve contentment. Conversely, if you need less then your needs will be more easily met. So, simplify your life by getting rid of crap. Declutter. Some of us have so much stuff we have to pay for storage units! When my mom throws out a random household item that has been taking up space she exclaims, “Get it out of my life!” Less is more.

Getting serious about simplification extends beyond physical possessions; it also includes your habits. Evaluate your activities. Write down what you do and group it according to importance. How many of your activities bring you closer to your goals and fit your values? Perhaps you can give up one of your favorite TV shows. But not How I Met Your Mother, that’s arguably the most legendary love story of all time.

All Things in Moderation

The truth is, you can have too much of a good thing. Gorging on delight eventually leads to pain and discontent. If you lose control of your cravings you will become victim to excess. Learn to recognize when your craving is pulling you forward rather than your ‘well balanced’ self. Pause to reflect or simply extend a pause in consumption of whatever you crave. Decide if you have had enough rather than allowing yourself to be taken forward to excesses by your craving.

The Secret to Contentment

When writing to those in Philippi from a prison cell, Paul stated, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:11-13). How nice of Paul to let us in on the secret: ask God for strength, for it is only through Him that we will find true contentment.

Do you wake up every day pissed off at how jacked up the world is? I’m not so sure I do. I mean, I have a comfortable life in America and I tend to be an inherently selfish human being. I’m pretty much focused on what I have to do each day. Every now and then I’ll see something terrible in the news and think, “Well that’s not right, somebody needs to do something about that.” So yeah, I realize there’s bad stuff going down all over the world, but I don’t know of any tangible way that little ol’ me with my busy life can make a difference. Am I a sucky person? Or am I just normal?

The truth is I’d like to make a difference, but only if it’s convenient. Does this sound familiar?

But there’s a movement that says this broken world needs mending. It’s a revolution. It’s a people who will not stand for injustice, who wake up foaming at the mouth because of the state of things. Shoot, Relevant Magazine has created an entire publication dedicated to the cause called Reject Apathy. These are the sort of people who want to make a difference, conveniency disregarded. They want to brawl with injustice and kick it square in the crotch. My good friend, Chris Free, is one of these people.

Chris works as a video editor at the corporate headquarters for one of the world’s largest international humanitarian organizations, Operation Blessing. He doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but he’s trying find some. On January 1, 2012 when countless souls set out on a quest to change their own lives with new years resolutions, Chris set out to help change the lives of others.

Chris Free: Certified Crotch Kicker of Injustice

The Internet has allowed humanity a bit more creativity in making resolutions. Some folks start blogs in which they post a new design, illustration or photograph every day of the year. It’s an intense task but the growth one experiences during the process is for real. Chris was reflecting on resolutions like these and thought, “What do I care about enough to create every day?”

And then came a revelation: post one image of injustice happening in the world, and a way to combat that injustice. Did you catch that? Not just an announcement of a wrong, but a tangible way you can help correct it. Since January 1 that’s exactly what Chris has been doing–one image and solution a day. He calls it Images of Injustice.

Chris doesn’t deny the complexities in each injustice, but one simple truth will always remain: God’s grace is extended to every person. Chris’ desire is that we would all take just one injustice and combat it. Whether that’s through the Images of Injustice or via some other means that affords the passive man an opportunity to act. If we all do our part, injustice will get the swift kick to the crotch that it deserves!

Prepare your leg and kick away via Chris’ Images of Injustice.

We tried our best to hit up some local hot spots, including Romolo Chocolate for their famous Sponge Candy, discount store haven Gabe’s, and this place called a movie theatre where you watch movies. We ran the annual Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning and explored the countryside in parks and on Presque Isle. But mostly we sat around, enjoyed great company, and ate loads of delicious food. ‘Twas simply wonderful. Here are a few glimpses into our weekend away:

I recently had the privilege of hearing leadership expert John Maxwell speak at Regent University’s Executive Leadership Series. If you ever have the chance to hear him, don’t miss it. He dropped all sorts of golden nuggets on my dome, but there’s one practical bit of advise I’d like to share: The Rule of 5.

The Rule of 5 states you need to do 5 things every day to achieve your goals. What 5 things? That depends on your goals.

To show the power of the rule, John presented the following illustration that I’ll paraphrase:

So let’s say you want to chop down a tree in your back yard. It’s a beast of a tree and it needs to come down. Instead of whacking away at the sucker with your ax in one go, you decide to only take five swings and stop. But the next day you take five more swings. And the day after you do the same. And the day after that. And so it continues, each day you take exactly five swings.

Eventually the tree falls.

The tree will fall with what seems like little effort because you’ve been disciplined and diligent.

That’s what the Rule of 5 is all about, discipline and diligence.

Below are John’s 5 things. He says he’s been doing them since the age of 17 and it has helped him write over 50 books.

1. Every day I read.
2. Every day I file ideas.
3. Every day I ask questions.
4. Every day I think.
5. Every day I write.

Ponder the Rule of 5 for a bit. It’s not a quick fix for giant problems you face right now, it’s not meant to be. It’s about creating a lifestyle that is dedicated to 5 essential processes you determine will help you along life’s path. Cramming for exams might get you a good grade but you won’t digest the material. I believe the Rule of 5 is about becoming, and out of becoming you do.

It might take a while to discern what your 5 are, but I challenge you to mull it over. John said it took him a few years to fully realize what his 5 were. He got the first few right off the bat and added the others over time. What 5 things could you do every day to make you a better spouse, a better employee, a better person?

What is the very first thing we have a record of God doing? In the beginning God created the heavens and earth. God first and foremost is in the business of making things. The creation account in Genesis describes the explosion of creative energy by which God is revealed as the rational designer of the cosmos. The culmination of his work was to create human kind “in our image.” If Genesis says anything about God’s purpose behind this it is that he intended humanity to reflect his own creativity. But even more explicitly, God instructs man to “subdue the earth.” We are challenged to solve the puzzles of existence around us. “It is God’s gift to humankind that we should desire to create, build, and understand both the physical and spiritual world” (Block 1979).

Work Is Sacred

Work was God’s loving idea from the beginning, in and through creation. After reporting the creation of male and female on the sixth day, the writer of Genesis quotes God as saying,”…your descendants will live over the earth and bring it under their control. I am putting you in charge of the fish, the birds, and all the wild animals…. Then the Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to cultivate and guard it” (Gen. 1:28, 2:15).

The first glimpse we have of the human person in Scripture shows someone working as a farmer and manager of the rest of creation—joyously, purposefully tilling the ground and exercising respectful stewardship over all the earth.

The Bible portrays work as part of God’s very nature. “If God is the worker,” Elton Trueblood wrote in his book Your Other Vocation, “…then men and women, in order to fulfill their potentialities, must be workers too. They are sharing in creation when they develop a farm, paint a picture, build a home, or polish a floor” (1952).

We are exercising our dignity as creatures made in God’s likeness when we work. “Our work is the dual task of continuing God’s creative process and taking good care of what God has entrusted to us” (Williamson 2007). There is hardly a human occupation that does not in some way involve being a co-worker, a co-creator with God. We are sharing in God’s work. We are expressing God’s image in our work.

Business Is A Form Of Creative Art

Former US President Calvin Coolidge once bluntly stated, “The business of America is business”—a statement that appears to share little in common with a more spiritual view by Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of The Bond of Power. Pearce wrote, “We are created to develop the ability to create. The creature is designed to mature into the creator, the Son into the Father. The creation is the way by which God the One becomes many, and why Eternity is in love with the productions of time” (2003).

Although these statements appear antithetical to some people—certainly, their focus is different—are they really? Business aims to transform ideas into reality through innovation. We, as individuals, aim to transform the deepest longings of the human spirit into reality. The two missions can become one.

Regarding the source of creativity, St. Augustine stated in his Confessions, “All the loveliness which passes through men’s minds into their skillful hands comes from the supreme loveliness which is above our soul, which my soul sighs for day and night.” In Tolstoy’s What is Art? we read, “Art is a human activity whose purpose is the transmission of the highest and best feelings which men have attained.” Looking at these quotations, together with the quotes from Coolidge and Pearce, it becomes clear that business is a form of creative art. “The artistry of business is the creative right of all those who desire true prosperity, economically and spiritually, as well as personally and globally” (Miller 1999).

Creativity Extends Beyond Product Development

In 1992, Sony’s founder, Akio Morita, presented a now famous lecture on creativity at the Royal Society in London. Morita argued that creativity in business is a combination of already existing elements. It’s easy to deem Sony an innovative company solely based on the products they have developed over the years, but Morita explained it goes beyond that. “Just having innovative technology is not enough to claim true innovation. True innovation is made up of three key elements which are the “three creativities”: creativity in technology, creativity in product planning and creativity in marketing” (Morita 1992).

Borrowing an example from Sony’s history, Morita made reference to the case of the Walkman. He submitted that many have called the Walkman an innovative marvel, but where was the technology before its development? All the necessary components to make it were already available on the shelves. “Frankly, it did not contain any breakthrough technology. Its success was built on product planning and marketing” (Morita 1992). Technology has created a myriad of opportunities for businesses to creatively build upon prior innovations. Opportunity is there just waiting; those who will capitalize on it will be those who see it. He who has eyes to see, let him see.

The Call

“Creativity is worship insofar as it is, at its essence, a response…In the call to be creative, a call that goes out to all God’s children, we sense the call to listen to him and, in childlike naiveté, to imitate our father by creating works that will magnify his praise” (Grudin 1990). Christians are called to an even higher standard of creativity. Francis Shaffer, a famous Christian theologian and philosopher, wrote, “The Christian is the one whose imagination should fly beyond the stars” (1973).

Perhaps Paul summarized the call for Christians to excellence in business the best in his letter to the people in Colossae stating, “And whatever you do, ….do it all in the name of Jesus giving thanks to God…. whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord” (Col. 3:17, 23). We are called to be creative in all we do, and given the technology at our disposal we have no reason not to be.

For references and more posts like this, visit TheoMag.

We toured the countryside exploring parts between Anchorage, Seward and Valdez catching glimpses of wildlife at all points in between. But you know, what I didn’t realize was just how BIG Alaska is. I mean, it’s freaking giant. Alaska is more than 1/5 the size of the contiguous 48 states and at 663,267 square miles, it is more than twice the size of Texas. From the western most point to the eastern most, Alaska could easily span the US from east coast to west coast. Yeah, that’s big. Anywho, I’ll never forget the beauty and vastness of the scenery nor the quality time spent with friends I love dearly. Here are some snapshots from our adventures: