Triple D
I have a list of Disciplines that I made, things in my life about me that I know in my heart I need to change or to have under control. Areas that I know I can improve.
I call it my Triple D list because of the title I gave it years ago.
It's called my Discpline-Day-Declaration.
Sounds pretty lofty and righteous, right? Yeah...well, here's the kicker, word for word, this is what I've scribbled at the top of my so-called "Declaration"
• 10/20/2007 - Triple D's, (that's when I created the list)
• tried to start March 20th, 2008
• and now revised September 15th, 2008, because I am a procrastinator who lacks discipline.....
• Today is September 21st, 2008, and I'm starting again, so help me God, because if I go a full year then I'm just stupid....
• and to answer that one, yet again, January 18th, 2009, we start again............
• and yet again, here I am, May 7th, 2009, thinking maybe it's best to tackle 1 discipline at a time??
Did you catch that last one? That's right. You know where I am after 567 days of my Discipline Day Declaration?? I'm working on DAY 3!
The point is, we don't give up. Satan's right there every day, ready and calculating his next opportunity to knock us down. He doesn't want us to succeed, and the rub is, he doesn't even want us to find ourselves on DAY 3! He would prefer that we just quit. Give up the list, throw it away, and consider ourselves unteachable, untrainable, and finally unavailable for Christ to work through us.
The amazing thing is, on DAY 1, Christ used His word to speak to me. On DAY 2 I got to talk about Christ to a couple....
and on DAY 3! WOW! DAY 3! He's already showed me at 5:30 this morning that my words were not complete with that couple, because while I witnessed to that couple, I didn't actually present the whole story, the Good News. He showed me that I needed to finish my witness, to take it a step further....AND THEN! THEN I got to be used by Him to have an amazing conversation, to fellowship with MY DAD, who lives hundreds of miles away!
How Great is Our God! :) He's beyond compare. He loves us THAT MUCH!
In February 2001 the Lord spoke to me through a prophet, and told me that if I would just set aside some time with the Holy Spirit, He had some things to show me, and to never go to Him in study without a tablet, a journal and a pen. Crazy, right?
Up until 3 days ago, 8 YEARS LATER, I fought that, and here are my excuses:
1. I'm a much faster and fluent typist than I am a writer by long-hand.
2. My penmanship stinks and I can't hardly read what I've written, even just after I've written it!
3. A tablet is for scribbling, drawing pictures, putting down abstract thoughts...kinda silly in my mind.
4. A journal is just time-consuming and bothersome and it's soooooooooo SLOW compared to just whipping out my thoughts on the computer.
5. Pens are just flat MESSY for a Lefty. We are always smearing the stupid ink with our hand and that darned binder always gets in the way......sigh...so hard!
But you know what I figured out once I finally made myself available and obedient?
I'm a fast typist, sure, but I type too fast and think TOO highly of what I write. Because of that perspective, it's most-likely more of ME that I'm putting into words than Christ. I don't listen for instruction, because I'm too busy pouring out MY thoughts. I don't listen for Christ. (I can still hear my teachers in grade-school..."There's hearing, and then there's listening. Are you listening Danny??"
I don't have patience because I throw-up my words onto the screen, and wham-bam, I'm all done and moving on to the next order of business in my day. Also, when I'm on the computer and typing away to my heart's desire, I am inevitably distracted. An email pops up, I get curious about the origin of some word and go surfing and researching the Net until I find it, and before I know it, I'm just spinning my wheels.
The pen makes me slow down. It makes me much more careful of my words in the journal. It makes me choose them more carefully instead of writing a book, like I'm doing now. And even though I still think it's silly, I draw on that tablet. When I'm on the phone, my wife reminded me that I constantly doodle. If you look on ANY piece of paper in my office, you'll see some fancy doodle or scribbling. I can't help it. It's a part of me, and it's how I keep myself entertained. Don't know why and it sounds silly, but that's just me.
So, when I draw on that tablet, it makes me stop. It makes me open up my mind and my thoughts, and it provides obedience, which then allows room for instruction from Christ!
Isn't it amazing?
All these years, and God had the formula right there under my nose. His way of speaking to me, personally. His remedy. His cure for getting Dan Elliott out of the way so He could speak to my heart. He KNEW and He STILL KNOWS how I'm wired. How I work, and how I think is something He understands much more clearly than I will ever begin to fathom....Because He MADE me.
And He made YOU too! Isn't it a wonderful thing to comprehend that the words in Ephesians 2:10 are real?! It blows my mind :)
"For we are God's workmanship," the word in the original, poema, is where we get the word poem, "created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
His signature is there in all of us. It's in that couple, it's in that little baby girl's eyes in the post just below this one,
In me. In You, and It's a brand new day :)
I call it my Triple D list because of the title I gave it years ago.
It's called my Discpline-Day-Declaration.
Sounds pretty lofty and righteous, right? Yeah...well, here's the kicker, word for word, this is what I've scribbled at the top of my so-called "Declaration"
• 10/20/2007 - Triple D's, (that's when I created the list)
• tried to start March 20th, 2008
• and now revised September 15th, 2008, because I am a procrastinator who lacks discipline.....
• Today is September 21st, 2008, and I'm starting again, so help me God, because if I go a full year then I'm just stupid....
• and to answer that one, yet again, January 18th, 2009, we start again............
• and yet again, here I am, May 7th, 2009, thinking maybe it's best to tackle 1 discipline at a time??
Did you catch that last one? That's right. You know where I am after 567 days of my Discipline Day Declaration?? I'm working on DAY 3!
The point is, we don't give up. Satan's right there every day, ready and calculating his next opportunity to knock us down. He doesn't want us to succeed, and the rub is, he doesn't even want us to find ourselves on DAY 3! He would prefer that we just quit. Give up the list, throw it away, and consider ourselves unteachable, untrainable, and finally unavailable for Christ to work through us.
The amazing thing is, on DAY 1, Christ used His word to speak to me. On DAY 2 I got to talk about Christ to a couple....
and on DAY 3! WOW! DAY 3! He's already showed me at 5:30 this morning that my words were not complete with that couple, because while I witnessed to that couple, I didn't actually present the whole story, the Good News. He showed me that I needed to finish my witness, to take it a step further....AND THEN! THEN I got to be used by Him to have an amazing conversation, to fellowship with MY DAD, who lives hundreds of miles away!
How Great is Our God! :) He's beyond compare. He loves us THAT MUCH!
In February 2001 the Lord spoke to me through a prophet, and told me that if I would just set aside some time with the Holy Spirit, He had some things to show me, and to never go to Him in study without a tablet, a journal and a pen. Crazy, right?
Up until 3 days ago, 8 YEARS LATER, I fought that, and here are my excuses:
1. I'm a much faster and fluent typist than I am a writer by long-hand.
2. My penmanship stinks and I can't hardly read what I've written, even just after I've written it!
3. A tablet is for scribbling, drawing pictures, putting down abstract thoughts...kinda silly in my mind.
4. A journal is just time-consuming and bothersome and it's soooooooooo SLOW compared to just whipping out my thoughts on the computer.
5. Pens are just flat MESSY for a Lefty. We are always smearing the stupid ink with our hand and that darned binder always gets in the way......sigh...so hard!
But you know what I figured out once I finally made myself available and obedient?
I'm a fast typist, sure, but I type too fast and think TOO highly of what I write. Because of that perspective, it's most-likely more of ME that I'm putting into words than Christ. I don't listen for instruction, because I'm too busy pouring out MY thoughts. I don't listen for Christ. (I can still hear my teachers in grade-school..."There's hearing, and then there's listening. Are you listening Danny??"
I don't have patience because I throw-up my words onto the screen, and wham-bam, I'm all done and moving on to the next order of business in my day. Also, when I'm on the computer and typing away to my heart's desire, I am inevitably distracted. An email pops up, I get curious about the origin of some word and go surfing and researching the Net until I find it, and before I know it, I'm just spinning my wheels.
The pen makes me slow down. It makes me much more careful of my words in the journal. It makes me choose them more carefully instead of writing a book, like I'm doing now. And even though I still think it's silly, I draw on that tablet. When I'm on the phone, my wife reminded me that I constantly doodle. If you look on ANY piece of paper in my office, you'll see some fancy doodle or scribbling. I can't help it. It's a part of me, and it's how I keep myself entertained. Don't know why and it sounds silly, but that's just me.
So, when I draw on that tablet, it makes me stop. It makes me open up my mind and my thoughts, and it provides obedience, which then allows room for instruction from Christ!
Isn't it amazing?
All these years, and God had the formula right there under my nose. His way of speaking to me, personally. His remedy. His cure for getting Dan Elliott out of the way so He could speak to my heart. He KNEW and He STILL KNOWS how I'm wired. How I work, and how I think is something He understands much more clearly than I will ever begin to fathom....Because He MADE me.
And He made YOU too! Isn't it a wonderful thing to comprehend that the words in Ephesians 2:10 are real?! It blows my mind :)
"For we are God's workmanship," the word in the original, poema, is where we get the word poem, "created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
His signature is there in all of us. It's in that couple, it's in that little baby girl's eyes in the post just below this one,
In me. In You, and It's a brand new day :)
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