Our church recently did a 21 day fast and invited everyone to join in with the staff to be a part of it.  I have never been a big fan of missing a meal so this really wasn’t very high on my priority list, but with the chaos of moving and holidays and interviews I felt like it would be a good way to get refocused on the important things in life.  Some of those are easy, but others are difficult if you don’t try.

So, fasting.  I don’t know about you, but that word makes me think about starving, Lent, lint, depriving myself of good stuff, etc.  There are all kinds of fast that you can do.  Some people pick easy stuff and fast from a TV show or gum or wearing shoes at 2:38 PM.  Well, maybe not all of that.  Other people go all out and do a liquid diet or just fruits and vegetables.  I decided to go down the middle and just fasted from breakfast.

This wasn’t an easy thing for me to do now that I am home with my girls and getting up early to play with a <1 year old.  But the good thing to me was that no matter what volume level of my stomach growls that I chose, the point is to abstain from something in order to refocus and seek God in a way that isn’t normal.  As of today the 21 days are over and I celebrated with biscuits and gravy and an sausage, egg and cheese omelet!  So good!

While I am still not a fan of missing any meal, I do have to admit that this 21 day fast was a very good way for me to get myself refocused on Christ and into a new rhythm spiritually.  There is even a reading plan on YouVersion to go along with it that provides Scriptures pertaining to it and some other thoughts.  So no matter what you decide to fast from and for how long, I definitely recommend doing this as an individual and as a family!  It’s a great way to start the year!

We got a new Video Of The Week this week!  Aaron Keyes is a new-to-me (in the last year or so) worship leader.  Every time I have seen him lead he has done an outstanding job.  Every time I listen to him I realize a little more that my Scriptural knowledge is lacking.  I think he has a YouVersion brain implant.  That or he just really knows his stuff and love his God.  I think it’s more of the second one.  Check out this video, follow him on Twitter (@aaronkeyes) and then hit him up on iTunes and get his album Not Guilty Anymore!

As we have been reading through the Gospels on our YouVersion daily reading, I have gotten a chance to see some things that I hadn’t really noticed before.  This past week I saw one that really confused me.  I haven’t done any research at all about this, but I thought I would ask anyway.

One of these things that has been interesting to see as we read through the Gospels is the timelines.  It’s a little weird reading the different points of view because they don’t always tell the same story or with the same detail.  But the one that stuck out to me the most was the story of Jesus going into the temple, seeing all the madness of the people selling animals and loans, and driving them out of there.  I am confused about when this happened.  In Matthew (Matthew 21:12-17) the story is told after Jesus and the disciples come to Jerusalem for the Passover just before the crucifixion.  But in John (John 2:13-16), the story is told toward the very beginning.

So what’s the deal?  I don’t know that the timing really makes a difference because that isn’t point of the story.  But I’m still curious.  Any ideas?

Back in the day when I had a Motorola Razr I thought I had the best phone.  I loved it!  It was so great.  I could have entire conversations with multiple people through texting without even looking at the phone (well maybe I looked to read responses)!  Then the day came to get a Blackberry.  Wow.  Stepping up in the world.  I could check my email!  Woo!  I had a Pearl and it blew away every phone I had ever had.  Then came the iPhone.  It took me a while to take the plunge because of the price tag, but then I found a better way through Craigslist and bought one.  Everything I said prior to the iPhone did not matter at all.  I could now see the millions of faults that every other phone I had ever had was composed of!  What joy!  Games.  Email.  Twitter.  Games.  Info.  Apps.  Apple!

The geniuses hanging out in Cupertino had done it again!  It is still to this date the best phone I have ever had.  Love it.  But with it comes an entire world of new decisions.  What apps should I get?  Is it worth it to buy apps?  Well, in my time with the iPhone I have determined that the paid apps aren’t necessary.  There are plenty of times that they would be nice and helpful and fun, but I still haven’t needed to buy them.  I actually have an iTunes gift card just waiting to be used for apps, but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.  The free ones work just fine.  So here are my top 10 Free iPhone Apps!

1. YouVersion – The guys over at LifeChurch.tv have made a guy named Gutenberg seem like just a dude with a moveable type printing press.  Seriously?  Print Bibles?  What would you do with one of those!?  Downloaded by millions, tons of daily reading plans, 22 languages and 40 versions all in one?  Not bad.  Plus it is fun to sit on the front row at church and make the pastor think you are texting the whole time when you are really reading the Bible!

2.  ScoreCenter – Love it.  All MY scores, game updates, last play, stats, etc. quick and easy.  Choose your sports, choose your divisions or conferences, and choose your favorite teams!  It even gives you the start times in your time zone.

3.  TweetDeck – Yes, this Twitter app has it’s issues.  It crashes often.  It has a goofy bug in it that if you are commenting on a Facebook post and receive a text you have to restart the phone to get out.  But to be able to have a feed for the people I choose is awesome.  To be able to have a feed for the people I choose from Facebook is EVEN BETTER!

4.  EliminatePro – I suck at the Halo, 007, and on-your-own-fighting-against-other-people-with-better-skills-and-know-how type of games.  But this one I love.  The games are short and it can be operated with only two buttons.  The graphics are decent and the guns, splattering noises, and other upgrades are a blast.

5.  Touch Mouse – This I could have used long ago!  We bought cables so that we could use our TV as our computer monitor for things like Hulu and Skype, but it was really annoying and almost not worth it to have to get up to go to the other side of the room every time something happened or needed to be changed.  This gives us complete control over our laptop while being absolutely lazy!  It even has three buttons, two finger scrolling, tap to click and a keyboard thrown in there, too!

6.  Shazam – If you are like my wife, you like a LOT of music but have almost no idea who sings what.  I am the opposite.  For some reason I like the music quizzing.  We don’t play that game much anymore.  Shazam is perfect because when you hear a song you don’t know, you turn on the program and it listens to it for you and tells you what it is!  The only drawbacks are that if the room is very noisy, a lot of the time it won’t be able to make out the song and that it won’t understand live songs.  Bummer.

7.  ShopSavvy – I just started using this app yesterday.  I love it.  I almost bought a couple things at Best Buy but used this app and realized I could get them for half the Best Buy price elsewhere.  It also tells me where!  So now I have my choice of several online and local stores to choose from.

8.  Lose It! – Hi!  I’m brookjames.  This was me a year ago.  I was a size fat and then I tried Nutrisystem Jenny Craig Hungryman Atkins South Beach Subway Taco Bell Throwing Up Weight Watchers Lose It! and I lost 35 lbs.!  Yes, it is a little detail oriented, but if you really want to be serious about losing weight, this is a great way to do it!  Thanks to Lose It! I weigh less that I did in high school 10 years ago.

9.  Words With Friends – I was unsure if I should put this in my top 10 but I went ahead and did it.  As of right now I am using it a lot.  When you were young did you kick the foreign kids’ butts in the Spelling Bee?  Did you always get 100%’s on your vocal tests?  Me either!  But I like to play Scrabble (for some reason)!   This makes it super easy to play and you don’t have to worry about the baby chewing, swallowing, and choking on the letter Q (although we would all rather the letter Q go ahead and get digested…stupid letter).  But note that the iPhone is not a good substitute for the baby’s chew
toy either.

10.  Facebook – I never have been much of a Facebooker, but I’ve had a page for a long time.  Despite my efforts to stay away, everyone and their dog (literally) has a Facebook account now.  So, it is still a great way to talk to my friends that live in Arkansas…except we don’t really talk much on there.  It’s a great way to talk to all your friends that you just saw a few minutes ago!  The app is great and works well.  Upload pictures, comment on things, check fan pages, chat, stalk people, become friends with people you really aren’t friends with but want to see if their child turned out to be the demon child you always felt like they deserved, etc.  It’s good stuff.

Runners-up: WordPress, Surf Report, Family Guy, Redbox, Wikipedia, ShopShop, AppDeals

What are your favorites?

As the weeks fly by this year, I realize more and more that my baby girl is almost here!  That’s pretty crazy!  I think we are looking at another great week!  Here’s what I’m expecting this week.

• Well, the contractions have started!  Very few and far between, but that means we are getting closer.  I bet we have a few more of those this week.
• We are doing some crowd favorites for our setlist on Sunday.  I’m expecting God to take over!
• This week my wife and I will be starting the third week of our YouVersion Daily Reading through the Gospels.  It’s been great so far.  So many things I am learning through it and I expect God to continue to reveal more and more through it!
• I have a consultation with an oral surgeon on Monday.  I expect to not be excited about getting my wisdom teeth removed.
• Thursday night will be another Thursday Night @ The HUB.  The first two have been great and I expect God to do more great things through it.

I hope you are expecting God to do more than expected!

As I have been reading through my YouVersion daily reading plan of the Gospels with my wife, I have been reminded of so many things.  Jesus really was amazing.  He was revolutionary.  Crowds followed Him everywhere.  12 guys got backstage passes.  Really cool stuff.  But the one thing that has been hitting me the most this week is that those 12 disciples who were chosen by Jesus Christ Himself to be the early leaders of the church were NOT perfect.  Really, a lot of the time they were quite ridiculous.

• They freaked out when someone else was preaching in Jesus name.  (Is that ok, Jesus?  Are you sure?  Because I’m pretty sure they were Methodists.)

• They had the Savior of the world on their boat and almost completely fell apart because they thought they were gonna die.  (Ummm…Jesus?  You might wanna wake up because the waves are really big.  What?  No!  It’s not time for surfing!  We are drowning!)

• They saw miracle after miracle, but as soon as He told them to gather up food for the 5,o00+ they doubted again.  (Seriously?  They don’t want Long John Silvers.  No one really eats that.)

But I think my favorite so far has been from Luke 9.

They came to a Samaritan village to make arrangements for his hospitality. But when the Samaritans learned that his destination was Jerusalem, they refused hospitality. When the disciples James and John learned of it, they said, “Master, do you want us to call a bolt of lightning down out of the sky and incinerate them?” Jesus turned on them: “Of course not!”

Luke 9:52-55 (emphasis added)

Ha!  I image that Jesus giggled a little to Himself there.  Probably one of those wow-you-are-an-idiot-but-I-don’t-want-to-laugh-in-your-face-so-I-will-cough-and-clear-my-throat type giggles (or guttoral utterances if you prefer the more rugged manly version of Jesus).  Seriously?  Have you not caught on to what He is doing?  You love those that need love.  No bolts of lightning, James and John.  No chopping off ears, Peter.

They weren’t perfect.  I love that!  Because I’m not perfect.  And still they were used to change the course of history!  How amazing is it to know that the God that thought you up and loves you more than you can EVER know can use you even with all our faults, failures, immaturities, and lack of faith?!  So rest in the fact that God has a plan for you.  And even though you have screwed up and will again, He still loves you and wants to use you.

Yes, even despite that time you were pregnant and in a fit of road rage tried to summon a bolt of lightning down to incinerate the car next to you that probably really didn’t do much to you.

Seems like January is just flying by!  We only have a few weeks left until my wife is home preparing for the final stretch of baby cooking!  And then a few more weeks and my baby girl will be here!  Wow.  That is pretty soon.  But for this week, we still have some good stuff.  Here’s what I’m looking forward to this week.

• Sunday we are continuing in the book of John and rocking out to Revelation Song again!  I can’t get enough of that song!
• More stories of people still being found alive in the destruction in Haiti!
• I’ve been saying this for a couple weeks now, but this week we are launching a new part of brookjames.com.  It’s really gonna happen this time!
• Basketball has been cancelled for this week so I have gained an extra night with the wife!
• I just might buy a couple iPhone apps.
• While reading through my YouVersion daily readings through Matthew, Luke and John, I have started a few blog posts that I am excited about.  Love thinking through the Scriptures and getting my thoughts all written out.

Should be a great week.  Hope you are expecting a great week, too!

Last week I had something on my mind and wrote a post called I Work Out Therefore I Am.  I don’t know why, but God brought up the issue of image and what others think.  Living in Orange County, people think that they are different than the rest of the world.  We aren’t any different here than anywhere else.  We still have issues. We still have money problems.  We still don’t understand the concept of using credit in our favor (and how that doesn’t mean to go buy a Lotus because the bank upped the limit).  But one of the biggest issues that I continue to see here is that of image.

I have seen in all over the place.  There is a constant need to be prettier or better dressed or have nicer stuff or write better, speak better, sing better, surf better than the next person.  But then as God put this on my heart last week, I came across a couple verses in my YouVersion reading plan that to me really nail it down.

“Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion—do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them. “If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?

Matthew 6:27-30

“There’s trouble ahead when you live only for the approval of others, saying what flatters them, doing what indulges them.

Luke 6:26

I love it.  Has fussing in the mirror ever made you taller?  No!  If He gives so much attention to some random flowers that no one ever sees, how much pride and love and thought did He pour into you?!  Be you!  That’s who you were made to be!  And for those of us that only live and breathe and do because we want the approval of others, we have a rough road ahead.  If those don’t smack you across the face either you either don’t have any issues with this at all or you didn’t read it!

I have had a One Year Bible for a couple years now.  I still haven’t made it all the way through.  I did really great for a while and it seemed like I was really making some headway and then I got an iPhone.  Along with the iPhone was the YouVersion app which had daily readings.  Well with the new update for the YouVersion app there are several different daily reading plans.  I don’t know what they all mean yet, but it would be pretty cool to read them all.  Don’t know.  We’ll see.

Since my wife and I both love this app and it is super convenient with all these plans, we decided that we would do a reading plan together through it.  So we are embarking on reading through the Gospels.  I believe you are supposed to complete it in 30 days, but I’m a pretty slow reader so we may have to stretch that out a little bit.  But I’m really excited to dive into a new reading plan and even more excited to read though it with my wife!

Do you do some sort of daily reading plan?  What is it?  What do you like?

A few days ago, the yearly reading on YouVersion was Nehemiah 10.  As you read through the chapter it starts talking about many of the sacrifices and offerings that were required to be right with God.  It wasn’t repent and ask for forgiveness.  It was find the best animal/bread you have and offer it up to God.  All through the Old Testament you can see this.  The Israelites had to do so much to keep in good standings with God.  Fortunately it didn’t end there.  We aren’t caught up in the same rules.  Jesus came to wipe all that out.  Now we have access to God through Jesus and not constant bloody sacrifices and a high priest.

As I was preparing for last Sunday this chapter stood out to me.  We constantly try so hard to earn forgiveness and love from God but we can never live up to it.  Even if we did still follow the old rules, we wouldn’t be good enough.  But no matter how hard I try or how badly I fail, the love of God is not determined by me.  It is always there.  I never deserve it, but it is always there.  And all because Jesus came for me.

One of the songs that was chosen for Sunday morning was called Jesus Saves.  I just can’t get past that.  The Israelites had to do so much before Jesus came.  Now all we have to do is turn it all over to Him.  He saves.  I don’t deserve it and never will, but He saves.  Love it.