Daily Work

April 30 – It Was Monday, All Right

Mondays – when everything takes twice as long and you work three times as hard to get work done that you are 50% less satisfied with. Got my devotional and challenge writing done earlier than normal, but it was like pulling teeth today. Then had to run errands and on my last one, realized that I had just enough time to finish, get home and change, and then get to chess clubs. Did those and came home to an empty house. That problem I mentioned that my wife had at work, solved by making her work harder. But, there are other benefits, so she’s satisfied with the arrangements. I began editing the book I should have done two months ago but had glitches. I should get caught up and work on July August soon as well as my Time Travel story this month. June is gonna be crazy!

Today’s Devotional (575 Words) – April 30 – Giving: Attitude Beats Amount

Daily Work

April 8 – …And I Did Some Writing, Too

Today was Sunday. All day. I got my devotional written before we left because I needed to attend the first service if I was going to worship. Then, I had parking lot duty. We have men who take turns being on the parking lot as a presence to deter bad people from thinking cars in the lot are easy targets. I get a lot of good exercise on those days. After that, I counted money as part of the finance committee. And, as Sundays go, I came home, ate lunch and then left almost immediately to go to the nursing home for the Bible Study. Then, came home for a partial time of relaxation, in time to get ready to head back to the church for our Financial Peace University Class. I’m excited to have co-coordinators working with me…they’re good as they showed tonight! Then it was home to cook dinner, clean dishes, and try to write. I was trying to write the devotional for the day I was missing, but had a lot of distractions. I still have a bit more to write tomorrow. I’m hoping to finish that early, and then begin editing the April part of the book. I really want to get caught up on the editing so I can have the devotional books through the end of June out in order!

Today’s Devotional (513 Words) – April 8 – The Weapon of Hatred 

With this full of a day, no other reading (other than the Bible)

Daily Work

April 6 – Everybody Wants to Be a Superstar….

Today’s New Testament reading included a scene where Herod’s wondering who Jesus was. I focused on that, but also remembered that one of the networks had done a special presentation of “Jesus Christ Superstar” on Sunday night. Alice Cooper played Herod and did a great job….I saw just the clip of his performance first, it was research of course, and then, after finishing the devotional, I watched the whole presentation. The scenes with the betrayal, arrest, and then the denial were powerful. While officially set in ancient Jerusalem, there was a modern feeling to it and the arrest scene dealt with that. I caught something I hadn’t caught before. Judas is hassling Jesus about hanging around with Mary Magdalene because of her alleged status as a prostitute. Later, Caiaphas was talking to Judas about the silver he got for betraying Jesus. My paraphrase is “30 pieces of silver ain’t bad wages for one little kiss.” Yeah, let that sink in. By the way, Alice Cooper is a Christian, just in case you didn’t realize that. Superstar has one major weakness in the writing in that they leave out the resurrection. Some productions try to find ways to bring it in, but it’s hard to maintain that flow when it’s not in the script.

I had a few other errands to run today so my editing didn’t start until later in the day. My goal is to edit at least six days worth of devotionals every day to get caught up and on time. I barely finished my goal before midnight this night. I had to do a lot of reformulating and re-writing on some of the devotionals – not sure if that means I’m getting pickier as I edit, or if my writing was that incoherent on those days. I hope I improved things.

Today’s Devotional of 567 words – April 6 – “I’m Dying To Be Shown That You Are Not Just Any Man”

Reading didn’t happen today with everything else going on.

Daily Work

April 5 – Stayin’ Alive

Getting through today was an accomplishment. Some days the devotional thoughts seem to type themselves. Today was a struggle. I finally thought of something my wife said and had an idea to begin working with. A few Sundays ago, my wife had to miss church to travel to a conference. I wished her safe travels. She came back and wished me dangerous worship. I loved that idea. That thought came to mind as I was reading the Bible passage for about the fifth time seeking inspiration. Then, I had to hurry so I could get to my tutoring assignment on time. I started off running about 5 minutes late and ended up running about 15 minutes late. Came home for a touch of lunch about 3:00 (Tutoring runs across comfortable lunch hour.) Then, I sat down to plan meals for the rest of the week. I couldn’t think of anything. I stared at the computer. I finally gave up and played more Splatoon (see last night’s post). The title of this post is from a joke that my daughter and I share when she’s playing one of the scenarios. After a certain time, the most important part is staying alive. When she gets to that point, I tell her she needs to Bee Gee it. (If you’re a bit young, they have a song entitled “Stayin’ Alive.”) After dinner, which we ate out, we came home and I did my editing and then started writing this. I’m going back to editing my March and April Devotional book which got skipped due to technical difficulties around the time I needed to get it done.

Today’s Devotional (567 Words) – April 5 – Dangerous Worship Leads to Living Dangerously

Reading: Non-Fiction tonight – God Dreams – continuing.

Daily Work

March 31 – Ending the Month Strong

Today was a nice, carefree day. I had no responsibilities, nor did my wife, so we slept late, not waking up til just before 8. Then coffee and a late breakfast after finishing devotionals. My wife writes a much shorter one, posted only on Facebook. Mine was 514 words long. After breakfast we ran errands. I love having that time together with my wife! I began editing after we got back home and spent a couple hours editing. I did six days worth, some of them had some areas that needed extensive editing, just saying, and then did some work around the house…the kind that I was supposed to be doing in retirement. I do have a lot of editing to do, so I may need to spend a lot more time editing in April and May.

Today’s Devotonal – 514 words: March 31 – What You Can Expect As a Follower of Christ

I should point out that a friend is doing a special promotional deal to help us go to Rwanda. If you go to Driftwood Coffee Company and make any purchase, they will give a portion of the proceeds to us in support of our work in Rwanda. They have great coffee – we’ve been buying from them since the beginning of their company, and the owners are amazing people. They ship anywhere in the country. They use a direct trade approach so they get to know the farmers they purchase from. Check them out!

If you don’t know about our upcoming Rwanda trip, The post is located here.