How To Stop Feeding The Monster

The other day I had the second best day ever on my blog.  Deuceology had a day unlike most in its short history.

I was pumped up and excited.  Wow!  Really?  That many people were reading my little blog.

I wanted to celebrate.  I wanted to load everyone up, go to Ruth’s Chris and drop about $300 that I didn’t have on a meal.

That’s how excited I was.

Guess what happened next?

I read a tweet.

I read a tweet where someone said that they had just hit 20,000 views on their blog for the first time that day.

Know what I did?  Yep.  I got everyone out of the car.  We weren’t driving to Knoxville to eat at a very expensive a la carte restaurant.

I was deflated.  I felt defeated.  I thought about stopping Deuceology.  What’s the use?  I’ll never have 20,000 views in a single day.

Know what happened next?

I stopped it.

I quit feeding that monster.

I stopped comparing myself to that person.

I think that is what Paul would have encouraged me to do.

He would said, “Want to go over my resume’ again?  I was hot stuff.  Guess what?  It’s all a bunch of horse dung”

That’s what it is.  That’s what my thinking was.

In the end, that’s what my blog your reading is.

Don’t get me wrong.  I appreciate you reading.  I am going to continue to write it and I hope we have a lot of fun with it.

However, in the end, when I go home and stand before the Lord, He isn’t going to say, “Oh yes! Larry the Deuce, blogger.”

He is going to say, “Larry Carter, you’re covered by My Son’s blood.”

That’s what matters.

And when I want to compare myself to someone else?  I just need to remember that.

Do you ever find yourself comparing yourself to someone else?  What do you do to stop feeding that monster?

The Resume’

It’s Two for Tuesday.  You really get  your money’s worth reading my blog today.

Maybe you view resume’s from time to time because you are a hiring manager.  Perhaps you are in the midst of a job search and are sending resume’s to various companies.  Maybe you have not dusted off your resume’ in a long time.  No matter what, if  you have worked for any amount of time, you have a resume’.  Imagine, though, if you had to give God a resume’ before you entered Heaven.  What would be on it?  Here is what mine might look like.

Born: October 19, 1968

Church Attendance: Most of my life.  First memories from around 1971.

Youth Group: Yeah, well about that, I went for a while, but I didn’t really like it.  It was geared more toward the Youth Choir and I didn’t like to sing.  So  I quit going.

Sins:  Uhh, do I really need to list those here?  I mean, You know what they are, right?  There are several that are really embarrassing and I really don’t want anyone else to get a hold of this and see.

Marriage:  I’ve been married since September 4, 1992 to the wonderful and lovely Jan.

Children: Lauren and Andrew.  Wow, they’ve grown up fast.

Service:  I teach Sunday school and preach at a campground service in the summer.

Education:  I graduated from Carson-Newman College.  The religion professors told me that I couldn’t believe everything in the Bible.  I didn’t believe them though.  I spent a little bit of time at Tennessee Tech, but that didn’t go so well.  I also spent a year in seminary, but that was one hard year.

Work:  I work for a home builder.  I manage a department and try to be fair to everyone.

Friends:  I really like people.  I have a hard time developing deep friendships and don’t have many.  I’m working on that and our Sunday School class is wanting something deeper than one hour a week.  I see good things going forward.

Other relationships:  Some of those are rocky right now.  Or non-existent.  My fault.  I’ll take the blame.

Other:  Overall I’m a pretty good guy.  I take care of my family and keep them in church.  I’m ok with things for the most part.

Imagine turning that resume’ in to God.  He looks it over and he just asks one thing.  “What about salvation?  What about my Son?”

My answer?  “February 1994.  While I never doubted Your or His existence, it was then that I finally knew for real that it was all true.  And I couldn’t resist Your Son at that point.  I confessed my sins and admitted that I couldn’t do it on my own.  I knew that it took Him to do it for me.  I finally BELIEVED.”

How about you?  What would your resume’ look like?