We all have things about which we think, ‘I’d never do that!’ Whether it’s something as big as going to Africa as a missionary, or as daunting as speaking in front 1000 people.

We walk a strange line where we tell God that we’d do ‘anything’ for Him and then put limits on what ‘anything’ is.

I never got round to writing about this yesterday but this morning, my ‘Tweet Old Post’ plugin ‘randomly’ chose to tweet a post I wrote called “What’s your River Jordan?” which talks about this very subject.

So instead of writing about it again, I’d like to invite you to read my two part series:

What’s Your River Jordan Part 1

What’s Your River Jordan Part 2

I have a copy of The Firstborn, by Conlan Brown to give away.

Leave a comment on this post if you’d like it and I’ll select someone at random to be the lucky winner.

I recommend it, it’s an EXCELLENT fiction thriller!

I reviewed it here.

That’s all for today, folks!

This week’s word is: Future

You are welcome to join in either by writing or reading or both. If you write a post on the topic of sacrifice, add your link to the little widget below so we can all find it!

Remember, if you tweet your post or any of the others in the carnival, please use the hashtag #owaat.

Thanks. Enjoy!

My Entry:

Future Thinker

I think about the future… a lot.

It’s part of who I am and how I was made.

I see things and don’t see them as they are, but rather how they could be.

I get excited by possibilities, by change, by creativity.

It drives me, it energizes me, it enthralls me.

The problem is, I’m horrible at what I consider the regular, mundane aspects of life.

Before putting in the new system I installed last year, I had to manually invoice clients for work I did and for renewals of their contracts.

I would often invoice them months late – I was even known to invoice people nine months into a twelve month contract.

That kind of thing just doesn’t interest me, doesn’t excite me and therefore very often doesn’t get done.

The future is exciting. It’s unwritten, unadulterated, unknown.

I love the future.

The problem is, we don’t live in the future. We live in the present.

Spending too much time looking to the future means you can easily miss the wonder and excitement of the present.

It’s my birthday today (as I’m writing this) and looking to the future, this coming year I really want to learn to open my eyes to the present, to BE here in the present and to find a balance between my love of the future and my life in the NOW.

How about you? Do you look to the future so much that you miss the now?

IT”S MY BIRTHDAY!

Considering the overwhelming amount of birthday wishes I’ve received, my guess is that’s not too much of a surprise for most people.

Those of you who read my blog last week may remember that my birthday is my favorite day of the year!!!!

This birthday is amazing. I had a great weekend of birthday meals and this morning, I got a bunch of wonderful presents including the amazing Wacom Bamboo Pen Tablet which connects to my computer and lets me control it using a pen.

I wanted it mainly for use in Photoshop and illustrator but have already found that it’s incredibly useful for all aspects of my computer use and may one day replace my mouse completely!

I also got a copy of the book Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back by Todd Burpo.

I haven’t read it yet but you can be sure I’ll review it when I do!!!

Have a great my birthday. Everyone should enjoy my birthday!

Don’t forget the blog carnival is tomorrow and the word is: Future

One of those facts was slightly… umm… unfactual.

Which one was it?

(Drumroll, please)

It was…..

#8 – I met my wife online and married her five months after we first ‘met’ through AOL. Our relationship went pretty slow at first because we were both using 14.4K modems. Anyone remember those?

A couple of people correctly guessed that it was #8 but no-one guessed why.

The answer is, we took our courtship slowly but not THAT slowly. We met online on April 13th 1997 and married August 23rd that same year.

So it was a total of 4 months, 10 days not 5 months.

I know, it was a small lie to try to guess but seriously, who’d wait five months? Surely you should have seen the ridiculousness of that!

On Another Note

On a completely unrelated note, I have been using an awesome plugin on this blog called ‘Tweet Old Post”.

The name is a little ambiguous so I’ll tell you that, surprisingly, what it does is randomly tweets links to old posts of yours.

I have it set to do that twice a day and it’s really quite fascinating to me because I have a terrible memory and have no idea what I wrote two days ago, let alone two years ago!

Yesterday it tweeted about a post I wrote called ‘Explaining Red to a Blind Person“.

I don’t really remember writing that post, but my blog suggests I did. Weird how my memory works (or doesn’t work).

I read the post and was quite challenged by what I had to say – and I think you might be, too.

So why not hop on over there and find out how to explain the color red to a blind person!

1. My birthday is my favorite day of the year. Even at 35 I still get excited about it a month in advance. It’s the one day I don’t have to worry about messing up!
2. My birth certificate has the wrong place of birth on it.
3. One of the things I’m most proud of is that I married an older woman (although she’s only nine months older than me )
4. I have made up theme songs for each of my children.
5. I rarely stop singing (although people wish I would). There’s a song for just about every word I hear and so I randomly start singing a song which is triggered by a word I hear someone say.
6. I think just about everything can be used for a sermon illustration. I have a friend who occasionally gives me a topic, statement or object to make up a sermon about, just to see if they can stump me.
7. I REALLY dislike blogger.com
8. I met my wife online and married her five months after we first ‘met’ through AOL. Our relationship went pretty slow at first because we were both using 14.4K modems. Anyone remember those?
9. One of my favorite snacks is to cut a slice of cheddar cheese, butter it then spread strawberry jam on top of the butter. Pure heaven!
10. I hate drinking water. I know I have to do it so I fill bottles up at the beginning of the day and force myself to drink them before going to sleep. I regularly drink two or more bottle of water in the last few minutes just before I go to bed. I think of it like medicine…. it tastes disgusting but I need it to survive!

All but one of these things are true.

The one which is false is just slightly inaccurate.

Q. Which of these ten things is not completely true – and what’s untrue about it?

Thank you all for your entries to and support of the No More Blogger giveaway.

The entries have been pooled together, the draw done and the winners selected.

The winners are…..

Well, the giveaway was all Katdish’s idea, so I’ll leave it to her to tell you who the winners are. Head on over to her post to find out if you won!

I feel really bad for everyone who DIDN’T win though

I’ve been trying to figure out if maybe I could give extra prizes of free hosting to everyone else who entered but there were just too many of you entering!

What we can do though is if you got really excited about the thought of possibly moving to WordPress and still want to do it even though you didn’t win, head on over to Newbloghosting.com and we’ll give you a small discount if you use the Promotional code: nomoreblogger

I wish there was more we could do, I really want to help you all make the most of your blogs. Of course, if you do decide to switch, I’ll help walk you through the process and be there to lend advice and support as you get set up and make the transition.

Thank you all so much for entering… we’ll have to do this again soon!

Like the lion in the picture above, I feel like I just need to lay down and rest and, like the lion, if you disturb or annoy me, well….. you don’t want to know what’s going to happen if you disturb or annoy me!

When I was growing up, I never dreamed that I’d be a 35 year old who walked through life just inches away from a mental breakdown.

It’s not what I imagined but it’s what I’ve got… so I have to try to deal with it.

Something’s got to go… and it’s going to be my blogging.

I’m still going to try to blog 2-3 times a week but I really can’t cope with any more than that.

When I look at all the things I do, the most expendable is this blog. I’d MUCH rather help your blog succeed than my own.

That may seem a little strange to some of you. Why would I be more interested in helping you succeed than succeeding myself?

Well, the answer is in my gifting.

The Gift of Being a Pastor

I’m not trying to be arrogant when I say I have the gift of being a pastor, it’s just a fact. It’s the way I was made and the heart I was given.

Let’s see what the bible says about Pastors:

¹¹ So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, ¹² to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up…

(emphasis added) Ephesians 4:11-12

It’s a common misconception in our culture today that the ‘pastor’ is there to do all the work.

That’s simply not true though.

The pastor’s job is to help equip the people to do the work – and that’s the heart of a pastor.

A pastor is one who wants to see you succeed in what it is you’ve been given to do and to equip you to do that.

The human side of me wants to be rich and famous and publish books and host millions of websites and speak at big conferences but the spiritual side of me knows that’s not necessarily my job. My job is to help YOU succeed.

So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to cut back some on the blogging and give myself more time, energy and strength to help you.

I’m not going anywhere. I’m pulling back to make sure of that!

]]> http://peterpollock.com/2011/02/i-need-rest/feed/ 10 http://peterpollock.com/2011/02/follow-friday-3/ http://peterpollock.com/2011/02/follow-friday-3/#comments Fri, 25 Feb 2011 20:12:33 +0000 http://peterpollock.com/?p=3136 Today for Follow Friday, we have three ladies who I’ve met in the past week or two whose blogs I really like and most of whom have recently transferred from Blogger.

That last part is relevant because we’re just a couple of days from announcing the winners of our Great No More Blogger Giveaway and so I want to give you another chance for some bonus entries.

More about that at the end of the post.

Here are some of my new online friends:

SisterLisa – @thehomespunlife who blogs here, here and here

Buky (@bukyoj) who blogs here.

Lynnette Kraft (@DancingAgain) who blogs here.

I’m also going to give an honorable mention to Katdish (@katdish) who has a beautiful blog and is the real driving force behind this giveaway. It’s her giveaway really, I just jumped on the bandwagon.

Which segue’s nicely into how you can gain TWO additional entries into the giveaway…

All of these bloggers have their own unique designs on the WordPress blog. You’ll get two free entries if you comment on this post and tell me what sort of design/’theme’ you would try to achieve if you won WordPress hosting in this giveaway.

• You can enter by leaving a comment here or here (or both)
• You can get an addition entry by tweeting about it using the hashtag #nomoreblogger (and you can do that once a day)
• You can get an additional entry by visiting digital disciples and doing this.
• You can get another entry by writing a poem
• You can get FIVE more entries by writing about why you want a new blog

We’re trying to make it so that everyone who doesn’t use WordPress or who doesn’t even blog yet can get more chances to win.

Today, therefore, I’m giving Facebook users a chance to gain an additional entry.

Here’s how:

I don’t know how to monitor facebook shares and I don’t want to miss anyone’s post, so here’s the process.

1. Go to your Facebook account and add me as a friend (if we aren’t friends already)
2. Then post a status update of “I’ve entered to win Peter Pollock ‘s blog giveaway competition. You can enter too, just visit his site here: http://peterpollock.com/2011/02/the-great-no-more-blogger-giveaway/” Or something similar.
3. Here’s the thing though, when you type the update, you MUST type my name starting with an @ sign – and then select my name from the drop down list that Facebook pops up. If you DON’T do that, Facebook will not notify me that you’ve written it and so you won’t get your bonus entry into the draw.

Have fun.

I know some of you are really eager to win, so every extra entry counts!