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I read this on a bumper sticker years ago and it has stuck with me. The saying proves true whether you are male or female!! We all have our freaky flaws which seem to become more visible the closer we get to each other. I have quoted this saying to more young guys getting married than I can count. I use it to help discourage them from running around on their wives when the “newness” wears off.

God made women attracted to men and men attracted to women. This is a simple fact of being human. But that doesn’t mean it needs to dictate how we make decisions.

If you are married, you need something bigger than the ring on your finger, or the wedding album on the shelf to keep you your eyes or your heart from wandering. There needs to be something you can pull from that will keep your heart true when the hottie in the short dress comes walking by or the new guy in accounting wants to have lunch and hear all about your problems. We need something we can stand on, hide in and run to when our will fails!

Hear me people, I am married but not dead. I know the opposite sex is lovely and amazing. But what are you doing to keep your eyes not on the prize you don’t have but on the prize you do?

Here are some very practical things I do to keep myself in check

• I am intentional about where I sit at Starbucks. I sit in a place with my back to the restaurant and normally face a wall. This keeps my eyes from wandering. I know myself and how prone I am to look that second time
• I avoid certain places at the lunch hour. There is a local outdoor mall that my clients like to have lunch at. I avoid the place like the plague. The ladies are dressed to kill and the guys are on the hunt. I steer clear and simply avoid the problem all together.
• Don’t lie to yourself about relationships with the opposite sex. Lunch, coffee, flirty emails…cut that crap out!! It is a slippery slope and you will quickly find yourself sliding. End it
• Most important of all, you need to know who you are in Christ. You need to be in a fluid, dynamic and growing relationship with God Himself. If you know who you are in Christ, you will have no trouble telling Satan to stick his stupid ideas of infidelity, emotional or otherwise, right up his butt.

What are some ways you avoid the problem of a wandering eye?

There is a discussion at Sarah’s blog today regarding ways to avoid the trap of an emotional affair. Go chime in!!

I live in a world of things that are about 80% complete.

• Fence project in the back yard, 50% complete
• Garage cleaned out, closer to 20% complete
• Songs for my second album, 50% complete
• Most projects at work, between 50% and 80% complete
• This list only contains about 50% of the incomplete projects

This blog post, 50% complete and I am just about at my limit…..seriously

So, is this something that is simply part of my personality or do I attibute this to ADD? Or,  are the two unavoidably intertwined? Reality is, they are both part of me which makes the second option the one I will run with.

So why am I the 80% guy? It doesn’t feel good to NEVER complete something and to have all this “unfinished” baggage lying around my life. It looks a little like Christmas morning with all the presents either half wrapped or half unwrapped. I look around the room and am as confused as anyone else looking in, and I caused it all!

So what is my plan; my call to action? That I will share in a post tomorrow. (if I can push past the 80% mark and finish it)

I know I am not alone in this.

Are you a 50,80, 100% person? What keeps you from finishing?

I walk into our room and look a this giant pile of MESS and freak out a little inside. I look at all the socks and the kids little shirts and other balled up d0-dads and stress out. See, with ADD a person is already a walking ball of chaos and when that chaos walks into more chaos, well there lies the ADD infinite loop of insanity. I quickly scan the pile for ANY sense of order or pattern and every time this search starts with…the towels. Towels are uniform, easy to spot and big!

With ADD I look for any way to calm the raging storm in my head. This can be as silly as looking for all the towels in a pile of “to be folded” clothes, listening to classical music, cleaning up my night stand or any other means I can find to reduce the chaos. The irony is though…I am the cause of 98% of my chaos, I am the storm that causes the storm.

I am 35 years old and it has taken me this long to figure these and other “systems” for dealing with this thing called ADD. Anyone that has a deficiency, yes that includes you, has developed ways and methods of coping and even overcoming their “issues”.

What are some ways you have learned to deal or function in areas of life where you fall short?

(Check out Sarah’s Blog for her thoughts on living with this weirdo and his ADD!!)

As we come to the end of Fall and Winter begins I thought it fitting to share how “Winterizing” works when you live in Southern California. Don’t be fooled into thinking we don’t prepare for Winter, we totally do! So take that all my Midwest, East Coast, South East living peeps!

The other day we had a disagreement on the phone, I got sarcastic, she got hurt and then she hung up on me. This sent me through the roof. I tried calling back but she wouldn’t pick up the phone. Honestly, I wouldn’t have picked up the phone either if the roles were reversed.

I am not sharing my “dirt” with you without purpose, I promise.

At this point in a disagreement I start to brood, take my hurt and pull back into my shell. However this time, was different. See, over the past week or so it has been different. I don’t know how else to explain it other than Sarah has TOTALLY been into me! I mean I catch her looking at me, she goes out of her way to hold my hand….she is TOTALLY INTO ME!

We live married life just like any couple with two kids, a mortgage, jobs, ministry, etc. Life gets in the way! This experience shouldn’t be strange but with the busyness we live in, it too often stops being the norm and becomes the EXTRAordinary. So over these last couple of weeks Sarah has been pouring affection, love, attention;  basically, herself into me. It has been filling a dry place in my soul and it has been amazing.

I’m sitting there just hung up on, the brood meter beginning to rise and the frustration beginning to spin into a full blown tornado and it all began to break down. The frustration, anger, my pride, began to fall into pieces. A single thought climbed into my brain, “you don’t want to ruin the great thing you have going at home”. That single though was built with what Sarah had been pouring into my soul over the past few weeks. That thought was created out of a soul that had been invested in, loved and cared for.

Her kindness killed the Beast that was brewing inside of me.

How are you “pouring” love into the “dry souls” of the people you love?

I don’t want to be overlooked

I want someone to search me out and find me where I exist

I believe all of us live in the ordinary,the mundane, the not-so-extraordinary, the “cracks” of life.
I am ok with living in the cracks.

I am even ok with the losses of live happening in these cracks.

But this doesn’t mean I don’t want to be found by someone

discovered by someone

even saved by someone

This is a song about living, losing and being worthy of someone finding you.

Live and Lose

Find me here
My lost is yours to know

Look for me
There are seeds of hope to sow

In the cracks
Where I live and lose

Search for me
I’m hidden but you’ll see

Wait for me
These legs won’t carry me
Past the cracks, where I live and lose

(Bridge)
You can be my noise
When I have no sound

You can be my net
When I stumble down

You can be my leap, up off the ground
My escape
From the live and lose

(Note: There are a couple of BIG flubs in the recording and a bit of paper rustling Plan is to post a better recording by Friday)

Here is the new track!

Live and Lose Take 2 by chadmarkley

Download the MP3 HERE <—

So I have a new website.

This is a good change.

Another change is taking place tomorrow.

Over the past 13 years of being married to Sarah we have both been involved in some kind of ministry or another. However, over those 13 years we have yet to really do any ministry together. I would lead worship, she would be there; she would teach, I would watch the kids. We were “present” but not doing it together. Tomorrow we are speaking TOGETHER at Grace Church, San Luis Obispo about our story and the redemptive grace of God. I am talking about a back and forth, sharing the stage, me not being a ball hog, kind of SPEAKING TOGETHER. The reasons why this hasn’t happened YEARS ago is the fodder for future blog posts. The point is, it’s happening tomorrow!

So those are a couple of changes in my life. What are some changes that are happening in your life?

Near the end of our talk I asked him what he thought about Jesus and he said, “I totally believe in Him!”. I then asked him if he believed in the death and resurrection, the total atonement of the Cross, the virgin birth, etc. To each question he enfacticly said, YES!

After all this I sat back and was left without words. I honestly didn’t know what to say. He had completely confessed Christ and admitted he believed every single part of Christian doctrine to be true! But there was this GAPING hole I was looking through, the hole of a life unchanged despite confession.

When you get busted doing something wrong and you confess to what you did there is something that makes that confession actually worth something….change. There has to be some sort of change or what the heck was the point of the confession? If you are sorry, I mean really sorry for jacking things, there will be a change.

My friend had the confession down solid but there was NO life change. To this day he is still living the same way, doing the same things and is still miserable.

If you have confessed Christ with your mouth but your heart is still sick with selfishness, pride and anger; there is some soul searching you need to be getting to QUICKLY.

How has the power of confession set you free?

How have you seen it manifested in the life of others?

(Don’t worry, the move to WordPress is coming VERY soon)

In the past I used services like MediaFire to host the files for download but have always preferred “streaming” to downloads. One streaming service I did look at was GrooveShark which my fellow singer/songwriter Mandy Thompson uses. I liked GrooveShark, but didn’t love it.

I then stumbled across SoundCloud. I really like the interface and the ease of file upload, customization and link creation. This is my first test using their service.

A little about the actual recording. The song was written by Hillsong and is called You Alone Are God. I so totally love this song and connect with the truth of the lyrics. I made the recording in my daughter’s bedroom, away from the hollering of my 3 and 7 year olds. The recording was made using my iPhone and the FourTrack App from Sonoma Wire Works. In hindsight I should have placed the mic closer to my face to better pick up the vocals. The guitar sounds good but the vocals are a little hollow. Anyhow, here is the song and the lyrics.

Enjoy!

You Alone Are God – Chad Markley – Hillsong United by chadmarkley

Hillsongs United – You Alone Are God

I confess my hope
In the light of Your salvation
Where I lose myself
I will find You’re all I need

Sing my soul
Of the Saviour’s love
Sing my soul
Unto God alone

I will meet You here
In the life we call surrender
Let the world I know
Be the glory of Your grace

You alone are God
You alone are God
We declare the glory of Your name

Reign in all the earth
Reign in all the earth Jesus