A couple of light and wonderful things aside from the topic of depression and frustrations in life :D --

My mind is kind of cluttered right now. So let me dump what it has on you. :D

* I've gotta be more vigilant on how I use my time. With a lot of things going on, I need to work on proper time management.

* Johann woke us up last night -- at 2 am -- whining for a cheap toy he wanted yesterday. He didn't get it, so he woke us up to remind us. And now, my head aches. My boy needs lesson on proper resource disposal.

* Books to read are piling up. On queue: "Fusion: Turning first time Guests into Fully-Engaged Members of your Church" by Nelson Searcy, "Going all the way" by Craig Groeschel, "Next Generation Leader" by Andy Stanley. Plus, I'm a couple of days behind my 1-year Bible reading plan.

* Next week, I'm going to make a series of posts on "Lessons from a road trip". It's going to rock.

* Grace Place, a "not your typical" church in Makati is moving it's services to 4 pm Sundays starting March 2 to accommodate the yuppies who likes to stay late on Saturdays.

Perry Noble's post today disturbed me. I'm disturbed because I needed to be disturbed and I'm not getting it. Make sense? If not, here's why:

Craig Groeschel's book, “Chazown”  mentioned a prayer by Sir Francis Drake that says…

“Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves. When our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little. When we arrive safely because we have sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lord.”

Too little vision. Too comfortable. Is that what I am right now?

I want God to disturb me in my relationship with Jesus. The danger of being a long term Christian is complacency. Too much familiarity. Jesus becomes a routine. And I don't want that to happen. I want Jesus to become fresh everyday of my life. (In connection with that, I'm writing a series of blog next week on "Falling in-love with Jesus).

I want God to disturb me in leading Grace Place. I want His church to do dangerous things. Things that have not been done before. Things that are short of sin. Everything to lead people to become fully devoted followers of Jesus.

I want God to disturb me in my relationship with Joy. I don't want us to be on status-quo. I want me to always offer her something new. I want God to disturb me in my relationship with my son, Johann. I want to improve, I want to learn -- being a father is never taught in schools.

I want God to disturb me. Humble me. Humiliate me for his glory. Destroy me and rebuild me. And then spring out a better, bigger vision for me as a leader, a husband and a father.

Are you disturbed?

My mind does not rest when I'm awake. Literally. Whether I'm resting or doing something, thoughts just run through my mind. Good thoughts, bad thoughts, things to do, things not to do, things to say and not what to say, plans for this week, plans for this year. It's just floats in my head.

Joy asked me last night, "Is that good or bad?"

It depends on how I control my thoughts. Sometimes, when I'm obsessed with something -- like when I have a really good plan to do the next day at church or at the office or for the family, I just can't stop thinking about it. That's not good. What I should be doing is stop and act. Stop and act.

One thing that I normally do to "stop" so i can start acting is to have a what I call "Mind dump". What I do is to write my thoughts in my journal, or on my cellphone planner, or in my blog. That way, I can pluck those thoughts out of my mind.

So, you'll probably read some of my thoughts here under "mind dump" tags.

Enough with the introductions. Hear my mind dump -- my plans for this blog this year.

* I'm writing a blog series entitled "How good is good enough"
* I'll be writing another blog series come February entitled "30 days to live". This is in line with the up coming big message series at Grace Place with the same title. The plot of this series is, "What will change in the way you think about your life if you'll know you only have 30 days to live?"
* I'll be writing reasons why I believe that, contrary to popular belief, the Philippines is NOT a Christian nation.

... and more.

Later.