I’ve never hears Sons of God, Hear His Holy Word.  For some reason, I don’t mind Sing a New Song at all, and, while I don’t care for On Eagle’s Wings or We Remember one bit, I know of far worse things that we could be singing.  They actually left out several worse one like Ashes, which I believe should be number one because it is outright heresy.

Then again, maybe Sing a New Church deserves the top spot.  I can’t think of any reason other than someone’s agenda that would prompt the use of that hymn.  I didn’t even know that there was really a hymn with that name until I moved to North Carolina.  I went to a vigil Mass, still very cranky from having worked night shift, and this was the gathering song . . . oh, excuse me, opening hymn.  You can imagine how cranky I was during Mass.

Let’s not forget the self-congratulatory Anthem where we sing about being called and chosen to  a tune similar to “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain When She Comes.”  How many people reading this have heard of the song Jerusalem, My Destiny?  It was sung several times during Lent, and I had no idea what we were singing.

One string that goes through most bad hymns is that they are too complicated for congregational singing and too high pitched for someone like me who can’t register on the treble clef.  If this isn’t dealt with, you can just forget about active participation in the singing of the hymns.  Fortunately, there are better hymns that have literally been available for centuries.

I’ve gotten into the world of streaming audio with Pandora.  Unfortunately, it’s a battery hog that I can’t use for long without plugging in the phone.  Still, it works great over 3G.  Just recently, there has been an application for Sirius/XM Radio.  Now, I have my EWTN radio on the go!  If you are an XM subscriber, you’ll need to look on the Sirius XM site to get the app.  It will work for XM just as well as I no longer have my Sirius subscription.  I had been waiting for this app for as long as I’ve had my phone, especially since there has been an iPhone app available for some time.

On another note, one of my concerns about switching to Android is that my pharmacist references wouldn’t be available.  Thankfully, this wasn’t an issue.  You can get ePocrates from the Android market, but it is in beta and isn’t receiving clinical updates according to the company.  The folks at Lexi were nice enough to move my subscription from a Palm version to the Android version without charging me. They didn’t have the Lexi Calc clinical calculations at first, but they have since added them.

Now, the only thing that is missing is a program like Pocket Quicken.  As I blogged earlier, Intuit, in what has to be my least favorite business decision of 2010, discontinued it.  No, the handheld version of Mint is not an acceptable substitute.  I want something I can update and reconcile with bank records.  I have yet to see an equivalent competitor to Quicken produce an Android version either.

Android is growing by leaps and bounds, and I am ready to see what comes next.

Just before our first date, my wife sent me this picture showing the statue being just right to be part of the Ohio State cheer.  I must admit I missed it the first time I drove through.  Oh well, I saw it later.

In his article, he mentions the need for liturgical instruction.  Of course, this is nothing new.  Vatican II itself called for solid liturgical instruction.  My fear is that it will never come, at least not to people who don’t search for their own resources because they don’t know that they exist.  I’m even more afraid that any instruction that does exist will look like something I’ve seen in various forms since I was in high school and had just joined the Church.

I have seen varying forms of “The Vatican says we need to do this for some strange reason.  It doesn’t make any sense.”  It just gives the impression that the bishops and even the Holy Father himself just go and make arbitrary rules with no thought about “real life,” whatever that is.  Since many have no awareness that there is another side to the story, they will just believe this, as I often did.  Given all of the bad press the new translation has gotten in the liberal publications, this scenario seems quite likely. 

The new translation, from what I have seen, is a much more beautiful work than what we currently use.  I cannot wait for its implementation.  If you know of good resources about it, please point anyone you know in that direction.  I still recommend Jeffrey Pinyan’s Praying the Mass.  If we hope to have an authentic liturgical renewal, we need to spread the word, possibly against our own parish or diocesean instruction program.

Well, now I know one reason why it isn’t available for the Droid.  In what has to be one of the most disappointing moves I’ve ever seen, Intuit terminated its license to Landware to make and sell the product.  For a long time, Quicken was the software that worked better than anything else, especially on Windows.  The Mac version works, but it’s really clunky.  I’ve heard many, many complaints about Quicken Essentials for Mac, and I have to wonder why Intuit thought they’d get away with releasing that in the state that it is in at its price.

I am now looking to replace Quicken.  I will most likely replace it with the first good Mac product to provide an Android mobile version, especially if it syncs over the air.  If anyone knows of such a product, please do let me know.

Apparently, some companies are paying people to go through and enter CAPTCHA codes.  I just don’t get how this is worth someone’s time and resources.  A CAPTCHA code is something to keep automated processes from entering spam messages and comments.  The very presence of the code should tell people that these unsolicited offers are not wanted there.  Who makes money by targeting offers to people who do not want them?  Companies like Facebook and Google make at least part of their money by trying to produce targeted ads.  In other words, they use information to find out what people might be interested in.

My site uses CAPTCHA on my e-mail link, and all comments on my blog have to be approved before they will appear.  I also utilize spam filters in both my e-mail and the blog.  If you are a spammer, don’t even bother to post here.  Even if you get past my filters, I will delete your e-mail and never post your comment.  Even if I wanted your product, I would never buy from someone who uses these tactics.  I wish I could just allow comments to instantly post.  However, even if I let the spam post and deleted it later, there’s a possibility that it will get to a search engine and help their ranking.  I want to take no chance of letting a spammer do that.

Being as I am, I’m not content to carry around a phone that only makes calls. I like to have a device that will allow me to keep in touch with e-mails and sites like Facebook.  However, I don’t want something that will annoy me with pop-ups or pause to check e-mail when I’m actively trying to use it.  I don’t want something beeping all night while I’m at work.  Just a few weeks ago, I found something that is easily the best phone I’ve had – the Motorola Droid.  It’s a perfect replacement for my Palm Treos that I’ve used since 2005.

I am a big Apple fan, but I’ve never really wanted an iPhone.  It didn’t have enough disk space to serve as my media player, and I was concerned that using a phone as my media player would run the battery down too quickly.  I wasn’t attracted to the touch-screen only interface because I have fat fingers.  The first generation didn’t have 3G support, and I wasn’t about to spend the money that it would cost without it.  The non-removable battery is a deal killer in a cell phone.  Besides all this, I switched to Verizon early in my courtship with the woman who is now my wife, and the iPhone is only available for AT&T.

The Droid does so many things that it is a huge step up for me from my old Treo.  The multitasking works well, and I am able to continue to work in another application while it checks my e-mail.  Because of this, I can now have it check my e-mail more often.  The e-mails now look much more like what they would look like if I were using my desktop or laptop.  Web browsing on this thing is very nice.  Verizon’s 3G is plenty fast.  The pages look similar to what they do on a full-size computer.  I can double-tap when a web page comes up and zoom it so that the article just fits across the screen.  I get a lot of reading done on the phone now and don’t have to wait until I get to a computer.  The only problem is that, when you are in a spot where 3G isn’t available, any web function is very slow.

I’d probably still like my Droid if this were all it did.  However, there is so much more.  My calendar and contacts sync with my Google account which can then sync with iCal and Address Book.  The Treo would sync these also, but there’s a major difference.  I don’t have to plug the Droid in to do this.  It does it over the air.  I add someone’s info while I’m out at the mall or a restaurant, and it’s on my computer when I get home.  I only wish that there were an app like Pocket Quicken that could do this with financial data.  Pocket Quicken is the one thing I really, really miss on the Droid.

The GPS is amazing.  Since it’s powered by Google Maps, you don’t have to buy those ridiculously expensive updates to the maps.  You can even use voice search to find an address.  The directions are more clear than they are on my Garmin.  However, it’s not perfect.  The smaller size and glossy screen (which is normally beautiful) can be kind of hard to see, especially if I’m wearing sunglasses.  My wife doesn’t like the voice of the navigation.  The biggest downside of it, though, is when you get a call.  The call screen gets in the way of the GPS, and you can’t use the navigation while you are on a call.  Maybe this is a safety feature, but a call when I’m trying to go through a multi-directional exit would not be good.

On a less-important but still useful note, it’s great for checking the weather.  The new Android 2.1 download that I got comes with a news and weather program.  It shows the current temperature, weather forecast for my location (which it detects), and important news headlines.   It has a good photo application that I can use to show off pictures of me with my beautiful wife and even some video.  Having a 5 megapixel camera with flash isn’t too bad, either.  The included video camera worked well in my test, but I have yet to use it for real.  Yes, you can use the device as your MP3 player, and it comes with a 16 GB memory card.  I have MP3s on the device, but I don’t play them that much.

I have heard that there aren’t as many apps available for Android as for the iPhone, but that hasn’t seemed to matter to me.  I haven’t spent a cent, and I’ve been able to find a number of useful apps and some games:  Solitaire, Euchre, Connect Four, Tic Tac Toe, and Othello.  There are apps for using Wikipedia, Skype, WordPress, and Facebook.  I even have an app that tells me what movies are playing near my current location (which it detects automatically) and the times and lets me view the trailer.  I also have my pharmacist databases installed on the device – Lexi Drugs and ePocrates.  Installing the software from the app store is very, very easy.  The phone, unlike the iPhone, isn’t restricted to software from the store, but there’s a setting you have to change to get it to install other software.

As for the call quality, it’s the best I’ve heard in a long time.  The speakerphone is loud and very clear.  My parents could notice a difference immediately when I called them on the phone.  I could also tell a difference when talking to my wife.  Everyone was much easier to hear than they were on my Treo.

All is not perfect, though.  My biggest gripe about it is the way to answer the phone.  I have to slide a slider across the screen to answer or ignore a call.  This is a great for preventing myself from accidentally answering the phone, but the sliders are so hard to slide across that I normally have to try several times and then almost miss the call.  I also have to use a slider to unlock the phone almost every time the screen goes off.  These sliders are fairly easy to use but annoying.  Can’t there be a certain amount of time that must pass before the phone locks?  I looked for settings but could find none.

There are a few other things that’s I’d like to see improved.  When using Gmail, you can’t change the Send From account like you can in the full web version of Gmail.  It can check mail pretty often, but I’m pretty jealous of the speed of the push mail that my wife has in her BlackBerry.  With multitasking ability, I have to worry about something in the background sucking the life out of the battery.  Applications don’t have their own “exit” function, so the Task Killer is a must.  The battery life is good enough for me, but I’ve found that I do need to watch it.  Many people have complained about the slide-out keyboard, and I will add that it does take getting used to.  The device will change from portrait to landscape when you rotate it, but it isn’t as smooth as I’d like.

Overall, this is the best gadget I’ve ever owned.  I am sure that Google will continue to update Android, and it will get even better with time.  It’s a great phone, and it does a lot of stuff.  I am having a lot of fun with it.

The used car salesman who says, “Trust me” can be refuted if you produce his rap sheet.  But the math teacher who says that 2+2=4 is not refuted when you show him to be a drug dealer.  The truth that bishops hand along does not depend on their personal holiness, any more than the truth of our salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ was disproven by Peter’s chickenhearted failure to live by his own preaching at Antioch.

On a related note, the idea that the efficacy of the Sacraments is based on the holiness of the priest or bishop who administers them is a heresy known as Donatism.  Be thankful for this.  We can go to Mass or to Confession and not have to inquire on the state of the priest’s soul.

While all of this, as well as the stories from Europe, were coming out, I read this article from Phil Lawler.  In it, he explains how sexual abuse is a problem in society as a whole, not just the Church.  He is very careful to explain that he understands, as I do, that this does not mean that we should excuse those in authority in the Church for their actions.  The Church must uphold and be held to a higher standard than secular society.  In fact, I would argue that the problem is not that the Church has become worse than secular society but that the Church and her institutions have largely become secularized and then experienced the attending problems.

So, if the fact that sexual abuse and its cover-up is a societal problem doesn’t excuse the Church, what does it mean?  Well, it means a couple of things . . .

First, we have evidence that our media is targetting the Church, whether out of animosity or the desire to sell stories.  After all, if the media’s real interest were sexual abuse, they’d be taking a lot of other people to task for sexual abuse cover-up.  Even the New York Times story mentioned that local law enforcement was aware of the case but did not prosecute.  Amidst calls for Pope Benedict’s resignation, why has there not been a call for an investigation of the law enforcement offices in Wisconsin?

Second, it means that there is nothing inherit in the structure or discipline of the Church that is causing the problem.  The usual gang has used this as yet another excuse to promote their pet agendas:  married priests, women priests, changing the Church’s teaching on sexuality, etc.  However, if the same problem is happening in wider society, it’s hard to make a case that the problem is caused by anything particular to the Church. 

The problem of sexual abuse is, in my opinion, nothing but a symptom of the real problem plaguing the Church – secularization.  This is seen in many of the more horizontal liturgies that we see in parishes today.  It shows in Catholic institutions like hospitals and universities that are now difficult to distinguish from their secular counterparts.  It shows in a Church who is afraid to teach her doctrine.  It shows in orders of nuns that have become little more than social workers (hence the apostolic visitation).  Pope Benedict XVI is doing all he can to try to combat these trends.  While people in the media call for his resignation, I see him as the man whom the Church needs most.

I was especially glad to see Greg and Lisa Popcak and Fr. Dwight Longenecker in person.  I have read several of Dr. Popcak’s books, and I had somewhat followed the story of Fr. Longenecker.  Now, I have heard them speak, and they were great!

Although the practice bothers me, the attitude behind it is what really gets to me.  I never understood why priests and other parish leadership thinks that they can just make up their own practice and just do stuff.  When it comes to the church, if it’s not in the book, don’t do it!

One of the most depressing things that I read (I don’t remember where.) was this article that said something along the lines of “The ancient people saw the order and complexity of creation, and they reasoned that there was a God who created it all.”  In other words, God has never truly revealed himself.  We just kind of guessed at one time that there might be a God.

A more subtle statement was made in a group in which I participated some months ago.  It goes somewhere along the line of “If it weren’t for our patriarchal society, we would be calling God ‘mother’ instead of ‘father.’”  For this to be the case, our knowledge of God would have to be purely a product of society.  At the very least, this person was saying that God cannot reveal himself in any terms other than our societal framework.  If this is true, then I have to wonder why we would worship such a wimp.

The proponents of such ideas would have to deny the authenticity of Scripture.  In other words, nothing in Scripture could possibly have happened as it is stated.  Alternative explanations had to be derived.  The problem with the alternative explanations is that they were all based on speculation with no long-lost documents discovered to substantiate the “real story.”  There are sources available outside Christianity that speak of Jesus and the early Christians, but none tell us the “real story” of what happened instead of the Resurrection.

Once I realized the highly speculative nature of the skeptics, it opened the floodgate for me to know and believe that God’s revelation, and our salvation, is God’s initiative.  God is the one who wanted us to know and love him and be with him forever.  He wants this more than we want it.  In fact, he wanted it so much that the second person of the Trinity took on human flesh, which he will have forever.

I wouldn’t limit the applicability of what he said to politics.  During my first year in pharmacy school, a well-known professor of one of our classes stated that they should have vending machines for birth control in every school.  He said that “personally, I’m against it.”  He went on to say that our “professional duty” comes before our “personal beliefs.”

Even today, you hear people often debating on whether one may do or not do something on the basis of “personal beliefs.”  It’s as if they’ve forgotten that there might really be a God who will one day judge them, or they have decided that such a concern is of no consequence.  Whether such is true has little to do with one’s “personal beliefs.” Here’s a quote on this from Archbishop Chaput:

Too many Catholics confuse their personal opinions with a real Christian conscience.  Too many live their faith as if it were a private idiosyncrasy – the kind that they’ll never allow to become a public nuisance.  And too many just don’t really believe.  Maybe it’s different in Protestant circles.  But I hope you’ll forgive me if I say, “I doubt it.”

“Too many just don’t really believe.”  I can never know for sure what is in someone’s heart.  However, the actions and attitudes I’ve seen displayed on the part of many people show so little concern for God. I have talked to many people in my life who seem quite satisfied to believe that neither they nor anyone else knows anything about God. Either there is a God, or there isn’t.  God cannot exist and not exist at the same time.  Either he has revealed himself or not.  This has eternal significance, so take time to find these things out.

Archbishop Chaput gives us an answer that is both simple but yet very difficult in today’s world.  We must all have, first and foremost, “a zeal for Jesus Christ and his Church.”  The Archbishop himself states that he is a Catholic Christian first and then an American citizen.  We most certainly must love our country, but we are citizens of Heaven first.

I must admit that I get a bit uneasy when I hear someone emphasize preaching by example.  It’s not that I disagree with the idea, but sometimes I think it is used as an excuse not to talk about Jesus Christ and His Church.  I remember when, as a teenager, I first heard a priest talk about our duty to preach the Gospel.  He went into several examples of preaching by example, identifying them as preaching the Gospel.  My response was somewhere along the lines of “Whew!  I don’t have to talk to anyone about Our Lord!  I can just preach by example.”

Many people are familiar with a quote from St. Francis of Assisi exhorting us to “Preach the Gospel at all times, and, when necessary, use words.”  It is absolutely essential that we preach by example, but I am quite convinced that words are very necessary these days.  Many people, through no fault of their own, have never heard of Our Lord or have heard things that are wrong.  If we preach solely by example, many will not know of what we are being an example.  Pope Paul VI addresses this in articles 41 and 42 (excerpts below):
 . . . it is appropriate first of all to emphasize the following point: for the Church, the first means of evangelization is the witness of an authentically Christian life, given over to God in a communion that nothing should destroy and at the same time given to one’s neighbor with limitless zeal. As we said recently to a group of lay people, “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.” AND 

Preaching, the verbal proclamation of a message, is indeed always indispensable.

Preaching by example is necessary to show someone a lived experience of the Gospel and to avoid undermining the message, but the need for words is not eliminated.  How does one know what to say?  How does one get the courage to do so?

One thing that I have shared (and need to do more of myself) is to mediate on what we have.  Think about this:

• We have become adopted sons and daughters of God himself by Baptism.
• In the Eucharist, God literally comes down upon the altar, changing bread and wine into his body and blood.  This he then gives to us, a total self-gift.
• God forgives us of all we have done wrong in the Sacrament of Penance.  We do not deserve his forgiveness.  I don’t.  Without his forgiveness, we would be forever separated from him in Hell.

Sadly, some people don’t see the need to evangelize.  I have heard stories of people who inquired about the Catholic Church only to be told that Vatican II eliminated the need to be Catholic.  This is a lie!  Others, perhaps after having tried to bring the Gospel to someone for a time, become complacent and assume that God will save someone because he is a “good person” despite the apparent lack of faith.  This is possible, but I’d hate to depend on it.  Pope Paul VI addresses this in article 82:
It would be useful if every Christian and every evangelizer were to pray about the following thought: men can gain salvation also in other ways, by God’s mercy, even though we do not preach the Gospel to them; but as for us, can we gain salvation if through negligence or fear or shame- what St. Paul called “blushing for the Gospel”- or as a result of false ideas we fail to preach it? For that would be to betray the call of God, who wishes the seed to bear fruit through the voice of the ministers of the Gospel; and it will depend on us whether this grows into trees and produces its full fruit.

In other words, even if someone can be saved because it was of no fault of their own that they did not hear the Gospel, we will have the guilt of failing to evangelize.  Therefore, it is imperative that we do our best to live the Gospel and shine Christ’s light on others.  We want them to know the truth that sets them free!

First and foremost,  the hymn should be doctrinally sound.  I have found that I often have to pay close attention to the words of some hyms I’ve seen used before I decide to sing.   One of the best known offenders is one that is often used during Lent.  It’s called “Ashes,” and the offending statement is that “We rise again from ashes to create ourselves anew.”  If this isn’t heresy, it’s darn close. God is the only one who can create us anew.  Another offender that I have been recently introduced to is entitled “Sing a New Church.”  The title itself should be enough to convince anyone concerned about fidelity to the Catholic faith that it’s problematic.

Second, the hymn should be addressed to God or be about God (or possibly a saint).  Take a look at the great hymns like “Holy God We Praise Thy Name” or “Jesus, My Lord, My God, My All.”  They are addressed to God.  The songs “Where Charity and Love Prevail” and even the St. Louis Jesuits’ “Glory and Praise to Our God” are about God.  The song “Make Us True Servants” is a petition to God.  Soon, Lent will be over, and we’ll be singing one of my favorites, “Jesus Christ is Risen Today.”  It is, of course, a song about the Resurrection of Our Lord.  I could probably name many others, both old and new.

Contrast that with some other hymns of  today.  A commonly used hymn that I’ve blogged about before is “Gather Us In,” which doesn’t mention God in it.  I was recently introduced to a song called “Anthem” which begins “We are called; we are chosen; we are Christ to one another . . .”  It’s sung to a tune that sounds kind of  like “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain When She Comes.”  It’s the congregation praising itself.  “One Bread One Body” is another one where we are singing about ourselves.  Finally, let’s not forget “All Our Welcome.”  The hymn is about the house that we build, not God.

Third, the song should not have the congregation singing the part of God.  Two known offenders are “Here I Am, Lord” (“I the Lord, of sea and sky . . .”) and “I Am the Bread of Life.”  I know that I am not comfortable singing as though I am God, and I’m sure there are others out there as well.  In the aforementioned article by George Weigel, he mentions that this is unprecedented in Christian history.  I would go further to say that this would also be offensive to the Jewish people.  The name for God, “I Am Who Am,” is a personal name.  For a Jewish person to say it out loud would be for him to say that he is God.  Therefore, they are forbidden to pronounce it.  Given that our faith is a fulfillment of Judiasm, it doesn’t seem right to be singing the part of God.

Fourth, the hymn should be musically simple enough that people who sing like I do can sing it.  Look, the only way I would sing a solo is to evacuate a building. I can’t sing very well, and the more complicated rhythms are difficult for me to follow.  The best way to ensure full participation in the Liturgy is not to innovate but to simplify.  When I was a teenager, the Danish Amen Mass was almost always used in my parish.  It was very nice and easy to follow.  Even some of the praise and worship songs are easier to sing than some obviously feminine high-pitched modern “hymns.”  Really, though, I can understand how singability (Is that a word?) can be overlooked as it is a judgment call made by people of much greater musical ability than I.  However, we must all keep in mind that the Mass is worship, not a performance intended for entertainment.

Of course, there are a lot of other elements that I like – some old Latin hymns, older hymns in general, and even some Gregorian chant (which Vatican II said should retain the pride of place at Mass).  However, what I have written above is something I believe to be a good standard to use.  I am always wanting to be at Mass when it is a genuine, prayerful experience dedicated to the greater glory of God.

On a better note, I found this great article by Fr. Gary Coulter on the priest celebrating the Mass facing the same direction as the people.  Notice that I said “the same direction as the people” instead of “with his back to the people” or “facing the wall” or something like that.  The distinction is important here even though any of these phrases would have the priest facing the same way.  I am hoping for a return to the practice of the priest facing the same direction of the people at least for the Eucharistic Prayer.  It shows a sign of unity of movement of priest and people towards God, and, more importantly, it shows that the prayers of the Mass are addressed to God, not the people.  And to think, this practice could be changed without a single legislative act on the part of those in authority.  It is already permitted.

An interesting point was made about giving money as a possible substitute for going and doing service to an organization. One of the young adults suggested that she felt that giving money might be a way to “buy my way out” of serving.  She has a point.  Though this is not always the case, it is possible to give money because we’d rather just write a check than go to serve.

One of the center staff had a good response.  She mentioned that she wrote a check to help efforts in Haiti.  She said she’d like to go, but she can’t.  This particular person has a very young child.   However, she mentioned that she would have to work a certain number of days to earn the money that she is giving.  So, she was basically working in that capacity to have the money to give.

I’m adding my own thoughts here since I didn’t get to weigh in on this particular part of the discussion.  One thing to add is that we cannot possibly give time to every worthy cause.  We just do not have time for everything.  We most certainly cannot do so at the expense of the duties of our state of life.  Some of us may have health problems with preclude work in certain areas.

On top of that, organizations have a genuine need for money.  There are only so many things that volunteers can do.  In a homeless shelter, unless the local power company donates electricity, money is needed for the utility bill.  There’s just not a way to volunteer electricity.  Money was needed to buy needed supplies to send to Haiti and the fuel to get there.  For these things, writing a check is very helpful.  Some operations need full-time staff, and they need to be paid in order to have a livelihood.

It takes prayer and discernment to decide where to volunteer time. While we don’t want to give money as an excuse not to serve, it is good to give to causes we wish to support but cannot work with.

At one time, I knew that I needed to do a lot of new things in my life.  For longer than I wish to admit, I’d simply decide I wanted to do something, and then I’d keep doing everything I had been doing.  I somehow expected to just magically start doing whatever it was I needed to do, whether it be to read more, join a gym, get out more, etc.  Well, it just doesn’t work that way.  In order to make room for what I needed to do, I had to sacrifice something I was doing.

I had a rather time-consuming hobby.  I’m a big electroholic.  It didn’t even occur to me how much time and money I was spending needlessly.  I decided I had to spend less time shopping and playing with my little toys and spend it on the things I needed to do.  Within months, I found time for that which I needed to do.

Being a good steward of time means evaluating how we are spending our time.  It means making a sacrifice so that we can do something more important.  I am thankful that God finally allowed me to realize this.  It’s even more important now that I am married and will hopefully be a father someday.