Katdish.net

image courtesy of photobucket.com

Showered, hair dried, dressed and ready to tackle my long list of errands. My kids are even dressed and ready to accompany me. An unusually productive start to our usual lazy summer days of late.

I ask my son to accompany the dog outside to take care of business before we crate him and head out the door. (Crate the dog, that is. Not my son. Just saying.)

As soon as I hear the back door open, I hear something else—loud booming thunder, followed by the sounds of large raindrops hitting my office window.

The dog will not pee in the rain. Trust me when I tell you, it’s just not going to happen. He’s stubborn like that.

I now have a decision to make.

Do I crate the dog anyway and run errands in the pouring rain, or do I use this inclement weather as an excuse to get nothing done?

A few hours later…

Today, I chose not to give in to a convenient excuse. A little rain didn’t stop me from the tasks I needed to accomplish. A small victory, but a victory none the less. I fought The Resistance.

I have the ability to procrastinate just about anything I don’t want to do, and even some things I do want to do. But putting things off doesn’t make them go away. And more often than not, completing that task I avoid is far less stressful than knowing that it’s been left undone yet another day.

What are you putting off today?

Better yet, what are you going to tackle today instead of giving in to procrastination?

***

The Kindness Club

Some of you may remember, and may have even participated in, something called The Ten Dollar Challenge. It was the brain child of Billy Coffey. The idea was to share your blessings during the Christmas season in small ways–committing small, random acts of kindness that might impact people in big ways.

I recently found out about something called The Kindness Club hosted by Susie over at New Day New Lesson. Each week, she provides a writing prompt to encourage us to practice acts of kindness all year round and then share our experiences through either writing a post, leaving a comment, and leaving a link back to your blog.

This week’s prompt is: Do something nice for a neighbor.

I invite you to visit there today and every week for a new prompt.

Yesterday I shared my first attempt at Billy Coffey’s ten dollar challenge . It didn’t exactly work out the way I had planned, but I was still able to buy a couple cups of coffee for some unsuspecting people.

Last night while we were setting up for praise team practice, I was talking to Jeff (senior pastor/worship leader) about my attempt at an anonymous act of kindness and how it didn’t go as expected. I went on to remark how genuinely surprised the employee I spoke with was that I would do such a thing and how I was genuinely surprised that he was surprised.

“Surely people buy other folks coffee all the time, right”, I said. “No. They really don’t”, Jeff said. He went on to say that in all the time he did that type of work, he saw someone pay for a total stranger’s order maybe four times. “Really?”, I said. “Really. Friends will buy friends a cup of coffee without much thought. People just don’t pay for total strangers”, he said.

It truly surprised me that this is such a rare occurrence. Why do you suppose that is? It’s such an easy, painless thing to do. As Christians, we should be looking for opportunities to love people, not because we’re supposed to, but out of gratitude for the love He has lavished on us. It doesn’t have to cost money, just a small investment of time and effort.

The first time I saw the following commercial, I thought it was cool — right up until the very end when you figure out it’s an ad for an insurance company — that sort of bummed me out.

Are random acts of kindness so rare these days that we need to be reminded to do them by an insurance company? I dunno, just seems sort of sad to me.

So here’s my challenge (I know, I’m very demanding here lately): Do something today for which you expect absolutely no recognition for. Someone once said character is what you do when no one is looking. What type of character are you?

And speaking of characters, find out who Billy Coffey met during his own personal ten dollar challenge over at The Christmas Change.

Yes, yes! This is a repost. But family time plus crappy internet equals me not feeling very inspired to write something new. Hope you don’t mind. Besides, not many folks were reading my blog when I first posted it anyway, so there you go:

For me, there has been a significant mind/heart shift since I’ve been writing this blog and commenting on other blogs. I find myself constantly re-evaluating how I act and react in day to day situations. It’s as if once I’ve typed something and sent it hurtling into cyberspace, it’s there for eternity to remind me when I fail to live up to the views I’ve expounded upon. I may not be able to remember where they all are, but they are no doubt out there somewhere. Such is the case with a comment I made on JML’s blog, Very Much Later. JML (Jake) writes a blog that I’m happy to say, I stumbled upon shortly after I started blogging myself. I love the honesty in his writing. He doesn’t sugar coat his perspective on being a Christian, and he’s able write about his personal walk without talking in “Christianese”. Also, he’s got some pretty amusing vomit stories.

This particular post was about witnessing to people. Specifically, what I refer to as the “cold call” witness. My comment pertained to how I’ve never actually been comfortable approaching total strangers and witnessing to them. Instead, I prefer to get to know a person and let them get to know me. If they seem drawn to this intangible thing that’s different about me, that’s when I’ll share my story with them. This is just what feels right to me — I’m not judging how others share the gospel of Christ. There is one way I’m comfortable witnessing to strangers. I try to find opportunities to practice random acts of kindness. (It’s an old bumper sticker, but I still like it.)

A couple of mornings ago, I had a piece of mail that I wanted mailed that day. Since our mail person doesn’t typically come until late afternoon, I dropped it in a public mailbox at the nearest shopping center. My son wanted to come with me and get some breakfast at Jack in the Box. As I was waiting in the drive-thru line, I thought, “I should pay for the person behind me.” This was appealing to me on many levels: 1) I would be practicing a random act of kindness, 2) I would be teaching my son a valuable lesson about our motives to do good, and 3) it was a fairly easy way to accomplish 1 and 2.

Except that is wasn’t easy. My first clue should have been the fact that I had to repeat my order 3 times. The cashier’s English was not great. When I pulled up to the window, she gave me my total. I said, “Okay. But I also want to pay for the person behind me.” She smiled and said, “Yes, yes okay.” Then proceeded to read my order back to me. At this point, there are several cars behind me, and the intended recipient of my random act of kindness was looking impatient. He also looked like he could be a body double for Paul Sr. on “American Chopper”. After two attempts to communicate what I was trying to do, she finally got her manager. I still had to repeat it twice. Not because her English was bad, but because apparently, paying for a total stranger’s meal is not a common occurrence at this particular eating establishment.

I was finally able to accomplish my original goal. But within that time span of approximately 3 or 4 minutes, several times I wanted to just blow it off and try again another time. But Jesus never said that following Him would be easy. And if everything was easy to attain, then nothing would be worth having. As I was pulling away, I made a conscience effort NOT to look at the truck behind me. But I couldn’t help it. I glanced at him just as he was turning his head towards me. I’m not a great lip reader, but I’m pretty sure his way of saying thank you translated into “What the F***!?!” And that was good enough for me…(smile)

For me, there has been a significant mind/heart shift since I’ve been writing this blog and commenting on other blogs. I find myself constantly re-evaluating how I act and react in day to day situations. It’s as if once I’ve typed something and sent it hurtling into cyberspace, it’s there for eternity to remind me when I fail to live up to the views I’ve expounded upon. I may not be able to remember where they all are, but they are no doubt out there somewhere. Such is the case with a comment I made on JML’s blog, Very Much Later. JML (Jake) writes a blog that I’m happy to say, I stumbled upon shortly after I started blogging myself. I love the honesty in his writing. He doesn’t sugar coat his perspective on being a Christian, and he’s able write about his personal walk without talking in “Christianese”. Also, he’s got some pretty amusing vomit stories.

I got some really great comments on that particular post, but the one that really stuck was this one:

If anyone else would like to do the same on their blogs, I think that would be great!