That pounding in your head you cant get out with Ibuprofen.

There is a phrase, more a question really that is pounding in my brain like nothing else matters.

Have you ever had something like that? 

It could be a thought, a statement, a conversation, maybe a movie that you saw. It is something that seems to never leave your brain until you can figure it out.

I have been taking some time to go back through and read the book of Acts. It has been an interesting journey seeing as how it is my first time really reading all the way through every verse. Yes, I am admitting that I did not read through Acts like I was supposed to when I was taking Acts in college. I now am regretting it. Mainly because it is one of the most influential books in the Bible, as well as turning into one of the most influential books in my life.

I say it has been an interesting journey because if there is something that I take out of Acts and there are numerous things that I could take out and learn from. But if there is one thing that sticks out in the book of Acts, its the DEDICATION life style that really everyone shows in this book.

There are a few reasons why that one sticks out in my head:

1) Persecution- in the book of Acts we see and experience a first hand knowledge of what it meant to live as a follower of The Way from Luke. However it is not only Luke that helps us experience the persecution The Way faced, but the way Luke describes and writes about all of the hardships that all the disciples went through. The beatings, the yelling, the arrests, the fights. All of these things, seem prevalent in all the disciples lives. The hard part for me to read is the DEDICATION that the disciples show and live in spite of all of the persecution that they face. There is something about reading and pondering on their dedication in the midst of the hardships they all faced, to ask this question:

Do you stay dedicated even in the midst of your hardships? 

2) The conversation: It may seem a little weird for me to talk about conversation shows DEDICATION but in the missionary journey’s that we see Paul go on, it seems like all he did was reason and converse with people. He didn’t have a Sunday to Sunday church he preached in or an office he went to or a local Starbucks that he would wait for people to come to him. Paul was a man that was always in conversation with others that DIDN’T BELIEVE and was constantly defending and proving himself and the message of the Gospel. This may sound ridiculous but I am not sure if I would be able to have the DEDICATION it takes to go into different cities every so often, have conversation with people that would rather beat me than listen to me. That is a hard idea to grasp. It is an idea that Paul shows his DEDICATION through his always moving towards the next conversation. It begs the question to ask:

Are you having conversations with people that don’t know Jesus? 

3) Comfortableness: Maybe I should say that the lack of comfort that the disciples faced all throughout the early church time. Traveling by foot, not sure where they would sleep, not sure what they would eat and through it all, they remained DEDICATED to The Way that they were called too. It seems as thought now and days, it is much easier or almost more realistic for someone to go where it is comfortable for them versus going somewhere it is not. Comfort is a huge piece of all of our lives, true. But it has a flip side:

Is comfort the reason for you to chose where God calls you to? 

Here is the statement that keeps pounding me in the head:

Why do you let the little things in life take away your dedication?

It is hard to believe that it is December and we are only a few days away from a New Year. This year has gone by so fast that is hard to believe all the things that have happened in my life, my wife’s life, Suncrest’s life and some friends lives.

Here is what I do know, it has been a year that has left me looking back in a reflective and mission mindset. I have not been dedicated to the things that I have been wanted to be dedicated too. I have gone through the year and have not made much head way on the things that I have wanted to. My New Year’s Resolution’s have not been a true DEDICATED part of my life.

Ove this month, I hope to spend a little bit of time writing about the things that I am going to be DEDICATED to in the coming month, new year and years of my life.

What are the things in your life that you have not be as DEDICATED too as you would have hoped?