Discipline: my “favorite” character trait…

Okay, maybe this one is NOT my favorite character trait but it is an important one none-the-less. If perseverance is pressing on even in bad circumstance or discouragement, discipline is “pre-deciding” what it is we will do and be and then allowing for no excuses. At least that is my current take on it. I suspect that I’ll be hearing from others about their thoughts regarding the same trait from other perspectives and the collaboration will enrich us all.

I do think that “discipline” has gotten a bad rap. In my most disciplined moments, I hold to my boundaries, I hold to my values, I keep my focus on the important priorities in my life (keep Jesus first is the biggest piece in that!) So while I may not love the discipline of living faith, I see the positive results. When I exercise, I feel better and reduce my stress, see clearer, understand more. I don’t “want” to do it sometimes but always find it worth it when I go ahead and do it anyway. That is the essence of discipline- doing it anyway.

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PODCASTS work again!

I am working my way back with a different plug-in but the entire Character Series so far is available for listening!

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2008 October 12- Perseverance

Click here to play the recording

  Here is the message. I worked with the Bible passage from James 1:2-5 and sought to draw out our work of character in pressing on when especially when bad things happen. I am going to try once again to get the message to actually work in playing- if it doesn’t please note that I will place a blog entry up when the podcast playback function is working.

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Perseverance seems to not be over…

Well, I am not planning on preaching about it this coming weekend but there is another twist to the blog- the portion that serves up our podcasts, the audio recordings of our messages, has decided not to feed them any more. It came to my attention this weekend when someone said they were trying to listen to the messages (imagine that- they were doing what I had encouraged and told them was possible!). I thought that maybe it was a browser problem- just a heads up, it is NOT a browser problem. So I spent a couple of hours trouble shooting and reading about the WordPress plugin that serves podcasts to figure what must be done. Of course, the one thing I thought I had together was not together at all- UGH. So if you’re reading this, you cannot at this moment hear the online podcasts through the website- you can download them by browsing the following folder on the website: http://sjalexandria.org/mp3/  Thanks for your patience in this and I hope to get it all worked out soon…

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