deciphering the days

The third commandment, or second depending on the denomination, is written in the King James under Exodus 20 verse 7 as: "Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." Growing up in my household that particular commandment meant that the children shouldn't say, 'oh my god' outside of prayer. As I got older, youth groups focused on 'matters of the heart' and 'deliberate thought.' The commandment came to mean that one should be so often focused on God that whenever one thought of or heard mention of God or Jesus Christ, one's thoughts immediately focused on holy things. I learned important qualities in both of these situations. First, I practiced monitoring my speech, and later I was challenged to reflect on what the name of God meant to me. And sometime after that, I heard an interesting perspective concerning the rest of this commandment. Sadly, I do n...

"I have a naturally peaceful nature," I tell myself. I am calm. I always do really well with the 24 or 48 hour 'technology free' days; my college psych/education classes assigned these and they're exactly what they sound like. Some people really struggled with the assignment, but not me. I don't struggle with technology dependence or multitasking. So I tell myself. In psych class, we talked about multitasking and how people say it's a bad idea and it diminishes their productivity, and yet everyone thinks they are an exceptional being who is good at multitasking. I probably do that too, but I'm not dysfunctional about it. So I tell myself. I don't think I even multitask that much. I don't often listen to music while completing homework nor do I work on my computer while talking on the phone. Therefore, I must be good at limiting my multitasking. Go me! So I tell myself. As many know, I am having recent struggles with Bible reading and pray...