Ever feel like this? I know I have. When I was 18 I started interning at my church. It was an unpaid internship and I had no  idea what to expect out of the behind the scenes work at a church. For almost a year the biggest responsibility I had was washing pitchers of water and organizing bins for youth group. That’s what everyone dreams of when they think of working at a church, right?

“God is more concerned about developing your potential than you are!”

I would sit in meetings and hear my mentor delegate “significant” tasks to the rest of the team only to end with looking at me and saying, “Bubs, organize the bins and wash the pitchers.” After two months of that, I had enough. So when my mentor left for his 8 week sabbatical, I e-mailed him telling him I quit. I didn’t sign up to work for free and wash pitchers.

He got me in contact with another mentor and had him talk to me. He said, “Bubs, have you prayed about this?” Of course I hadn’t. He said, “Give God a chance to speak to your heart, if you come back and still don’t want to, then quit.” God had one chance – if he didn’t speak to me in my devotions, it was over. I opened to Isaiah 49:3.4:

³ He said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, and you will bring me glory.” ⁴ I replied, “But my work seems so useless! I have spent my strength for nothing and to no purpose.Yet I leave it all in the Lord’s hand;I will trust God for my reward.”

This verse changed my life forever. I felt like my work was useless, done for nothing, and for no purpose. YET…I leave it in God’s hands – I trust Him for my reward.  I developed this mentality and decided to stick with the internship.

One Thing Leads to Another

For an entire year, I set up bins faithfully every week. At the end of the year, I got asked to give my first offering. I started getting more responsibility. I interned a second year and at the end of my second year, I got asked to speak for the first time ever. Which led to more speaking engagements, more responsibility, and eventually 4 years after I interned, I got hired on staff at my church.

What Would Have Happened if I Would Have Quit Because I thought Everything I did was Pointless?

I wouldn’t be writing this, I wouldn’t be on staff, I probably wouldn’t be living for God. My Conclusion? God has you where you are for a reason, for your development, and if you’ll learn to trust Him for your reward instead of people, in His timing, He will promote you and allow you to do great things for Him, but first, you have to be faithful in the things that seem absolutely worthless.

I’m on my last few days of my first run through P90X. I absolutely love it. I guarantee it will get you the results you’re looking for if you’ll stay disciplined and go through the program.You can watch the making of p90x here!

I would highly recommend buying P90X if you’re looking to get in shape. Buy it here!

What I love about the program:

1.) You get results! - To be honest, I didn’t diet much during this round because of the holidays, but I saw results, I lost body fat, I became more flexible, and I got a lot stronger.

2.) The Daily Discipline of Working Out - These workouts are usually about an hour and fifteen minute comittment. It takes discipline to schedule them and get them done. You’ll become a more disciplined person through the program.

3.) You Don’t Need Much Equipment - I used bands, a pull-up bar, and push up bars -> all very inexpensive.

4.) Anyone Can Do It - Though the workouts are very intense, someone is always showing you a modified way to do the moves. You’re encouraged throughout all the workouts to simply “Do Your Best, and Forget the Rest” and in time, you’ll improve.

5.) The Variety of Workouts - It’s not just lifting and cardio. After a week – you feel like you’ve worked you’re entire body and you feel great.

6.) Tony Horton - Some love him, others hate him. I happen to love the guy! He makes the workouts fun, he pushes you, and he has tons of memorable quotes that you get engrained in your mind!

Potential “Downfalls”:

1.) The Time Commitment - 90 Days is great, an hour and a half a day isn’t bad either, but sometimes I did found it hard to workout 6 or 7 days a week, not because I was lazy, but I just didn’t have an extra hour and a half that day.

2.) Working out at Home - I actually loved working out at home as opposed to a gym, but when i talk to some people about the program, they insist they have to work out at a gym. My advice would be go through the program and implement what you learn when you go to the gym.

P90X is made up of 12 Workouts:

1.) Chest and Back - An hour of mostly push-ups and pull -ups – I love this workout!

2.) Back and Bi’s- 2 back exercises followed by two bicep exercises – Brutal! The Corn Cob pull-ups are killer!

3.) Core Synergetics - I think this was my favorite work out – it destroys you’re core!

4.) Plyometrics - Jump training! This is probably the hardest of all the workouts. Tony calls it “The mother of all P90X workouts” – a well deserving name.

5.) Yoga – This was the most surprising! At first you’ll hate yoga and think it’s stupid and a waste of time, by the end of the 90 days, you’ll be looking foreword to every chance you get to do yoga. Here is what Tony thinks of yoga!

6.) Legs and Back – Wall Squats… enough said!

7.) Cardio – This ended up being my Saturday workout – a mixture of yoga, plyo, core, and kempo!

8.) Kempo – This workout is fun, a lot of punching and kicking, but it was my least favorite. I never felt like I got a great workout in after I did it. I ended up replacing this with Cardio.

9.) Chest, Shoulders, and Tri’s – This workout is tough, but awesome! 1-handed push-ups..Tough!

10.) Shoulders and Arms – The glamour muscles! Gotta love this workout!

11.) XStretch - Your optional Sunday workout – when you can get it in, it’s worth it – so relaxing!

12.) Ab Ripper X - This is killer! It’s a 16 minute ab workout that you do after 3 of your workouts throughout the week!

¹⁷ And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father. – Colossians 3:17

Yesterday I covered how Social Media could ruin your life, today I want to focus on how it could benefit your life, in addition to changing the world.

Social Media Can Inspire the World – People often downplay tweeting inspirational quotes – does it really matter? Well, all quotes can do is inspire someone. When the inspiration turns to action – it makes a huge difference. My take: inspire as often as possible – you never know who you’re inspiring and what will happen if they act on that inspiration.

Social Media Can Encourage the World- Everybody needs encouragement. Social media provides an avenue to encourage everyone often.  Encourage everybody you can!

Social Media Makes the World a Better Place – Again, it comes down to who is using it. But what if we’re always encouraging and inspiring people with what we do through social media? You can’t tell me the world wouldn’t be a better place!

Social Media Can Expand Your Influence – You have an opportunity to build your reputation and increase your influence for good or bad with everything you do through social media. Build a great platform – I recommend reading Michael Hyatt’s Blog – he is a master at this. He posted about building your online platform here.

Social Media Can Cause Your Product or Business to Thrive - If you’re consistent and continue to provide products, ideas, inspiration, and encouragement that will benefit others, word will spread and you’ll benefit.

Social Media Can Spread Your Message around the World - What are you passionate about? What is the one message you want to communicate to the world? For me, I want people to know that the best life they could ever live is passionately living for God everyday. Everything I do is to spread that message. If it’s a message worth spreading, it will get around!

What am I missing? What other ways are social media beneficial?