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This is a long story about a dialogue between an accountant and a blogger. You can imagine that we don’t end up seeing eye to eye, but for the moral of the story in fewer than 1,300 words, stop picking the short-term over the long-term in your life. People do funny things. Businesses do too. We had our taxes prepared recently because we had a tax situation that was definitely beyond my self-preparing pay grade. [footnote]We lived overseas, moved back to Ohio, had to switch which local district we were paying taxes too and went from paying normal taxes to self-employment taxes because of our transition in our ministry. One of those things would have been enough.[/footnote] We had a cacophony of complexity to wrangle. So we hired an accountant. ...

Christmastime in America is completely nuts. There are holiday drinks, holiday movies, holiday albums. And by holiday, we mean Christmas. All of them birthed out of Christmas. Christmas has even spawned its own mini-celebrations of consumerism in Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Americans can get behind Christmas because no one is offended by a baby being born in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago. We can say things about Christmas like, It’s all about family… It’s about giving to people you love… It’s about being grateful for what you have and blessing the less fortunate… **We can lose the true Christmas message that God came into the world to save sinners because we can twist a humble birth into just about whatever we want. ** ...

I’ve tried to learn guitar a half-dozen times. By try, I mean I’ve pulled my guitar out of its case at least once a year. And by learn I mean I want to instantly be able to play any song like an expert. The furthest I’ve ever made it was three days in a row of practice. My new record is 5 weeks (and counting!)  What changed? Well for one, my level of effort. For the rest, these are my lessons of learning guitar that apply to pretty much anything. 1. Replace a bad habit with a good habit Every morning I used to wake up, check Twitter, Facebook, email and my RSS feeds. I’d blink and an hour had gone by, and at that point I was definitely awake. I hated wasting time in the morning–which is definitely my most productive time of day. So I decided that I’d spend that half hour each day practicing guitar instead of milling through gobbledygook 140 characters at a time. If you’re interested in habits, I recommend The Power of Habit. The audiobook version is fantastic. ...

Sometimes I get stuck in trying to think through a problem. I feel like I’ve hit a wall and I’m not sure how to work around it. I’m not the most experienced person to answer most of the questions I’m struggling to answer. But that person isn’t always reachable (or worth bothering!) So I take off my Jordan hat and put on my expert hat. And then I just try to think about it the way they would. How would Seth Godin connect with people and tell them about this thing? How would Niki respond when someone is a total jerk? How would my boss respond to that difficult question? If I can’t think of a particular expert, I just try to pretend I’m coming in as an outside consultant. If someone asked me what I would do in this situation as an outsider, what would I say? ...

We live in a world where cash is on it’s way out the door. While I’m still a fan of using cash envelopes for budgeting, over half of the things we budget for are done electronically (like paying rent, giving to our church and other organizations, utility bills, etc.) While it’s easy to pay companies with debit cards and online bill pay, writing your friend a check for a dinner you split or tickets to a game feels ridiculous and clumsy. In the second decade of the 21st century, peer-to-peer payments should be easy, quick, and free–like cash without the hassle of carrying around exact change. Enter Square Cash. You can now pay your friends with a simple email, processed by one of the leaders in mobile payments–Square. All you need is a debit card. A credit card won’t work because your card must be linked to a checking account. Here’s how it works. ...

As someone who highly values learning, growing and productivity, fiction can feel like a dirty word. But I’ve realized significant benefits from digging into fiction books over the last year, specifically Christian fiction (with a handful of dystopian novels thrown in).  Why Fiction Rocks 1. Relaxing Reading fiction is engaging in passive learning. Instead of highlighting, dog earing and taking notes in fiction books, I feel the freedom to just read and let the words wash over me. After reading a string of non-fiction books, no matter how good they are, it’s nice to read a book without a pen in hand. 2. Expanding vocabulary I can’t remember the last time I read a book and didn’t have to turn to a dictionary to find the meaning of a word. I love it when an author uses such a precise word for a particular situation. We’re truly blessed in the English langauge to have so many specific words for certain scenarios. I use Terminology by Agile Tortoise (also the makers of Drafts for iOS) for looking up words and synonyms. 3. Looking for deeper meaning What I love about Christian fiction is finding pieces of the gospel wrapped in the stories. It’s as if there’s a whole other layer waiting to be explored in every well-written fiction book with new ideas to discover. ...

One of the most fascinating things in the world is how impressively good people are at lying to themselves. Humans are masters of rationalization (myself most certainly included). “It’s ok to eat that whole cake–I walked on the treadmill for 15 minutes this morning.” “It’s ok to spend money I don’t have–I should be getting a bonus soon.” “It’s ok to buy the latest, greatest whatever–my current one is going to die soon anyway.” Some of these lies are worse than others. But we rarely admit to ourselves that we’re lying. We turn our backs on truth and logic. Instead of facing truth or guilt head on, we rationalize. What is Rationalization? Here’s a definition snagged from everyone’s favorite encyclopedia, Wikipedia. In parenthesis on the page next to rationalization it actually says “making excuses.” That’s awfully clear. But here’s a fuller [definition](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalization_(making_excuses): Rationalization is…a defense mechanism in which perceived controversial behaviors or feelings are logically justified and explained in a rational or logical manner in order to avoid any true explanation, and are made consciously tolerable – or even admirable and superior – by plausible means. Essentially, it’s forcing illogical things into a logical box. We twist and turn, prod and poke until something that was once irrational becomes not just acceptable but perhaps even admirable in our own minds. ...

Uniting theology and productivity is no easy task. Fortunately, Matt Perman marries the gospel and getting things done in a beautiful ceremony in What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done. Usually, productivity is left to gurus and hackers, while theology is reserved for the super-spiritual and seminarians. What’s Best Next thoroughly dismantles the separation of the spiritual and the practical, and puts the gospel at the center of our work–no matter what we do. Matt Perman has written about productivity from a Christian perspective for years at whatsbestnext.com. He helped build John Piper’s Desiring God ministry, and he’s more than qualified to merge theology and productivity. His book is a treat through and through, and I’ll be referencing, re-reading, and recommending it for years to come.  [Note: This is one of my longest posts ever. If you trust my judgment, go buy What’s Best Next right now, at Amazon (affiliate) or WTS Books. Feel free to skim and scan this review to get a glimpse into why I loved the book.] The Aim Much is lacking in literature on work from a Christian perspective–and I’d argue even more so is missing on the way Christians should work. Matt’s goal in “What’s Best Next” is to fill in that gap of wanting literature. My aim in this book is to reshape the way you think about productivity and then present a practical approach to help you become more effective in your life with less stress and frustration, whatever you are doing. He wants to help equip us, inspire us and prepare us to serve God in all we do, through the how and why of our work. And he does just that. ...

What good could drawing a red “X” on my hand possibly do? How could that help? How could it make a difference?  According to the End It Movement, an awareness group and coalition of anti-slavery organizations, there are 27 million slaves in the world. More in sheer number than any other time in human history. Forty percent of those slaves are sex slaves. That reality knots my stomach. I’ve read stories of slaves stolen for forced sex, forced labor and even organ harvesting. It’s nauseating and heartbreaking. So how does me posting a picture of an X to Instagram and Twitter make any impact? I wrestled with the idea. I didn’t want to be a slacktivist–posting a picture with a trendy icon or a link to a website just because everyone else (in my circles) was. I’ve thought a lot about how to tackle a problem with a massive, global scale. Human trafficking. Extreme poverty. Unreached people groups. Issues that all deserve our attention. But how do I make a difference without knowing how to be actively involved? Kevin DeYoung says in Crazy Busy, We won’t all care about every issue in the same way, but there are some issues we should all care about, some issues that should at least prick our hearts and prompt us to pray. Not giving a rip about sex slaves is not an option for the Christian. I’ve just dipped my toe into the cesspool of human trafficking. I don’t have all the answers, and honestly I’m just trying to learn and help others do the same as we fight one of the greatest injustices in our world today. Any problem buried this deep in sin requires a multi-faceted solution to fix. I believe that solution travels four concentric circles, all working together to find a solution. Promotion, personal choices, partnering, and prayer. Here’s how I see pandemic issues being tackled, specifically in the context of human trafficking. ...

Niki and I have an unhealthy crush on budgeting. It’s not quite teenage-girls-for-Justin-Bieber love, but it’s close. You probably already know I have a thing for apps, so you can imagine how a budgeting app could be my digital best friend. We’ve been using Dave Ramsey’s system of zero-based budgeting for two and a half years, and it’s been an amazing journey. We’re debt free, saving for retirement and a future home and we’re able to be generous toward people and causes we believe in. At first, we used the cash-only system. Every single category we pulled cash out for, except for savings. That amounted to a scary stash of cash in our home every month. So we migrated to an Excel spreadsheet for our larger categories. We still use cash for daily expenses–groceries, entertainment, toiletries, etc., but for things like car repairs and our own personal allowances, we switched to digital tracking. It wasn’t a great system, but it worked for us. That hardest thing was that we didn’t have a ledger or report detailing where the money went for each category–just an updated balance for the category and the date it was last updated. We needed a budgeting app that was: more convenient than a spreadsheet not made by Microsoft easy to use on the go good for keeping a record of expenditures a good fit with our zero-based budgeting system pretty  After lots of rave reviews about the software You Need a Budget (YNAB), we decided to pull the trigger on the desktop and iPhone software (mostly because we bought it on sale for half price. Budgeting, FTW!) YNAB is based around four solid rules that mesh perfectly with Dave Ramsey’s plan. Give every dollar a job. Save for a rainy day. Role with the punches. Live on last month’s income. Here’s how we’ve put it to use in our system. ...