This is the cutest video I have seen for a long while, even if I am a bit biased!

One of my children came downstairs, after being in their room for ages yesterday, with the following list of verses. They had obviously spent a long time going thru a bible looking at highlighted verses and choosing, as they put it, their “favorite ones”. I think its a pretty good list, actually, and I am grateful for the grace of God at work in this dear child of mine despite all their father’s failings and imperfections. Nothing that I could hope to ever accomplish with the blog will be of more lasting worth than anything positive that I can play some small part in building in the lives of these children of mine. Here is the list (also available in NIV and NLT) which brings tears to my eyes:

Psalm 20:7
7 Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

Proverbs 1:8-9
8 Hear, my son, your father’s instruction,
and forsake not your mother’s teaching,
9 for they are a graceful garland for your head
and pendants for your neck.

Proverbs 11:3
3 The integrity of the upright guides them,
but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them.

Isaiah 26:4
4 Trust in the Lord forever,
for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.

Isaiah 40:31
31 but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.

Ezekiel 33:11
11 Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?

Joel 2:32
32 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.

Matthew 15:18
18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.

John 3:16
16 “For God so loved the world, [1] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Ephesians 4:32
32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Philippians 2:3
3 Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Hebrews 4:16
16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

James 1:22
22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

1 John 4:20
20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot [2] love God whom he has not seen.

2 John 1:6
6 And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it.

Genesis 49:25
25 by the God of your father who will help you,
by the Almighty [3] who will bless you
with blessings of heaven above,
blessings of the deep that crouches beneath,
blessings of the breasts and of the womb.

Genesis 15:1
15:1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”

Genesis 1:27
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

Following just over a month of this self-imposed near-total break from my online life (obviously not including my paid work!) what have I discovered?

1. WordPress’s auto-publish feature is bullet-proof and a real gift
2. You hardly missed me as a result of 1. and my kind guest bloggers. Indeed, traffic remained pretty high considering it was August.
3. Phil Moore is better than I am at explaining why digital fasts are so important.
4. A week is definitely not long enough It took me much longer before I even began to experience digital withdrawal symptoms.
5. It really is hard to stay away from the Internet for several weeks. My “fast” wasn’t total as the weeks drew on. I did scan-read Twitter, Facebook and a couple of blogs a little towards the end. I also started to write this post 20 minutes or so before my deadline,  and last week even wrote a couple of tweets ready for publishing later when my wife had gone away (the observant may have noticed that they appeared in my Twitter stream and were quickly deleted!) I also and scanned and deleted most of my accumulated emails on the same day. Finally, I started an Omnifocus to-do list to capture a small handful of ideas for things to blog about when they began to hit me about a week or so ago.
6. The harsh truth is that I really don’t care about what my readers think about me as much as I thought I did (despite 5)   I trust I will continue to remember this and make sure that I take more care over being kind to my wife and children than I do over looking after you all!  Funily enough, I somehow suspect that the more I focus on pleasing my God and family, the more benefit I may be to you in any case.
7. Learning more about how to not believe your own publicity is a vital result of such a break.  I can’t improve on what I said about this last year. Running a blog can appear to be self-serving at first glance. There has to be a good balance, however, between arrogantly pushing oneself forward, and on the other hand hiding whatever one can share with others under a bushel.  I am not sure I always navigate that tightrope entirely correctly, but, you have to believe me that I know that of myself I have nothing to offer you.  I will not ever apologize for shouting about my savior, and his death and resurrection for us. I know that if I can point you towards him, and to good resources that will help you in your spiritual journey I will have fulfilled one of the roles that God has for me in this life.  It is not the most important one, however.  That is clearly being a husband and father, which is much harder than helping at least some of people who read this blog for a few minutes a day.
8. I remained really quite busy with secular work, preached three times, was on the radio once, and yet removing the digital piece resulted in me now feeling remarkably rested and refreshed. I may need to find some ways to lessen some of the burdens I carry.  Perhaps I need a secretary or something!
9. Just hanging out with the kids in the evenings watching TV, playing Scrabble & Risk with them on the iPad, and being beaten at chess by my 11 year old son is a whole lot of fun. I need to carve out more time to do this better even with the blog up and running. If I could be a better husband and father and a worse blogger that would be fine with me.
10. Having a break has made me itch to write again, and I have really enjoyed writing this post.  I won’t be giving up permanently any time soon!

So said George to my wife just recently. She asked him, “Why?” and he replied, “Because he loves me!”  Talk about out of the mouths of babes and infants. He will be three in a few days’ time.

It’s so nice to be home with my family. I have lots of video content to share with you over the next few days (as well as notes from yesterday’s Dwell London Conference), but I thought this video clip would be a fun place to start! An alternative title would be “Baby Blogger.”