If there’s one thing about my walk with God that I wish I could change it would be this: every time life gets rough, I drift away from Him. Lately my life has been full of ups and downs. Some weeks I’m great about reading and praying. Some weeks I’m not.

That needs to change. Now.

This morning, while I was in the shower, I started to pray. Didn’t plan on it. Just started talking to God. Or rather, apologizing to Him. I said I was sorry for not trusting Him. Not talking to Him. Not reading His word. I asked His forgiveness for me being an idiot and trying to do this on my own. For putting myself first. For wasting my time instead of being with Him.

I told Him I wanted to change… I just don’t know how. I asked to be told what I needed to do to fix this. I asked for strength, because there’s no way that I can change on my own. And then it hit me:

I need to take a sabbatical.

I need to take a media fast.
But it’s not so much a media fast as it is just a distractions fast.
Just a time to devote myself to prayer and God’s word.

A while back Carlos Whittaker took a sabbatical as well. He called it a Blogatical. I like that. I stole it.

But honestly, what I call it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I am going to focus on my walk with God.

So what does my ‘blogatical’ look like?

This took some thinking/praying/talking to figure out. What do I give up? How long do I give it up for? Is this like a normal fast where I don’t touch a computer at all for that time? After getting some advice from people who are smarter than me, I think I’ve settled on a plan…

Basically it will look like this:

• No Facebook.
• No Twitter.
• No TV.
• No movies.
• No Xbox.
• No secular music.
• No internet.
• No email.
• No blog.

I am allowing three exceptions though. One exception will be work-related stuff (while I’m at work). I can still check my Coast Hills email (again, only while I’m at work). I can use the internet (only if it’s for work). But that’s it.

Another exception will be photos that need worked on for JJPhotography. I figured that is work-related and doesn’t distract me from spending time with God.

The third exception will be my personal email. Though I still only check it while at work and only for anything that’s super important. My thought was that if I’m checking it at work I won’t have a lot of time to waste and therefore I’ll be very quick about it.

The things that I’m not budging on will be Facebook, Twitter, general internet use, TV, movies, video games and secular music.

Why is secular music in there? Because I want anything I do during this time to help with me with my walk with God.

The other thing I had to figure out was how long do I go without all this stuff? I want this to stretch me. I don’t want it to be easy. But I also want something that is realistic.
A week? That seems too short.
A month? That seems too long.

How about two weeks?
Two weeks? Fourteen days? Three hundred and thirty-six hours?
Yeah, I can do that.

So to my loyal follower, and fellow Twitfaces, I say goodbye…
Well… only for two weeks that is.

While I’m away, I will be praying and journalling and reading.

I’m excited to see what God will show me during this time.

I guess about all I can say.

See ya November 12th!

-i