Alex Tran

Delayed obedience is disobedience. Partial obedience is disobedience.

Have you heard those before?

But what about disobedience through a lack of asking?

It’s easy to deceive ourselves into thinking our lives are in obedience to God when, in all honesty, we’ve never asked God what he wants from us.

A prime example, when I felt called to pursue full-time ministry, the internship at my church was an easy step in the right direction. But I neglected to pray about it. I didn’t want to ask God if that’s what he wanted for me because I was afraid of the answer.

How often do we fail to pray because of fear?

Afraid what God may say. Afraid where he may lead us. Afraid of the sacrifice.

What does God want from you? How does God want you to influence your generation and generations to come?

Ask Him.

(Six months later, I finally did ask God about the internship. He said go. I went and my life has been forever changed because of that prayer/decision.)

Better to walk in fearful obedience than ignorant disobedience.

As I pondered what I was going to write about this week . . . I decided to document the various money-related God testimonies I’ve experienced personally.

Each has taught me to hold less tightly to money and give it more freely.

Giving, getting and multiplying

I received a $1000 year-end bonus from work around the time of the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.

Ever since I was a little boy, I always preferred to save money rather than spend it, so I had every intention of putting the money in the bank.

But in my prayer time, I felt God leading me to donate the money to the tsunami relief efforts.

Doing what any obedient Christian does, I waited a couple days to make sure God was really speaking to me. ;)

Sure enough, God continued to press me to give the money.

Sometimes I don’t always hear God correctly, so I gave it a few more days. By this time, Sunday rolled around and I was in church.

I remember being in service near one of the support poles in the sanctuary. I was on the front row towards the right side of the stage worshiping when God dropped the hammer. It was as undeniable as it could be that God wanted me to give the money.

There were no more excuses, no wiggling myself out.

I knew the company I worked for at the time was planning on contributing to the relief efforts, so I went into work the next morning, walked into the president’s office and put the check on his desk explaining I wanted it as part of the company’s relief contribution.

That was that. I went about my day.

Later on in the afternoon my immediate boss walks by my desk and gives me back my check.

His response . . . he was praying and felt like God told him someone was going to do what I just did and in response, he (my boss) should give back the money (to me) and donate twice the amount ($2000).

So not only did I get my money back, but twice the amount was given instead.

Obedience wins.

Raising $12,000 without a job

I’ve already documented that testimony.

It happens to involve the same company as the testimony above. I can’t tell you how amazing it was to work for that company knowing they honored God.

Their contributions made a significant impact to where I am at now in life and ministry. Giving changes lives.

I gave extravagantly, but nothing happened. What the crap?

This is not so much a testimony but a reminder.

I once gave a large sum of money because, again, I felt like God was leading me to bold, extravagant giving towards a cause I believed in: building the local church.

It was a stressful check to write. But I did it without hesitation.

I can’t help but think the $1000 testimony earlier was a lesson preparing me for that moment.

Unlike before though, there was no immediate return. As far as I can tell, God never “returned the favor.”

The reminder is that we don’t give to get, we give out of obedience. When we give towards God’s kingdom, we are content knowing there’s an eternal return. It’s not always an earthly, monetary return. And that’s okay . . .

Tithing in faith, off zero income

The last time I was between jobs, it was a time/season where God was doing a lot in my life. He was stirring the waters, turning my comfortable life into an uncomfortable one.

It was an ambiguous time where I didn’t know for sure what the next season would hold; both professionally/in ministry and financially.

I left the job without another job lined up. In fact, I had actually turned down an offer cause I knew it wasn’t what God had for me. It would have been too easy and would’ve been too comfortable.

During that time, I decided to take a step of faith and give my tithe for the month of February even though I didn’t have a job and was making zero money.

It was my way of saying “God, I trust you. And I believe you’ve got my back.”

My last day on the job was January 31st. On February 1st, the first day of my unemployment, I gave my tithe. Two days later my old employer tells me they want to pay my salary for the month of February.

*cue tears*

It was one of those God moments when you realize the God of the universe truly loves and cares for you. Followed up by having a job lined up by the middle of the month!

And it was pretty awesome being able to sleep in, go to the beach and be a bum for the entire month knowing you were getting paid. ;)

That’s all she wrote

So those are the four money-related testimonies I’ve experienced in my lifetime.

How about you? Any you want to share?

I often hear myself comparing the behavior of Christians with that of “mature” Christians.

At this stage in my life I would call myself a mature Christian. I’ve been one for 11 years.

But mature compared to?

Other Christians.

I am diligent in maintaining my daily devotions. I’ve rid myself of all the obvious sins. I tithe and give over and above. I use my gifts to advance the Kingdom.

By those standards, when compared to other Christians, I am definitely more mature than most.

The problem is . . . that’s not the standard by which our lives are judged. Our standard is the life Jesus lived. The life God has called us to steward. Our level of obedience.

1 Peter 2:22 (NIV)
²² “He committed no sin,
and no deceit was found in his mouth.”

1 Corinthians 4:2 (NLT)
² Now, a person who is put in charge as a manager must be faithful.

1 Samuel 15:22 (NIV)
¹⁵ […] “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as much as in obeying the LORD?
To obey is better than sacrifice, […]

If I tithe and give over and above, that’s great. It’s easy to trick yourself into thinking your spiritual life is rock solid because you’re being more “obedient” than 95% of other Christians.

But if God has called you to extravagant giving, then you’ve failed miserably. Your maturity is that of a deceptive child.

Stop fooling yourself into thinking you’re mature.

We’re not.

P.S. This post came across rather cynical. Completely unintentional. God’s been challenging me the past couple days and this is how the post came out.

The bottom line is: seek maturity in obedience to Christ, not in comparison to others.

I’ve been irked at myself lately.

Imagine for a second I’m *gasp* married. Here would be a typical day/week in my married life.

Mornings…

I’d read or listen to this incredible biography about my beautiful wife. It reminds me of how amazing she is.

Work days…

When I get to work, I look at this note card I’ve taped to my laptop. It has a quote from the biography I’m reading; something I thought would be worth remembering about my wife.

During lunch I’ll thank my wife for the  yummy food she’s given me. Mmmm, food.

Evenings…

Every once in awhile I may want to sing some songs about my wife. I want her to know how much I love her and tell her how appreciative I am of her sacrifices and that she’s in my life. I’ll also tell her what I’m struggling with and how she could help me.

Before bed I’ll thank my wife for spending the day with me. And that I love her.

Weekly…

On Sundays I’ll sing some more about my wife. This time with thousands of others who love their wives just as much as I do. Someone will also do a teaching on my wife’s biography. It’ll help me understand the subtle complexities of her personality.

Then on Tuesdays I’ll get together with a smaller group of 15 and we’ll talk about what we learned about our wives and how we can be better husbands.

What’s Been Irking Me

We talk so much about Christianity being a relationship with Jesus, but sometimes, it doesn’t even resemble a healthy relationship.

And I’m ticked off at myself at how I’ve let the act of doing replace the act of being.

If you insert Jesus everywhere I talk about my wife above, you’d have an accurate portrayal of the “relationship” I have with Jesus.

Continue that type of relationship for any length of time and it’ll eventually lead to divorce. Not once during my daily/weekly routine do I ever engage Jesus directly.

There is no deeper, intimate connection.

It’s always peripheral.

What is Jesus saying? What does he miss about the good ol’ days with me? How does he want me to spend time with Him?

I would never know.

It’s as if Jesus follows me all day, but I never once turn towards Him and have any meaningful conversation. But I talk about Him a lot!

Relationship fail.

Luke 10:39-42 (NIV)
³⁹ She [Martha] had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. ⁴⁰ But Martha was distracted…

⁴¹ “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, ⁴² but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better…”

This is an area that will always be a constant struggle for Christians. What are some ways you guard and fight to keep your relationship with God healthy. One that actual resembles a mutual, two-way relationship?

Over the past couple of months I’ve been on the hunt for a music subscription service worthy of my $5/month.

With the release of Spotify in the US, I’ve now used Pandora, Rdio, MOG and Spotify.

Here are my thoughts about each.

Pandora

Pros

• Custom stations that actually play similar music.
• Terrific genre stations.

Cons

• Limited song selection (800,000).
• Can’t play songs on-demand.

I love Pandora because it chooses what I listen to and it does a ridiculously great job at it. I can create a new Pandora station with a few artists I’m in the mood for and be confident the resulting station is going to be exactly what I want. And if not, I can thumbs up/down songs to tweak the results.

The only problem I have with Pandora is it’s limited song selection (800,000). After awhile songs begin to be repeated.

Relative to others music fans, I don’t have a wide range of music I listen to so this becomes a problem.

Enter the other services: Rdio, Spotify and MOG…

Rdio

Pros

• Great design, user experience.
• Solid Mac desktop app.
• 9 million tracks.
• Great for finding new music/connecting with other music fans.

Cons

• Custom stations not very good at picking related music (at least compared to Pandora).

I’m going to start with Rdio because it’s approach is fundamentally different than MOG/Spotify in two ways: social and discovery.

Rdio describes themselves as a “social music service.” Rdio is built on top of a social network. You can follow users and stalk their listening habits.

This feature goes hand-in-hand with Rdio being a music discovery service as well. Rdio continually encourages you to listen to music as evidence of the main page being what they call “Heavy Rotation.” It shows you what you’ve been listening to the most and lets you see what others are listening to in your network (or site wide). It will also recommend other artists based on what you’ve listened to.

One thing that stands out about Rdio is the design. It’s pretty on the eyes, easy to use and their Mac desktop app is great.

It does not have any pre-built stations like Pandora, but you can create a custom station based on a specific artist, what’s in your Heavy Rotation or what’s saved in your collection (think of it as your favorites). My experiences with these custom stations were lack-luster. I wasn’t pleased with the selection (and there’s no way to influence the station) so I rarely used that feature.

MOG

Pro

• 11 million tracks.
• More control over custom stations (but feature still not usable overall).

Cons

• Horrible site design/layout. Using site is like having a root canal.
• No native desktop app (have to use browser-based player).

What was impressive about MOG was it’s catalog of 11 million songs (until Spotify released in the US). Unfortunately, that’s about it.

The site is poorly designed and a pain to interact with.

One feature MOG does have, however, over Rdio/Spotify is the ability to create custom stations and influence the station by rating songs or using a slider which gradually goes from playing just songs from the artist to slowly introducing other similar artists. But like Rdio, it’s recommendations engine was sub-par.

Finding new music through MOG is done through perusing the Editor Picks or browsing through playlists that have been created. So music discovery is not nearly as strong as it is in Rdio.

Spotify

Pros

• 15 million tracks.
• Good Mac desktop app.
• Integrates well with existing music library.

Cons

• No web-based player.
• Virtually non-existent music recommendations.
• No ability to play custom stations.

Where Rdio is on one extreme of social music and music discovery, Spotify is on the opposite. There’s no social and no music discovery. If you use Spotify, you pretty much have to know what you want to listen to.

One unique feature Spotify does have is their desktop client. It’s designed to replace iTunes. It’ll scan/add your current music library to the app and let you sync your iPhone/iPod using it.

So which is best?

After using them all, I really miss Pandora and how good it’s music recommendation engine was. It fit my music-listening habits well. I just want to listen to music that sounds like ______, but I don’t want to explicitly choose everything I want to listen to.

But, alas, Pandora’s music catalog kills it, so I have to choose one of the other three.

MOG is definitely out of the picture because of it’s horrible site, but rumor has it they’re rolling out a new design soon. Perhaps I’ll take another look when that happens.

Lately, I’ve been using Rdio, but will most likely switch to Spotify (because of it’s larger music catalog). If I cared about the social aspects or discovering new music, then Rdio is the clear winner.

But for my needs, I just want to listen to music. So in my head, the more music I have access to, the better. Rdio doesn’t provide anything I have to have.

In an ideal world, a music service would exist with the music recommendation engine of Pandora, the song selection of Spotify and the design of Rdio. ;)

What are your thoughts? Which service do you prefer and why?