Keeping up with myself

I'm glad there aren't more hours in a day. It forces me to be picky with when and where I choose to spend my time. Of course, I don't always make the best choices. Sometimes I spend too much time at work, or sometimes I spend too much time laying in bed when I know I should be up already. Whatever the case may be, it helps me keep things in perspective when I know today is all I am promised. Tomorrow may not come, and all the better if it didn't. But we get caught in the routine of life and find comfort in those things we think we control. But is anything really under our control? Or is there a greater force at work behind the scenes? One of my biggest challenges is being content. Contentment is hard for an artist. Ever-seeking and never satisfied with the current state of things. There is always something else to create. But we have had the answer staring us in the face the whole time. You don't even have to flip the pages that far. In the first book of Genesis we find God hard at work creating everything from the heavens and setting the stars in them to us, both man and woman, from the dust of the ground. God worked his butt off for six solid days. But then what happened next is so huge that it requires great focus and determination, He rested. God stood back, I imagine with arms crossed and a great smile stretched across his face, and saw that what He had made was good.

It was good. It is still good. It will forever remain to be good.

Resting isn't being lazy. Resting is the promise we receive by faith to believe what the Father has spoken and trusting Him to provide all the while continuing to live and work and love. I still have a hard time seeing the grey areas in life. I have strong opinions that are either black or white. So this concept of rest being a simple promise that I can live in but still work hasn't been the easiest thing to wrap my head around. I guess it's still got my head in a whirlwind. That's okay though. God doesn't need me to always understand his words, just believe them and receive them. So I believe in the promise of His rest.

... All of that to say these past couple weeks have been off the wall. I'm keeping really busy with a few different projects and still finding time to spend with my wife and friends. WELD continues to inspire and encourage me. Not only is it the best co-working spot in Dallas, it brings in new and exciting people all the time. I'm excited to be a part of what's happening now and in the future. The next four months are going to be full of new and fun adventures for me. I can't wait to walk through them and see how the actual experience compares to the thought of them all now. Surely it will be greater than I imagine. Thank you, again, to everyone out there who continues to read these posts. I always love to read your comments.

Work hard. Trust God. Enjoy life.

The Past Two Weeks

The past two weeks have been super busy for me. I feel like in one week I went from no work to full capacity. Which is great though, don't get me wrong. I feel like I've expressed it here before, but there's nothing worse than not having work to do. However, in that lull I found time to pick up speed on some other personal projects. My buddy Matt and I are making leaps and bounds over at Folly. I found time to put together a new site to sell premium instagram prints, aptly named Steedagrams. But more importantly I am continuing to learn how to be at rest and remain thankful in times of lack. My current condition does not change God's position in my life. He is still good no matter what the condition looks like.

Business is still a vast ocean to me. I feel like I know just enough to get in my boat and start rowing, but still wonder if I should have read the owners manual. I guess my view about business is the same about everything else, it's all a learning process. But I know that even if I go out beyond the site of land and my boat sinks I know how to contact help. The friends I've made along the way these past 5 years of designing are so valuable. People are always the most important part of any adventure. I hope I never forget that.

Lastly, just want to say thanks for your continued support and readership. Keeping up with this blog continues to prove itself a challenge, but it's your comments and encouragements that keeps me going. Thank you.

Love and Marriage

Before I got married I thought I had it all figured out. I knew the right words to say. I knew how to be romantic. I even thought myself to be a pretty sensitive guy. How's that verse go? Don't think of yourself more highly than you should? Well I was definitely on my high horse, and now I know what it feels like to get knocked off. Side note: I've only been married for six and a half years, so I won't pretend to know it all. However, having other marred couples in my life as examples of what a successful marriage looks like has given me hope and a little bit of insight.

The Challenge

Marriage has to be one of the biggest challenges we will ever face in life. It's not something you can just set on cruise control. It takes work, a lot of work. It will break you down and build you up. It will expose the most selfish of desires. It will test your patience, kindness and grace all in a day. And as a man, it will offend your pride and test your integrity.

My friend Ben said it best when speaking about his wife of more than 18 years;

"My wife is more interesting to me than anyone else. She is also a great problem for me because of the continuous challenge she poses to my instincts that are not toward intimacy and trust."

I love reading that last line over and over again; "The continuous challenge she poses to my instincts that are not toward intimacy and trust." Dang! That shines a big fat spotlight in my heart. I face the same challenge every day with trusting and loving my wife. But the other part that really struck a chord is this line, "a great problem." I love to solve problems. In fact, I make a living solving problems. But the heart of a woman is anything but a problem to solve. It is a great mystery. I don't want to think of my wife as a problem to solve, but I know it's in my nature to try.

The Truth

Real love comes in the form of a choice. It's not a feeling. What the movies and books don't tell us about love is what happens after the happy ending. The part where you have to roll up your sleeves and do some work. The purest form of love I know chose to be humiliated and die. I think Jesus endured physical pain, to the point of death, because he knew a love that was greater than a feeling. That's the only kind of love I want.

The Reward

Intimacy with another person. When you trust someone enough to let them see your dark side, and they still love you, that is something to cherish and protect.

My friend, let's call him Ed, said it best; "I failed my way to success in marriage." That's a bold statement, but then you'd have to know Ed. He's overcome a lot in his life by the grace of God to speak those words. I love his testimony and getting to watch now as the Father rewards him openly for the many battles he's had to fight in private.

So now I continue on in my marriage. Not led by my feelings or how the world says a husband should act, God help us, but by the Spirit of Truth. Confident in the hope I have in Christ to keep our marriage on solid ground. That our common bond is found, not on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Christian Labels

We've put our labels on music, art, design, radio, television, plumbing, real estate, t-shirts, active sports, posters, books, education, government, shall I go on? You get the point. Here are some things I've yet to see "Christian" labels on, but are things still created by God. Sex, Water, Air. Honestly, there isn't much left that we haven't put our dirty paws on. And those that do remain I feel are basic essential to living. I mean, who would really watch "Christian" porn? Or who would really buy "Christian" bottled water? I hope you see how ridiculous those last two statements were.

I guess I just want to ask the question, "Why do we feel the need to separate ourselves by putting a Christian label on what we do?" It reminds me of that popular Portlandia skit, "Put a Bird on It." And in the same way that the "bird" is a marketing tool, so too is "Christian" when applied to anything other than a person.

Freelance Week #27

Original : adjective

1. present or existing from the beginning; first or earliest
2. created directly and personally by a particular artist; not a copy or imitation
3. not dependent on other people's ideas; inventive and unusual

The topic of originality has been on my mind a lot lately. How do we create from that place? Is it even possible to make something truly original anymore? Does technology help or hinder our abilities to think for ourselves and create something original? Or are all our ideas and creations just building blocks on top of what was there before us?

I can only speak from personal experience and share with you my own perspective. When I sit down to draw I am not just staring a blank piece of paper. I sit down with an idea in my head and see a million different ideas on that piece of paper in front of me. But it isn't until I make that first mark on the paper that it becomes reality. I guess maybe this is what we can call originality.

The act of taking your idea and making something out of nothing is Holy. I feel it's the same way in which God created the heavens and earth. So if we, the church, have the creator living in us why have we not yet begun to tap into the great depths of eternal creative inspiration? Are we afraid of what we'll find stored in the deep places of the heart of God? Are we scared that it won't be marketable?

So this is where my head has been lately. Can you relate? I feel like asking more questions is more important than pretending to know it all. Hope you're having a good week working hard, trusting God and enjoying life.

Freelance Week #26

I had the chance to visit Atlanta this past week, for the first time in over a decade, and speak not once but twice to a great group of people. On Thursday night I spoke at the AWDG (Atlanta Wed Design Group) meetup. They had a good turnout of people who were really gracious enough to listen to what I had to say. I still feel like I learn something new every time I speak, and I think this time it was learning not to judge people's level of interest based on their facial expressions. One guy, in particular, who I thought was shooting me eye daggers the whole night turned out to enjoy my talk and wanted to buy me a beer. That was pretty awesome. The second day in Atlanta I had the great pleasure of heading over to MailChimp and speaking to their team. I don't know about my talk, but their offices were pretty awesome. Plus, they have some of the coolest people working for them. Big hugs to the MailChimp team for having me out and listening to me ramble on. Something else that's been on my mind lately is this notion of myself as a person vs. myself as a brand. Is there a difference? Should there be a difference? As self-employed people should we be more careful about what we do and say on social networks? Or is it more rewarding to see people just being themselves, in all areas. I know I talk about my faith a lot, and sometimes I wonder if I'm doing it just to prove a point or because it comes from the heart. I don't ever feel like I'm trying to prove a point or judge people. And if I tried to please everybody then I would be totally missing the point. Like in design, if you try and design for everyone, you end up designing for no one. You have to know who you're designing for. So too in life, you have to know who you're living for. That for me, is Christ in me, the hope of glory.

Freelance Week #25

When I stop and look around at the current landscape of this profession I'm in it makes me smile and frown all at the same time. Don't get me wrong, there are so many awesome people doing so many awesome things it makes my head spin. And now we can see it all in seconds thanks to this thing called the internet. But for all that is good about the internet I feel is also what makes it bad. Instant comparisons. Instant likes. Instant stats. How much of what we see on any given day is straight from the source information and what has just been repurposed and reformatted to fit someone else's website? We share, tweet, link everyone else's stuff. So when do we have time to actually make something? We've got to step away. We've got to shut the lid. We've got to turn it off.

Only after we stop looking to everyone else for inspiration and ideas will we find our own voice. Not to say that we don't need each other, that would be foolish, but we don't need to be a bunch of copies. We each have a unique way of how we view the world around us. It's through that process of learning how to be comfortable with who we are that takes our work to the next level.

So I say just stop worrying about all the likes, comments and stats on your website and just start making stuff you like. Because at the end of the day if you aren't happy then what what's the point?

Thanks for reading. Have a great week.