There’s this one thing that I think we’ve all thought of at one point. I want to follow God, but hopefully He doesn’t call me to be a missionary in Africa, New Guinea or New Jersey.

The burning question any Christian has is “How Do I Discern God’s Will?” And in my case it’s closely followed by the question, “Is it a sin for me to eat Spam?”

We discussed how there are three parts to God’s Will. But what happens if you take one of these pieces out? What would that look like? Can we identify it in our own lives if we see it? What exactly is in a Taco Supreme? These burning questions and more in today’s exciting devotional.

The first element of discerning God’s will is God’s Word, but just because you have a Bible in front of you, doesn’t mean you know what to do with it. I feel the same way when someone hands me a baby.

So if you don’t have wisdom or understanding in something then you can seek out wisdom and understanding from others. But you can’t just ask anybody. Unless that person is all knowing. Or really cute.

So you got the Bible and you know it says a bunch of stuff, but how do you know when to apply it? Just cause the Bible says to evangelize, it doesn’t mean we’re supposed to do evangelize all the time, to everyone, including babies and puppies.

We talked about God’s Will in general in the previous devotionals. Now we need to get more specific… we need to talk about the individual. Now I know you all want to hear more about me as an individual, but being as humble as I am, we’ll talk about you. A bit. Then we can get back to me.

The last time I went over how to figure out your callings, I realized that one of my callings was to eat a pound of cheese, which I did as unto the Lord.

Again we go deeper into discerning God’s Will. It’s like going to a buffet with bacon. You take a few pieces and they keep on bringing more out. There’s just more and more to appreciate.

The first thing people associate with the term worship is singing in church. If that’s the case, and let’s be honest here, some of people around us, their singing could hardly be called worship. It either sounds like a remote controlled airplane or an air raid siren.

Churches use the word “worship” in a bunch of different ways which can get confusing. Heck, I get confused just telling the difference between the communion tray and the offering tray. And let me tell you, a twenty dollar tastes just as bad as you might think.

We were created to worship God. Unfortunately we end up worshipping other things – like money, celebrities, and in my case… pancakes.

We all are trying to worship God but we end up worshipping other things all the time. But like a lot of things in life, things just naturally happen and we don’t necessarily realize what we’re doing is wrong. Like spreading the flu or having body odor, or listening to smooth jazz.

Yeah, I’m sure you’re aware of people who think Sundays are for God and worship – then the rest of the week is for non-God stuff like work, mowing the lawn, and cleaning up the dog’s poop.

Despite what you might be thinking, the ultimate question in life isn’t, “How can Conrad be so good looking and humble at the same time?” but rather “What is the meaning of life?”

It’s really easy to get lost in politics. How often do we demonize people of the opposing party? Democrats want to kill babies. Republicans want to kill the poor. The Americans on the other side of the aisle aren’t really even our enemies — that would be Iran, North Korea, and that stupid McAfee Antivirus software that comes with most Windows computers.

One of the most bogus phrases in movies and society is “Be true to yourself”. The other most bogus phrase is “delicious salad”.

“Whose Feet Do I Want to Wash?” is probably a question we don’t ask a whole lot. It kind of ranks up there with “Which one of my eyes do I want to poke with this stick?” or “Which Star Wars Prequel should I watch?”

What does it mean when the Bible says, “if you have faith as small as a mustard seed… Nothing will be impossible for you,” (Matt 17:20)? So if I have the faith larger than the size of a mustard seed that I would become a cyborg – it would come to pass, right? But unfortunately it hasn’t.

There’s this fallacy that some believe where the less you know about something means the more faith you can have in it. Like it takes more faith that you’ll enjoy a movie you’ve never heard of, or that you’ll enjoy meat from Taco Bell.

Sometimes because we’re missing one crucial piece, we have nothing. Like getting in your car but missing the key. Or having a job interview but missing your pants.

With faith, when you miss the middle part, you pretty much feel empty. Kind of like missing the pages in between the covers of a book, or an edible entree between appetizer and dessert at Applebees.

How do we live by faith in the little decisions like what should I eat for lunch, or should I wear pants to work?

Some things are so hidden that you only find out about them when you are looking at something else. Like eating a cheeseburger to find out you don’t like pickles, or watching TV and finding you don’t like car insurance commercials, or watching Jersey Shore and finding out you no longer want to live.

On my birthday it had occurred to me that for some reason people assume that as you get older you also become a more mature Christian. But you obviously haven’t seen me wear my Star Trek uniform to church.

We’re always searching for that thing that’ll make us happy. But when we attain it, we realize true happiness still eludes us. Like finally getting to the end of a mission, and instead of the saving a beautiful princess, you get an annoying, useless, know-it-all who I’m pretty sure is on drugs.

There’s one amazing common resource that God has blessed us all with. And no, I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not me.

Growing is really hard. It’s something we all want to do, but without a strategy it’s like trying to win a game without understanding your team or the other team. Or asking out a girl on a date without figuring out what you’re going to say, or why girls are insane.

I’ve said it before… ministry starts with relationships. And since people aren’t as perfect (or as humble) as I am, there’s a lot to consider.

No matter how much we like someone, relationships become difficult at times – especially with the people closest to us. Especially if they insist on eating at Taco Bell.

If we are to have good relationships, we need to first understand the purpose of them. It would be like trying to try to understand how to have good bacon, without understanding its purpose. It is used for clothing? For hair styling? For skin care? As an antiperspirant? Or as food? Or as well all know, as all of the above.

In the last devotional I talked about the importance of finding your role in your relationships. I also talked about bacon. Now I will expand on how to understand your role. Your role in relationships. Not your role with bacon. But, that would make an awesome devotional though.

This series has been on relationships because a lot of times we overlook the people closest to us. Kinda like how I just spent time going to store to buy bacon just to find out I had some in my pocket the whole time.

Have you ever gotten so sick of someone close to you that you just wanted to scream? Now I’m not talking about getting sick of your proctologist. I’m talking someone close in a different way, in a relationship way.

One of the worst things to happen in a relationship is when it comes to an end. Either that or when your wife ask you to go along to go to shopping for clothes. Not sure which one is worse. In one case you want to cry yourself to sleep. In the other case you want to stab yourself with forks.

You ever have to face a situation where you might have to hurt someone’s feelings, but it’s something that you have to do? And I’m not talking about telling someone to shut up while you’re trying to watch a movie in a theater. That’s not right. Just ask the manager to kick them out.

There’s one thing we need to remember about ourselves – not everyone agrees with us. Especially if you’re me when trying to convince my family that Spam, rice and ketchup is a perfectly good meal.

Even though we don’t know it, half the times in life, even in our own families, we do Satan’s work for him. More than just making our family listen to the Black Eyed Peas, getting cell phone service on AT&T or changing the channel to Full House.

How many times have you heard stuff like, “Billy hit me.” “Oh yeah, well Billy hit me first.” We love doing stuff like that, pointing fingers rather than caring about the underlying issue.

We love pointing fingers at other people’s sins. In fact, we love doing it so much that there’s entire industries supported by it. Just look at the tabloids at the supermarket. The more sin, the greater the headlines. It’s all, “Arnold Schwarzenegger Cheats!” and not “Arnold Schwarzenegger stays faithful for third year in a row!” No one would read that. Well maybe someone would, but accidentally. Like if the magazine fell off the rack and it happened to open to that article and some M&Ms fell all over the page.

With all this finger pointing, the first thing we talked about was pride (Part 1), then taking care of our sin (Part 2). But there’s another thing we need to see in ourselves.

We all know the sins of our friends and family. It’s so easy to spot. They’re impatient, irrational, they barely try to please God and they listen to a whole lot of rap.

Something we all have to deal with from one side or the other is parenting. And parents are prone to making mistakes.

When people think of ministry they typically think of things like serving in their church’s childrens ministry, going overseas on a missions trip, or saving someone from wearing socks with sandals.

According to this verse we can ask God for anything in His name and he’ll do it. Which is awesome cause I just asked in Jesus’ name that the Star Wars prequels would be wiped from reality.

One thing I hear a lot of Christians saying is that they don’t want to label themselves as a particular denomination – like Baptist, Pentacostal or Republican.

Dear Conrad, I had a couple of questions. The first is, “What does Christ mean when He says “Ye are the branches”? The second is, “How can you be so good looking yet so humble?”

Wow, people complain a lot. People are so negative. No one ever remembers about all the things we do right. They focus on the one thing we do wrong. I mean, it’s not like I was driving all that fast. And he shouldn’t have been stopped in the first place.

I’ve heard over and over from Christians, “I’m praying for God to show me His will.” Uh. And? And what else are you doing? “Well, I’ve been praying really hard for a long time.” And? “And what? Isn’t that it?” It is if you like being confused all the time.

Last time I talked about our own feelings getting in the way of hearing God. But that’s not all. And I’m not talking about Taco Supremes. While it might distract us, it doesn’t really lead us down the wrong path. Well, actually, it probably does.

How many times have you seen a kid give as his defense, “Well Billy did it too!” Or, when I say, “Well you’re the one who didn’t flush last time.”

God wants us to pray continually. And we always seem to hit stoplights continually. Which means I tend to yell continuously.

We all have people we can’t forgive. Sometimes it’s for something simple like they were mean to you. Sometimes it’s larger like they cheated on you. And sometimes it’s massive… like creating the Star Wars Prequels.

Forgiveness is hard. I know. Especially when there’s people out there who listen to smooth jazz.

As Christians, we want to show love and make everybody happy. But guess what? You can’t. Not while people are close minded to the fact that I make my dog wear pants.

We all deal with anger. I mean how can we not when radio stations still play Nickelback songs?

Discipline is one of those things that’s hard to find. It’s like that famous ancient parable, “There once was a fox and a chicken. They were both so lazy… that they died.”

I’ve been talking a bit about learning from previous mistakes and the mistakes of others. The Bible has verse for us if we don’t learn from our mistakes, “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly” (Prov 26:11). Or a modern version of this verse would be, “As a person returns to Taco Bell, so a fool repeats his folly.”

If there’s one place everyday that your faith is tested, it’s on the road. A car is a huge weapon and they’ll give a drivers license to just about anyone – teenagers, criminals and even women.

Since our last talk, I’ve been doing a lot of growing in the car. Mainly because other people keep trying to crash their cars into me.

As if things couldn’t get worse on the road – now I see people texting while driving. It’s bad enough when you drive while talking on the cell phone, you’re still actually looking at the road. But texting? I mean you take both hands off the wheel, and take your eyes off the road so you can reply immediately to the urgent message of, “omg. did u see what cindy was wearing last night? lol.” I know this series is about growing closer to God in the car, but I really didn’t mean literally getting closer to God by dying.

There’s tons of lessons we can learn in the car that we can take into the rest of our lives. One of those things is to never attempt to eat a taco supreme while driving. It just ends in tears.

A bit ago I was trying to replace a sink and vanity at a townhouse my wife and I were trying to sell. Oh, that’s easy you say, just buy the parts and replace the old sink and vanity with the new ones. Yes, it would be easy, if the original plumbing wasn’t installed by drunk monkeys.

As Christians we need to understand our weaknesses. There are certain situations arise where there is almost an uncontrollable urge to sin. Like when a James Taylor song comes on the car radio – I suddenly feel the urge to jam on the accelerator and crash my car into a gas station.

Sometimes we get a little confused with being all loving and trying to be non-judgemental. As if loving someone means to be all supportive of them as they live an openly sinful lifestyle like living in rebellion or eating at Taco Bell.

Sometimes we get placed in no-win situations. You want to go to church but know your kids will throw a fit and sin when you wake them up early. Or you can’t pay for both credit card balances that month. Or it’s 3 AM and you need cough medicine, but the only place that’s open is Walmart.

We often think of our lives our lives like a juggler. We juggle work, family, church, soccer practice, lawn care, recreation. And hopefully you’re not actually juggling being a juggler in all of that because that might get a little dorky.

Since the earth is in the same position than it was last year relative to the sun, we should get moving on things that we should be doing anyways, like exercise, get out of debt, or win the lottery.

Last time we talked about New Year Resolutions really were about what you love. So my list looked really stupid… “#1. Eat bacon everyday. #2. Learn new recipes for bacon, #3. Thank God daily for bacon.”

New Year’s Resolutions really are goals. But not all goals are created equal. Goals need certain elements to be successful. For example there’s a big difference between the financial goals: “I want to eliminate my credit card debt this year” versus “I want to be as rich as a drug dealer.

There’s so much to getting new resolutions in place and actually moving. I wish it was easier because I have so many resolutions that are sitting around that remain unfinished. Exercise regularly, get financially organized and at least attain the grammar of a third grader.

One of the burning questions everyone faces is, “Who should I date?” It ranks right up there with other burning questions like, “What is my calling?” and, “Who actually listens to the Black Eyed Peas?”

There’s something really unexpected in Christmas. And by unexpected I don’t mean opening a present and getting cigarettes and lottery tickets.

During this Christmas time it’s easy to say, “let’s remember the true meaning of Christmas.” It’s also easy to say, “I’m going to eat three pounds of pork rinds.” But some things are easier said than done.

We all know that Easter is ultimately to celebrate Christ’s resurrection, thus defeating sin and death. Now most people think that the eggs represent the stone that was rolled away from the tomb.

So I’m doing my taxes right now, and I am so glad our money is going to politicians who can spend it a lot more wisely than we can. Let’s take money out of the economy from where it wanted, and give it to a few hundred ex-lawyers and let them spend it on where the economy didn’t want.

During this season of thanksgiving there’s a good verse to keep in mind, “…Thanks be to God–through Jesus Christ our Lord!” But what is this verse talking about? Thanks for what? How can you stand the tension? You must find out what this verse is talking about. It will be like a itch that needs to be scratched when it’s out of reach, or a hunger that must be filled when you have to wait for a table, or a TV’s channel that must be changed when the Jay Leno show is on.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed by we’re not the gods of universe. And contrary to what you might think, I’m not in control either. I know, hard to believe that someone so handsome and intelligent isn’t in control, but I’m not.

At first glance, it might be hard to mix the concepts of God’s ultimate control, our responsibility and real consequences together. Kinda like what I saw at Costco yesterday – a “great tasting vegetarian burrito”. It’s like someone took the three opposing concepts and combined them into something illogical… and horrific.

Marriage is so trivialized in our culture. No one really seems to value it anymore. Much like VHS tapes or John Travolta.

Something that all couples deal with are fights. Unless you’re me that uses ninja skills to sneak away.

Just because God picked someone out for you and you found that person doesn’t mean that your relationship is automatically going to be awesome. It takes work, dedication and separate bank accounts.

Many times we ask ourselves why God dealt us the hand we were given. Mainly because we would rather have been dealt a better hand, with more talent, better looks, or in my case, some understanding of grammar.

There’s another aspect of Romans 8:28 that I wanted to hit on. When God says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him,” this also includes our own sins – our own mistakes. Like eating at Taco Bell.

You know that parable of the talents? To paraphrase, a master gave one servant $5,000, another $2,000 and another $1,000 to invest while he went away. The first two guys doubled the money and the last one didn’t do nothing and just handed back the money back and got sent to New Jersey.

When Peter was walking on the water, he eventually lost focus on Christ and focused on the wind and the waves, then started to sink. This is a great analogy for our own lives. Our waves are, “How am I supposed to pay off my financial debt,” “How am I supposed to repair my relationship,” and “How am I supposed to eat this pound of bacon?”

I’ve been thinking… I’m probably the best Christian I know. Now if that sounds weird, well, it should. Deep down there’s an inherent contradiction by saying that.

People are judgmental. Look, I know it looked bad. But there is a very good reason why I was wearing that dress.

We get in arguments all the time… who’s fault it was that dinner wasn’t prepared. What’s the best way to get to Taco Bell. What set of inoculations do you need before eating at Taco Bell. What’s the fastest route from Taco Bell to the hospital.

There’s times where we jump to conclusions about someone after hearing one piece of information. Especially if they have history. So that doesn’t automatically mean that those tap dancing shoes that were found are mine.

There’s a ton of things that are awesome and you take out one element and it becomes useless? Like taking out an engine out of a Ferrari, or taking out the battery from your smartphone, or taking bacon out of a salad.

I haven’t been able to sleep well or even go about my day without my mind racing about a certain turmoil I’ve been dealing with. I’m sure we all go through times like this. And some of you have multiple turmoils you’re dealing with simultaneously. And no, running low on bacon isn’t a turmoil. But we’ll talk again once we run out.

A phrase we’ve heard since childhood is, “If you put your mind to it, you can grow up to be anything you want to be.” That’s why I became a cheeseburger.

You might feel a little bit inadequate when you compare your spiritual usefulness to others. Maybe you feel like you’re not quite as useful to God because you don’t minister to hundreds of people like your pastor, or you don’t bring dozens of people to Christ, or you don’t have an inconsistently updated online devotional.

Have you ever made the wrong decision and things turned out badly – and now you feel guilty? But it’s not necessarily from a sin you committed? But even though it wasn’t a sin, you still feel kinda guilty? And I’m talking about more than just eating at Taco Bell.

One thing that’s always never sat right with me is when people tell others to stop complaining and to be thankful because there are those who are worse off. Like, “Kids, be thankful for your green beans because there are starving kids in Africa who would love to have those beans.” Yeah, as if anyone wants green beans.

Just this morning I was complaining how our weiner dog, Brutus (pictured above), wouldn’t poop when I took him out. I was out walking around our yard and he’s just sniffing around, peeing on stuff… after he already peed. “C’mon, you already peed. Time for puppy poopies. Go puppy poopies.” But he wouldn’t go. How will this exhilarating story turn out? Read the rest of the devotional to find out.

There’s some major questions we have to answer about the unfairness in life. Why is life so unfair? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why is Michael Bay allowed to keep on making movies?

First you must understand this one fact about all kids – their lot in life is to take your food that you were saving for yourself from the fridge. I don’t care how nice or Christian your kid is, they will always do this. It’s part of their sinful nature.

As you can see I tried swimming in our backyard, but it didn’t work out too well, so we figured things would work out better if we got a pool for that spot.

So I wake up to water in the basement. But it’s not just water, it’s the drained water from, you know, drains. Like from a sink, a washing machine and toilets.

As soon as they started clearing out some land for the pool, I tried it out. Unfortunately the pool wasn’t quite done yet, so I didn’t have any fun – I just ended up getting covered in dirt.

We of course know that God is in control, and we aren’t. And we know verses like Romans 8:28 where it says all things work together for good. But sometimes you just need a quick phrase to keep your mind on track. Something more than “Hakuna Matata.” Something that’s been working for me lately is telling myself this…

I got this great question in reply to figuring one’s calling, [How can you figure out your calling] “if you aren’t good at anything?”

Two Jehovah Witnesses came to my door and were gone in under two minutes because I was able to coherently show my understanding of the difference between their view and Christianity. Well, it was either that or because I smelled like feet and beef.

One question we Christians face is “How much should I tithe… and if going out to eat after church count towards that tithe?” It does, but only 50% of the check, unless your household income is over $250,000, then it’s 25%.

Life just seems to be full of suffering. There are breakups, disease, disasters and AT&T’s customer service.

Do you ever wonder what the whole point of all our hardships is? Why do we have health issues? Why do we struggle financially? Why did they make Indiana Jones 4?

There are a few different reasons how our suffering can turn out for good. Sometimes it’s really hard to see it, especially if our suffering involves ‘health foods’.

Sometimes the cause of our suffering is consequences of actions by others or us. Just think about how much suffering was caused by Hitler, or Nero, or Voldemort.

Do you ever look back and notice you wouldn’t be in a better place if it weren’t for some bad past events? Walt Disney was fired as a newspaper editor. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. And Luke Skywalker’s uncle and aunt were killed.

A lot of times we don’t want to work, unless it’s something fun like gardening, music or cooking bacon.

When we talk about “All things work together for good” (Rom 8:28) we have to realize that it also includes when people are purposely sinning against us. Not just people, even aliens, like Predator.

Too bad criticizing people isn’t one of the fruit of the spirit, cause man, if it were, I’d be like the best Christian ever. I wouldn’t be just a tree with the fruit of judging, I’d be like a whole orchard of judging trees. Located in the tropics where I’d be producing fruit year round. The natives would be able to harvest this fruit and sell it to other countries and make a fortune and finally be able to buy themselves some deodorant and maybe some masks, cause they stink and are horrifically ugly.

The ever burning question in many Christians’ hearts is, “Can I listen to secular music?” There is something already wrong with this question. The problem that is inherent in a statement like this is separating music into Sacred and Secular, Spiritual and Non-Spiritual.I’ll start from the beginning – literally. Only […]

Here are some memory verses I personally like. Sanctification Verses Romans 8:28-29 28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image […]

Sin screwed up a lot of stuff. But just what exactly did it do and what does it mean for us?