Be Awesomely Holy! Part II

I was a youth minister and I think there is an unwritten rule that any time a youth minister is promoting something to teens or talking something up to the parish, they have to use the term “awesome” about 14 times to describe it.

As a result, every time I hear the word awesome, I get a little overexcited. When I read the post, “How to be Awesome” by Chris Guillebeau, I knew that I could adapt it for holiness. I recommend reading Chris’ original blog entry before mine. Simply because I want it made clear that I am using his blog entry as a template with his permission. I’m hoping that all of us in this little online universe might be able to apply it to our pursuit of sanctification.

Tithe Your Time

This means 10% of everything. That’s two hours of prayer every day. That’s 10% of your money to your parish and charities. That’s 10% of your talents in ministry work.

If you are not willing to give that much of your life back to God, then you need to change your priorities. For those of us that are involved in ministry, we can’t sit back and say, “My work is a prayer/tithe/ministry...”

Get out of fantasy world. You are no better than anyone else. You have to work at your prayer life and being a saint. That means that you have to make time for God. Let’s be honest, if you are not willing to be pro-active in being a saint or you are not willing to work hard at being a saint, this part is just going to turn you off more.

Hey, don’t say no one ever told you what it takes.

Here’s the kicker: I am terrible at this and trying to work it out myself. It just scares me that I have to make this happen.

Look at every single awesomely holy saint out there. They didn’t spend time watching the tube, browsing the internet and generally being bored with life.

They worked at all of it: the prayer, the ministry, the tithe until the point that 10% became what they were not giving to God. God was getting 90% of who they were.

The next time you start doing something, ask yourself if you are tithing to make yourself awesomely holy.

In the World and Not of the World

Let’s face it, the majority of people that you encounter every day are looking to get by or get ahead and they really don’t care about you as long as you don’t impact either of those notions. If you are going to be awesomely holy, your primary purpose must be to make the others around you look good.

My career as an actor became a lot easier when I started worrying more about making the others around me into better actors then being sure that I got the laugh line or all of the attention. I worked more. I was a better actor. It was awesome.

Now think about it in terms of holiness. When you go to your job, even if you are working in the church (especially if you are doing church work) the majority of people are looking to impress the person above them, whoever that is. Your job is to impress God. That means other people might steal your ideas. Other people might take advantage of the fact that you are pursuing holiness. Do whatever you can to make the people around you better. Speak the truth. Stop gossiping. Be awesomely holy to be around.

Time Wasting

You only have a certain amount of time on this Earth to be awesomely holy. It would be a shame if you wasted it on silly things.

Stop forwarding emails. Everyone hates it even if they say they love it.

Stop watching one television show every month and see if you truly miss it.

Check your digital social life only when you absolutely have to. For some of you that is once a week. For some of you who make a career online that is once every fifteen minutes. When you are at work, work. when there is nothing to do, don’t hang out just to impress people.

Pray every chance you can get.

Do something loving for every person you come into contact with.

You only have a limited amount of time to be awesomely holy.