Paying attention

Annie and I are taking a Dave Ramsey 13 week class with some friends and it's really been interesting.  We're on week 10 and have sat through roughly 9 hours of Dave lectures.  He's a pretty interesting guy to listen to, but I'm not really sure that I've learned more than 2 or 3 things.
  

Having said that, we've eliminated roughly $2,000 a yearly expenses.  This has happened mostly because we're just taking a little time to pay attention to where our money is going.  It wasn't any magical formula, it's just the difference between sort of drifting through our financial life and focusing down somewhat.  We figured out where our money was going and made some decisions about where we'd like it to go in the future.
  

We made some calls and negotiated our phone/interweb & insurance costs, while also eliminating a few things that we weren't really using...and the next thing you know we have an extra $170 a month to spend on our corn husk doll collection.

  
A friend of mind used to say, "no one drifts into a deeper walk with Jesus".  His point was that we don't just wake up and know Him better...there isn't necessarily a magic pill...there is the effort of paying attention to the relationship.  My friend Micah was talking about this the other day - the more we know someone's stories, the more we know them.  We know a bit about their past and what they've gone through in life...we keep up with what's happening in their life now...and we know them.
   
The same is true with God (in my prideful opinion).  So if this is on your radar, why not reacquaint yourself with some of the stories of God?  A bunch of local churches here in Cincinnati are trying this out with the book of Luke...not a bad place to start.