Thoughts on our trip to Hawaii

Aloha everyone! This is Abe blogging! Allison and I just got back from Hawaii Wednesday night. Allison will come up with a separate blog post shortly, but I thought that I'd just share with everyone what God revealed to me during this trip. In short--our lives are too cluttered with stuff/things that distract us from God and our relationship with Him. For us, those distractions include commuting, work, internet, e-mail, tv and school as examples. I think that it's partially due to city life and partially due to our society as a whole. Society says to us, "You're not busy? What is wrong with you?" So we just keep going and going and going--it wasn't God's design for us to live harried, crazy lives. As a matter of fact, moving too fast actually hinders our relationship with God. We never slow down long enough to hear his voice. It gets so much easier to listen to God once we take away those distractions. Which brings me to our trip to Hawaii....

As you may know, Allie and I try to take a quarterly marriage retreat four times a year--this time is meant for us to connect (or reconnect) with God and each other. After coming back to Chicago, I realized how many things have been distracting us from God in Chicago. When we were in Hawaii, however, all those distractions were gone--no school, work, limited internet access, and no tv (except for the Olympics at times). It was just us, nature, and God (not to mention that we were in Hawaii!) What a perfect setting to have a marriage retreat.

I think that Allison and I really enjoyed ourselves (heck, we went surfing, hiking and snorkeling!), but, more importantly, God revealed some things to us that we need to work on as a couple. It was very humbling when God revealed this stuff to us.

Anyways, I think that the book that I have started to read has helped me to unclutter my mind a bit. One of my favorite authors is John Eldredge (author of "Wild at Heart"), so I started reading his newest book "Walking with God." I've learned from personal experience that life is so much easier when you walk with God and ask God for direction, as opposed to doing your own thing--it's when I haven't asked God about a decision where I've gotten into trouble.

Anyways, mahalo (this means thank you in Hawaiian!) for reading! We'll have another post up shortly!