My FLR 30-Day Challenge

Friday, February 5, 2010 10:04 pm Daniel J. Summers

The results are below, but first, the set up…

January 5th, 2010 was the first day back to work for me after the new year. I decided to put the radio on 91.5, which is our local Family Life Radio station. They were advertising a 30-Day Challenge - listen only to that radio station for 30 days. At the time, I didn't commit to it, but I thought “Eh, I'll give it a shot.” I only drive about 10 minutes one way to work, but driving home at lunch and back, then home for good in the afternoon, we start getting into some real time. At these times, they are generally playing music, or the DJs are discussing the topic of the day. A few weeks in, I befriended Dan Rosecrans, the local morning host, on Facebook. (He just recently got a national show on Sundays, playing praise music; congratulations, Dan!)

They also have talk programs. At work, I generally listen to podcasts or music from my computer, as I can't just tell people “Leave me alone - I'm listening to my radio program!” At my wife's suggestion, I subscribed to Intentional Living. They were doing a series of “If I Could Do It All Over Again” shows on different topic. Those weren't really doing much for me, and I asked my wife about her experience. She suggested I wait it out, as it was a show that she really enjoyed. She was right; I now wholeheartedly recommend it. I also, through driving my oldest son to scouts, heard Focus on the Family's daily broadcast. I wasn't new to FOTF at all, but I heard part of a show that interested me, and subscribed to their podcast as well. Their feed has about 4 months of recent episodes, and they have been hitting home runs every week! So, even when I wasn't listening to FLR, I was listening to a few of their shows, in a way where I wouldn't miss any of it.

The results…

The first week, it actually seemed like more things were going wrong than right. Work was stressful, home was stressful, and I wasn't handling it well in either place. Over the next few weeks, though, I began to have peace. The problems didn't go away, but I now have peace within them. More challenges have been thrown at me, and I'm not going to air a dirty laundry list, but in all of it, I have a peace about everything that is going on. Of course, that doesn't mean that I'm not trying to work through the problems and make them better; but, when I do what I believe God is telling me to do, I don't have to stress about the results - those are His problems now.

Even now, just shortly removed from them, I can see where some of these challenges (even those in the first week) have worked together for good, to help me address struggles that I've had as long as I can remember. 2010 is going to be an outstanding year, and FLR is a resource I'm going to keep.