Recently, a college senior asked Joe Jonas, of Jonas Brothers fame, to a dance.

She made a video describing why he should go with her. Joe Jonas loved the video and made his own. He then said yes to her on The Today Show.

At minute 2 of her original video, she points out that she knows he has a girlfriend. She promises that they can leave enough room for the Holy Spirit. She doesn’t say those words, instead she shows the picture of how to properly dance from the Stuff Christians Like book.

So I guess what I am trying to say is, Joe Jonas, I’m teaching the youth of this country how to dance.

You’re welcome.

(A few days ago my friend Dave Ramsey asked if he could stop by and share a few words with you guys. I thought that was a great idea. So without further ado… Mr. Dave Ramsey.)

WOW! That just about sums up how I feel about the incredible success we’ve had with the release of Jon Acuff’s latest book, Start. This thing debuted on the New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-seller lists and Amazon’s overall Top 10 list. It totally dominated Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and just about everything else on social media! This thing is on FIRE, and I can think of two reasons for that.

First of all, Start delivers a message that the world is hungry for. I talk to people on the radio every day who are frustrated and miserable with their careers, and they honestly think it’ll never get better. They’ve settled for average, but they dream of awesome. This is the book that can take them there.

Second—and this is the really important part—the reason Start came out of the gate so strong is because of YOU! You guys bought into the message, and you told a LOT of other people about it! Maybe you saw some things on Jon’s blog or Twitter feed, or maybe you heard us talking about it on the radio, and something just clicked. Something inside of you woke up, and you decided to START! By the time we dropped the book into the marketplace, tens of thousands of you had already pre-ordered or you lined up to buy it the day it released! That’s incredible! We’re already hearing stories from some of you about how you’re flipping the switch from average to awesome in your own lives by putting this material into practice. You guys rock! Thank you for making Start such a big success!

Of course, we’ve been doing our part to get this life-changing message out there too! Jon was locked in his office for months getting the message just right. Literally dozens of people on our team have spent the better part of a year getting the edits, design and marketing ready for Start to hit the street. We even took over Times Square with enormous billboards and a huge wrapped bus for our live launch event! And then we kept Jon on that bus for two weeks on a massive book tour to keep the momentum going.

This book release has been a pretty wild ride, and that means there are ups—and downs. The down side right now is that some of you haven’t been able to get your copy of Start yet because several stores sold out so fast. That was never the plan! We had pretty big expectations for the book, but the response has been mind-blowing. If you haven’t been able to get your copy yet, we’re sorry! Our team is working like crazy to make sure your local stores and Amazon have Start back in stock as soon as possible. And if you want it before they get it, we’ve got plenty of copies on hand in our online store at daveramsey.com. There’s little chance WE’LL run out!

Thanks again for everything you’re doing to help us get the message out there. I really believe that Start is one of the most significant books you could ever read, and I can’t wait to hear your own Start story soon!

—Dave

In Matthew 6:26, Jesus tells us to look at the birds of the air. He intones that “they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”

It’s a powerful passage about worry and the future. I’ve written about it before and will write about it again, but something new recently struck me.

Have you ever thought about how common birds are?

We have some in our backyard, and they sing all day and most of the night. They are in the bushes and the trees and the grass and the everywhere.

You probably have birds near your house, too. You can find them on every continent. In fact, scientists estimate there are 200 to 400 billion birds on the planet.

Have you ever thought about the kindness of Jesus, using birds as his example?

He could have picked the clouded snow leopard. There are less than 10,000 of them.

Or the Javan Rhino. There are only 60 or so of those.

Or the hairy-nosed wombat. There are only about 120 of those.

He could have picked any rare animal in the world, but he didn’t. Instead, he picks one that blankets the planet. One you’d find in Antarctica or hundreds of miles out to sea. One you’ll see in the city or the suburbs, the desert or the jungle.

He picked one that’s everywhere.

Why?

Because that’s where God’s love for you is too.

Look at the birds.

Turns out someone took a photo of me breakdancing last summer at camp. Whatevs.

I don’t know who originally created this, with memegenerator, but I know it wasn’t me. Look up the verse and see why this is perfect.

Well played. Well played, indeed.

A friend sent me this photo of a journal she saw.

In our defense, this was not taken at a Christian bookstore. This was someone making fun of Christian culture. But, regardless, let’s all swear we will never journal in this.

Today I want to talk about satan’s favorite word. (And yes, I am lowercasing that on purpose. That’s the middle finger of punctuation, and I always give it to the devil.)

In the last few weeks, I’ve been asking audiences I speak to one simple question:

“What do your voices of fear and doubt tell you?”

My new book Start is about figuring out what you’re called to do, and then doing it with the greatest degree of awesome possible.

But a lot of people, including me, get stuck by fear and doubt when they decide to be awesome. Why? Well, fear only bothers you when you do things that matter.

If you choose average, if you give into ordinary, if you decide to rock vanilla right into the grave, fear will give you a free pass.

The moment you decide to do something that matters with your life? Fear awakens from its slumber. It gets loud and chatty.

So I’ve been asking people what their particular voice says.

And there’s one word I keep seeing over and over. I think it’s satan’s favorite word. What is it?

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A few weeks ago, I was at a worship service. The worship leader told us that we could sit down after the first song if we wanted to.

We sang the first song and hundreds of people pretended they didn’t want to sit down.

Except for one lone soul.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him. Refusing to give into peer pressure, he calmly took his seat. It was the shot heard round the world.

I didn’t get to talk to him, but if I could I would tell him,

“You sir, are my hero.”

Throwing off the shackles of forced standing, this brave gentleman raged against conformity.

No standing for him. No, your vertical tyranny would not claim him this morn. He took a stand against standing.

I wanted to clap or cry, or I don’t even know. I was an emotional wreck, you know. Like you were at the end of The Notebook. So many letters!

Have you ever witnessed this bold move?

Have you ever been in the presence of the courageous few who take a worship leader up on their offer of a seat?

Have you ever breathed this rare air?

Recently I thought to myself, “What topic won’t cause people to be mad at each other in the comments?” And then this one hit me: Science!

There’s something we all agree on. What could go wrong?

Normally, though, I avoid topics like this, but I had an experience that kind of forced my hand.

We were in Mammoth Cave, which is exactly what it sounds like. It is a cave…that is mammoth. Pretty solid name actually.

I was busy trying to convince myself not to be claustrophobic. Oh, we get to go underground and walk beneath millions of tons of earth just waiting to collapse on us? We get to climb deep into the earth while trying not to breath or claw our way out? And we get to pay for that experience? Fantastic!

While I was pep talking myself, though, I heard something that sounded unusual.

There was a mom in front of me talking to her son. Every time the tour guide would say something about the age of the cave, she would quote a verse from Genesis. It was like watching a very religious director’s commentary on a DVD.

The tour guide would say, “An underground stream hollowed this portion out over a period of 12,000 years.” And the mom would whisper to her son:

And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

For the next few minutes, I listened in as the story of Genesis unfolded deep in that cave. Did we do the same with our kids? No. But I have to credit the mom with only whispering it. She wasn’t being disruptive to the tour, just giving her son a chance to hear a different side of the story.

I will say that there have been times when our family will discuss how God is absent at school. We might not quote Genesis in caves, but we will discuss God when my kids have questions while doing their science homework.

How about you? Do you speak into that with your kids? Did your parents ever do that with you?