A Year Through God's Eyes

So, when I began this journey over a year and a half ago, my main reason was to remain connected into how God was working in my life. Well, since then, my life got too crazy to blog about. Part the reason for this is I received an ipod touch and no longer get the computer out for extended periods of time. However, this does not mean that God has not worked mightily in my life over the past eight months or so.

When last I wrote, I was working through the Psalms, evening church was in the continuing stages of FBC University, we had just purchased the 414 House as a church, and I was beginning school. Since that time, my beautiful wife and I have decided to go on a mission trip to Africa (more on that in a moment), I have grown closer to Jesus than I have ever been, I'm still in the Psalms, I've still got a lot of work to do, I'm almost done with school for the year, and God is still better than I deserve. Let me walk you through some high and low lights:

1) Africa-When we first decided as a church we felt God calling us to partner with a mission that we support in South Africa through first-hand experiences, Kayla very early on said she wanted to go. I was a bit more cautious. I heard a song that I hadn't heard in a long time by Casting Crowns called "In Me" and I at first thought God was telling me I should stay home because it would be a much braver thing to be separated from Kayla for so long, only to realize I had been doing what several "heroes" of the faith had done in the Bible which is try to talk God out of His plan for my life. After a convicting word from a good friend, I decided to sign up to go. It has taken about six months, but through some amazing experiences already, I am excited to be going to Africa and "getting the uniform dirty" for Christ. It still terrifies me to think of the ways that God will stretch me, but I know that it is for my benefit and it's the first time in my life that I will be dependent upon Him for things in my life that I've never had to be dependent upon before. I can feel Him preparing my heart to use me in a mighty way. Less than 100 days to go!

2) A life well lived-My grandfather passed away after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease back in January of this year. After the stress of making travel arrangements and flying halfway across the country on very little notice and leaving my family behind, I had a wonderful time experiencing Christ's comforting Spirit for one of the few times in my life. While my grandfather as I knew him had been gone for several years, it was still a difficult experience to say goodbye to him one final time. It was also a time of great learning for me as I got to see the type of character and the way he lived his life for the gospel of Christ in his dealings with people throughout his life. It was a tremendously gut-checking event. I felt a strong calling from God to carry on the legacy that has been laid out so well before me. To look at the life of my grandfather, his father, and my father and to know that I have a responsibility to carry on in the Christ-like example that has been set for me was a life-altering experience.

3) Secret Church-About five weeks ago, in preparation for the Africa trip, Kevin tried something that he had read about in a book, called "Secret Church". Essentially it's stripping down the worship experience to its bare minimum with singing praises and Bible teaching over an entire evening in an effort to draw closer to the Spirit of Jesus. Good news: It worked! What an amazing night of worship and something subtly changed for me that night. The temptations I have felt for the greater part of my life have drastically lessened. I have felt a deep yearning to speak about Christ to my students and have seen a natural progression of speaking about Him in my conversations at school. We opened with one of Brenna's storybooks that we received from Billy called "The Jesus Storybook" which is essentially a children's Bible, but at the end of each story, shows how that story points to Christ and our need for Him to be our rescuer. As odd as it sounds, it has truly spoken to me each night that I get to read it with Brenna. It has helped me to keep the main thing the main thing. Now, for the bad news: it worked! While the oldest sin in my life has all but been eradicated, I now am realizing the deeper sins of my soul such as my prideful heart, the lack of grace I show to others consistently, my frustrations with the things of life that are not eternal, wasting of my time on the unimportant, etc. I greatly desire to have those removed from my life, but God will have to continue to do an amazing work, and I have to be faithful in prayer for me to even have a shot of Him removing those.

4) Marriage Retreat-Since the beginning of this year, I have been praying for three things: 1) Africa and having my heart prepared for the work God will have me do there, 2) A youth minister for our church so that our youth can grow and have someone willing to invest in them the way they deserve to be invested in (and so my wife can have that removed from her plate), and 3) for my wife and all her daily struggles and triumphs. To go along with that, this past weekend, we attended our very first marriage retreat courtesy of FBCKC. It was a wonderfully affirming experience full of things that I already knew, but had maybe forgotten to do in the hustle of everyday life. I need to remain faithfully committed to praying for and with my wife.

5) I Gotta Feeling-(That's a Black-Eyed Peas song, in case you didn't know) With this new-found draw towards Christ, I continually feel like He's preparing my heart for trials that are ahead. This frightens me to no end, because while I know He's God and He is aware and has everything under His control, I feel that I'm about to be entering a time of intense trials the likes of which I've never seen before, and I don't have a clue what those trials are. I have the feeling that I'm walking on eggshells trying to discern where these trials will come from. I have never felt like prophecy is one of my spiritual gifts, but I can't shake the nagging feeling both in my study of the Word, the podcasts I listen to, and in my prayer life that some intense trials and suffering are coming my way.

6)The Future's the finish line (that's a line from "Seabiscuit. I was going to do something from BTTF, but it didn't flow right).- I'm in serious prayers right now with my wife over what God wants us to do with regards to enlarging our family. On one hand, I have a feeling that God will provide us with another child through a miracle. On the other, God seems to be beginning a process where we can adopt a child from Haiti. I'm not sure how I feel about this yet, just basically need to be more diligent in prayer about this matter. The other issue that falls under this category is I've been feeling a pull in my heart (small as it is-the pull, not my heart) towards getting my Master's degree in Worship music. I've felt for years that God will eventually call me to full-time worship ministry and feel that this would be a huge step in preparing me for that. However, that is a relatively specialized field which means not a lot of places offer it and the ones that do charge a pretty penny for it. It also means we would probably pay the majority of it and it wouldn't increase my current pay at school at all.

7)Finally-I'm going to the Youth Pre-Easter retreat this weekend as the male sponsor. Which means I'm mostly responsible for the Youth Group and if there are any decisions or difficult questions asked, I'm the one they have to count on to answer Biblically. Huge prayers are needed there.

So, I guess you can see where I need prayer the most if you've made it this far down the list of events over the past eight months (and really over the past 4-5 weeks in particular). I promise to post a little more frequently, because this is as good as journaling for my soul. Thanks for your time, and hopefully next time it will both be sooner than the last time and will involve a little bit more Scripture study.