I Am Finally Able To Speak

On March 16, 2012 was the last time I was able to blog because the next day at 11:40am my earthly father’s soul took its step into everlasting. As I held his hand reassuring him I would be “OK” I begin to feel the walls of my heart blowing up piece by piece because the possibility of him never experiencing the pure unconditional “NEED” of love from his child was ending and for myself still on the bridge of brokenness and doubt vividly as on a movie screen I was being wrapped in the noise of heartache, pain and misery feeling like I was being aborted like an unborn child.


March 17,2012 11:40am my father died. The hope of the happy ending had dried up in a bitter stream of emptiness. My words became numb, my actions became guarded, my song lost its tune and my body just wanted to die. Deep down inside of the layers of my being and even unseen to the closest person in my life but fresh as the morning sunrise daily I had hoped that the thief would not steal him away from me too soon. The thief had already stolen the promises and the potential of the dreams in the pictures. The thief had already suffocated my hope, depleted my energy and grayed my prayers.

You would assume for someone who has studied the ends and outs of theology that in this moment I would be more than “OK”. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, you would think that promise would be like a seat belt to my soul and have me strapped in the seat of security and faith. But in my reality and in the pit of my feelings the only anthem I could hear blazing from the choir of assurance was “Death is final and my father is dead”.

He will never meet my children, he will never know my wife. I ache for my grandparents who put their child in the ground. I ache daily that he will never get a chance to be who I needed him to be on this side of heaven.

Nothing makes sense, no words can comfort. Honestly I feel like telling everyone to shut up and leave me alone. The pain of tragically losing a parent is so piercing in sting and force to the child that it should be written in the laws that everyone should sit in silence and hear the screaming breaking sound of that child’s soul. My father is dead and he is not coming back, that is not a thought that can be rationalized or explained to my soul; I just need to sit here and so I continue to sit.

I have no intelligent, intellectual, or brave words to reassure you today that over this hill of agony my heart will be made full. But what I can reassure you is that when I choose to move forward this pain will not be in vain.

3/17/12 11:40am - The day My Life Changed

At The Feet

Since I have been in social work and ministry people ask me all the time how do I deal with the anger expressed by broken people who have no hope and who have limited themselves through self destruction and show it through abusive behavior in language and actions. My answer to them is that I look in the mirror and come to grips with my own personal depraved soul. I counsel them like Jesus counsels me. I use compassion dictated by tough love, guided by extra grace and covered with mercy. I meet them at the cross because that is where I am still at. I may have been at the cross a little longer but I still need to see his broken body and see the blood gushing from his side and look at his body in agony because then it will remind me too not to complain. I still need to see the people laughing at him and feel the weight of sadness and distress he is in so it can remind me that he did it all for me and that he would do it all for me again if needed. The fact is this when we minister to people all we are doing is putting our arms around them and reassuring them that his grace is really sufficient and his mercies are new everyday because we have been at the cross and needed to stay just as they will because only when we return to him in heaven will we be made whole so until then we must stay put at the feet of Jesus.

God Runs Toward You

Brighten your day by envisioning God running toward you.
When his patriarchs trusted, God blessed. When Peter preached or Paul wrote or Thomas believed, God smiled. But he never ran.
That verb was reserved for the story of the prodigal son. “But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20 NKJV)

God runs when he sees the son coming home from the pig trough. When the addict steps out of the alley. When the teen walks away from the party. When the ladder-climbing executive pushes back from the desk, the spiritist turns from idols, the materialist from stuff, the atheist from disbelief, and the elitist from self-promotion…

When prodigals trudge up the path, God can’t sit still. Heaven’s throne room echoes with the sound of slapping sandals and pounding feet, and angels watch in silence as God embraces his child.
You turn toward God, and he runs toward you.

"HaveHope"

Stop worrying about what you have THINK you have lost and focus on the promises that the tomorrows hold for your future. So many times in our own lives we tend to over analyze the past: Our failures, our “what ifs”, our un-forgiveness, lost relationships, bitterness and what others have done to us. What we need to do is embrace today and all the promises that today has and that each moment has. There is a saying live day by day but many times that can be just to much to ask for some of us so we must learn to live moment by moment. We can’t rely on others to help us achieve these goals but rather we have to look at ourselves and God and ask him to bless our steps. We want to be in the perfect will of God and not in the permissible will of God and he is trying to get each of his children to that perfect place and many times that requires him stepping into your life and removing things and people that don’t help lift you to a better place. It doesn’t mean that those people are bad people it just means that they aren’t meant for the long journey with you. I am the first to admit I hate change and I like to be in charge and I am sure probably everyone else does as well but here is the deal we all must recognize that were not in control of anything in the first place so we must be willing to surrender for the sake of our healthiness when it comes to our souls, minds, and physical state. We have to surrender and let go. We have to hold on to hope, prayer and Gods hand and in the end hope that he will deliver us to perfection. So today grab on to hope, stop over analyzing the past, the people in your past, the things and places in your past and embrace the promises of tomorrow. Remember there is a reason why you are at this place so learn the lesson so you don’t have to repeat it.

CHRIST DIED FOR US

Romans 3

The Message (MSG)

9-20So where does that put us? Do we Jews get a better break than the others? Not really. Basically, all of us, whether insiders or outsiders, start out in identical conditions, which is to say that we all start out as sinners. Scripture leaves no doubt about it:

There's nobody living right, not even one,

nobody who knows the score, nobody alert for God.

They've all taken the wrong turn;

they've all wandered down blind alleys.

No one's living right;

I can't find a single one.

Their throats are gaping graves,

their tongues slick as mudslides.

Every word they speak is tinged with poison.

They open their mouths and pollute the air.

They race for the honor of sinner-of-the-year,

litter the land with heartbreak and ruin,

Don't know the first thing about living with others.

They never give God the time of day.

This makes it clear, doesn't it, that whatever is written in these Scriptures is not what God says about others but to us to whom these Scriptures were addressed in the first place! And it's clear enough, isn't it, that we're sinners, every one of us, in the same sinking boat with everybody else? Our involvement with God's revelation doesn't put us right with God. What it does is force us to face our complicity in everyone else's sin.







I have been reading this excellent and challenging book called “Revolution of Character: Discovering Christ Patterns for Spiritual Transformation”- By Dallas Willard and I must confess to you that this is a hard read for anyone who truly wants a radical change in their life. It literally confronts you on every level: The heart, your mind, soul, spirit, will, and the physical. It takes you to places that you have forgotten about and throws your sin right in your face and says DEAL WITH IT! The main focus of the book is to address the human heart and how we are dangerously sinful and how we as people live self destructing spiritual lives that are in totally opposite of what Christ wants for us. Even when we think that there are areas of our lives that are “good” this book makes the argument that there are not and the only good in your life is that you have been covered by God’s grace and that you are experiencing and walking daily in the Grace of God through Jesus Christ.



The book talks about the term “Gehenna” often used in the New Testament for the place of the lost which may be thought of as a cosmic dump for irretrievably lost and useless souls. When we think about our sin and how we have offended God with out hearts, souls, wills, minds and bodies we must recognize that but for the grace of God and the new mercies of God on a daily experience we all would be in this place. This book takes your sin dumps it in your lap and leaves you there with it to examine, repent and think about the wickedness of your heart, but the good news that while you are feeling the weight of your sin, you can also feel the covering of the grace of God that clothes you and gives you hope during your period of repentance.



One of the most profound things about this book so far that I want to expand on is this quote “the surest source of destruction to men is to obey themselves”. When I think about my own life and the path that I have tried to carve out for myself and the failures personally, and in every area of my life my soul laments in agony over the fact that I have obeyed myself in so many ways. I have obeyed myself in my desires, my will, my heart and even with the people that I have chosen to accompany this path of life with me. I have taken Jesus as my Savior and forgot about him as my Lord. I have taken the benefits and walked in denial of my own pain, problems and purpose. I must confess that I have been hostile towards God.



Sin is something that we all try to deny. We call it a mistake and tell ourselves we will do better next time. We don’t take sin seriously because we don’t take our lives seriously and we don’t take our spiritual destination seriously. We have gotten caught up in a half hearted delusional form of Christianity that doesn’t call us to sacrifice anything. We try to gain but end up loosing in the end. When we look at what God has done for us and his love for us that “while we were yet sinners CHRIST DIED FOR US”, it should make us all grateful. Not the worldly grateful where I am grateful for a gift or grateful someone thought to call me today to see how I was doing; but the grateful where it calls you to abandon ALL of your plans, desires, and wants and do whatever Jesus tells you to do. I repent in dust and ashes and I ask that you all would pray for me as I continue reading this book. I don’t know what I am going to get out of this book. I confess that I started reading it in order to hope I would change externally some of my actions but now I realize it’s not the things I do on the outside that’s the problem but its my wicked, deceitful, hostile, in denial, egotistical heart. Lord Help Me.



Read This Book If Your Looking For More Than What You Have On The Inside...

Be Blessed

For My Good I Worship

2 Chronicles 31:20-21

Hezekiah did this throughout all Judah, and he did what was good, right, and faithful before the Lord his God. And every work that he began in the service of the house of God, in keeping with the law and the commandments to seek his God [inquiring of and yearning for Him], he did with all his heart, and he prospered.



In 2 Chronicles chapters 29-31 we see that Hezekiah’s’ greatest focus was on his worship to God and his personal response during his worship. In the first year of his reign, Hezekiah reopens the temple for worship which had been closed during the reign of his evil father. He immediately calls all the people to come to Jerusalem to celebrate the seven day celebration of Passover. This important religious festival had not been observed for many years. The joy is so great that the celebration is extended an additional seven days. The people respond by returning to their homes and destroying the idols and shrines that have polluted the land.



When we think about the depth of theology that is wrapped up in these chapters we learn so much about the weight of God’s jealously and how he wants all the glory for himself and how he is determined to get all of the glory for himself.

God directs everything in his sovereignty and for his own purpose and after years of not receiving the Glory because of Hezekiah’s evil father Ahaz God appoints him to the throne to become king over the great Assyrian empire. And immediately he reopens the temple for worship. This is not a surprise to God, this is not an accident, this is not luck but rather this is divinely planned out because God loves his people so much that he knows that the safest place for them spiritually is to be in his presence worshiping him because he knows its “for their own good” to worship him. And the other thing about this is that the joy is so great that the celebration is extended for another seven days of praise and worship to Emmanuel. We learn that: God is jealous for his worship, that worship is good, worship will bring joy, being in the presence of God will make you want to STAY there, but the most important thing that I think we take from this is: worship is for our good spiritually. These people started out with a small celebration but then it was extended for another seven days, so my question for myself is: how does worshiping God change me? These people where changed so much in the presence and adoration of God that they couldn’t leave, their souls needed to stay and bathe in the glory of God because they where thirsty for him. It wasn’t just some passive religious moment that they where going to out of obligation but rather it was what they NEEDED.



Today I repent because I need to desire worship like that, I need to stop worrying about my problems and the things that I feel like should be better and focus on my eternal worship of Jesus. Its not about the job, its about Jesus. Its not about the wife & kids, its about Jesus. Its not about being ‘happy’ its about Jesus because when I am in him worshiping then I will find joy because worshiping him is for my own good…..

Be Blessed

...Faithful Jesus...

"Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, '“The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him."
The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord."
Lamentations 3:22-26
Sitting today thinking about a lot of different things and waiting on God to make a career move for me and thinking about several different projects that I have been working on I stopped by one of my sister Hanna’s Facebook page and this verse from Lamentations was there and it made me start to think, wonder and meditate on the faithfulness of God, so I would like to share some thoughts with you today.
In 2 Chronicles 35:25 the prophet Jeremiah who said “uttered a lament for Josiah” is believed to have written the five poems of the book of lamentations. These poems are all expressions of deep grief over the fall of Jerusalem. Like a mourner giving a eulogy these laments are intended to express a loss and in this case the loss of a nation. The latter half of chapter 3 implies that the purpose behind Lamentations graphic depictions of sorrow and suffering were to produce hope in God whose compassion is “new every morning” (Vs. 23) & whose faithfulness is great even to a people who have been condemned for their own unfaithfulness.
When you and I reflect on our own sin and the trouble of being hostile towards God for continually making mistakes and treating others bad out of selfishness we ought to be lamenting over the death of Jesus daily because of what he had to do on the cross in order to rescue us from deaths final judgment. It should also make you appreciate how faithful God has been to you and how undeserving you are to be adopted into his family.
Granted there are a lot of things in life that suck: bad relationships, lack of financial stability, horrible parents, lack of job opportunities, loneliness, sadness, death, disease, poverty and this list goes on. But throughout all of those things God has been faithful to you because he has promised if you trust him then your reward will be eternity in heaven. If I could change a lot of things about my life I would past and future I would try to change things but here is the solid thing I can stand on. Because Jesus died for my sins and has been faithful in keeping me to himself I will see him one day for myself in heaven. With all the misery that life brings, heavens brings undeserved joy and I want it for myself. So how every your feeling today remember God is faithful and new is his compassions every morning.