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So, sometimes I daydream.  I’ve noticed about myself that sometimes I daydream about the future of how things will be and there are sometimes that I think back to the past at how things used to be.  I’ve been going back fairly often lately about how life was for me growing up. I’ve even had a couple of conversations with people recently about how when we were kids there were no such things as car seats for kids or cell phones or even coffee shops as we know them today.  Read the rest of this entry »

There is this hunger in the belly of my spirit for more of God.  I want Him, to be close to me, for Him and I to be more intimate with each other.  I want to know him and the power of His resurrection as Paul put it.  But I have this weird idea.  I want all that without actually being weird.  I want it to look natural, organic, real.  Not like I forced it to happen with religious jargon and listening to cheesy christian music or taking 12 easy steps to stop kicking my dog and getting closer to Jesus.  I want the real thing.  Which, when I think about it, I don’t think the real thing can happen but by being real, honest and being extremely aware of the need for Christ’s help. Read the rest of this entry »

There is a deep longing in the heart of God to give himself to us!!!!!!!!!  He awaits at the doorstep of out hearts knocking, hoping that we will answer the door, even crack it open so that he can pour himself in and give himself fully to us.  He is not holding Himself back from us, we are holding Him out.

I came to a greater revalation this morning to that old saying “garbage in , garbage out.”  You know the concept.  If you fill your mind and heart Read the rest of this entry »

Lets be honest, no one wants to make a mistake. No matter how small or insignificant that it may be, we don’t want them to happen.  People can get hurt, relationships bruised, money lost, and the list of repercussions goes on and on.  I have something that I think will help, but take it with a grain of salt and my only hope is that you will be blessed.

Mistakes happen.  No matter how hard you try to avoid them, they happen.  And they come at times that are inconvenient and can be quite unsightly and down right embarrassing sometimes.  And in my experience the more I try and not make mistakes the more of them I make.  Read the rest of this entry »

My last entry I talked about intimacy with Christ and how I have returned to Him with a longing just to fall deeper in love with Him. Thinking more about that I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and he said something that really struck me. He actually heard what I am about to tell you from another friend of ours. He said “God wants to give us the desires of our heart, why don’t we give Him the desire of His?” Read the rest of this entry »

When I was in college I used to use this analogy when I would teach about intimacy being likened to a house. It was called “don’t settle for egg rolls.”

I was at a conference this past weekend called “Onething” which is associated with the International House of Prayer. In one of the meetings God was really stirring my heart and speaking to me about the different things over the past four to four and half years that have slowly captivated my heart away from God. This is where the egg rolls come it. Read the rest of this entry »

I remember when I was a kid there was this one house that my family lived in that had a huge back yard and at the back end of the the yard there was this beautiful wood that seemed to go forever. I swear you could get lost in those woods and never come out. I used to go out into those woods and spend the whole day making this fort out of downed trees and branches and scrap metal, whatever I could find. Once that was done I was off to explore the reaches of those musty, cool woods. Everyday was an adventure. During the summer I think I ws in those woods everyday, and during the school year I would rush home from school, throw my bag down on the front porch and off I went until dinner time. I loved it! I never did find the ends of those woods. That whole season was a time of adventure. Everyday would bring something new and the fact that I had never found the ends of those woods made want to go further, explore more, go a different direction. Read the rest of this entry »

One of my favorite quotes is by a man named Andrew Peterson, he is a musician and in one of his songs he has a line that says, “I know that falling down ain’t graceful, but thank God falling’s full of grace.” You know why this is one of my favorite quotes if you have ever been in a place where you had done something that distanced yourself from the God you love and know loves you. Lets get a little real here, I am talking about sin. When we sin it separates us from God, not His love because that is impossible, (Romans 8:38-39) but rather his presence.  And if you know what it is like to be in His presence and you have tasted the goodness of it, when you loose it, it feels like you are at the bottom of the ocean and all the pressure of it weighing on you, knowing that you could come up and get away from the pressure but in the midst of it you also feel helpless.  Read the rest of this entry »

 I had a revelation this morning that has changed my life.  I was sitting in Cutters Point coffee shop downtown eating a bagel and drinking my coffee, looking out the window at the sun rise over the 509 bridge after reading a chapter in Donald Miller’s book Searching for God knows what and writing in my journal.  He was talking about Adam’s life in the second and third chapters of Genesis and how God saw that it was not good for man to be alone.  Adam probably started to get lonely having no one to engage in relationship with on a human level.  So then the Lord God started to bring to him all the animals to have him name them.  Donald says that this probably took a long time.  Just think of all the animals in the world, millions of millions.  But all this time there was no suitable helper found for Adam.  So after the gigantic task of naming all the animals was done God caused Adam to fall asleep and from there God took a rib from Adam and formed Eve.  When Adam wakes God presents Eve to Adam and the first time Moses, the writer of Genesis, writes poetry.  Moses sees that there was a breathtaking encounter that happened when Adam first saw Eve and Moses writes the words of Adam, “This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh…” Adam waited a really long time in anticipation of finding a someone he could connect with on his level.  And when he sees Eve I can see his eyes filling with tears and his voice getting shaky and this lump forming in his throat, then he utters the poetic phrase.  This is the beginning of the romance between Adam and Eve.  Read the rest of this entry »

I have spent a lot of time in the wilderness. Whether that be in the Rockies of Colorado or the Medicine Bow mountain range in Wyoming, to the big blue Pacific Ocean off the coast of Oregon and Washington, to the Appalachian mountain ranges of Kentucky and North Carolina or a secluded little beach just outside Manuel Antonio National Park in Costa Rica. I have spent a lot of time in the wilderness because I love it. There is something that happens when I get into it. I have been thinking about this for a while now and I think about it more when I haven’t been in it in for some time. There is something that happens to my spirit when I get away from all the fabricated illumination, climate controlled environments and groans and shreeks of the city. I feel as if I am connecting to something that is beyond my control, outside of my ability to adjust to my comfort level. I feel as if I am taking a step back from all the industrial genius and civilized cannibalism that we call living, into a place that is still untouched by my dirty and overindulging hands.

Paul says in Romans 1 that “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Now to me that clearly states that there is a transformation that happens when we step into something that “has been made” by someone with “invisible qualities” that has the power to create something out of nothing. I love that! An all powerful God revealing His invisible qualities through what? Nature. Paul must have know about this too. He spent a lot of time on foot walking through the the wild desert to get from one city to the next. He spent a lot of time at sea, and if you have ever been at sea you know that you are at the mercy of that sea regardless of how great a sailer or captain you are. And to be quite fair, I think that the sea is one of the most wild, dangerous, beautiful and inspiring places to ever meet God and see his invisible as well as visible qualities. Read the rest of this entry »