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This was an assignment we had to do in class and I wanted to share it with all of you. It feels good to have written my own personal Psalm. I highly recomend this for everyone. It is a great way for God to speak to you and through you.
Blessed is the man, who fears the Lord, His heart is always conscious of sin and deceit. Your truth makes us strong in our spirit, Therefore, darkness cannot reign over us You build us up in our weakness and Make mighty armies of dry bones. The proud will be labeled the wicked and The self-righteous are cast down like lightning. To God be the glory! Your “sword of truth” will swing high and swing low Striking the head and the feet of your enemy. The army of God will be triumphant! The enemy will be defeated! Even in my darkest moments, You are the light that brings me hope. Who am I to deserve such love, devotion? I am but flesh and dry bones, nothing to be desired, But you have poured your spirit on me and You have sent your Son Jesus Christ to redeem me. You hope in me because you desire me, You desire my worship and my love. Blessed is the man, whose walk is righteous, The loving hand of God orders his steps. Amen.
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Early last year (2007) my dad called me. He sounded paniced. He asked if he could come and stay with me. In the background I heard some banging on the door. It was the police. He came into some money and rented a hotel room and went on a 2 day $300 drinking binge. The hotel had brought the police to kick him out of the room...he was homeless.
I told him that he could not come and stay with me but I might have a place for him to go. I told him to meet me at a near by QT and I would come and get him. When I picked him up, I had not seen him in about a year. He looked like he had been homeless for sometime (couple months). I noticed he had what has been dubbed as a meth mouth. Basically that is when your grill starts roughting away because of doing methanphetamines. As we started to talk, a homeless man started running through the parking lot towards my dad yelling at him. As he came up to him he was saying, "you better give me back my jacket you thief!". My dad had been wearing a homeless mans jacket to keep warm. I told him at that point, you can not go home with me. I will however take you to a place where they will feed you and house you for free. I explained it was a Christian rehab center called "Set Free Ministries". He was extremely reluctant as his breath spewed with alchohol. He finally agreed. Little did I know he was going to finish off his entire bottle on the way there.
Over the next 2 weeks I visited him there several times spending over $200 on things for him like jeans and shirts and a nice winter jacket. I even bought him a bible. I was really encouraged because he seemed to be recieving the Lord and enjoying his time in this place. Then it happened. I got a call from another guy who was going through rehab there and he told me my dad got in a fight and left. I called my dad cause he ironically had a prepaid cell phone and asked him what happened. He said the place sucked and he was never going back. After this, he became homeless again. He went to stay at the mission center in downtown atl. This is a place that will house homeless people but you have to leave during the day. Over the next several weeks he became pretty demanding, telling me to buy him ciggarettes, to give him rides here and there, bus fair.....ect. After only so much of this I had to stop it. I felt he was using me. I explained to him that it was his choice to leave a place that fed him, housed him, clothed him and allowed him to work for a little spending money and since he left the covering provided for him, he needs to eccept the challenges of his decisions. If you make your bed you have to lay in it too. I told him not to call me anymore unless he was giving me an update on how he was doing. I was not going to entertain any more of his demands.
Over the next 5 or 6 months that is what he did. He would call and say, "hey, I am going to church again and working for $5 an hour...I love you son" and then hang up. He did this several times. Then, he called me one day all excited cause he landed a job with JB Hunt, a trucking company and he was on his way to Tenn. to pick up his rig. This is when we told him he was going to be a grandfather again. It was a good day for him.
Then, it happened again. He lost his job. He ended up moving in with my sister while he was looking for a new job. I was not happy about this but I kept my mouth shut. I figured my sis was a big girl, she can do what she wants.
Well, my dad called me the other day for the first time in 4 months. We started talking and I found out he had moved out of my sisters house like 3 weeks ago. He was talking about God and life and he kept talking about church...what was weird was he kept saying, "our church" when he would refer to it. After about 4 times I asked him "what church are you going to?" and he said, "Victory, dummy....your church!!". You can imagine I was purplexed! He said he has been coming to victory for about 3 months or so and I didn't even know it. He even mentioned he signed up to go through the membership classes. COME ON JESUS!! My sister never mentioned that she had been bringing him to church. I was soooo blessed! I was beside myself.
This just goes to show that when you pray for something, you just have to have faith that God  will do what He promises, in His own time. My dad has been a life long alchoholic and drug user but God has a plan and a purpose for all people, and these are the ones he loves the most...the dying, dirty and the broken. My dad has a long way to go, but God can change anyone who is willing to submit to His word.
My love for the Father (God) is soooo strong. I hope this encourages those of you out there who may have family in this same situation or if this could possibly be you in the future if you don't change now. God can use you and He loves you! He knew your name before you were concieved in your mothers womb. He wants you to come to Him so that you can have life, and have even more of it. If this speaks to you, let me know. I want to pray for you and offer you encouragement.
I love you...because God loves you.
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Early last year (2007) my dad called me. He sounded paniced. He asked if he could come and stay with me. In the background I heard some banging on the door. It was the police. He came into some money and rented a hotel room and went on a 2 day $300 drinking binge. The hotel had brought the police to kick him out of the room...he was homeless.
I told him that he could not come and stay with me but I might have a place for him to go. I told him to meet me at a near by QT and I would come and get him. When I picked him up, I had not seen him in about a year. He looked like he had been homeless for sometime (couple months). I noticed he had what has been dubbed as a meth mouth. Basically that is when your grill starts roughting away because of doing methanphetamines. As we started to talk, a homeless man started running through the parking lot towards my dad yelling at him. As he came up to him he was saying, "you better give me back my jacket you thief!". My dad had been wearing a homeless mans jacket to keep warm. I told him at that point, you can not go home with me. I will however take you to a place where they will feed you and house you for free. I explained it was a Christian rehab center called "Set Free Ministries". He was extremely reluctant as his breath spewed with alchohol. He finally agreed. Little did I know he was going to finish off his entire bottle on the way there.
Over the next 2 weeks I visited him there several times spending over $200 on things for him like jeans and shirts and a nice winter jacket. I even bought him a bible. I was really encouraged because he seemed to be recieving the Lord and enjoying his time in this place. Then it happened. I got a call from another guy who was going through rehab there and he told me my dad got in a fight and left. I called my dad cause he ironically had a prepaid cell phone and asked him what happened. He said the place sucked and he was never going back. After this, he became homeless again. He went to stay at the mission center in downtown atl. This is a place that will house homeless people but you have to leave during the day. Over the next several weeks he became pretty demanding, telling me to buy him ciggarettes, to give him rides here and there, bus fair.....ect. After only so much of this I had to stop it. I felt he was using me. I explained to him that it was his choice to leave a place that fed him, housed him, clothed him and allowed him to work for a little spending money and since he left the covering provided for him, he needs to eccept the challenges of his decisions. If you make your bed you have to lay in it too. I told him not to call me anymore unless he was giving me an update on how he was doing. I was not going to entertain any more of his demands.
Over the next 5 or 6 months that is what he did. He would call and say, "hey, I am going to church again and working for $5 an hour...I love you son" and then hang up. He did this several times. Then, he called me one day all excited cause he landed a job with JB Hunt, a trucking company and he was on his way to Tenn. to pick up his rig. This is when we told him he was going to be a grandfather again. It was a good day for him.
Then, it happened again. He lost his job. He ended up moving in with my sister while he was looking for a new job. I was not happy about this but I kept my mouth shut. I figured my sis was a big girl, she can do what she wants.
Well, my dad called me the other day for the first time in 4 months. We started talking and I found out he had moved out of my sisters house like 3 weeks ago. He was talking about God and life and he kept talking about church...what was weird was he kept saying, "our church" when he would refer to it. After about 4 times I asked him "what church are you going to?" and he said, "Victory, dummy....your church!!". You can imagine I was purplexed! He said he has been coming to victory for about 3 months or so and I didn't even know it. He even mentioned he signed up to go through the membership classes. COME ON JESUS!! My sister never mentioned that she had been bringing him to church. I was soooo blessed! I was beside myself.
This just goes to show that when you pray for something, you just have to have faith that God will do what He promises, in His own time. My dad has been a life long alchoholic and drug user but God has a plan and a purpose for all people, and these are the ones he loves the most...the dying, dirty and the broken. My dad has a long way to go, but God can change anyone who is willing to submit to His word.
My love for the Father (God) is soooo strong. I hope this encourages those of you out there who may have family in this same situation or if this could possibly be you in the future if you don't change now. God can use you and He loves you! He knew your name before you were concieved in your mothers womb. He wants you to come to Him so that you can have life, and have even more of it. If this speaks to you, let me know. I want to pray for you and offer you encouragement.
I love you...because God loves you.
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| read full story (from Transforming not Conforming) |
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Today, my church caught fire....
Yes, that's right....my church caught on fire...in the sanctuary. We have two, 70 channel sound boards, one at the front of the house and the other is monitor world. Just in case you don't know what that means, one controls the sound for the audience and the other is for the band. Well, the one in monitor world somehow caught fire and pretty much burned up the sound booth and everything else with in about a 12-14' radius. The stage curtains caught fire and this in turn set off the sprinkler heads....4 of them to be exzact. Now if you know anything about sprinkler heads...when the bulb bust, the water is dumped until you shut it off. Well the fire department didn't shut it off for over an hour as they were trying to cover the whole building to ensure no other hot spots. Needles to say...it flooded the entire downstairs of our building dumping about a guesstimated 1000 gallons of water in the building. Approximately 35,000sqr. ft. to be exzact. The sanctuary was a mess. I arrived at 6:30am this morning, about 30min. after they shut the water off and the sanctuary was in 2" of standing water. It was crazy! The whole building was billowing with smoke and parts of the stage were still sizzling. The rest of the building was not looking any better. Luckily, gravity started to take affect and a little bit of the water started to leak out the back doors after about an hour. The fire damage was minimal and probably only caused about 200-250k in damages but the water will be about the same cost in damage.
You wanna know how I see God through this? I go to an amazing church. I am very proud of my church for several reasons. We have great praise and worship, state of the art technology and it's BIG and BEAUTIFUL!! But today, life happened. A fire took some of that technology and beauty away. Sure we can get it back but not without a lot of work. You know, a lot of times in life we get knocked down, sucker punched so to speak and then we look in the mirror and see this mess called life stairing us right in the face and we say something like "this just isn't worth the cleanup!" or "why does this have to happen to me all the time?". Then we start feeling sorry for ourselves making excuses to engulf ourselves in other worldly things trying to make ourselves feel better about our situation since this whole God thing just isn't panning out. I call this playing the victim. I believe it's times like these that build our character and make us who we are.
Victory World Church may be a mess and it may take around a month if not longer for things to get back to normal and it may have caused about a 1/2 million dollars in damages.....but God is still on the throne and He still reighns and guess what?....We are still having all 3 services this weekend and we are going to set this place on fire with the HOLY SPIRIT!! We depend on the strength, wisdom and power of the 1 true God! Without Him we have nothing. Through this mess we still have a passion for God and that is why we can say "This is worth the cleanup and we are going to come out looking, sounding and praising God better than we ever did before".
If you are stairing your mess of a life in the face, look through the mess at the source of your being, set your gaze upon the one true creator and praise His name! This mess will mold and shape your character. You have very few chances in life to prove how great you can be and normally those circumstances don't come with winning the lottery or landing a six figure income. Those chances come when you are tested through circumstance and only you can choose greatness or mediocrity. As powerful as God is...He has left that decision up to us.
What will you choose when you realize your life is a mess?......
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| read full story (from Transforming not Conforming) |
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Today, my church caught fire.... Yes, that's right....my church caught on fire...in the sanctuary. We have two, 70 channel sound boards, one at the front of the house and the other is monitor world. Just in case you don't know what that means, one controls the sound for the audience and the other is for the band. Well, the one in monitor world somehow caught fire and pretty much burned up the sound booth and everything else with in about a 12-14' radius. The stage curtains caught fire and this in turn set off the sprinkler heads....4 of them to be exzact. Now if you know anything about sprinkler heads...when the bulb bust, the water is dumped until you shut it off. Well the fire department didn't shut it off for over an hour as they were trying to cover the whole building to ensure no other hot spots. Needles to say...it flooded the entire downstairs of our building dumping about a guesstimated 1000 gallons of water in the building. Approximately 35,000sqr. ft. to be exzact.
The sanctuary was a mess. I arrived at 6:30am this morning, about 30min. after they shut the water off and the sanctuary was in 2" of standing water. It was crazy! The whole building was billowing with smoke and parts of the stage were still sizzling. The rest of the building was not looking any better. Luckily, gravity started to take affect and a little bit of the water started to leak out the back doors after about an hour. The fire damage was minimal and probably only caused about 200-250k in damages but the water will be about the same cost in damage. You wanna know how I see God through this? I go to an amazing church. I am very proud of my church for several reasons. We have great praise and worship, state of the art technology and it's BIG and BEAUTIFUL!! But today, life happened. A fire took some of that technology and beauty away. Sure we can get it back but not without a lot of work. You know, a lot of times in life we get knocked down, sucker punched so to speak and then we look in the mirror and see this mess called life stairing us right in the face and we say something like "this just isn't worth the cleanup!" or "why does this have to happen to me all the time?". Then we start feeling sorry for ourselves making excuses to engulf ourselves in other worldly things trying to make ourselves feel better about our situation since this whole God thing just isn't panning out. I call this playing the victim. I believe it's times like these that build our character and make us who we are. Victory World Church may be a mess and it may take around a month if not longer for things to get back to normal and it may have caused about a 1/2 million dollars in damages.....but God is still on the throne and He still reighns and guess what?....We are still having all 3 services this weekend and we are going to set this place on fire with the HOLY SPIRIT!! We depend on the strength, wisdom and power of the 1 true God! Without Him we have nothing. Through this mess we still have a passion for God and that is why we can say "This is worth the cleanup and we are going to come out looking, sounding and praising God better than we ever did before". If you are stairing your mess of a life in the face, look through the mess at the source of your being, set your gaze upon the one true creator and praise His name! This mess will mold and shape your character. You have very few chances in life to prove how great you can be and normally those circumstances don't come with winning the lottery or landing a six figure income. Those chances come when you are tested through circumstance and only you can choose greatness or mediocrity. As powerful as God is...He has left that decision up to us. What will you choose when you realize your life is a mess?......
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will do what He promises, in His own time. My dad has been a life long alchoholic and drug user but God has a plan and a purpose for all people, and these are the ones he loves the most...the dying, dirty and the broken. My dad has a long way to go, but God can change anyone who is willing to submit to His word.
