Love For Suffering

So, tonight a friend was talking to me about the Lord just teaching him His suffering. And like most of us, he wasn't all that stoked about it. When out of my mouth came the following, "I love suffering! If it wasn't for the suffering I have experienced I wouldn't be where I am right now."

I went on to recount how one thing happened right after another. Having everything I had, everything I had worked for be taken from me or collapse. Friends, family, ministry turning their backs on me or just being gone. Keep in mind I'm not playing the victim, I'm by far not perfect, just laying down the perspective of where I was at. I had come to Nashville on a crazy trip of glory and miracles and everything I had built, almost every relationship I had made, gone. In a couple of months.

I had come to this city with prophetic words of grandeur and the more I believed what God had spoken, the more I seemed to lose. I was at what seemed to be the end of my rope. I lost everything and almost everyone leaving me with a 1 hour walk in the morning to the bus stop, followed by a 2 hour ride to work, to work 8 hours making cold calls trying to sell stuff, just to take the same return trip home. That was my life for a few months. Having just enough to get by.

So, I learned perseverece. I refused to quit. Most mornings I would walk and pray in tongues or thank God for the words he had spoken over my life. I'd would listen to worship and do the best I could to change the atmosphere over my life. And about a year later, my life has completely changed. I have a new job, I've been in the top 5 enterprise wide at my job for a couple months in a row now. (We have over 1500 callers that I'm ranked with.) I have several business opportunities I'm working on. I wake up alive and full each day letting heaven flow out of me into others. My life has completely changed.

So yes, I love suffering. Or maybe better yet, I love the fruits of suffering. Everything is just a perspective away. Change your perspective. Change your life.

Worshipping in the Storm

I'm chilling here tonight listening to an old recording of a meeting I went to a little over a year ago. That day I had just stood up for some friends and it cost me and them greatly. I didn't handle the situation perfectly but we were definitely thrown under the bus in the whole ordeal.

I'm amazed at our response. It's exactly what you'd hope it would be in the face of such pain and opposition. We worshipped. We blessed those who cursed us and chose instead of focusing on our pain and the injustice pointed our direction to fix our eyes on heaven. We chose to see the goodness of God and live in that reality regardless of our circumstances. I'm listening to us sing these songs and we didn't worship to change anything. We didn't sing to try to hype ourselves up. We sang knowing there was more for us on the other side. We sang because we knew we had a great and glorious advocate and vindicator and didn't have to make our case before men.

Looking back it was such an incredible, albeit, intense day. Heaven is only a perspective away. It's here and present constantly. It's there to step into and expereince. Does that mean things will always be easy or perfect? Haha. Heck no! Just means that no matter what happens, we have access to the goodness of heaven. And no matter what hell, no matter what tears, no matter the pain, God is still good and is ready for us to let him in and invade our day, whether it be good or bad, and make it better.

Thanks to the friends who are faithful. Thanks to the family who never quits. Who maybe loses touch but in a crisis would be the first ones there. To help in anyway possible. In word or in deed. You know who you are.

To everyone reading, wealth isn't measured by the number in your bank account or the worth of your assets. It's measured in the quality of friends and family you have. People are the only eternal currency. Invest much. Invest often. You will die full and happy when your time comes.

A Weekend to Remember

So, I posted a video on Facebook Friday morning talking about this weekend being something special. I ended up sending messages to several friends on top of that as well. I was beyond excited. Well, it didn't take long for things to surpass my expectations. I get to work that morning and find an email asking me to start the interview process for a promotion i was pursuing. Awesome. Then that night I got to chill by the fire at a friends birthday party all evening. Now for anyone who knows me, you know i ADORE fire. Just something about the flames that mesmerize me. I don't know. And before you throw out the term "arsonist" I'll have you know I much prefer Pyromaniac. It has a much better ring to it. Haha.

Anyways, back to the crazy goodness of the weekend. I get directed that night, or maybe it was the night before to some training videos that really helped unlock some things in me heading me towards my destiny. Yes. Even more stoked. Roll to Saturday night. I head to a meeting at a friends house and get to encounter heaven like I haven't encountered heaven in a very long time. The presence was so strong I dropped to the floor on more than one occasion. I was refreshing to be so overcome by the love and presence of God again. It had been sorely missed.

Today I wake up to take care of a couple things and go pick up my brother and get new phones for the both of us. Which, another huge blessing since both of our phones were starting to fritz out on us. Yes! Just keeps getting better. I head to church after a quick lunch and afternoon backing up and restoring information to and from our phones. Because I was tired, I almost didn't go. But, once again, the presence of God was so great during worship i almost lost it again several times. It was wonderful.

I sit down after the music is finished and I get caught into a vision or a trance whatever you want to call it. I encountered heaven in a way I never had before. I played out several scenes and saw them so intimately. I didn't just witness it, i experienced it. I was there. I come out of it and am so compelled to write down what I just saw. I get out my phone and am frantically typing the encounter I just had for the whole time the pastor was speaking. Music starts back up again and as i'm putting my phone in my pocket, I look up to see the band prophetically singing this song:

"You write a beautiful story
 You write a beautiful story
 Beginning to ending
 And in-between"

I literally just got a download of scenes to a book God's giving me and he confirms it with the song he's having the band sing. Wow! Incredible how God works through his people doing the same thing through many who aren't communicating with each other but only with Him.

Believe it or not, that wouldn't be all that happened this weekend. I get home from church and bug my roommate to come hang by the pool with me. As we're sitting talking by the pool, we come up with a business idea that's just super exciting and that I'll be sharing more about in the future.

I share all of this to say that God speaks. Here is proof that he does. Well, proof to me at least. He told me to expect this weekend would be off the chain with surprises and that a shift would happen. I didn't know if it would be just in the spirit or if stuff would happen right away in the natural. I know this weekend's events were not just for me. I would love to hear your stories of what God did for you over the last weekend and what things shifted in your life. I'm excited to hear all the good reports of God unlocking your identity and destiny!

The Darkness Is Real

It's Friday, May 27th. Just a few days before June hits. I've been fighting depression and the loudest demonic influence I can remember. I feel the dark cloud that surrounds me. Sometimes I can feel something(s) holding me down, a literal physical weight. There is a weight on my mind. So much so that sometimes I phase out or stop what I'm doing because my mind is cloudy.

I don't know why I'm afraid of God. I fear his presence now. It was all I longed for and nothing satisfies me like it... except now I'm also terrified of it. Maybe it's not his presence I fear, but the vulnerability it requires. After being taken advantage of by someone I trusted some months ago, I'm riddled with fear. I've instinctively put up so many walls, I can't count them all, much less figure out how to get them down.

The spiritual realm is very real. I've tasted the goodness of God and the fruit of the kingdom of heaven. On the other end of the spectrum lies the things I described earlier.

This will end. The truth is, it already has. Jesus won the victory and has indefinitely extended that victory to me. I just have to persevere until the truth of that reality is seen again in my life. Just because I don't see it today, doesn't make it untrue. Faith is knowing for certain the things you cannot see. Heck, maybe this is all just an exercise to display my faith. Who knows.

The above is today's journal entry. Bleak, I know. But I want to illuminate the struggle I'm in right now. Not to point a finger at me or to ask for help or anything. But to encourage you. Everyone tells me I encourage so well. This is why. Because I truly understand the other side and what one needs to hear to come out of it and make it through another day. My struggle is very real. I'm just a human like the rest of you. I'm just a son who knows the truth and refuses to let go of it even when it doesn't add up quite yet in my life. Because one day it will. Hopefully this gives someone some hope and encouragement.

Whatever hell youre stuck in right now. Will end. IT WILL END! There is always hope. Hang in there friends. The worst is almost over. The best is still to come.

"I Will Chase You"

So, today was rough. Been a few of those this week. I'm not sure if it was the exhaustion I woke up with that started it or the irritation of upset callers I let get to me at work today. Either way, by the end of my shift I was pretty upset. 

Now, let me start by saying I fully understand the world is not out to get me or pivoted against me. Some of the frustration I gave into and I'm a grown man, I have the ability to go to bed when I choose and stop the exhaustion before it happens. But none of that outweighs the spiritual battle I've found myself in this week. I honestly don't know if I've ever been more aware of the tension within me and around me like I have this week. There is a spiritual war going on all around us and we are all the canvas of that. This week, I feel the reality of that. 

Anyways, here's some good news for the light and those who fall to that persuasion. About 20 minutes before my shift is over I get a call from a wonderful lady in California. Her name was Gen, short for Genivive, but she went by Gen. She told me how she was having trouble staying connected to wi-fi and how she had all the time in the world to fix it cuz she was at the DMV. The brand new one mind you that looks like a spaceship. 

I'm going about my usual call flow when she says that she only really uses her phone to listen to Bethel music and podcasts. My ears perk up a little bit. I mention that I know what she's talking about and that was it. All phone troubleshooting was off and this woman was telling me story after story of the goodness of God and how she was just at the Azuza Now gathering a few weeks ago, something I would've loved to have been at. She then decides to pray for me and impart all she received from being there in that atmosphere on the ground that day when it happened. I instantly feel the anointing and power of God as I'm at my desk. Immediately my attitude changes and I've long forgotten about being upset or exhausted. She finishes praying, laughs a little bit, and then decides that she has to go and she'll fix her phone a different day. Hanging up right as my shift ends and I head home. 

That would all be more than enough except when I start to walk out to my car in wonder and amazement and how good my God is that he would send someone to call in unknowingly just to bless me when I was having a rough day and was in the middle of a fight, when he whispers, "I will always chase you down with my goodness, my love, and my glory." Wow! God is so mindful of me that he would go through all that trouble just to turn the tide of my day and keep me encouraged in a rough time. 

So, to everyone fighting the same battle I am fighting this week of keeping hope, let this be a reminder of what lengths our God will go for his children. To fight for them and to change the atmosphere around them when they don't know how to change it themselves. There is hope and all he's promised you is coming to pass. That's the very message the enemy has been trying to steal from me and counter this week. Don't give up friends. You're probably just on the brink of a miracle. 

Unexpected

As I was reading an old Bible this morning that a friend recently gave me, an old check fell out of it. Not from my friend or from the past 20 years or so(the date still had 19__). It was scribbled on and torn in two pieces like a child had played with it.

As soon as it fell out I heard Holy Spirit say, "When you seek me for me and aren't looking for my blessings and gifts, they will surprise you and fall on you."

Man, that's so good! I feel like I lived out a tiny little piece today of "Seek first the kingdom of heaven and all these things will be added to you". God will sometimes withhold the blessings he desperately wants to give us because we're not ready or they would do more harm to us than good. But when your heart is fully after him, blessings and favor will start to overtake you.

I also find it interesting that the check is 20 yrs old. God has stuff he's waiting to give us. We're not waiting on him. He's waiting on us. If you're in lack today, it's not because God doesn't know or doesn't care, it's because you're too caught up in or your heart is too attached to the promises God has made to you than how attached your heart is to him. Seek first God and his kingdom, truly seeking him for him. And when your heart has fully been captivated by him things will start to unexpectedly happen.

Trust > Fear

Sitting outside in the grass today catching some of the gorgeous weather waiting for my laundry to be done, I ask Holy Spirit a question as I sense him wooing me into his presence.

"Why do I fear trusting you because the people I last trusted betrayed me? Why am I stuck here? You didn't betray me. No one else betrayed me, yet here I am calm on the outside but my spirit is a fortress on high alert at all times. How do I move forward from this spot of betrayal and let you and others in again?"

Son, I love your heart. Not only that you desire to trust Me and others and share that deep connection but that you realize that you've kept your guard up for so long. Honestly, the answer is simple. Choose to. Don't apply the experience you had with some to everyone. Treat me and everyone else as if we've never failed you until they have. Then forgive and love again.

See, you're stuck where you are because you believe the fear that you will be betrayed again. And, honestly, you might. But not by me. You are choosing to be locked up in fear so that you won't get hurt again. What you don't realize is that by doing this, you choose to live in that fear and that pain of betrayal every day. Not giving yourself hope or a chance to live in freedom. I did not give you a spirit of fear that you should cower on the inside. I made you courageous. My word says the righteous are bold as a lion. That is who you are son. That is your nature and your inheiritance, to be bold as the kingly lion. A lion is not afraid or concerned what others think. He walks with authority and confidence in who he is knowing he is the king of the plains. So, you should know who you are, with Jesus seated as a king in heavenly places walking in the flesh on this earth but with the same authority and dominion as you have in heaven.

Do not live by what you see in the natural. Live by who I say you are in the spirit. There is adventure for you every day. Every problem you face is an invitation for you and I to crush the schemes of the devil together. Every curse spoken against you will fall to the ground and I will turn it to a multiplied blessing. This is what you can expect as a son of my kingdom. So, why do you choose to live in fear? Have I not been faithful every time things went sideways in your life? Have I not used everything for your good and my glory? So today, choose and determine within yourself that you will not fear and believe the lies of darkness and trust me and believe and walk in the ways of light.