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Every Step Away From The Lord Is A Step In The Wrong Direction

Pressing ever so hard against this diminishing hope of gaining acceptance and approval, I convinced myself that this purpose was unattainable and my hopes and dreams shatter in the many tears I cry! I arrived at the point in my life where this emptiness and brokenness actually becomes my symbolic birthright represented by my broken leg. I would struggle to fully walk in this life. It’s no wonder I developed an unquenchable appetite for applause, wealth, and power from any source in an attempt to compensate for the loss, to fill this void.

With my broken leg, I would limp through life.

This blurred reality defined my focus outwardly, a public pursuit which left my inner world empty. Behind this intense quest for power was a deep desire for love. As I soon learned, my heart was lifeless, without a beat, and my soul was sick.

I slipped slowly into a shrouded pit as the sorrows and hurt of the scarring wounds from within tore me down. Listening to the faint voices masquerading through the mist and haze of discouragement as the answer to these chains that have entangled me, I slowly leave behind the will to hold on and let go. The core issue we all face is when the self becomes our god and we worship it. When the self is our god, we strive to make all of life revolve around it, and with a consuming zeal, we seek to satisfy empty vanity.

I finally came to the end of myself.

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December 1, 2015 Filed Under: Journal Tagged With: featured, God, journey, life

Some Thanksgiving Thoughts for You

Some Thanksgiving Thoughts for You

Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.

—Psalm 100:4

I really like Thanksgiving, because there is not a lot of pressure to go out and buy things. You have to get food, of course. But apart from that, Thanksgiving is not about shopping. It is more about getting together with family and friends and doing what most people love to do, which is eat.

We can enjoy the food. We can enjoy our family. We can enjoy our fellowship. But the real purpose of Thanksgiving is to give thanks. It is a day to focus on giving thanks.

Of course, that is sometimes easier said than done. It is easy when things are going reasonably well, the bills are paid, we have a roof over our head and our health is good. But when times are hard, we don’t want to give thanks at all. But here is what the Bible says: “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his love endures forever” (Psalm 106:1 NIV).

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November 24, 2015 Filed Under: Faith Tagged With: featured, God, holiday

Why We Shouldn’t Interpret God’s Silence As His Absence

Why We Shouldn’t Interpret God’s Silence As His Absence

Have you ever been in a circumstance where there seems to be no solutions? Have you ever been in a circumstance where there are lots of options, but none of them are good?

All of us have a picture of what our lives are supposed to look like…and for many of us that vision is a distorted reality. We all step into a space like this at some point in our lives and we can’t see a way forward or a way out.

what’s even worse is the lives of everybody else around you magnify the tough reality of what you will never have and we slip into this “it is what it is” narrative.

Does this sound familiar?

From my own experience, in these seasons of life, we draw some really bad conclusions and we begin telling ourselves some deep lies. Like; “I will never find happiness again.” or “Nothing good can come from my circumstance.” or “I don’t see any point continuing on…I give up.”

Have you told yourself any of these things?

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November 17, 2015 Filed Under: Life Tagged With: featured, God, Jesus, life

Why Waiting On God Is Frustrating And Transforming

Why Waiting On God Is Frustrating And Transforming

In the months following Promise Keepers, the Lord moved me into a season of learning the importance of being still and waiting upon Him. This was not a time of inactivity, but a time when I was learning how to rest in Him through the circumstances that came my way. These were extremely difficult, lonely, and necessary lessons to learn for my growth. It was not my nature to be still, to wait, and to remain idle; I kept hammering at God with absolutely no answer! I continued crying out to God, waiting for Him to show up on the scene and fix things, but nothing happened, and I became more and more frustrated. Needing Him every day, I would ask Him where He had gone. It was like a scene from a long family road trip with the kids in the back of the vehicle incessantly saying, “Are we there yet?” and the parents finally uttering a simple “No.”

After some time the Lord would answer me by directing me to Psalms 46:10a, “Be still, and know that I am God.” Not particularly liking this response, I continued to grumble, so God used an e-mail from my cousin to get His point across in a different way. The e-mail had a poem called “Wait” attached to it; check it out.

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November 10, 2015 Filed Under: Journal Tagged With: crisis, faith, featured, God, life, seasons

3 Essential Things To Remember When Stepping Into Your Destiny

3 Essential Things To Remember When Stepping Into Your Destiny

A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.

—Jean de La Fontaine

Have you ever felt that there was something inside of you waiting to be birthed? A destiny waiting to be realized and stepped into? Your God given destiny that is there waiting for you, but you’re stuck in this in-between state of never moving forward?

Sound familiar?

Everyone has a God given destiny, but so few choose to walk it out with Him. For me it took some big stuff to happen in my life, which I share in my book Heartstone, but here are some nuggets I learned from that journey of God breaking the man that I thought I was.

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October 6, 2015 Filed Under: Life Tagged With: courage, featured, God, hope, journey, life, story

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Favorite Quotes

Courage is the ability to do the right thing, all the time, no matter how painful or uncomfortable it might be. -Tony Dungy

Cool Scripture

If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses? And if in the land of peace, in which you trusted, they wearied you, then how will you do in the floodplain of the Jordan? -Jeremiah 12:5 (NKJV)

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