Putting God first

Well, summertime is finally here, that ol' ball park man is back in gear....ahhh...got carried away with an old Kenny Chesney song.

But it is summertime! That means no work for me and trying to fill my days with as little as possible. I pretty much lay around all day until I realize there is something that I need to do. If you are jealous, I understand!

This summer is a little bit different than my past few summers. I am more content with my life right now than I have ever been. Don't get me wrong, there are days that I wonder where my life is headed, considering I am 28 and single! The people who are my age all seem to be either married or quickly getting engaged, and that is a little stressful. But to be honest, I am not looking for anything or anyone at this point. I have finally gotten to a point where I can accept everything that has happened to me in the past and be content with the place God has me.

When I say that I am not looking, I mean that I am not actively searching for someone. I figure that I have made enough messes out of relationships, broke enough hearts, and had mine broken enough to know that I don't know what I am doing. I have tried to have relationships that I want and for whatever reason they all fall apart. I figure that maybe letting God lead me into a relationship will have more success than I have found on my own.

There have been many times in my life that I have been disobedient to the call of God in my life. I have realized that God does not like it when I do not listen. In the past, I have always unintentionally put relationships and other things before God. I have always tried to look good to the people around me and impress the girl that I was with, at the expense of my relationship with God. I needed a nice truck that other people wanted and I needed a girl who was pretty, not really worrying about their relationship with God.

I believed that if I could spend some time with them, that their relationship would grow along with mine. Together we could have a godly relationship, even if it didn't start out that way. I do not say this to say that I have a closer relationship with God than those people, many times it was the complete opposite. I would not let God be the center of the relationship, and many times it would become physical and emotional long before God was ever introduced.

I have found that it is near impossible to "inject" God into a relationship. God is kind of like a marinade. A marinade tends to work better if the meat sits in it for a while from the beginning rather than trying to brush it on or inject it after the meat is tough and dry from being cooked. God is the same way. I have found that I HAVE to include him from before day 1, through prayer and following his lead. I have always started a relationship then prayed that God will clean up the mess. I ask for help after we have already cooked in the sin that a relationship without God brings. Needless to say, it hasn't worked!

In the past couple of years, God has taken 2 things from me that I had put between me and Him. They were both painful lessons, but I have grown in my relationship with God now that these two stumbling blocks are out of my way. Those 2 things were my truck, and "THE GIRL". I loved both of these things more than the world itself, and at the time, even more than God himself. My truck was a 2000 Toyota Tacoma and it sure was pretty! My girl was the girl that I had always wanted despite what God and the people around me told me.

God doesn't want to play second fiddle to anything in our lives, and he was playing 3rd, 4th, 5th; maybe even lower in mine. God warned me that if I didn't straighten up he was going to begin taking things away from me. I was praying one night and God said 3 words that were clear as day to me, "Don't get cocky!" I had it all, and God had blessed me with it. I had my truck and my girl. What more could I ask for? God was telling me then that I had better remember where it all came from or he would take it away.

January 2, 2008:



I lost my truck! I hit ice and wrapped it around a couple trees and broke a telephone pole. I was left looking like this:



God then told me that if I kept living with something other than Him being the central figure, I would lose the number one most important thing in my life. I wasn't really happy with God at this point and decided to be stubborn. I continued doing things the way that I was doing them with no regard for what God was calling me to do. And a few months later, you can guess what happened. The broken neck, 13 staples to the head, and a liver transplant does not come close to the pain that losing "the girl" caused.

The awesome part of this story is that through all of the loss, something greater was gained. My life is now God's and there is nothing that comes between my relationship with Him. I have found the peace in Him that I always looked for in someone else or in something. I do not know what God has in store for me, nor do I know the road he has laid out ahead of me. I do know that I will follow him and fight with him because he promised that "No weapon that is formed against (me) shall prosper." I live each day with that promise and will continue no matter the army or adversary this world brings against me.

I am looking forward to a great summer with no expectations other than to enjoy the life that God has blessed me with. I am undeserving, but thankful. Thankful for my health, family, friends, and everything else that I have. I hope that each person who reads this has a wonderful summer and walks in the path that God has laid out for them. There is peace in that path!

Filling time

The more I have thought about that my last post the more I feel that I should explain why, now, after 28 years I have decided to learn to play guitar. There are a few reasons and I will get the vain ones out of the way from the beginning.

Reason 2: Because it would be cool to serenade my future love with the guitar and a song.

Reason 3: Because I have always wanted to be a country music singer. It will probably always stay in my living room or in my car, but you can't be a country star without knowing how to play guitar. It is a rule!

Now reason number 1: Because God wants me to be happy in my relationship with Him and Him alone before getting into a relationship with someone else.

Sounds kind of cheesy I know, but hear me out. I have always hated being by myself. I have always had friends. I inherited them because I am from a family eight generations deep in a small town. At 20 years old, I was diagnosed with a liver disease that eventually caused me to have a liver transplant just before my 25th birthday. Partly because of the lifestyle of my friends and partly because I didn't want to share my pain with others almost all of the friends I grew up with went away.

I became different from them. I no longer drank or partied. I no longer took part in the things that had made our life exciting for the past couple of years. I was scared and had no one to turn to other than my family. I was lonely and I was depressed and didn't know how to handle this.

I had never faced these two things before. I became a Christian as a young boy and grew in faith until I was in high school. I then wondered what I had been saved from and decided that I needed to go out into the world and see what was so bad. I knew that I was running from God and I knew that I was running from the life that he wanted me to live, but at the moment I didn't care. Then my world came crashing down and I had no where to turn. My life was such a mess that I didn't think Jesus wanted to hear about my problems.

I turned to one girlfriend, then another, and another. I was slowly making my way back to Christ but I had no idea of how he wanted me to live. After my major heartbreak last summer, I really began to get into the Word like I never had before. I needed a change and I knew that another girlfriend was not going to give me what I needed. I prayed and prayed until I got one word from God.

"Rest."

That is the hardest thing for me to do. Seriously God? I am 27 years old! My life plan had me married by now with a kid or two. I was supposed to go to college, meet my wife, get married right out of college, and have kids after a couple of years.

God said again, "Rest."

Over the next few months, I began to read about that word and its use in the Bible toward believers. I realized that I can either rest in God's plan or work against His plan. I have decided that I would rest in Him knowing that His plan for my life is much better than my own.

Instead of worrying in my loneliness, I decided to embrace it. One night last fall, I was praying about my loneliness and asking for comfort when God put the thought in my mind about playing guitar. God said to me, "You have always wanted to play the guitar but you have never taken the time to learn it. Now is the time. When you feel lonely, play the guitar. Sing to me, play for me and you will forget about the loneliness."

I would like to say that I picked it up right away but in truth, I only decided to act upon that about 6 weeks ago and I have gotten such a blessing out of playing the guitar. Every free minute I have I am either playing the guitar (if you can call it that!) or thinking about playing the guitar.

Two of my desires in life have always been fitness and music. God has now given me the time, energy, and ability to do both things for Him. It may sound crazy that I am working out for God or playing music for God, but both times are times of worship for me. God has blessed me with a second chance at life because of my liver transplant, so I am called to take care of this body. Every time I work out I can thank God for the opportunity and strength to walk into the gym. Playing guitar has the same effect. I thank God for His grace and His plan for my life. I can't see around the curve in my life that is ahead, but my driver knows exactly where we are going. I have finally decided to REST in God, and I am as blessed at this moment in my life than I have ever been before.

Here is a great Pat Green song to go with the post since I am terrible with pictures!