Life...the way it was...the way it is...the way it should be

New Blog...

2011-08-26T15:13:00.000-05:00

I moved my blog over to http://michaeldouglasjohnson.com

It is powered by WordPress! I am posting more regularly and I have the mobile app so I can post anytime I want! Check it out!

What is funny about that?

2011-04-18T15:36:00.000-05:00

I was on facebook the other day and I came across a friends status. It was a status about what he had seen. He saw an old woman steal an umbrella out of the trunk of a car that had been in an accident and was abandoned on the side of the road. The post said that she tried the doors but they were all locked, all she got was the umbrella.

Out of the 11 comments on this status only 2 were not about how funny it was that she was stealing the umbrella out of a wrecked car. The very first comment was "how sad" and my comment was about how it was sad...the other 9 made it a joke.

What is funny about that picture? How is it a joke that anyone, especially an old lady, feels she has no option but to steal something from a wrecked car?

It could easily be you, your mother, your sister, your friend that is in the place in their life where they have to turn into a scavenger. No one "wants" to be put in that situation, but how many paychecks are you away from living on the street? What if your company closed up shop tomorrow? What would you do? Would you still be the one laughing?

You can't fix all the problems in the world. You can't solve world hunger or fix the unemployment problem in America. The thing that bothers me is that you don't want to.

First impressions...

2011-04-07T16:11:00.000-05:00

Today I found out that two different adults think I'm quiet and two youth think I'm stuck up! Apparently I didn't talk to any of them enough. I have never thought of myself as quiet or reserved and if you ask most people who know me they would agree with me (not these 4 individuals.)

I was a little bit concerned that two of the youth think I'm stuck up, but really it got me thinking. What do people think when they first meet me? I am going to have to start paying closer attention to how I interact with people that I don't really know.

That got me thinking about how we see ourselves vs. how other people see us. We know why we do and say all the things we do and say. Other people don't have the luxury of knowing what is going on behind the scenes. That is why things like online dating services and even a facebook profile can be a false picture of who we really are on the inside. When my friends fill out surveys having to do with personalities I normally don't agree with the results. Why? They are not being honest about who they really are, they are answering the questions with what they want to be like.

If you really want to know who you are or what kind of personality you have then you need to give your close friends a blind survey! Either that or get some honest friends...but even then, your friends may not be the best judge of how you really act. They will be biased and judge you based on what they know of you.

So what can we do? Everyone sees you through their own tinted glasses. How can we be sure we are acting like we want to act and being the person we want to be? Look at the results. Look at the people who are close to you. What kind of people are they? Who do you draw to you, what people follow you? That will tell you if you are the kind of person that you thought you were.

Also be open to honest feedback. I'm going to go out of my way to make sure people don't think I'm stuck up. I'm probably not going to be too much more vocal around the two people who thought I was quiet because they know me from work. I'm quieter at work, I can deal with that.

This was just a thought. Pay attention to how you treat others. Especially if they don't know you very well. We have more power with our words and actions than you might think.

Summer Breeze...

2011-03-28T15:57:00.000-05:00

So today I came up with a new drink for our coffee shop. It will only be available during the Spring and Summer...or at least that is the idea. It got me thinking about the change in the season that is coming.

I have lived through two Summers in AR so far. I have only been to the lake once...and that was to go on a dinner cruise. One Summer here it was "too rainy" to go have fun at the lake. Last Summer was "too hot" to even get outside. It got me thinking what are we waiting for?

Sometimes it seems we spend our lives waiting for the perfect weather, perfect job, perfect vacation...etc. We don't live in the now, we are always waiting for that something that will be better than what we are going through. I do my best not to live this way, but we all fall into it from time to time.

I was reading a post on facebook not too long ago. It asked the question, "If you only had two weeks to live, what would you do?" I thought about that for a while...and in that moment I decided that I probably wouldn't do anything different, I would probably just do what I do with more intensity.

Unlike a lot of people that I know, I love my job. My whole life is about helping people. Now there are those who would say that if I really only had two weeks to live I should spend it with my family or go on some crazy vacation. Now I love my family, if you know me then you know that is true. I miss them (my brother Chris is the only one who lives here...so I see him every day) more than anything or anyone else. I would love to spend two weeks with my family! The thing about it is this: my family knows that I love them. They know that I care and they also know why I don't live in WA with them.

The people that don't know me are the ones that need to know that I love them. I care about people...all people. If I only had two weeks to live I would probably spend them on the streets of Little Rock. I would find Aaron Reddin and The Van, buy lots of caffeine and spend my last 14 days showing people that I care. The people who are downtown don't have a lot of people that actually get to know them. Most people drive by, roll up their windows or look away when they pass the homeless on the street. Aaron would give the shirt off his back to anyone who asked.

That is how I would spend my last two weeks alive. What about you? When you hear "Summer Breeze" do you think about sitting on the beach or passing out some cold water to people under the bridge. When it is too hot for you to even go lay out by the pool, there are people trying to find a spot in a doorway to get out of the sun.

That is what I thought about today.

Friendship is a two way street...or is it...

2011-03-23T14:14:00.000-05:00

Today I was reminded of a common thought process that I simply don't agree with. A friend of mine said basically that they were done with one way friendships. No longer are they going to put out all the energy to keep a relationship going. After all...friendship is a two way street.

"Friendship is a two way street" is something that I have heard from different people all of my life. The exact wording may be different but the idea is always the same. You shouldn't pour your time and energy into someone else if you are not going to get that same effort back in return.

I have a couple different reasons that I disagree with this view on friendships/relationships. I will get into those in a moment but first let me say that I am not talking about a dating relationship. If you are trying to find someone to spend your life with then you should see that person put as much time and energy into your relationship as you are going to put into that relationship. What I am talking about is your other relationships. Your friends, your co-workers and even your family members for that matter. Now that I have cleared that up let's talk about why I don't agree with friendship being a two way street.

Reason number 1 is that Jesus said that it was not a two way street. In Luke 6 He explains that it is easy to love people when they love you back. Anyone can love those that love them, but we are suppose to love those that hate us and when someone borrows from you don't ask for it back (that last part is one that most people don't agree with...even if Jesus said it.)

So let's say that you don't really care what Jesus said because you don't consider yourself a Christian or maybe you don't think that is really talking about carrying on a relationship when it feels like you are the only one who is putting any effort into it. That is fine...but what about the people that poured into your life when you were uninterested and didn't really care if they were there or not?

We have all had that teacher, friend, cousin or neighbor that was always doing something nice just because it was the right thing to do. We didn't always appreciate them, we didn't always want them around even, but they kept on doing the right thing and pouring their time and energy into our life. Where would you be without those people? What would your life be like if everyone in your life treated you like you sometimes choose to treat someone else?

I'm not saying you need to be a doormat...or maybe I am. My life (especially my adult life) has been spent doing my best to be there for other people. I don't expect anything in return and a lot of times I get exactly what I expect. People have told me that I shouldn't be that way. I shouldn't waste my time on lost causes. I simply don't agree. If you can't help me in any way, that is all the more reason for me to help you. If I am doing something for you because you will repay me then I am doing it for me and not for you. You will never know true satisfaction from doing things with the expectation of repayment. Friendship is not a two way street. Give every chance you get. Do all you can for others. When you need a hand to help you up, you will be able to take your pick. It doesn't take much to change a life or to rise above average when it comes to being a good friend.

Friendship can be a two way street...but if it ends up being a one-way road that doesn't mean it is a dead end.

LOVE WINS

2011-03-21T11:47:00.000-05:00

Today the UPS man dropped off my copy of LOVE WINS by Rob Bell. I'm going to read it. I'm interested to see what it is says...and I am trying to not judge it before I open it up.

As a person who has dedicated his life to telling people about the love that God has for them and that this love came to maturity when Jesus laid down His life for them (John 3:16...we all know that one) it is hard for me to hear some of the things that I have heard Rob Bell say when talking about his new book.

On the other hand, I have heard him in an interview give a different side. He was talking about Jesus specifically, he mentioned that Jesus paid the price. So I'm not sure what I am going to get when I open this book.

Has this all been a marketing ploy? Is this just get people like me to buy a copy of this book and then find out that all the interviews were just smoke and mirrors? Is it just a play on words and he doesn't really believe anything different than what most mainstream "evangelicals" believe?

I'm not sure...but I will let you all know when I find out. I think I am going to read some of this book today.

What is going on with Japan...and the world?

2011-03-18T16:09:00.000-05:00

When Katrina hit we had $514 million dollars in aid in the first week...in Japan's first week $87 million! Now I know it was close to home when the hurricane hit, but come on. It just doesn't seem right.

We can tell everyone we care about people, but what do our actions say? Just because you may not have a relative that lives in Japan doesn't mean that you shouldn't help. Just because they are thousands of miles away instead of hundreds of miles away doesn't mean we should care any less. What do you think would have happened if this earthquake had been off the coast of California? Do you think we would have had less than 20% of the response we had to Katrina?

I see people posting pictures, prayers, candles...etc. on their facebook and sending out tweets saying we are praying for the people who were affected...but what good is it to talk and not do?

"If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." -1 John 3:17-18

Life...The Way It Is (pt. 3)

2011-01-10T13:31:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the delay in this post. With the holidays and everything I just didn't get a chance to sit down and write. Here we go...

It was around 3 in the afternoon and the five of us (Dirk, Jadon, Tracy, Bryan and me) were walking away from the Salvation Army towards the River Market to get a cup of coffee. On the way there Bryan was saying that we would probably run into Billy (the alcoholic that Bryan helped change tent locations) and his friend Mike. Mike had called Bryan a little earlier and said that Billy was really drunk and he was going to have to drag him back to the Salvation Army. Not too long after we started talking about Billy we look down the road and saw Mike.

When we got to him we could see he was really upset. He said that he tried! He tried to get Billy to come with him but he just wouldn't leave. Mike told us the story. Billy was drunk (and is also on 12 different medications for all sorts of things including blood pressure). He started to get a little out of hand so the security officer at the River Market told them to leave or he would call the police. Well Billy decided he needed to go to the bathroom first, so he did. The problem was it was in the River Market and the police officer was already there. The officer told Mike he had two options. Either the officer could take Billy to jail or he could take him to the hospital. Mike said to take him to the hospital! They loaded Billy into a squad car and Mike started walking back to the Salvation Army and that is when we met him.

He told Bryan to go up to Billy's tent and get his bag. It had all of his I.D. in it along with all of his medications. He also wanted Bryan to charge Billy's phone and bring it up to him. Mike opened up his backpack and pulled out several chargers. He sorted through them to figure out which one was Billy's. He gave Bryan the charger and the phone and then Mike walked off.

We decided to turn around and not go to the River Market for coffee. We decided that we would go to this place down under the train station that Bryan had got coffee the day before. We all walked back past the Salvation Army and towards the train station. As we walked I found out that Dirk had been laid off from his job up in northern Arkansas and he thought Little Rock would have more work. When he got here he found out that was not really the case. The three of them were staying in the Salvation Army and Dirk and Jaden were out looking for jobs every day. They were applying in person and online (they go to the library and look jobs up that way) as well as going to the day-labor agencies to see what was available. In order for them to stay at the Salvation Army they had to spend a certain amount of time looking for jobs and fill out forms as to where they were going and what they were doing. I also found out that they were going to be leaving the Salvation Army in a couple days because Tracy was getting kicked out. She was 4 months pregnant at the time and could not walk all over town looking for a job. Because she wasn't out looking for a job there was a limited amount of time she was allowed to stay at the Salvation Army and her time was almost up.

When we got the the "restaurant" under the train station it didn't appear to be open. We walked up and tried the door and it was locked. Also there was nothing on the window or door that told us what time they would open up! We saw a couple of guys working on a sound system at a second door that was about 25 feet to our right and up on a porch (we had walked up the front steps to the door to what was the main entrance.) We decided to ask them if we could just buy a few cups of coffee. When we go over to the door we opened it up and asked if we could buy some coffee. We told them that Bryan had got some yesterday and as we were talking to them the manager, who had given Bryan coffee and a donation for the outreach ministry the day before, walked up behind us. He explained to us that this was not really a restaurant. It was an event venue that people rented for special events. We told him we were just looking for a cup of coffee and he told us to follow him. We walked to the back into the kitchen and he started to get coffee for us all! He doctored it up the way everyone wanted it and Tracy got a hot chocolate. We talked with him for a few minutes and told him how much we appreciated his hospitality. He was the only non-homeless person who didn't work at a shelter or soup kitchen that really reached out to us while I was on the street. Well he was the only one besides the people that came to visit us (we had some friends visit...but that will come in a minute.)

So now we all had coffee (and one hot chocolate). We decided to relax and sit on the steps and talk. Bryan got a phone call from someone who was going to stop by and say hello. As we sat there we talked more about where everyone was from and how they all got here. As we were talking about Jadon and his military background a car pulled up. It turns out that it was Sharon Bailey. She is a woman that Bryan knew from the church he went to before he started at Benton First Assembly. She was coming down just to hang out and see what was going on. We stayed on the steps and she got to know Tracy, Dirk and Jadon. She asked each of them about their job history and where they were from. Jadon found out that Sharon was in the military too. It was a good time of just sitting around and talking.

We were all done with our drinks and it was almost time for the three of them that were staying at the Salvation Army to go back inside (if you are staying the night at the Salvation Army you have to be inside by a certain time, somewhere around 4:30 or 5...I don't really remember exactly) because they lock the doors after that. When we got back up to the sidewalk across from the Salvation Army Bryan got another phone call. This one was from channel 11 news station. They wanted to come down and interview him right now!

We will talk about what happened after his phone call in part 4.

Life...The Way It Is (pt. 2)

2010-12-17T12:49:00.000-06:00

In my last post Bryan and I had just walked out of the Salvation Army after breakfast. Today we decided we were going to walk around to a couple of places. We are going to have lunch at the "Stew Pot" which is a soup kitchen that I had heard about and then we were going to walk over to the Arkansas Dream Center and see if there was anything we could help them with, but first things first. Our phones needed to be charged! Our first stop, the River Market to charge our phones.

One thing people assume is that homeless people would not have cell phones. The vast majority of them (at least in Little Rock) do in fact have cell phones, so us wanting to charge our phones was not too out of the ordinary. Bryan told me that the day before he had been kicked out of the River Market because he didn't buy anything and they wanted the seats for "paying customers." Now since we had just eaten a big breakfast at the Salvation Army and the River Market is not much more than a mile away we were still full after the walk over. Bryan didn't bring any money with him for his week on the street...I brought a few dollars with me. I bought us coffee and we sat in the middle of the River Market and charged our phones. Security started to walk over to talk to us and then he saw our coffee and literally turned around and walked away. I didn't feel welcome and none of the customers would make eye contact with us (except the homeless people who were all sitting next to each other about ten feet away from us).

Our phones were now charged and it was now time to start walking again. The Stew Pot was not really that close to the River Market so we started walking. As we walked we talked about the buildings and abandoned run-down houses that would be awesome to turn into transitional housing or a shelter. I was surprised at the amount of abandoned buildings...I'm not sure why I was surprised. I guess there were just parts of Little Rock I had never been to before or at least never noticed when I was driving. A city is different on foot.

We got to the Stew Pot and I found out it is inside an First Presbyterian Church. There were a handful of people sitting on the steps waiting for lunchtime to arrive. Bryan and I went and sat on a small ledge and watched as more and more homeless people arrived. While we were sitting there Bryan pulled his phone out and sent a text to someone. A gentleman saw his phone and walked up to us. He asked if Bryan had his charger with him. Bryan said yes as the man pulled his phone out of his pocket. He told us a story about how his phone is a "government" phone (there is some sort of plan that supplies the homeless with free phones, they are pay by the minute phones) and his charger had fallen apart as he was plugging it in while he was at work. He asked Bryan if he would charge it for him and Bryan agreed. He then handed the phone to Bryan and walked away. That struck me as odd...that he would just give a stranger his phone and walk away. There is an interesting community view that the homeless seem to share that I don't really understand yet.

As we were sitting there waiting to go in I saw some dirty looks and heard a couple people make comments about us being cops. Also there was some sort of gang dynamic that I didn't understand (Bryan was a gang member when he was younger...and I guess that is something that is always with you to some extent. I don't know.) So needless to say it was fairly uncomfortable for both of us so I was thankful when they opened the door to let us inside. We walked up two stories to where the lunch was served.

I got into a conversation with the guy that was in line in front of me about how cold it was outside. He was wearing a cammo army uniform all the way down to the boots. He had a metal cane and gloves that had the fingers cut off. I never asked him if he was actually a veteran (he was younger than me...but that doesn't mean anything) or if he just had the clothes. He told me he was warm except for his nose, which he explained had been broken recently. He then pulled it totally over to the side giving himself a small nose bleed and he said he got nose bleeds all the time. He explained that he would have to have surgery and that the cold bothered his nose but the rest of his body was fine. He told me about the 5 or 6 layers of clothes he had on at that very moment. Then we were next to get our food.

I thanked the ladies who were serving us lunch and they seemed to be shocked that I would thank them! One of them said, "You're VERY welcome and have a merry Christmas!" I guess they don't get a lot of thank you's because it is a daily service that they perform. I don't know, I just found it odd. Bryan and I finished our breakfast and the guy came back to see if Bryan was charging his phone. Bryan told him he couldn't find an outlet and the guy said he didn't see one either. He gave the phone back and and the guy walked away.

The lunch they served was again a really large lunch which included salad, chicken noodle soup, bread, coffee, pudding and dessert which was our choice of assorted donuts, bread-pudding or cake. After lunch we walked outside and started to head to the Arkansas Dream Center (which was several miles away). Before we got off the church's property I saw two drug deals. I will talk about the drug deals and other things in a later post, but for now I am going to go on with our day.

We walked across town to the Arkansas Dream Center. We got only to find it empty. Apparently we were too early. It is staffed by volunteers who are college students and they were not back yet, so we turned around and walked away. Bryan wanted to show me the tent city that he had found up in the woods by the capital so we started walking.

We got there and he showed me Billy's tent. Billy is an alcoholic that used to have his tent in the woods in a different location but people kept stealing his stuff when he would leave. He is on 12 medications (which is not a good mix with the booze) and recently had his pills stolen. Two days before Bryan had walked 20+ blocks to the pharmacy to fill his prescription for him after his pills were taken. The day before I arrived Bryan moved Billy to a new location where no one would know where he was. That way his stuff would at least be safer...for now.

We followed a path down the side of a hill behind Billy's tent and came into what used to be a tent city! It was about 25 campsites that were now almost all empty. Homeless people had made a community here at one time and then they had moved on. Bryan told me a story he had heard about that tent city. During the summer most of the empty spots were full. One gentleman would go down to the river and fish all day. At night he would come up and cook fish on an open fire for everyone who was staying in their tent city. Now I know he was homeless and without a job...so he didn't have a lot of other things to do, but that is still pretty impressive. He was doing things for those around him knowing that all he would get back was a thank you. That is not something that you see a lot out of people. Just think about the last time you spent 8 hours of your time doing something for someone who you are not related to that could do nothing for you in return. Just a side thought...but think about it...and now back to the story.

When we made it through the abandoned tent city we walked down to the train tracks. We followed the tracks up to the train station and Bryan told me another story. There is an events center that you can rent for receptions, parties...etc. on the bottom floor of the train station that I had never seen. Bryan told me that the guy who manages it gave him a free soda and also free drinks for his homeless friends that were with him. They started talking and Bryan explained that he was on the street for a week raising funds for outreach ministry and the guy donated some money on the spot!

The train station is couple blocks from the Salvation Army and so we walked up there and I got to meet the homeless friends that also go free drinks before. They were three people I had never met (remember I go to pass out water, food and clothes twice a week down by the Salvation Army). I found out that why I hadn't met them was because by the time I get downtown they are already inside the Salvation Army for the night. There was a taller gentleman who had a on a black stocking hat, a trench coat and dark sunglasses. His beard was trimmed short and his voice was strong and confident. Bryan said he looks like a movie star but he can't remember which one...so I know him as Hollywood (I think Bryan calls him Movie Star, his actual name is Dirk Buck who was a steel worker that lost his job up in Clinton, AR). The second guy was a special forces veteran who was also very clean, he wore a bright red stocking hat and a teal jacket. Bryan calls him Army Guy (his name is actually Jadon Langston and he is a certified welder). With them was a woman named Tracy who I found out was several months pregnant. They asked if we wanted to go get some coffee and just talk.

That sounded like a good idea so we started to walk towards the River Market, by now it was around 3pm and this will end part 2 of my story. I have been homeless for about 15 hours and it has been a new experience filled with a lot of eating, a lot of walking, a lot of drug deals and a few new friends. I will write the next piece soon.

Life...The Way It Is (pt. 1)

2010-12-14T00:21:00.000-06:00

This is the first part of at least a three part series of posts I will be writing over the next week or so.

As many of you know I was "homeless" for 48 hours. Bryan Walker is the outreach minister for Benton 1st Assembly. He stayed on the street for a week as a fundraiser for the outreach ministry there and I stayed with him for two days.

Channel 11 came down and did a report on what Bryan was doing.

This first post is going to be about my time down on the street. It all started with a text message on Wednesday night. I closing up the coffee shop at my church after service. It was from Bryan and he said that he was not downtown, he was in Benton at 1st Assembly. He said he had a 19 year old girl that he rescued from the street and that he wanted me to come over to 1st Assembly while they figured out what to do in regards to this girl.

When I got over there he explained the situation. This girl had shown up and no one knew her. She said she lived on the streets and she was from Little Rock. She said her parents had died and now the street was her home. One of the homeless men had given her most of a bottle of vodka and she was REALLY drunk. Bryan called his mother (who had come down to visit him earlier) and she came and picked them up. The young lady threw up before she left the street and then she threw up again in the car on the way back to the church.

Something was not adding up with this girl. She wouldn't tell anyone exactly where she grew up or exactly where she lived. We asked for her birthday and she wouldn't say, but she kept saying she was 19...even when we didn't ask her how old she was. After some discussion we decided to call the cops. I called a friend of mine who is a state trooper and he called the Benton PD and had them send an officer over. The officer talked to Tara (that is the name of the young lady) and she told him her birthday. It ended up she was only 16, she was autistic and she was a runaway. The officer took her into custody and delivered her to juvenile services. That is how my time as a homeless man started...from there Bryan and I drove down to 3rd and Markham to stay the night.

When we got there it was already cold and dark. The police had kicked the homeless people off of the sidewalk where we were going to sleep and they had to move to a vacant parking lot behind a building. There isn't a huge difference between sleeping on a concrete sidewalk or an asphalt parking lot, so we got our "beds" ready and laid down. I had a sleeping bag (I forgot a pillow) and Bryan had a large comforter that would go over both of our sleeping bags to keep the wind out. So I was next to Bryan and about 5 feet away there was a stack of blankets and sleeping bags at least as high as a normal mattress would have been. On this mound of bedding were three homeless people. One older gentleman (we call him Pops), a woman (who I found out is a crack addict prostitute) and a middle aged gentleman (who was also a crack addict).

As we started to settle in for the night and the conversation started to slow down they started singing. Yes, I was serenaded by three homeless people. They sang a wide range of country music, old gospel and some blues. The only problem was that they didn't know any of the songs all the way through. You would get about one verse and maybe the chorus and then it would be time for another song. That went on until about 2:30am or so and I started to fade in and out of sleep. I found out in the morning that part of the discomfort I felt while laying there was because I had a tennis ball sized piece of asphalt under my back! I didn't see it when I laid my sleeping bag down because it was already dark when I got there. I also couldn't move to one side or the other due to the comforter situation (if I moved away I would be out from under it and and closer and I would be cuddled with Bryan...which neither of us wanted.)

Around 5am I was jolted awake by a man shaking both Bryan and myself. He was asking to use one of our phones. He said he needed to let someone know where to bring his truck. Bryan let him use his phone and the guy told someone to come down to the "Sally" which is what they call the Salvation Army. He thanked Bryan and walked away. Later Bryan told me that he was actually setting up a drug deal.

After the rude awakening I didn't sleep very well, which was probably for the best. I needed to be up around 6:30am to go get in line for breakfast at the Salvation Army.

The sun wasn't up yet and it was really cold when I got out of my sleeping bag. Bryan got up too and he folded up his sleeping bag and the comforter. I took the sleeping bag my roommate had loaned me and put it in the trunk of my car and Bryan left his bedding in a stack with all of the bedding of the homeless people who had sang us to sleep the night before. Now it was time for breakfast!

We got in line at the side door of the Salvation Army. The door opened just after 7am and we walked in. You have to sign in as you enter and the line goes two different directions. One line for coffee and then you turn around and go find the end of the other line for the food. I got coffee out of the big cooler and got in the food line. I looked at the breakfast (the people who were in the front of the line were already sitting down and eating). It was a donut, scrambled eggs with sausage mixed in, a hard boiled egg, rice a banana and a cup of apple juice. Since I don't eat eggs I was a bit nervous about the whole thing. I didn't want to waste any food...but no one was customizing their orders in the food line. You picked up your tray and you sat down.

There were not two empty seats next to each other so Bryan sat at one table and I sat at another table. I offered my eggs to a woman next to me when I had eaten everything else and she gladly accepted. Just before I got up to go a woman walked in the door. She had a clip-board in her hand and she started talking over the crowd noise. She said that once again this year they were going to rent hotel rooms for anyone who was NOT getting a check for Christmas so that they wouldn't have to sleep on the street. She said if you were getting a check she would find out about it and take you off the list! Also she said that you couldn't bring your girlfriend into your hotel room to stay the night! She said it was a Christian company that was based on Christian values and if you wanted to "shack up" with your girl you could rent your own room!

At that it was time for us to go, so Bryan and I walked outside.

That was my first 8 hours as a homeless man...I will pick up the story in part two.

My birthday wish...

2010-11-08T21:38:00.001-06:00

A few months ago I started talking about things that I would like to see happen. I discussed the fact that I would like to help more people. I have taken some time off from writing and now I think it is time to start up again. In 3 weeks it will be my birthday. I know that most of you who read this and most of the people on my facebook (where I will post this as a note and a link) were not planning on getting me any presents. I am aware that we reserve gift giving for some family members and our closest friends. That is fine, I understand that fact and I am in no way asking you to give ME a present. I don't need anything right now. I am not going without anything that falls into the "need" category.

Some of the people who started to read this already stopped and won't find out what it is that I am asking. I know that people have a short attention span...so I will just talk to those of you who are still reading. In a previous blog I mentioned the fact that I was going to find a charity that I could believe in and have anyone who wanted to do something for my birthday to donate to that charity. I did my research.

I found some CRAZY stats on the lack of clean water in the world. I know that I can not change the living conditions of the 2.5 billion people who don't have access to proper sanitation. I also know that I can not save the three children that have died from water related diseases since you started reading this post. What I can do is what I will do. I will do my best to educate people, donate what I can and give others the opportunity to do the same.

Here is my birthday wish:

I want everyone who reads this post to donate $1.00 to help people get clean water.

DONATE $1.00

If you click on that link and give $1.00. That is my birthday wish.

Now for my part. For everyone person wishes me happy birthday either on here or on my facebook between now and my birthday I will donate $1.00 to The Water Project myself. Now I know that I will have a decent amount of people who will wish me happy birthday so I won't be able to donate the entire amount on day one...but I will do it. If you want to know how the donations are going you can email me, leave a comment here or send me a message on my facebook and I will let you know the status of my birthday donation.

I'm not doing this because I am really worried about what you will think of me...I want people to live. This is one way I can help, it may be a small way...but it is what I can do at the moment. Please don't forget to click on the link and donate $1.00.

Thank you all. Remember to look around you today and see if there is someone who needs help. Reach out while you can.

A lot to think about...

2010-09-11T23:25:00.000-05:00

So in the past couple of days I have been faced with multiple couples coming to me with various issues. All of them very serious and all of them very different. Each couple is facing problems that I wouldn't have seen coming. Some came to me as a friend, some came to me as a pastor but none came to me to "fix" their situations. They needed someone to listen to them.

The way I see it love is a choice. The feelings you get when you "fall in love" come and go as the relationship grows. What holds the relationship together is two people who are in it for the long haul. Seeing as I am single, that is easy for me to say. I'm aware that it would seem odd to some that anyone would come to me for anything having to do with relationships...but mainly I think it is because I will listen.

Too often we get caught up in wanting to fix people or fix their problems. Most times, they need someone to listen to them. I point people back to the truth...but I don't tell them what they need to do very often. They already know, they just need to process it.

So I guess this has been a lot to think about because over the years I have seen so many "good" marriages fail. So many good people make dumb choices and be selfish. I know that marriages can last, I know they were designed to function correctly...I just don't see enough of that going on around me. I will do my best to lead by example when the time comes. I'm just not trying to rush into anything. No reason to push something that is only going to make things harder, you know?

How has everyone missed supply and demand in the economic talks?

2010-08-30T21:40:00.000-05:00

I don't normally write anything political or even anything about the economy. This post will be a bit out of the ordinary for me. I don't consider myself to be a business expert. I am someone who pays attention to people and situations, that is all I am.

Here is my question: why are we surprised that our economy is faultering when we ignored the laws of supply and demand for so long?

What do I mean by that? When I was young there was a movement across the country to "Buy American!" There were signs, banners, billboards and the occasional commerical that said we should buy things that were made in the U.S.A.!

At that time it didn't make much difference to me since the only things I cared about buying were baseball cards and wiffle ball supplies. As I got older I learned that the cheapest and best electronics and cars came from other countries. Also most toys came from a factory in another country as well. I figured that we needed to buy it from who ever made it the best and the cheapest and then the margin that we sold it for at the store would make the profits that we needed to continue to be the wealthiest country in the world.

This is pretty much how things have gone since I was a kid. People have exported production and imported good. We raise prices to pay for: the purchase of the product from the manufacturer, the shipping into the U.S., the rental or purchase of a storefront, the employee salaries/benefits and the taxes on all of the above.

If you think about it for a second something will start to show up. We are a nation of consumers. The only way a nation of consumers can continue to consume is if we are also a nation of producers. We have to eventually play both sides of supply and demand. If we are not exporting as much as we are importing we will eventually be giving more money away to other countries than we are getting back. That means we will not have the money to create new jobs or sustain the ones we have.

Does that sound familiar to anyone but me? The country is looking for a stimulus package or a government solution to our problem. How about we do this instead. Look for the "Made in the U.S.A." label and buy that stuff. If we do that then the factories where those products are produced will have to hire more workers and increase production. If more people are working and more money is going back into our economy then we will see economic growth.

Am I way off in my thinking? Am I making it too simple? You may pay a little more to buy something that was made in the U.S. instead of somewhere else, but in the long run it still makes sense. Prices will go down if we can produce more products. Mass production is how you get the price down, but there is no need for mass production in the U.S. if we are not buying any of our own products.

We obviously won't ever stop importing products. The problem is that we need to start working on improving U.S. products so that we will export more finished products than we are importing. I don't benefit from anyone buying any "Made in the U.S.A." products. I don't work for or own stock in any company that would benefit from my "plan". I just think that it makes sense and I haven't heard anyone talk about it. Maybe I wasn't listening, maybe you know better than me. I'm all ears.

I can't let it go...

2010-08-11T18:06:00.000-05:00

I know that most people don't read a blog if it is over 500 words. This one will probably be too long for most of you to read. Know this, we can all do more. If you don't ever get anything else out of what I write please get this: we all need to do more to help our fellow man.

I am currently sitting in my office getting ready for service tonight. I know that when I am done closing up the coffee shop tonight I will go home to my apartment. I will go into an apartment where I have all the food I need, a bed to sleep in, a shower, clean dishes and way more clothes than I need.

I know that I am blessed, blessed beyond what I deserve. There is something stirring in me and it has been stirring for a while. I'm not sure exactly what it is and I have had a really hard time putting it into words. I'm not sure that today, right now is the right place or the right time but let's see how this turns out.

In the past few months I have run into some interesting people. I have read some interesting books and articles. There seems to be a thread running through my life and the lives of those I am coming into contact with. That thread seems to be a willingness to sacrifice.

Last week I found a blog, by accident, of a college student who is living on the streets. He chose to be homeless and is planning on living out of his van for the next year. I found a video online of a group of teens that spent 40 hours on the street with no possessions and no where to go. They had to search for food and sleep on the ground. I saw another video of a group that went down to Louisiana and spent a few days passing out food and clothing to the homeless and the poor in that area.

Those are the people I don't know in places I don't live. There have been some real experiences for me here in Arkansas lately too. I am making more friends that seem to not be concerned with stuff and holding onto things. I have started going downtown consistently with a small group and passing out water and a few things to the people on the streets here. We have made some new friends and last night was one of my "favorite" trips downtown (if you can have a favorite trip). We saw some of our friends we hadn't seen in a few weeks, we exchanged phone numbers with a couple of the homeless people and told them we would get a hold of them next time we come downtown.

We will be back and we will try to get a hold of them. If we see them all again it will be because they are still on the street. They still don't have jobs and they still don't have homes. That is a hard concept for me to deal with.

I know that a lot of them are on the street because of their own choices and addictions. That is not up for debate. The thing that gets to me is that it was so easy for us to get to know them. It took us showing up and spending an hour with them one night. Ever since that night we have been friends. We know each other by name and when they see us coming they come out of where ever they are to say hello. The water and the food are less important than they were that first night. We talk about our week and we laugh at each others jokes. We are really friends, maybe not "close" friends but we are friends.

I want to do more. On my second trip to downtown Little Rock to see the same group of people I had an interesting conversation. A gentleman who calls himself "Smiley" asked me if I knew his friend. She lived in Bryant and he thought we might know each other. I said I didn't know her. He then proceeded to tell me about her. He said she comes down with her van and takes a group back to her house. They shower, clean up and get on fresh clothes. Then they all go to the mall in Conway. He told me it was a lot of fun because the people there don't know they are homeless. He said it was great to spend a couple of house being treated like a regular person instead of a homeless person. He looked me right in the eye and said, "People treat you different when they know you are homeless."

That broke my heart. Does having a home make me a better person than someone who doesn't have one? Do my things make me more important that someone who doesn't have things? Does the fact that I may be able to help you if you needed help make me someone who you want to know? "Smiley" has issues. He is on medication for a few things, but he is a lot of fun to talk to. He carries on great conversations, he is smart and seems to be fairly well educated. He used to own his own business, he was a home owner and he had a family. Now he expects people to treat him like less than a person. He knows that he is not going to get the respect of a "normal person" when he goes around town. He is not bitter, he isn't angry, he knows he made poor choices and that is why he is where he is today.

So what is it that I can't let go? I want to know how much more I could be doing. I want to know how I can help the people I have met...and more than that how I can help the people that are worse off than them!

The people who live on the streets in America still eat better than a large portion of the people in the world today. What am I going to do to help the people who actually don't have the ability to help themselves? I am still working on that. I will come up with a way, I will come up with an answer to the question that is eating at me. When I do I will ask you for your help. This isn't something just for me, this is a global problem with a global solution. For now I am asking you to look around. Open your eyes to the needs that are around you. Do something today.

My status was too long...

2010-08-01T22:16:00.001-05:00

I tried to change my status several times on facebook. From my phone apparently it doesn't correct you or even put it into a second status...it just says it is too long and deletes it.

I guess I should have started with a blog and then linked them...but I didn't know that it would be a problem.

So here is the deal. People often say that they will give up ANYTHING for Jesus and for "The Call!"

My question is simply this, "What have you and what are you giving up right now?" To say you will give me a glass of water when I am thirsty is meaningless unless it is followed up by the action of actually giving me a glass of water when I'm thirsty.

To say you are willing and then to never "feel" like God is asking you to give anything up or to lay anything down to help others brings into question if you are actually willing.

I don't want to hear anything that you are giving up or laying down so that you can help others. That is between you and God. I simply want you to look at your life, look at what you have, and look at what you spend your time doing. Then I want you to talk to God. Have a conversation, ask Him what He wants you to do for other people...then when He tells you something, actually do it.

People all around us need help...and we are too busy to notice.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Being homeless makes you no less of a person...

2010-07-30T14:17:00.000-05:00

I was in downtown Little Rock last week. It was dark but still about 90 degrees and humid. Across the river was a stadium full of people watching a minor league baseball game and the highway behind us was full of people on their way...somewhere.

There were 7 of us downtown that night. We were outsiders. This was not our home, this was not where we "belonged." We came with cold water, some apples and a few pairs of shoes. It was the least we could do...literally, the least we could do. We took a couple hours out of our night to go spend some time with people who don't get a lot of personal attention.

Two of us decided to go see if we could find anyone else who might want a bottle of cold water while the rest of the group spent time talking to those few people who we found right when we arrived. On the walk I was talking to my friend. He was telling me about his time working for a homeless shelter. He spent over 3 years living and working in a homeless shelter. He wasn't getting paid, he had no other home, he had no other mode of transportation besides the vehicles that the shelter owned. He had volunteered to be homeless. That is not something that many people will do. He was explaining to me that he was just as homeless as anyone who stayed in his shelter while he was there. The thing of it is, he was no less of a man when he was there than he was right now. He has a home, he has a car, he has a job that pays him. Yet when he had none of those things, he was still the same man.

Earlier in the night he had said that people tie their worth to their possessions. Both Christians and non-Christians do the same thing. If we lose their "stuff" then WE are no longer worth as much. You can see it in how we talk about the poor and the homeless. You can see it in the way we treat the guy who comes up to us at Starbucks and asks for a couple dollars because his car is out of gas. We don't look at them as equals. They are now sub-standard humans and we don't have to pay them the same respect as other people.

If we would take a look at ourselves and be honest with ourselves we would realize that it wouldn't take much to put us in a situation where we needed someones help. We may have plenty right now, but that doesn't mean we will always have plenty. The Bible says, "He that gives to the poor lends to the Lord." (Prov. 19:17) If you aren't a Christian then living by what the Bible says doesn't matter to you. Just remember that there will be a day when you need a hand up, someone will have to come to help you. That won't make you less of a man/woman...it will just make you human.

"In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." -Jesus

It only matters if it happens to someone I know...

2010-07-24T23:44:00.000-05:00

"The American response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, demonstrated that large-scale evil and suffering usually remain distant from us.

In Sudan, millions, including children, have been murdered, raped, and enslaved. The 2004 Asian tsunami killed more than 280,000 people. Malaria causes more than two million fatalities annually, the majority of them African children. Around the world, some 26,500 children die every day; eighteen every minute.

The loss of American lives in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, numbered 2,973–horrible indeed, yet a small fraction of the terror and loss of life faced daily around the world. The death toll in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, for example, amounted to more than two World Trade Center disasters every day for one hundred days straight. Americans discovered in one day what much of the world already knew–violent death comes quickly, hits hard, and can be unspeakably dreadful." -Randy Alcorn from his book "If God is so Good"

Do you remember how the whole country started praying after 9-11? People were looking for answers. They were banding together. We were going to stop anyone from coming on American soil and taking innocent lives! That was almost 9 years ago, but this was passion that was not supposed to wear off. What happened? Take a look around you and think for a minute about what really matters to you. How often are you concerned about what is happening outside of the United States? Honestly how often are you concerned with things that happen at all if they don't have any direct affect on you or someone you know?

People are worried about the economy right now. They aren't worried about the economy because they are really concerned for the people who don't have jobs at the moment. They are concerned because an unstable job market could cost them their job! When the housing market collapsed people were concerned. I talked to a lot of people about it. Almost all of them still had their job and were still able to make their house payment just fine. The problem was that now their house would be worth less money. They might not be able to refinance so that they could pay off their credit cards.

People are selfish. This is not a secret. It isn't something that we talk about very much because when we talk about it we have to take a look in the mirror. We don't like to look at ourselves and say WE are selfish.
The problem is that we truly are a selfish people in a country that fosters selfish attitudes.

This is something that has bothered me for a long time. I have done what I could, which to this point hasn't seemed like much, to get people to see that they are only living for themselves and their own desires. If what I am saying is not true then do me a favor. Everyone who is reading this right now, talk to all of your family and friends. Decide what your favorite charity is and instead of getting any birthday, anniversary, Christmas, Father's Day, Mother's Day...etc. presents, have them donate whatever money they would have spent on your gift to your favorite charity.

What? You don't like that idea? Why not? Why do you need more stuff? Why do you need extra things to go in your house when their are people who won't be alive tomorrow if they don't get help from someone? I have had people tell me that we shouldn't help those who won't help themselves. Then you pick a charity that only helps people who can't help themselves. Pick one that helps orphans in a third-world country. Pick one that helps villages get clean drinking water. I don't care who you want to help, I just wanted to show you that you are selfish to some degree.

Here is my dilemma in writing this post. Now this year for my birthday, I expect no gifts. I am going to spend the next couple of months coming up with what charity I would like to support. I will find one that is easy to donate to and that I believe in. I will have anyone who wants to get me anything (which now that I am an adult, the list is getting shorter every year) donate to that specific charity. I will have the person who draws my name this year for the family Christmas gift exchange donate money to a charity and not send me a gift card.

Why haven't I talked about things like this before? If this is truly something that bothers me then what has been holding me back? One reason is that it sounds self-righteous. It sounds like I am telling you that you are selfish and that I am not. That is simply not the case. I have never told anyone to donate money instead of send me a present. I might not be worried about "stuff" but I have not done all the good I could have done. I am starting right now. I am going to change some things about how casually I have lived my life up to this point.

If you are not ready to lay down your desire for things then that is something you have to live with. I'm not telling anyone what they have to do. I'm just saying that if we do nothing then we are selfish. If we don't change then we will never make a difference to people who need help.

Some of you who read this will be Christians, while I know some of you are not. Let me talk to the Christians first.

I do believe that as a Christian we should be more worried about our neighbor than we are about ourselves. I think we should give more, care more, show love more than anyone else. The problem is that I don't see it. I know there are the exceptions to the rule...but it is time to adjust the rule. The Bible says it is more blessed to give than to receive...but do we live that way? Do we live the picture we see of the church in Acts where it says that none of them considered anything to be their own and if someone had a need they would sell what they had and meet that need. Are we doing that today? Why not? We're selfish. Almost all of us are selfish to some degree. I was told that I had to start being nicer when I speak to people. I am challenging them too much and telling them that they aren't doing a good enough job. Well the way I see it, I am telling the truth. If you don't want to hear the truth then don't read what I have to say and don't come listen to me speak. If I don't challenge you then I don't really care about you.

Now to those of you who are not Christians. You may or may not care about what I think of you. Please know that I care about you. I care enough to say that I want you have a relationship with Jesus Christ. That being said I don't believe that only Christians need to give more. I believe that everyone should do more, I just expect more out of people who say they believe what I believe. If you don't want to give to anyone else, that is sad. Here is the thing though, I know some of you who read this really do care for people. I know you volunteer your time and donate your money. I just want to see it more. Not for my sake and not in the hope that one day you will earn your way into me thinking you are a good person. I really care for the people all over the world that are dying tonight because we in America didn't step up and do something about it. That is not a Christian/non-Christian issue. It is a rich/poor issue. It is a have/have-not issue. We are the rich, we are the one's who have. It is time to give something to those who so desperately need it.

What would you do for someone you don't know?

2010-07-19T23:00:00.001-05:00

My question is what would you do to save a life? Maybe I am looking at this all wrong...and if I am I would like you to set me straight. I was in charge of organizing a blood drive last week. The Red Cross came and set up for it and their goal was 30 donors.

A little information they gave me (since I was the contact on our end of the blood drive) is that 97% of people will need to receive blood at some point in their life. Only 3% of people in Arkansas actually donate blood. Those stats are pretty crazy! I tried to share them with everyone I could and I was actually a bit surprised by how many people said they weren't going to donate. The question I asked almost everyone who said they weren't donating was what if it was someone in your own family that needed blood. Only 1 person said that even if it was their family they wouldn't donate. Everyone else who was eligable but wasn't going to donate said if their family needed a donation they would go and donate blood...but because it wasn't for their family they weren't going to donate.

Here is the part that bothered me the most. This blood drive took place at my church. All the people who said they weren't going to donate but if it was for their family they would donate...those people were all "Christians." I'm not exactly sure why that bothered me as much as it did. Maybe you don't like needles, maybe you have had a bad experience when you donated before. I don't know why you say you aren't going to donate. One donation can save up to three people!

I guess it was not the fact that people weren't too interested in donating blood that shocked me. It was how many would be willing to help if it was their family and yet they wouldn't if it was someone else. That goes against what I believe we should stand for as Christians.

I will say that according to the Red Cross rep churches are where they get most of their donations during the Summer months. Without churches having blood drives their would be an even greater shortage of blood. A lot of people aren't eligable for one reason or another. I'm not trying to talk bad about people who didn't donate. I was just surprised that if it was someone that mattered to them personally they would help...but if it isn't then they aren't going to give up an hour of their life. That doesn't seem right to me. Love your neighbor as yourself was the second most important commandment...if my memory serves me correct. Your neighbor is not just your family is it? Am I looking at this wrong? If you are truly that afraid of needles then that is one thing...but if you can get yourself hyped up enough to give blood for your family why won't you do that to save a life of someone who isn't part of your family.

I wouldn't mind hearing your thoughts. This is a very recent event (yesterday) so my emotions are a bit raw at the moment. Let me know if you agree or don't agree. Either way I am still of the opinion that if you would do it for your family then you should do it when it isn't your family. What if it was your blood that would save my life? My family is in WA, they aren't close enough to donate blood for me. Just a thought.

Crazy couple of weeks...

2010-06-02T23:13:00.000-05:00

Have you ever felt like everything was falling down around you? Well the past couple of weeks has been that way for me...but probably not in the way that you are thinking.

My life is going great right now. I love my job. My needs are met. I am building new relationships. I am strengthening relationships I already had. So you might be asking what is falling down around me...let me explain.

People are what matter to me. Possessions, positions, money...nothing really matters to me but people. In the past few weeks I have had one person after another come to me looking for advice, help, comfort...and sometimes just someone who will listen.

I always try to be there for everyone that I can be and I will always continue to do that...at least that is my goal. It is just crazy how many people are going through so many struggles all at once! Maybe it is because I have been here long enough for people to get comfortable coming to me. Maybe there was this much stuff going on before and they didn't want to include me in their lives that much yet. I don't know, I just wish I could do more. I want to be able to help more situations...but I know that I am not the answer.

When people come to me for help, they should know I will point them back to the One who is the answer. I give scripture, I point them back to Jesus and love. I know it is the right thing to do and I really can't do anything else. If I don't believe that God is enough to take care of their problems than I am in the wrong "business!"

If you say you believe in Jesus and you say you believe in the Bible...then when you come to me you better expect that I will point you back that direction! If you don't believe in either Jesus or the Bible...the odds are you aren't coming to me for help.

I have said all I can say in every situation. I gave all the natural advice I could give. Now it is time to pray and trust God. Nothing else will do any good.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A quote made me think...

2010-05-31T23:10:00.001-05:00

Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none. - William Shakespeare

Is this a true picture of what we have been asked to do? Is "love all, trust a few..." truly the God kind of love?

I was discussing this subject just the other day. Well...not exactly this conversation but it was a conversation about both live and forgiveness.

The question was asked about people who have hurt you in the past, "How close do you let them get again? Do you open yourself up to get hurt again?" It is not something I have a clear answer on and I left that conversation with the agreement that it is a case by case situation.

We agreed that you have to forgive them, which means you can not hold what they did against them. You have to look at them as if they had never done anything wrong and never bring what they did in the past back up against them.

The tough part (as if that was "easy") was how close do you let them get again. If they pursue a relationship with you, do you allow it to happen even though they hurt you before? This is where we said you would have to look at the situation and see. Can you truly love and forgive someone from a distance...even if they want to get closer?

That is what is going through my head tonight. I need to go to sleep. I will come back to this subject at another time.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

It is time to write...

2010-05-19T22:59:00.001-05:00

I was trying to go to bed early. That normally doesn't work out very well for me and once again tonight I failed. I am laying here thinking...so it is time to write.

What do you think of when you think of being successful? What is success to you? I think that a lot of people have a lot of different ideas about what true success really means.

I know that people have hinted to me that my success is based on how many people I get to show up to my singles events. They ask how many came to whatever my last event or service was and when I tell them they are normally very supportive. They tell me how good it is and that it is growing...but that is really not the point of what I do.

Of course I want as many people to come to the events and services as possible...but not because I care about impressing anyone with the attendance. It is about relationships with the people that are there and it is really about pointing them back to a closer relationship with Jesus! I want to help as many people as I possibly can build a relationship with Jesus. That is success to me.

Not everyone is a preacher. Not everyone is a "minister" in the sense of earning a paycheck from preaching. I know that...but aren't we all called to love? Aren't we all called to be Christ's body on the earth? Are you doing your part? Is doing your part to spread the gospel part of your definition of success?

Maybe you are. Maybe you are really doing all you have been called by God to do...but if you aren't, you have just been reminded. That's all.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Sobering news...

2010-05-16T22:39:00.001-05:00

I got a text message that shocked me and has made tonight a bit rough. I am not going to go into what it was because those involved probably don't want me writing about it.

What I am struggling with at this moment is if there is more I can be doing. People are hurting all around us. Every day we see, talk to, work with and walk right past people who are hurting. I say it is more than that, I say not only people that are hurting but people that we could help!

I say we because I want to do more too! I am not shoving the responsibility of helping people off onto you. I am saying WE all need to do more.

Take the time to listen. People will tell you what is going on in their lives quick if you just ask the questions and actually listen instead of wait for a chance to talk! Say a kind word, smile at someone, hold a door, pay a compliment, do a little more than you did yesterday for someone.

Watch for people who normally talk but today they are quiet. Look for people who are always on time and then they start showing up late. Look for the changes. Reach out to them. Find out what you can do and do it. Don't let your life get so busy that you miss out on what matters. People matter. Your stuff, your car, your computer, your full hour by yourself at lunch...those aren't the things that matter. No one is going to say after they die, "I sure wish I had put in a few more hours at the office."

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

My first post...since this got linked to my job...

2010-04-29T09:12:00.000-05:00

I guess in a way everything I have done since I accepted this job has been "linked" to my job. I guess the difference now is that I actually have a link connecting this blog to the website: http://www.crossoversingles.org which is the website for the singles ministry here at Family Church.

I don't know if we think enough about how our actions in our "personal life" actually reflects on so many other things. Anytime someone sees me outside of church my actions reflect on their view of Family Church, Pastor Perry, ministers in general and in a broader sense God. That is a pretty big responsibility.

I guess the reason that I never gave it much thought before is because in recent years I have made a point to try to be a reflection of the love God has shown me. I know I have made mistakes, but I am doing my best to live a life that glorifies God in all that I do.

Both of those sentences sound very churchy. I sound like I am just using Christian lingo to make myself sound good. If I had heard someone tell me that about themselves even a few years ago I would have rolled my eyes and thought they were just playing the Christian game. I see it differently now...but I understand why people roll their eyes at me sometimes now. :)

I don't worry about doing the "wrong" thing most of the time. The stuff I used to do that were a bad witness don't even tempt me anymore. I am now pursuing a relationship with God in a way that other things don't seem as important and don't have the same pull on me that they used to have. Also, a reason I am not worried about doing something in front of "you" (whoever you are) that would be looked upon in a poor light is because I know that God sees everything I do and He also knows everything I thought about doing! Lol That is a higher standard to live up to. No offense, but I am not worried nearly as much about what you think of me as I am about what He thinks of me!

Time to go plan some events for next month. If you get a chance, take a look at my new website. Let me know what you think. Thanks.

Tomorrow is on my mind...

2010-04-08T22:52:00.001-05:00

Today was for the most part a day I would like to forget...except that it was a good reminder.

Since you don't know what I am talking about, I will try to explain. I had 6 major things come up today. All six (on any other day) would have been the one thing that I more or less defined that day...except they all happened today! 4 of the 6 things were negitive, but since basically all of them were private matters about either me or my friends I won't go into what they were. Let's just agree that it was an eventful day.

As I was reflecting on my day with a friend I was struck by the difference in a three of the things that happened. Three of them had eternal significance in three different peoples lives. These are the things that really mattered about today.

Where you will spend eternity and who you will spend it with is what matters. It isn't enough just to say you know this fact. You need to live this fact.

I can say that I get distracted by daily life just like everyone else sometimes. I lose sight of what really matters...and then there are times when I look back and see that what I thought really mattered doesn't really matter.

Growing up in church it was common to hear people say that we shouldn't be so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good. We needed to make sure that we stayed in touch with the world. People looked at certain church members and told me that they were too far out there. You have to make sure that you plan for your future because one day you are going to want to retire and be comfortable.

In the last four months my opinion on all of this has changed. I don't see in the Bible anywhere that Jesus told us to remember to not focus too much on Him. I don't see Him teaching the disciples to make sure they stayed in touch with the world around them because too much Jesus will make them unable to be a good witness.

I also don't see where I am supposed to spend the end of my life relaxing and focusing on myself and making sure I am comfortable.

What I see is a call to leave everything and follow Jesus. I see a rich man who wouldn't give up his possessions...so he didn't follow Jesus. I see the disciples leave their businesses and everything they were comfortable with to follow Jesus, even when that meant they would be persecuted because they followed Him.

I am not asking anyone to do anything they don't see in the Bible...and honestly, you can and will do whatever you want to do.

Just know that if my life doesn't seem to line up with what you think it should, take a closer look. I'm not saying you should compare yourself to me or to anyone else around you. I say read the Bible and see what you see. Find out for yourself what a follower of Christ looks like and try to be that.

Some of you who read this aren't Christians. You don't believe Jesus is the Son of God. I know that reading this won't change your mind, but know that I love you all. I care what happens to you and if I can do anything for you I will. Jesus loved you enough to die for you and I will do my best to show His love through my life.

If you do know Jesus...seek Him first. Stuff doesn't matter, your career is not the most important thing in your life...your relationship with your creator is.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

You never know...

2010-03-14T22:52:00.001-05:00

This is going to be a short post...I think. I was going through my day today and started to think about how people have affected me and my life. There are always people coming and going in our lives. Other than family there is no one who is a set piece for sure in your life forever...and in some families there is no security.

My family is large, we are close (in relationship, not miles) and I know they will always be there for me. They have done a lot to help me become who I am today, but they weren't the only ones involved.

I know I have talked about my friends in the past. I have talked about the people who are new in my life and who reached out to me when at that point I hadn't given them reason to reach out. I wasn't thinking about them today. Today I was thinking about the people who have stepped out of my life. Not in a bad way and not even always on purpose, we just went different directions. Some of the people who have meant a lot to me didn't seem to know how much of an impact they really had.

It makes me wonder what role they thought they played in my life and what thought they gave it, if any, before they stepped out of that roll. Also, who did I just walk away from that I didn't know I was affecting?

I was not concerned about myself really...my thoughts went to others. My life is about helping people and I want to make sure I am doing that to the best of my ability. So I thought about those who are around me that I may not think I am close to. Am I having the positive impact I want to have on even casual friends?

When I transfered schools as a sophomore in high school there was a senior that I met during my first week of football. He had no real reason to reach out to me other than we played the same position. He helped me fit it and made me feel comfortable right away. I sent him one message on facebook thanking him...but I don't know if he even really remembered me. It had been 10 years since I talked to him. He passed away and I don't think he will know the impact he had on my life until we meet again in Heaven.

I want to make sure that I am showing love to the people who I meet when it doesn't seem like it would matter. I want you the reader to take time to smile, hold a door, be nice to the new guy. You just never know the impact you are having on the lives around you and I don't think you ever will.

Just make sure that you love people. Other than loving God I don't see anything that matters more than that.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

This is a test of my new video capabilities...

2010-02-17T15:26:00.000-06:00

Single's Awareness Day...or at least it used to be...

2010-02-11T23:45:00.000-06:00

Sunday is Single's Awareness Day (S.A.D.)...also known as Valentine's Day. When I got home from work today I was going to write about my experience with S.A.D. and all the reasons that I have to not really enjoy this holiday.

As I sat down in my living room and started to collect my thoughts I started to laugh. Laughing while you are sitting in an empty apartment with the tv turned off is an interesting feeling. I was laughing because I am not that guy anymore. A few years ago I made a post on my myspace (which I don't even have anymore) with the title "Single's Awareness Day." I was basically planning on writing the same thing with a couple new sections. Something about this didn't sit right with me and it took me a few minutes to figure out what it was.

In the past couple months I have had no less than half a dozen people come and talk to me about different situations in either their past or their present that they were having a hard time dealing with. It seemed to be an amazing theme that no matter the person, their age, their circumstance...the conclusion that we came to was that they needed to forgive someone (sometimes that person was themselves.)

The issue that kept coming up was that they had already said they forgave, but they never really did. They still held that offense over the person and when something similar happened to what they had already forgiven them of they would say, "here we go again!" The person who said they forgave would tell me about the 25 times this person did this before. That is not forgiveness. Not the forgiveness that I see in the Bible and not the forgiveness that I want to see others show to me.

So that was what I tried to point out in each and every case. When you say you forgive, you can't bring it up again. You can't be waiting for a repeat offense. If you do then you never really forgave them and you aren't walking in love or forgiveness (love keeps no record of wrong.)

The reason I laughed in my apartment all alone today was because I was about to do exactly what I told others not to do. I was going to recount (not naming names...just giving situations...like that is any better!) all of the times that I have been hurt or had an experience that makes me not enjoy this holiday. I am not that guy anymore. Some of you are around me a decent amount now and you know who you are. Do you hear me talking bad about a lot of people? Do I complain about things people have done to me in the past? I don't think I do...and I really try not to. If I complain to you about someone else, tell me. Make me aware of it because I don't want to be that guy. I forgive before I am asked to forgive. If you upset me (which is not really easy to do) the odds are you will never find out. I make a point of forgiving people when they do things that hurt me. Most of the time they were not aware that they hurt me in the first place.

Most people are not out to upset you. Usually they aren't trying to hurt your feelings, they are probably too caught up in their own life to notice what they did to yours. That doesn't make it right, but if you give people the benefit of the doubt and assume they were not being that way on purpose then you can forgive and never touch that thing again in your thoughts. I had to really think to come up with reasons in the past that I don't enjoy this holiday. I have more good memories than bad ones and even if I didn't...I still would have a good day on Sunday.

Forgiveness makes life enjoyable again. It makes you smile which will make other people smile. If you hold things against people that they have done to you, whether on purpose or on accident, you will only be hurting yourself. The Bible tells me that I have to forgive you 490 times for the exact same offense. I haven't had anyone that needed me to forgive them that many times for the same thing yet...and when I do, I will just raise the number.

Life is too short. Change the world that you live in, starting with how you treat those people who are closest to you. Then move out from there. "...forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us..."

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Just a conversation...

2010-02-02T21:02:00.001-06:00

How does it happen?

I called my Mom today. We had a really good conversation about all kinds of things. I was having a night where my emotions were starting to take a bigger role in my mood than I allow. I was going to blog about how I was feeling and that I normally keep myself in check better than I this. I decided to call her before I started writing because by the time I am done writing I usually am ready for bed.

Now for those of you who don't know my Mom I will tell you just a little about her. She is a very strong woman and she is also really sweet. She truly cares about me and always has. I have amazing parents and this is just one more time that I can look at and thank God for allowing me to be this blessed. As we talked all the things that seemed to be big got smaller. She was asking about what is going on in my life and as I told her about it I was reminded of why I am here.

All that was said to say I know I am blessed. I know I am in Arkansas for a reason. I get to speak to the adults at our church a week from tomorrow. This will be the first time any of them have heard me. I know what I need to say, I am ready to take another step along the path that is my life. Thank you Karen Peck (my Mom) for bringing my focus back where it needed to be...even though you didn't mean to.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Time for sleep...

2010-01-26T23:40:00.001-06:00

Today I had the most emotionally draining day of ups and downs that I have had in a while. It started off first thing in the morning and didn't stop until just a little while ago!

I talked to 3 people today that I didn't expect to talk to. All three are people I consider to be friends and all three bring out different emotional responses in me. Some of them because I miss them and others are different reasons.

I am not one to vent online about my personal life and I am not going to start now. I guess I just want you to be sensitive to the people around you. You never know what is really going on in their lives at the moment you walk in the room, give them a call or send them a text. Just remember that you can change someones day for good or bad with the first word out of your mouth.

I need to sleep now, smile more. It makes everyone's life better.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

All you need is love...

2010-01-24T23:11:00.000-06:00

I posted a facebook status that said, "Just saw a blackberry commercial with the song All You Need is Love. Do you agree? Discuss..."

I didn't put any limitations on how this was interpreted or in what context I was talking about love. I got a very interesting mix of comments back. Some people said yes all you need is love and there were various reasons why it was all you need. One person got very literal and said you need food, shelter....other basic things besides love. Then that same person said that one persons actions based on love may seem cruel and inhumane to someone else.

It was a lot to think about and it is funny that no one asked for any clarification. They all just went with what they thought I was asking.

From my point of view I was really looking for what people thought in regards to two different uses of the phrase all you need is love. First in the relationship sense and second in the perspective that in life (and all the decisions that go into life) all you need is love. Agree or disagree on either one of those.

When it comes to a relationship I think that all you need is love does not cover enough. You must add at at least 4 words to this sentance to make it true. "All you need is love"...for the other person! What do I mean by that? If I say all I need is love then of course I mean love for the other person in my relationship...right?

Here is the problem that I see. People say they love someone else...when really they don't. They love the way someone else makes them feel. They love the things someone else does for them. Sometimes they even love the "idea" of being with that other person. In all of these cases they are really saying, "I love me." They are in love with what you do for them and when you stop doing whatever that is...then the love is gone. It magically disappeared! They will give all sorts of reasons why the love they felt is gone, but in reality it was never truly love for the other person at all.

If you truly have love for another person then making them happy is what is most important. Laying down your desires for their good is what you will do and you will do it gladly. This is the kind of love that makes the statement "all you need is love" actually work. The problem is that not very many times in life do we see this kind of love in action. Emotions change, situations change, people change...those are facts. You can love someone no matter what they do or say. You can love someone that doesn't love you back. That choice is up to you.

When it comes to the bigger picture of in life all you need is love...I believe the same equation appplies. If I live my life for the people around me instead of for myself then I will have a positive impact on their lives. I will improve the quality of the lives I come in contact with and when I do that I will improve the quality of my life.

Most people are selfish most of the time. It is amazing to me how when you do the smallest thing for someone they are shocked! You pay for a candy bar for the person in line behind you at the gas station and they don't know how to react! Most people make almost all of their decisions based on what is in their best interest. I will not say that all of my decisions are based on what others need. I will say that I am doing my very best to get there. I choose every day to make decisions that will help someone else because I love them. My love for people in general has led me to where I am today...and I am happy with where I am today.

Pastor Perry said in church today that you never tell the truth at funerals. Everyone was a wonderful person...when they are the one that died. He was kind of joking...but it is also pretty close to true. One thing that jumped out to me when my Grandma Ardis died was that what was said about her was exactly what I had seen in her life. I swear I never heard her say one bad thing about anyone in my whole life. She would do anything for anyone who asked if she was able. She lived a life of love...and they had to have her memorial service at the community center because there wasn't a church big enough in our little town. That is a legacy I would like to leave behind. I want people to know that I care. I want people to feel loved when they are around me. I don't care if I am rich, I don't care if I am famous...I just want to show true love through my life every day until my time is up.

I know I don't always live up to what I want, but I am trying. If I didn't show you the love I should have I am sorry. I will do my very best to do better next time.

This post is long enough...so I am going to stop. Just remember that you can save a life with a kind word. What you do and what you say matter. Change someones life today.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

I don't moderate very well...

2010-01-19T20:41:00.001-06:00

Today I truly realized something about me for the first time. This is something that may not be important to you (the reader) at all, but it does really matter to me.

For years I used to say I didn't moderate very well. When I do something, I do that thing a LOT! I was not allowed to carry medicine, energy pills...etc. This was not when I was a child, this was me in my early 20's!

Most of the time it was my brother who would notice my excess and remind me to stop. I no longer have any trouble with medicine, energy pills, energy drinks...or any of the vices that I couldn't control at that time.

In the past two or three years I had stopped saying I don't moderate well. I was keeping things in check and then I moved here.

I didn't pick back up any habits that I had from years gone by, but today I looked at patterns in my life right now. I don't have a problem so much with moderation, I react to stress by using repetition.

I am not a person who gets stressed out. I don't worry about things and I don't show the cracks of stressful situations. I fill those cracks with repetition. I will give you the example that made this all clear to me.

The week I was going to move into my apt here was very stressful emotionally. Not because I was moving, it was another major situation that caused me a lot of stress. Most people didn't see a change in me and they didn't notice a change in me over the past two weeks either (another very highly emotional time of stress for me.) The pattern that emerged was in my food habits. The first month I lived here I ONLY had pre-cooked chicken, rice and soy sauce. I ate 4 bags of rice in a month. I got away from that for a few weeks and then last week I went shopping for food. In the past week I have eaten an entire bag of tangerines and 14 cans of tuna. Every night I came home and read a book while I ate oranges and tuna. My routine puts my mind on auto-pilot in certain areas so I can deal with other things.

Looking back I see this pattern to be true. After the most stressful situation of my life I filled my routine with unhealthy things that I didn't moderate and those things I stopped once I got my head straight and dealt with the past. Since moving here I have been quiet and reserved at work. Neither of those are typical traits for me but I look back and that is how I started off my last couple jobs in new areas. While I am getting comfortable and dealing with the stress of a new place I get into routines and I pull back socially. This gives me less to deal with so that I can use my energy to focus on the task at hand.

So I guess I say all that to say I don't have a moderation problem, I just don't always deal with stress in a healthy manner. You may not see it, but it does affect me. Now that I see this in myself I am going to work on it. I guess time will tell what happens next. I am trying to deal with my current stress in a healthier way. Let's see if it works.

Like I said, this post was more for me than it really was for you. You now have a little better view of what goes on in my mind from time to time.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

I had several blog ideas today...

2010-01-14T23:36:00.001-06:00

What one am I going to write about? I'm not sure just yet...well it started with the whole Haiti earthquake relief. It is amazing to see people band together and give so much help (help that is desperately needed!) even when we are in "tough economic times." Our economy doesn't seem so bad when you think about the fact that 1/3 of Haiti's population was affected by the earthquake. We lay down our own "needs" in a second when a true need rises up...but how many thousands of people die each day around the world and IN THE USA because they lack the basic essentials for life! They don't have clean water or they lack the ability to santitize their food.

Why does it take something like this to make us see how much we have to give?

I did donate a small amount of money to help with the relief, I am not saying we shouldn't help! I'm saying why don't we help someone each month instead of just when the big disaster happens? Why is need so out of sight out of mind in our society as a whole? I am not saying anything to you that I am not saying to myself too! I want to do more, I can do more and I will do more.

This isn't a contest and I know that not everyone is in the same financial situation. I do know this, almost all of us eat out more than we need to and could cut a Starbucks drink or two out a month to change a life. Just think about it, do what you are comfortable with. No pressure from me...just don't forget that the need is there.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

I wrote a poem again...

2010-01-12T22:53:00.000-06:00

The last time I wrote one was...well it was a long time ago. I am pretty sure that I blogged about how I stored it in my phone and that phone died...and so did my poem.

This one is not stored on my phone...but it is in a journal that for now is just for me.

I don't think it is a very good poem, but at least it is something. I do my very best not to vent in my writing and for the most part I don't. Poetry is an outlet, it says things that only the writer truly understands. You may think you know, but most of the time you only know as much as the writer wants you to know about the true feelings behind a poem.

Mine was written for me. I will read it again tomorrow night and see what I think of it then. :) for now I am going to attempt sleep once again.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

I'm blessed...so much more than I deserve

2010-01-04T23:23:00.001-06:00

Once again I am blessed beyond what I expected or even was hoping for! As some of you know I have had a car that...has a lot of character! I have been driving a 1987 AMC Eagle the "Chick Magnet" for almost two years now. I am not complaining, it was a blessing when I got it and it served me well. I had been planning on selling it around the middle of this month and buying another car. Well the Chick Magnet had other plans. It decided to die as I was pulling into the church parking lot on Sunday...and it is still sitting in the parking spot that the ushers, greeters and PJ helped me push it into. So today I decided I was going to buy a car, since I didn't have one to drive.

Here is where the story gets fun; sometime this morning someone called the dealership where I was buying a car and said they wanted to help me buy one! They put down money on top of my down payment and said that the salesman couldn't tell me who it was! As if that wasn't awesome enough the guy who was going to buy the Chick Magnet (even though I can't get it started!) said he wanted to pay more than double what I was asking for it while it was running! To top it all off the dealer who I was talking to about a car gives me a much better price than he had to and with all the help from the unknown giver and the buyer of my broken down car I now have a car with a reasonable payment! Even if I only pay exactly the payments I will have the car paid off in 12 months! If that isn't God at work in the first week of this New Year I don't know what is!

God is good...and you can say that all of this was done by people. Which of course is true, but why would all these people decide to help me!? I haven't known any of them a year yet and we all know that the economy is not booming to the point that they all had extra money laying around to throw toward a guy that they are still getting to know!

I have been blown away once again by the friends that I have here...oh man, I almost forgot! I was also loaned a car this morning to get to and from work because my car stayed in the parking lot from Sunday morning until...now! I have an amazing friend who said, "I don't need my car today, just drop it off after you get off work." That just doesn't happen!

Now I know I didn't list any names...and some of you know who some of the people are that helped me today. I will and have thanked all of the people that I know who they are. I know that none of them did anything for me so that other people would pat them on the back. They reached out and helped where they could.

That is what love does. You might not have all the pieces to help put someone back together...but you might have a piece. Sometimes we think that what we have doesn't amount to much. We think that what we can do won't make a difference. You couldn't be more wrong. If we all do what we can do then we can change the world...one life at a time. Thank you to everyone who does their part. Thank you to all of you who do the things that don't get noticed by most people. If you look at your life and you haven't been doing the small things to help other people...now is a great time to start. It is like someone once said, "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is right now."

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

2009...change

2010-01-01T22:41:00.001-06:00

Change is the theme of this year for me. There is no question about that. Last year at 10:10pm on January 1st I was in Stevenson, WA with my brother and my cousin watching videos on YouTube.

If you had told me right them that by in one year I would have left my job and taken a position as a singles pastor in Bryant AR I would have said you were crazy! What a difference a year makes.

One thing I know is that I never say never. There seems to be no rhyme or reason when it comes to where I am going to move or what job I will be asked to do next. That has never been more evident in my life than right now.

People make plans, they look at exactly how they want their lives to go and where they see themselves in 5, 10 or 20 years. I'm not saying that having a plan is bad or wrong...what I am saying is that you need to enjoy what you have and where you are right now!

I left a lot of really good friends and my Dad when I left Oklahoma. I had a good job, a stable job where they wanted me to stay. I was very blessed with everything I had and all the people that were in my life every day.

From the outside looking in my choices don't always make sense. The reason for that is because I don't make my choices based on what "you" are going to think about them. I believe God has a plan for the life of every human. You don't have to agree with me on that, you choose what you believe. I also believe that if I make my choices based on love and where I believe God wants me to be then I will be happy.

If I told you that this whole year has been fun or that I haven't had any struggles along the way I would be lying. My happiness is not based on my circumstances or what side of the bed I wake up on. The last month has shown me that I can be happy when nothing seems right. I can rest in the fact that I am not moved by what I see. I am doing my very best each day to show the love of a perfect God through me, an imperfect man. I am honored to be used to help anyones life. I'm not here for me, I'm here to help as many people as possible before my time is up.

I found out in the last year that people in Arkansas are really nice. Southern hospitality is not a myth. I constantly have people checking to make sure I am not alone for the holidays or that I don't spend too much time by myself. These aren't lifelong friends, these aren't people I had ever met before 2009 (with the exception of one family.) These are people who opened their homes and their hearts to a guy from Washington that they don't really know. They have done for me what I am trying to do for them.

Most people won't get this far into this post. I found that long posts are only read by a few people...but if you made it this far I want to ask you to do something for me. Change someones life this year. Reach out and make a difference. Smile when you don't feel like it. Hold the door when it is raining. Invite someone to come with you to the movies even though your friends don't know them. Close the gap that people feel between them and the rest of the world.

"Be the change you want to see in the world." -Ghandi

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Sorry about my last two posts...

2009-12-17T09:06:00.003-06:00

They were both cut short because the app on my phone decided it didn't want to stay open. It just closed and all the writing I did was gone.

Today I spoke in chapel at the school we have where I work. I talked to the youth about the most misused 4 letter word. L-O-V-E. I have talked, preached, read and written a lot about love in the past. Today I got to see some of the faces of people who had never considered that love wasn't about how someone else makes me feel.

First I asked all of them to come up with their own definition of love. What does love mean to each one of them. Then I let a few of them share their definition. The first one was really good. Actually all but one of the definitions that they gave were pretty good. The one that wasn't on the same level of the rest was that love is how you feel towards people you care about. Now remember that I am never saying that anyone has the wrong definition of love. What love is to you is up to you...I was just trying to show them that there is more involved than the fact that someone else makes me feel good when they're around so that is love.

We read 1 Cor. 13 and discussed it for a few minutes. Then I gave my definition of love. I told them that I think love is an act based on my character for the selfless promotion of someone else. It isn't based on what they say or do. It isn't based on what they can do for me. If I love you because you love me...that is easy. What about the person that doesn't love you? What about the person who isn't kind to you? The bigger question is can you walk in love towards someone who does something that is wrong to someone that you truly love. People all the time will talk about how you can say what you want about me, but as soon as you start talking about my family it is on! How is that love?

I believe in defending my family and friends. I will let you know you are not right if you start saying things that aren't true about the people I care about. But I am going to always do my best to walk in love with you just the same.

I know that walking in love is not easy. I also know that I am NOT the perfect example of love. All I am saying is that I am trying. I will continue to try. Today brought it all back up in front of my face. I hadn't studied love or anything really about love in a while. Walking in love is something that I want to be known for. I don't care what else I leave behind, I want people to see God's love in me. If that is all you know about me that is fine.

I'm wide awake...

2009-12-15T21:59:00.001-06:00

I am laying here wide awake and I really shouldn't be. I know it is not even 10:00pm yet and I'm usually up for a couple more hours but...I worked out today and I haven't really been sleeping that well. I was tired so I layed down expecting to fall asleep...it didn't happen. So now you get the pleasure of reading another post written when I shouldn't even be awake.

I hate writing blogs on my phone. The paragraph above this one was the start to another post that got erased. I'm done with this app on my phone. I will write when I get a chance to sit down at a real computer.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Wow...

2009-12-14T23:22:00.001-06:00

I just lost a really long post. I was literally on the last line and my phone kicked me out. That is not cool...oh well. Life goes on. It was a post about making sure you tell your family and friends how much they mean to you, especially this time of year. Thank you to all my family and my amazing friends. I'm more blessed than anyone deserves and I appreciate each and every one of you, even if I don't always get a chance to tell you.

I'm now going to try to go to sleep. I will write again soon and next time I will save a few times during the post so I don't lose it all. :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Love...from my point of view...

2009-10-20T23:12:00.001-05:00

(disclaimer: this post is coming from an application on my phone. Any words spelled wrong or the use of a word that doesn't make sense can be blamed on a combo of my own mistakes and the replacement of the word I was trying to spell by predictive text.)

Love from my perspective is what is on my mind. For those of you who follow my blog, you already know I have a girlfriend named Ashley. She is wonderful and today we have officially been together three months. I bring her up again because we recently told each other those three little words that change everything: I love you.

To some people saying I love you to your girlfriend/boyfriend is no big deal. To me it is a big deal. It is a big deal because of my definition of love.

I have a definition for love and I like my definition. I once asked 600 people (friends from myspace when myspace was my main social network) what love was to them. I got all kinds of different answers. Many seemed superficial, some seemed over spiritual, some seemed too simple and a few too complicated...in the end I did find some people who also shared my definition of love, or at least came close to agreeing with me.

What I see now is that I was looking at this whole thing all wrong. What do I mean by that?I'm glad you asked because I am going to tell you.

What I mean when I say I love you doesn't truly matter to you. What matters to you is what YOU think I mean when I say I love you. My definition of love is simply that, MY definition of love. When you say I love you to me I am expecting you to act in a way that lines up with my definition of love. When I say I love you to you then you expect me to act in a way that lines up with what love means to you.

I am currently reading the Five Love Languages Singles Edition. In this book it talks about speaking your significant other's love language. Well it is a really good book but I am not talking about people feeling loved through acts of service or quality time. I am talking about what we really mean when we say I love you and what we expect when someone says they love us.

What do you expect from someone when they say I love you? That depends on what you think love is.

I have people who I love that I don't have a close relationship with anymore. Does that mean I lied when I said I loved them? No. Does that mean I don't love them anymore? No. Not in my opinion, but it is just my opinion!

If I love you but you keep abusing my trust I will distance myself from you. That doesn't mean I don't love you. It doesn't mean we will always be distant but love is not a doormat.

Most people have someone in their family who has made a lot of mistakes. Someoe who can't be trusted or counted on. Does that mean that you stop loving them? Not in my definition of love, but maybe in your definition if you don't "feel" that you love them right now than you don't love them. Maybe you loved someone and you "fell out of love with them" or you "grew apart." I am not just talking about a spouse, it could be a friend or a relative...but either way in my opinion you can still love someone that you don't have the same "feelings" for that you once had.

Love to me is a choice. I love you no matter what you do. We may not always have the same relationship that we once had, but I will always love you.

What I found out is that not everyone sees love this way. The people who don't agree with me are not wrong, they simply have a different view of love. Love to them isn't forever. Love is based at least partially on feelings and love is not forever.

When I see people do and say things to people who they said they loved I am amazes and I used to want to correct them and then I realized something. They are showing their definition of love. They aren't wrong because they are different, they are just different.

We have all taken different roads and led different lives to get to where we are today. Who am I to tell you that what you think about love is wrong? I'm no expert. I'm not a scholar, I don't have a best seller, I don't even have a great track record when it comes to "love," at least not the romantic kind.

All I can do and all I will ever do is try to love people. I see no higher calling than that. I know God loves me. You don't have to agree with my views on God either, love is still going to be what I will always try to show you. If your defintion of love is not: "A decision based on your character for the selfless promotion of someone else" that is fine...but that is what I will try to show to you. Life is too short and people are too precious to live any other way.

I was told for years by a lot of people that either they couldn't see me as a "preacher" or that they didn't think I should be a "preacher." Now I get paid to be on staff at a church. It is my job to help people and to show them that God loves them.

I do my very best to do that and I have been able to help some people since I came to Arkansas...but the day I started this job is not when I started loving people and the day I stop this job will not be the last day that I do my best to love people. I truly believe that you will never lose when you just love people...whatever that means to you.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A review of the book, "The Faith of Barack Obama"

2009-09-24T09:36:00.002-05:00

Some time ago (during the end of his campaign in fact) Thomas Nelson gave a chance for people to get a pre-release copy of the book "The Faith of Barack Obama" by Stephen Mansfield.

I read half of it within a week and the second half took me a lot longer. I know that this review is late in coming, but I need to fulfill my part of the agreement.

This book gave me a look into what Barack Obama actually believes and where is faith is truly based. I heard and continue to hear people say he is Muslim. This is not true. He did register with the Indonesian government as Muslim when he was a child but he is not Muslim and never truly was.

Barack (now President Obama) is what a lot of people would call a Christian. He believes in Jesus Christ and that is "his path" but he also feels that other people can choose whatever path is best for them. He is actually adopted universalism instead of Christianity. Whatever faith you choose is the faith that will work for you. That is the way he sees it.

There was a fairly large portion of this book devoted to Obama's relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. and the doctrines that Rev. Wright preaches. I can't say I agree with the conclusions that Rev. Wright makes and he is very radical but it doesn't appear that President Obama has those kind of views. He seems to ride very much in the middle of the road and is very accepting of everyone.

When you are done with this book you will see that President Obama is not a radical black man trying to wipe out all white people as some would lead you to believe and at the same time he is not a full-gospel Christian either. He has chosen his path and he leaves your path up to you. He feels all the roads will lead to the same place. I don't agree with him, but at least now I have a better idea of where he stands.

I can't believe how long it has been...

2009-09-23T15:26:00.002-05:00

I haven't posted anything on here in a long time! A big part of that is because I don't have a computer at home right now...but I could use my phone so it isn't a great excuse. Either way I haven't been updating my blog like I know I should.

Life has been really good to me lately. I have an amazing girlfriend, I love my job and I am (in theory) going to be able to take Ashley back to WA to meet my family for Thanksgiving.

All of those things go into making my life good as of late. I have been able to help some people through my job here at the church and that is also wonderful. I will write more later and I will be better about updating this but for now, if anyone reads this, know that life here in Bryant Arkansas is good.

Post number 56...

2009-08-14T15:04:00.002-05:00

Sorry, that number makes me laugh and I'm not going to go into the story but it is funny to a few people...and I think only my brother reads this. Hopefully he will laugh or at least chuckle at the title to this post.

Life right now is going really good. I have been horrible at keeping up with this since I moved and for that I am sorry to...anyone who wants me to update this blog more! ;)

I have a lot of things that I would like to speak my mind about but at the moment I am not sure that I will be able to do that without making it personal and pointed at certain people. This being the case I will have to hold off on writing on any particular subject. I never want to write "at" anyone. If I can't look at a topic objectively and not be picturing a person in my mind when I am writing (at least when I am writing something that could be taken in a negative way) then I won't write about it.

At least not anymore...I used to write a lot when I got hurt and I find that I am not very objective about my topics when they come out of just emotion or they are in a response to something or someone.

I said all that to say that I will be writing about something soon. I am starting to get used to living in Arkansas and the more comfortable I am in my surroundings the easier it is to clear my thoughts enough to write.

This will be an interesting couple of days...

2009-07-23T07:50:00.000-05:00

As some of you know, I live with a family here in Arkansas. When I took this position at FCB I was already friends with the youth pastor. We have known each other since 1997 and he is the reason that they even considered me for this job. He offered to let me live with him, his wife and their 4 kids when I got here...so I moved in.

It is really a lot easier to live with them than people seem to think it would be. I have my own room, my door locks if I want it to and if I close the door I am normally left alone. The kids are great and James and his wife are old friends. It has been a pretty smooth transition so far.

Now the reason the next few days will be interesting is a combination of things. One thing is that I now officially have a girlfriend (that hasn't happened in a while) and James is out of town for the next three days. Now those may be two unrelated items but the fact that they happened at the same time makes it interesting around the house. I get to help with the kids at home a bit more than normal, obviously they still have their mother at home but I am going to do my best to pick up some of the slack while James is away and at the same time I am trying to do the things that a boyfriend is supposed to do.

Last night Ashley and I talked on the phone for a while but not until the kids were already in bed. I am going to take her out to dinner on Friday night and then she is going to come to my softball game...but we may try to stop by the house to make sure the kids are all in bed between dinner and game.

Also the office is very different without James here. He is the guy that a lot of people rely on to help get things done around here. I am just getting used to my job so I use him a lot for ideas, for help with projects...all kinds of stuff.

So he gets back Saturday night...let's see how it goes until then.

Trying to get back into the swing of things...

2009-07-22T09:46:00.002-05:00

I was out of "the office" for two full weeks. I had youth camp, then I went to Denver the next day to help train the man who replaced me from my last job and then a quick stop in Washington for my cousins wedding. After all that I am back here in my office and apparently it was a pretty eventful time. I missed a lot of things that happened both in and out of the office that were interesting.

Now my goal is to get back into the mode I was in before I left! I need to plan events and come up with creative ways to help FCB grow and minister to as many people as possible. I haven't been sleeping very well and that isn't helping because when I am tired I am not able to organize my thoughts the way I normally would.

It is all ok, there are good things in store. I just have to make sure that I stay focused on the things that matter and let the other things go.

It's Friday...tomorrow is going to be a good day...

2009-06-19T08:52:00.002-05:00

In recent years I have really tried to live in the now instead of in the past or the future. I am a planner and I try to have things figured out before I get there...but I found myself always looking forward and not enjoying what I was doing right now as much as I could have.

I said that to make you understand why putting the title on this post as, "It's Friday...tomorrow is going to be a good day..." was difficult for me! I know that tomorrow is going to be a good day, I am going on my first event as a Singles Pastor. We're going to Magic Springs where we will ride roller coasters and go down water slides all day. Then at night we are going to see Relient K in concert at the park! It will be a good day so my title is not a lie but what about today?

I am of the opinion that almost any day can be a good day and it takes something really out of the ordinary to "make" a day a bad day. Lots of things can happen on any given day. People can be rude, you can get cut off in traffic, people can prove once again that they are not capable of doing their job, it can be too hot, rain too much...the list can go on and on...but I say that these things don't control whether your day is good or bad. I say that you can choose to have a good day despite all the little things that come up to annoy your or bring you down.

Above my desk when I worked in a mail room as the production manager (not a glamorous place to work or an exciting job) I had above my desk a quote. The quote was:

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it”. Charles R. Swindol

Now I was faced EVERY day with chances to have a bad attitude or let things bring me down. I was working full time while I went to school. This meant that I started work at 6am and worked until 8am, I showered and changed clothes then went to school for three hours and came back to work after a quick lunch. I would then work for 6 more hours before I went home. I did this for 9 months. Some people may say that this doesn't sound so bad. Well the crew that I had at that time in the mail room was less than stellar! Several times I went to my boss and asked him to just let everyone go and I would do all of their job until he hired more people. I was constantly having to write people up for childish behavior or for simply not doing their job. This was NOT the perfect working environment and yet I consider it to be one of my happiest years ever! I built friendships that are still strong and I learned valuable lessons not the least of which was patience.

Today I am in a very different place. I am in Arkansas for one thing, that is different enough! Then I went from a "mega-church/ministry" to a community driven church. The structure is different, the procedures are different and sometimes I sit back and say to myself, "Is that REALLY how we do this here?" The difference in administration is huge and the people are all doing things the way they were doing things before I got here. I am supposed to fit into their way of doing things and if you know me then you know that this is a bit of a challenge. All of these factors and many more make this place and this job something that could cause me to have a good day or a bad day depending on how everything plays out for each day.

So far I have been here for a month and a couple days and I have had 30 minutes where I let myself get upset and frustrated. I was over it as quick as it showed up. It was me and not the situation that turned my morning into a "bad morning" so quickly. Once I saw it, I changed it. When I was working retail we had a big push in one of the companies to "Choose your attitude." That day I didn't choose my attitude when I walked in the door but I got it straight and things are going smooth now.

Now you might be asking yourself why I am telling you all this. There are two main reasons:

1. It helps me to keep my perspective when I write things down.

2. Maybe you had a rough day and you need to be reminded to choose your attitude.

I don't want someone to pat me on the back and say, "Nice job Michael, you really have this attitude thing down!" That is NOT the goal, I am a work in progress as I know you are too. I just want to remind you that it is possible to change how you react to situations. Smile at someone today when you don't feel like smiling. If you do that enough you will actually start to "feel" like smiling.

This made me think...

2009-06-17T14:56:00.003-05:00

"Christians should definitely not read fiction. They risk opening their minds to vain imaginations and puffing themselves up with knowledge. Who knows what they might be emboldened to do? Engage their atheistic neighbors in conversation? Take a stand against social injustice? Travel to heathen countries and mingle with uncivilized people groups? The world is a broken place, and we can’t risk the possibility of story painting pictures that open the eyes of Christians to its pain. Think what might happen if we do!"

A quote from Memoirist Jeanne Damoff via the article Why Should Christ-Followers Read Fiction? - Prison Fellowship (Mary DeMuth)
I read mostly non-fiction. Not because I am against fiction, simply because I have found some great books that have helped me get closer to being the man I want to be when this is all over. I have read a good amount of fiction in my life and I don't remember when I switched from reading for fun to reading for information. Either way, that isn't what this quote made me think about.
This quote stopped me and made me take a look at the article it was pulled from (there is a hyper-link so you can read the article too) because I have heard Christians in the past several years come down on other Christians for spending time reading fiction...especially fiction that wasn't a "Christian" novel like The Shack. I have heard it referred to as a waste of time and carnal on more than one occasion.
One thing I try no never do is judge someone. We all know that there are right and wrong things to do and we also know that love should rule our actions, especially when it comes to dealing with other Christians. It seems to me somewhere that non-Christians are supposed to know us by our love for one another. Sometimes I wonder where that love has gone and then I remember the times I have fallen short.

* I had several pages written and I decided to delete it. This subject doesn't deserve the time I have already put into it. Just remember that if you let love rule what you say and what you do and we will all be better off.

I've been in Arkansas for almost a month...

2009-06-15T15:37:00.002-05:00

Actually last month today was my last day at my old job. It was a bittersweet day. I really enjoyed my old job at KHM and I had a lot of good friends (and my Dad) that I was leaving behind when I moved to Arkansas.

One thing that wasn't bittersweet was that I was going to be a full time minister. For the first time in my life I don't have to have another job in order to be on staff at a church. This has been a goal of mine since I was young...well younger...depending on how you look at my age now. :)

I started telling people I wanted to be a minister when I was 4 or 5 years old. At that time no one in my family was in the ministry or even talking about it. It was something that was not expected and as I grew up it wasn't something that a lot of people understood. I am a regular guy and that makes people think that I shouldn't or couldn't be serious about being a minister. I have had more than one friend say that they couldn't see me as a minister and recently I had someone tell me that they couldn't see me as a pastor because I wasn't like any pastor that they ever knew.

So far all of the people who felt that this couldn't be my calling in life haven't had any real experience with any actual pastors. They may have gone to church a few times but none of them were very close to their "pastors".

I am not sure what exactly people expect me to act like in order to be a pastor. I am real with people and I try to walk in love. I don't know what else I need to do. I have had times in my life when I did things that I don't think are right and if you had asked me while I was doing those things I would have told you they weren't right. I'm human, I have made mistakes, I still make mistakes and bad decisions...but I am doing my best not to keep making mistakes or bad decisions.

No one is perfect and I know I am far from it. All I can do is do my very best to build relationships with the people I come in contact with and show God's love through my life every time I get that chance. I may not do all the things that you think a pastor should do but I am always going to do my very best to live a life that is worthy of the high honor that has been given to me. I have the opportunity to speak into peoples lives, to come visit them when they are hurting, to lead by example, to challenge them to grow when they feel like they are "good enough", to mend the broken and restore them to where they once were, to assist people in becoming who they want to be. I have not taken this calling lightly in the past and I don't take it lightly now.

Some of you who will read this know me, some of you used to know me and some of you don't know me at all. No matter what category you fall into remember this one thing: if there is ever anything that I can do for you I will do it. Know that I am here for you in any way that I can be.

I know this isn't my typical post but I am in a time of transition and I wanted to let you know where I was and what I was thinking.

Time for a new chapter...

2009-05-18T01:19:00.000-05:00

Change takes many forms, sometimes it is feared while at other times it is looked upon as a blessing. Change may be different for us all but one thing is certain, change happens in all of our lives.

I know I am not the first to say it or the only one who believes it...but it still deserves to be repeated; it isn't what happens to you that defines you, it is your reaction to it.

When I started working in the mail room at Rhema there was a quote posted on the wall. It said, "Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.". I believe this to be true. We all have things happen in our lives. I have been truly blessed with how my life has progressed. I have an amazing family and the best friends anyone could ask for. I have been "in the right place at the right time" in order to get the experience that was needed to get me the job I will start on Wednesday. I just happened to be crazy enough to get up at 6am to play basketball every morning 12 years ago and I met an equally crazy man named James. James just happens to be the youth pastor at the church where I will be going. He is the ONLY person who I have kept in contact with from my first year at Rhema...well sometimes he has been the one to keep in contact with me. He essentially tricked me into coming out and hearing the pastor speak and then got me set up for an interview for a job that I wasn't looking for.

Now this series of events is something I could have never set up on purpose. I didn't plan it and some would say (and at times I may say they aren't far off) that I don't deserve any of it. I wasn't "qualified" for the job I had, but I was faithful and I worked hard. I am now qualified and I'm leaving for an unknown. A job I am very excited about but is not one that is clearly outlined. Once again change showed up and I am going on faith and that is enough for me.

Some of you don't share my faith, some people say that it is all about luck or chance or karma...but I simply can't agree. I shouldn't be alive today. I have been in 2 accidents that should have ended my life and yet here I am. I was flying to Tulsa to visit my brother and I was offered a job that once again I didn't have the qualifications or the experience for. I couldn't have "applied" for the job with any confidence and yet it was dropped on me. All of my jobs in the past 10 years have given me the skills for the job that I received after it and that in and of itself is a miracle. No one is more surprised or more grsteful than I am at the opportunities I have been given.

I say I am taking this job on faith. That is true but there is more than just my faith at work here. There are now at least 500 people in Arkansas who are putting there faith in me. Normally when I write it is to make you think, it is to try to invoke a response from you, a call to action in your own life. Tonight/this morning...I am writing so that you will see something. You will see the choice I have made. I am stepping out of the comforts of my job, my house, my family and my friends into an unknown. Failure is not an option. I will do the job they have asked me to do. You can hold me accountable and hold me responsible. I believe I will be given the tools needed to succeed and I know I have the desire. They say God helps those who help themselves...I say God will help me as long as my goal is to help others. Tomorrow I pack my car, Tuesday I move and Wednesday I begin a new journey. I will talk to you again on the other side.

I have been busy with my upcoming move...

2009-05-06T01:50:00.000-05:00

I haven't been writing but I have had plenty on my mind. The question is not if I have enough to write about. The question is simply do I have enough to write about that anyone would be in the slightest bit interested in!

So I have had the subject of love on my mind a lot lately. I was listening to a sound track from a movie when I was driving from L.A. to Tulsa. I wasn't thinking about anything much except the unique sound of one of the artists voice and then she sang a few lines that really struck me.

The words were, "so if you wanna burn yourself, remember that I love you, and if you wanna cut yourself, remember that I love you, and if you wanna kill yourself, remember that I love you! Call me up before you're dead, we can make some plans instead. Send me an IM I'll be your friend..."

I am not sure exactly why this song interested me so much. If you listen to the whole song it is kind of an anti-war protest song...with love thrown in. I want to ask her (the artist) if she ever got any IM's from anyone who just needed someone to talk to. I really want to know if she is serious about what she says and how she let's it affect her life. In her music she swears and talks bad about the current war. According to what I have heard for most of my life she isn't someone who I should agree with and she doesn't understand love.

*I want to make sure I insert something to explain some of my statements about growing up and the people who modeled love for me. My parents, brothers and my family (including the Chartiers and Harringtons of course) showed me love in word and action. I don't use them as my illustrations because I thought that is what everyone had! I didn't understand how blessed I was to grow up with the people I grew up with. So when I say that someone else "showed me love in a way that I had never seen..." or something like that it is because I mean I didn't see that love outside of my immediate circle very often and that person made a bigger impression because it was a surprise! Now back to the story...thanks for your attention*

So there are two people to this point who have surprised me with their statements about what I consider to be true love. One was my sixth grade band teacher when he explained to all of us that he lived by the motto of "if I can I should" whenever someone asked him if he could do something for them. The other person is the girl who wrote the song I mentioned above. Now my band teacher was a nice guy and I am not anyones judge but he told us that he had been "living in sin" for years and now he was going to marry his gf who had been living with him. That statement alone made him someone that I shouldn't pattern any part of my life after, or at least that is how it seemed to me when I was 12. Then this girl who curses and is obviously very liberal in her views (which is obvious from her songs on this CD). I was always under the inpression that they needed to learn to love like the people who were in church with me.

Here is my main problem...I see them loving the un-lovely and the hurting while a lot of times in church I hear people bad mouthing "liberals" and "sinners". It is a strange thought to me that in the world we live in Christians are looked at as narrow-minded exclusives who are unaccepting of people that don't agree with them while liberal non-Christians are looked at as accepting and open minded.

I can honestly say that my parents always taught us to love everyone. People are what mattered and even if you didn't agree with their actions, we needed to love the people. I had a talk on New Years with a friend that I have literally known my entire life. He said that he really enjoyed coming over to our house because my parents were always accepting of him and we were always able to hang out. He knew what we believed and even though he still doesn't know much about our beliefs he saw our love. Isn't that what it is about? You won't find someone who is more liberal than him, he has even moved to a socialist country and he loves it. This would again make him someone to avoid because "evil companions corrupt good manners...". I have a question for you, "Who did Jesus hang out with aside from his disciples?"

Are you someone that a person who has different views would feel comfortable talking to? Are you someone who is going to love that person no matter what they say or do? Are you someone that can be called if there is a need...even if that need is just a listening ear or a shoulder to cry on? I want to show God's love to everyone that sees me. Not so they are impressed with me but so that they ask me how I can be that loving. That is my goal. If you need something from me just ask. If I can I will.

Real quick post...

2009-04-25T07:47:00.002-05:00

I have to go take a shower and get ready for softball this morning but it has been a while since I posted. I am moving in just over three weeks now. I am not all the way packed but I am getting there and we have someone to move in so that the rent will stay the same for Dad and Caleb. That is good, I didn't want to have them have to pay more.

I spent last weekend in Bryant, AR and then on Monday afternoon I flew to LA and drove back to Tulsa. I got back at 1:45am Thursday morning and then went to work later that morning! I had a long drive back and I was in a car alone. I was asked by one of my best friends what I thought about on the way back and I said I didn't have any major breakthroughs of any kind. I was really focused on my drive since I was driving someone else's car. Pretty much the topic on my mind was the same topic I have had on my mind for a while. Love. I'll write more later...I just think it's sad. I tried to show love to everyone I came in contact with on this trip. People were shocked that I did some of the things I did because they weren't "convenient" for me. These were friends of mine. I don't consider it a great sacrifice to be kind to my friends. It's what we should always do and yet they were shocked. It doesn't take much effort to make someones day, give it a try. Let me know how it goes for you.

Something different this time...

2009-04-20T18:40:00.000-05:00

I am not going to give my opinion right now. I am sitting in the St. Louis airport waiting to board a plane and I was reading my responses to a previous post. I have decided to see if I can get some answers from some of you.

My question is simply this: if you don't go to church, why? I'm not asking why you don't go to my church or a certain church in your town, but why don't you go at all? Do you not believe in God, do you not believe in organized religion...what is your reason? You can answer and not give your name, that is fine. The only reason I gave those two possible reasons above was because those are answers I have been given in person when I asked this question.

Please take a moment and answer my question. I really want to know. :) I am not going to combat your answers or come against your logic in any way. I am truly curious.

Thank you for taking the time to read this far and I appreciate any and all feedback.

My Dad...

2009-04-12T00:05:00.000-05:00

This past week I watched parts of several stand-up comedians acts on Comedy Central. It seemed like every time I was clicking past they were talking about their Dad and what he was like. Everyone was laughing and they did several crowd shots where people were pointing at each other and shaking their heads as if to say, "He's talking about your Dad!".

As I watched I realized how different my memories were from what apparently most people grew up with. Jokes only work if there is an element of truth in them. I know I was blessed to grow up in the family I grew up in. Everyone has issues and my parents weren't perfect but I don't have those memories of my Dad treating me or my Mom bad. Even when we were in trouble my parents would let anger pass and they would punish us because of our actions and not because they were "angry".

I wonder if this model of a father figure has anything to do with the way that the three Johnson boys grew up as opposed to a lot of people we were around? It just makes me wonder how people's view of their own father affects their view of God as their Father? When I hear father I think of love. My parents put aside their own desires and their time to pour into our lives every day. If you don't trust your father or you didn't have a lot of love passed on to you from your father then you may not always have a great concept of God as your Father. I know God loves me more than my parents do and that is not an easy thing for me to grasp.

So if families are falling apart at a record pace then do you think that is at least a portion of the reason that the percentage of people who claim to be Christians is dropping in the United States every year?

Just wondering...I have no proof. I am just laying in bed thinking when I should be sleeping. I know that not everyone who reads this is a Christian but I do believe you all know I am. This is simply food for thought.

It's starting to get close to that time...

2009-04-06T09:38:00.003-05:00

Up until this morning I had been plan out a strategy for packing my stuff up before my move. I decided that today is the day I start packing. I am going to try to set aside some time to pack every day. I am buying plastic tubs to put my clothes in and at this point that is really all I am taking with me. It is all starting to hit me at once...I really am moving to Arkansas very soon.

The reality of my move is finally starting to sink in. I am leaving a lot of things here in Tulsa. I have lived here for 6 of the last 7 years. I have made some good friends and my Dad lives here as well. I am really excited about the opportunities that are waiting for me in Bryant and I believe that it is the next step on the road of life for me. It just isn't always easy to let go of where you are when you don't really know exactly what the future holds.

In February of 2002 I made the move to Tulsa to stay with my brother while he finished up his 3rd year at Rhema. We were going to move back to WA in June and continue on with our lives. Clearly I was not the one running the show, even though I thought at that time that I was. My friend Rachel told me that I was never coming back to WA. I told her I would be back in June and she laughed and said I wouldn't be coming back. I didn't understand and I told her she was crazy, that was 7 years ago. I still haven't moved back and with this move it is looking more like she was right every day. I can't say I will be in Arkansas forever but I know I will be there for a decent amount of time and if it is where I stay then that is fine with me. I am through trying to get God to line up with my plans. :) This job is something that I know I will enjoy and I have a good friend already working there. He has been there for 3 years and we work well together.

All of that being said, it is not the job that I am uneasy about at all. I just am feeling the finality of this move. I am leaving people here who I will only talk to on facebook from this point forward. People and relationships are very important. How we affect the people around us is the way we leave our mark when we are gone. I may be a lot of things but sentimental is not one of them. The house I am living in, my office, this big desk in my small office...none of that stuff is going to matter to me. I will miss the people that are still here.

When I am gone I want people to look back on their time with me or there time when I was around and see God's love in action. That is my goal and that is what I try to do every day. We don't know what a kind word or one simple act can do for someone else. You don't know what the world is throwing at those around you. Even when people don't look like they need help it never hurts to do something above and beyond the "norm". It takes very little effort to rise above average when it comes to kindness. Try and rise to the level that you would like to see people rise to in your life.

Over a month!

2009-03-31T13:33:00.002-05:00

That isn't even right! I haven't been writing much lately, but I have been reading a lot. For the first time in years I am mixing in some fiction with my steady diet of non-fiction. I am enjoying the change but then when I read a good bit of non-fiction that makes me think I wonder why I was taking time to step out of reality when there is still so much I need to learn and process!

I stopped writing before because I was working two jobs and was too busy, now I think it is time to pick it back up. I will be changing jobs in the fairly near future and I need to get back in the habit of writing. Not so much so that you will have something to read but more so that I can express my thoughts. My mind doesn't really shut off so I am constantly thinking about something or why I have a certain opinion. I have a few people here in Tulsa that I can talk to but when I move I will have less access to those people. I already have some friends in Arkansas but it takes some time before I open up the way I need to in order to clear my mind. So the writing is good for me, even if I can't write everything I am thinking.

Soon I want to write some about love. It seems that everywhere I turn lately life has been showing me love or the lack of it in some form. I want to understand more, I want to show it more often in my life, I want to live out what I believe and be that picture that can send someone searching for the one true Love. That is my goal, that is my mission and I work every day at getting closer to being "the change I want to see in the world". Ghandi said that and I think it is an amazing perspective. People are always trying to change the world. That is a good goal but if we don't look at ourselves first then how is anything going to change? I want to see more love, more actual love in the world. That is something I truly believe in so I am working right now on showing more love through my life.

"It only takes one person to start a trend!"

2009-02-23T13:04:00.002-06:00

Last week I was out to dinner with some friends who were in from out of town. There were several conversations going on at the same time, as often happens with my friends. Several of us are fairly loud and enjoy talking. So I was not involved in the conversation but I was following it to a point. I knew they were talking about making every day St. Patrick's Day...and my friend made the statement, "It only takes one person to start a trend!" She was encouraging someone else to start the trend of having St. Patrick's Day year round.

I started thinking about that statement. It only takes one person to start a trend. On the surface it sounded like a true statement...but something didn't seem right. I don't like blanket statements and this one seemed to be a blanket statement. I guess in a sense all trends have to start with one person, that much is true. The thing that I was thinking about is that if no one follows you then you would have a hard time starting a trend. There are a lot of people in the world who march to the beat of a different drummer. The reason we say that they "march to the beat of a different drummer" is because no one is following them! It does take one person to start a trend...but it doesn't "only" take one person. It takes a person who has the influence to have others follow them.

Almost everyone I know either feels they are a leader or wants to be a leader. The thing I have noticed as I have gone through life is that there are fewer leaders and a LOT more followers than I ever expected. It is amazing how easily a group can be persuaded into doing something as a group. Once you get people going in a certain direction they will almost always feel that it was their choice and they truly wanted to go that direction. If you had asked them to go that direction while they were alone or when no one else was doing it they would have never gone along with the idea. Take for example the ever changing world of fashion. Not runway fashion, but the "fashion" that you see when you walk through the mall or go out to dinner. The trends change, the look of what is socially acceptable changes and people go along with it. I am not saying that I set any trends when it comes to fashion or that I fight the system at all. I am simply showing how many followers we have in our society.

When I was young someone told me to "pick your battles." There are times when I am just fine with going along with the crowd. There are other times when I will assert myself and not follow what other people think is the thing to do. Being a leader does not mean that you always make every decision and everyone needs to follow you or get out of the way. There are people who make waves and push their own agenda, that doesn't make them a leader. If you want to know if you are a leader right now or not all you have to do is look behind you. If there are people who are following you or are willing to follow you then you are a leader. Leaders are not alone.

Jesus was the ultimate leader and even He submitted his will to the Father. Just a thought, you can lead and still submit to someone else. So it does only take one person to start a trend. The only catch is that the person must be a leader. I don't know why I thought about posting this right now. It is simply food for thought.

I almost blogged last night...

2009-02-07T07:14:00.005-06:00

I am not sure exactly why I didn't post what I wrote last night but I decided against it. Some things just are not meant to be shared in this kind of forum I guess.

So last night I helped a friend. He is the manager of a crew that cleans schools and he has had some trouble with his employees not showing up for work. He asked if anyone would help him (I am guessing it was a group text) and I replied that I would. I try to live by the standard that if someone asks for help "If I can, I should." It is something that my band teacher told me when I was in sixth grade and I have tried to always keep it in mind.

My friend was thankful that I was willing to help and give up my Friday night. I said it is what friends do...and then I realized I was the only friend who was there. I am not the nicest guy ever, in fact I would argue that I am not the nicest guy in my family. I know there are at least 4 other Johnson men that I would consider to be nicer than me (the 3 adult Jacks and Chris). This being said, I still try my best to do the right thing when given the chance. Last night I was given the chance.

I have been seeing a lot of the "25 random things..." posts on facebook lately. I posted one myself. It took me 5 minutes to write and I didn't even try to be witty with my answers. Now I wish I had written some other things into it but I don't think I will do it again. The reason I am bringing up the "25 random things..." is that in several of them lately I have noticed that they talk about "love" and how it will either solve everything or it is the answer to all of our problems. I couldn't agree more!

Since I started this post I have gone back and read a few of the "25 random things..." posts, there doesn't seem to be as much about love as I thought. Maybe it was just on my mind and the few times I saw it, that is what stuck out to me.

*side note: I have tried to finish this blog three times and I have erased the ending. Let's see if I can actually finish it*

John 15:13 "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." I used to think this had to do with dying for a friend. I hadn't really ever looked at this verse in context, as sad as that may be, until last year. I grew up hearing that verse but I had never gone to study it out. In verse 12 it says "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you." At this point Jesus had not died for anyone...but He had laid down His life for His friends.

I want to look at two examples of people who in my life I have seen lay down there life for someone else:

1. My brother Chris:

One of the reasons that I have such respect for my younger brother is that he dropped everything in his life and came back to Oklahoma for me. He told me that when I went to my second year at Rhema that he would be there to help me...and he was. He does this kind of thing on a consistant basis. He will lay down what he wants to do in order to help out someone else. Not because of what he will get in return, but because he is showing love to that person.

2. Chrissy Nicole Adams

Chrissy is someone who I met as a "friend of a friend." Most relationships that we build are through people we are around consistantly. For example: church, work, school, sports...you get the idea. Chrissy worked for a church I have never been to, she went to homeschool (so we never went to school together), she hasn't played any sports that I know of since we met...except that one time we all went out and through the frisbee, but I am not sure that counts as a sport played, and she lives in a town that is 45 minutes from where I live. In other words, we didn't have a lot of reason to really see each other. Truthfully she has been closer to my brother than she has been to me but I would consider her a good friend. She made this list because she has made a decision that not very many people would make. She is going to take a year out of her life and donate it to people who truly need it.

James 1:27 says, "A religion that is pure and stainless according to God the Father is this: to take care of orphans and widows who are suffering, and to keep oneself unstained by the world." Well she is taking a year of her life and is going over to China to volunteer in an orphange. She is taking care of orphans for an entire year. This is one of the most selfless things I have ever seen or heard. She had a great job working at a church that is growing and yet she gave it up to go where she is needed most. It isn't about what she can get, it is about what she can give.

She challenges me to be a better person every day of my life. What can I do that will help someone when they truly need it? Take a look at what she is doing:

http://www.placemeinyourplan.blogspot.com/

So those are the two people who challenge me to be a better person, to give more, to not be concerned about "me" and to be more concerned with what needs I can help fill. I am not saying you need to change anything in your life. I am just asking you to take a look around. Help those who need help. Smile at the people who need someone to smile at them. Hold the door for that person who has their arms full. Do what you can do to fill the gaps that society is leaving in other peoples lives. Show some love and see how it goes. I think it will get better.

Today...

2009-02-03T14:30:00.002-06:00

Has been a bit rough so far...but I am trying to look at the big picture. None of what has happened today will matter in 20 years...with the exception of me making a friend cry because I was rude. I need to work on that and I already said I was sorry. She forgave me...but all in all that is the only thing that has any meaning long term that happened today. I am smiling now. I still think I need a nap!

I have something that is worth writing about...

2009-01-29T00:03:00.000-06:00

Finally I have something I want to write about...but I think I am going to work on making it into a book rather than make it just one post on here. So instead of that subject I think I am going to write about things I miss.

I woke up last night in the middle of the night and I started thinking about things I missed. As it usually works when I am just waking up, my thoughts were in no particular order so here we go...

I miss fresh apple cider from my great-grandma's apple orchard. I miss my Grandma Arids making tang for us because that is what the astronauts drank. I miss waking up Saturday morning to rake the batters circle and chalk the foul lines of our wiffleball field. I miss knowing I would never have to go to sleep alone again. I miss being able to make a 3am trip to the ocean just to watch the sunrise. I miss watching my nephews come down the stairs in the morning to play with their train set. I miss all-night basketball tournaments of David Robinson's video game. I miss going to play basketball at "The Gheto" in Stevenson. I miss walking down the unfinished turnpike in the middle of the night with Jad, Chris and the rest of the gang. I miss playing in the fountains downtown until the security guards ran us off. I miss holding hands when holding hands was as far as you went in a "relationship". I miss playing "offense/defense" with my brothers in the back yard. I miss dunk competitions on our nerf hoops growing up. I miss Thanksgiving dinner with the whole family at Grandma Jo's house. I miss trying to get Grandpa Pee-Wee to stop smoking and drinking because we wanted him to be around longer. I miss hearing hunting stories while we were cutting up meat in Grandpa Jim's shed. I miss choco and toast with the family on a cold Saturday morning. I miss lacing up my cleats and the smell of a well oiled glove while I get ready for a game. I miss boxing with Corey after school out past the football field. I miss pulling Marina behind my bike while she sits on a skateboard. I miss jumping in puddles with Melissa. I miss walking on the beach and talking to Mike until the sun was coming up. I miss swimming in our clothes after jumping the fence with Rachel. I miss sitting and talking to Teri about all kinds of different things...while I got rocked at sequence. I miss watching Joe try to ride a unicycle. I miss watching the office with Kim just because we wanted to laugh. I miss waking up to the smell of pancakes in the morning before school. I miss living in a town where everyone knows everyone. I miss learning about biology from teachers I knew were smarter than me. I miss singing in choir. I miss hearing Keith every week. I miss painting. I miss drawing, even when I knew that nothing I drew could match what my older brother was drawing.

I miss a lot of things...but normally I don't think about the fact that I miss them. Life isn't about looking back, it is about where we are going and how many people we can bring with us. People matter...find something else worth giving your life for.

I haven't posted from my phone in a while...

2009-01-28T00:06:00.000-06:00

I am laying here in bed while Fabien and Caleb watch tv and play on facebook. I should be asleep...but I am wide awake. Today was another strange day...but it was also a good day. I got a pretty stern talking to from a friend and I will be the first to say I needed it.

I am not perfect and I have never claimed that I was...although I used to say, "Nobody's perfect, but I am pretty close.". It was a joke and I stopped saying it when I was in Jr. High, or at least I stopped saying it so much. :)

The reason I bring up not being perfect is because I made a few decisions that were not good choices in the past month. Now I get to work through some of the stuff that happens after you make a poor decision. Not a fun process and something that I am working on having to do less and less as time goes on.

One thing I will say is that I am glad I have friends who will stand up and say they don't agree with me or that they don't like what they see as far as my decision making is concerned. I always appreciate honesty, even when it calls me out. I may not always agree or I may have other reasons that you don't see...but in this case I was just being dumb. I was letting emotions (or lack of emotions) dictate what I was doing. I got called on it and I am doing my best to get it straightened out.

*side note: I got an interesting phone call tonight from an old friend...I will post about it in a couple weeks*

I think I will try to sleep. I am not sure if it will work, but I need to at least try.

Once again I should be sleeping...

2009-01-25T18:07:00.002-06:00

and once again I am not. I got to work in two hours. I will work at least a 10 hour day and then turn around and work an 8 hour day. Before I go to sleep again (for more than an hour or two) I will have worked almost half of a normal work week and yet I am wide awake now and I can't get myself to rest. I have too much going on in my head.

This year has started off very strange. I am not sure exactly how it is all going to go but I feel like I will not be the same when it is over. 2008 was a good year overall. I started out having just decided to stay in Tulsa instead of move back to WA with my brother.

I had a girlfriend in WA who was not very happy with my decision and we ended our relationship not very far into the year. Like most years since my divorce I spent most of the year single...and I am still single today. I am single or a mixture of reasons and most of them have to do with me. I have been blessed with amazing friends and some of them (for whatever reason) have from time to time considered me at least an option. I generally drive them away or run away before we get to the dating part. I am still friends with almost all of them but for reasons that I won't go into in this post I am still single.

:) I just wrote and deleted a long section about my feelings on dating and how I have recently come to realize how important it is to me in the long run. I am not going to share that part yet...mainly because I haven't thought it all the way out. I just kind of showed up as I was writing this post, I want to know what I think about it before I let anyone else in on it.

Other than my being single this year was a lot of fun. I got to spend some good quality time with my nephews on multiple occasions. They are growing up really fast and it hurts that I am this far away from them. I know this is where I am supposed to be but there are times when that doesn't feel like it really matters. I don't get homesick for the state of Washington, I just miss my family a lot. Another thing I did in 2008 is grow closer to a few people than I ever expected would happen. I am a pretty closed off person during this year I made a point to open myself up and let some people in. In one case it has hurt more than anything I have felt in the past 10 years and at the same time I have learned a lot. I am working on getting myself to stay open and communicate what I need to communicate as this year gets going. We will see how that goes but I am hopeful.

I am not one for New Years resolutions. I have never made any and this year was no different. I do set goals for myself twice a year. I set goals in September and goals in January. My goals again are not something I am going to share but I have set attainable goals this year as opposed to the goals I set in September. I am not sure what I was thinking, but my goals were long term goals that I could not possibly reach in just a year. I am trying to make this set of goals something I can actually do during 2009. Again I guess we will see how it goes.

Well I am going to rest...maybe not sleep, but at least rest until I go to work. I will try to update this later.

What is the deal...

2009-01-21T21:39:00.002-06:00

I haven't written anything in a while...actually it has been a long time. It isn't that I haven't had anything to write about, the problem I have been running into is that what I have wanted about are things that I am going through. I don't like to write out of emotion and I really don't like to write "about" people so I haven't written anything. I try to look at things from an outside perspective and not make it personal but lately I haven't been able to do that, so I haven't been sharing anything on here.

I am hoping to work it all out soon. :) I miss writing!

I should be sleeping...

2009-01-06T23:25:00.000-06:00

I am laying here on the couch out in La Center, WA writing this...instead of sleeping. As I begin it is just after 11:00pm and my plane leaves at 7:30am tomorrow morning.

I am been in the Northwest since Christmas eve (thanks to a three day layover in Denver due to snow). This trip started off strange but not bad. I got to spend three days with a famliy I have known for almost 25 years! When I got to the NW on Christmas eve I found out that no one was going to make the trip on Christmas. I was supposed to see my whole family at one time but due to weather once again it didn't happen. I did get to see my brothers and my sister-in-law along with my amazing nephews on Christmas day. Also in the two weeks I was here I got to see my Mom and step-Dad for a few days, I saw my Grandpa several times along with seeing various cousins, Uncles, Aunts and friends.

All in all it was a good trip and I had a great time. The thing that I realized most during this trip was that this isn't home anymore. It will always be the place I am talking about when I say I am going to visit "home" but it no longer feels like home.

I miss my family and friends from here every day that I am in Oklahoma but the thing about this trip was; I missed my friends and family in Oklahoma every day that I was here. I have been gone for the past 7 years and 6 of those years have been spent in Broken Arrow, OK. I have made life-long friends there and right now my Dad lives with me. It is where I feel the most at ease and it is where I feel like I am supposed to be right now. Could that change? Of course it could...but for now it is home.

I still haven't taken the time to reflect on this entire year but tonight is not the right night to do that. I need to get some sleep but not before I thank everyone who has made Oklahoma my home. I showed up as "Chris's brother" and people have made me feel like a part of their family. I have friends who have: opened their homes during the holidays, thrown me birthday parties, given me rides to the airport, cooked meals for me and given me hugs when that is what I needed most. To anyone who has played a part in my life in the past 7 years I just wanted to say thank you. I couldn't ask for a better group of people to be surrounded with.

So much to say....

2008-12-29T14:31:00.002-06:00

So little time to say it! I am waiting right now for my clothes be done (they are in the dryer). After they are ready I am going to take a shower and go with my brother to see our Grandpa (he is 83 years old) and his girlfriend. He is going to take us out to lunch. He is one of my favorite people ever! His laugh is contagious and he loves life. He doesn't just sit around and get older, he is out chopping his own firewood, shoveling snow off his roof, hunting, fishing and going on walks with his girlfriend! I admire his outlook on life and he is the most generous person I know. Any time I can spend with him is time well spent so I am content to write a short post so that I can go see him.

I have had a lot happen since my last post that I would like to write about and I still want to write about 2008. Very interesting year for me and I am interested to see how it all looks on paper. I know a lot happened that doesn't come to mind everyday but that will have to wait until after family time. Family matters and Grandpa Jim has spent his life giving to others so I am going to give him some of my time.

Two weeks in review...

2008-12-14T23:53:00.002-06:00

Well kind of two weeks in review...I am not really going to go through everything that has happened in the past two weeks because a lot of what has happened hasn't really been dealt with yet. I have had some of the highest highs and the lowest lows in the past two weeks. That is not normal for me. I am a pretty even kind of a guy. I am very animated but very few things upset me and I almost never get mad...and I am not one to get really excited about a lot of things either. I hold my emotions in check for the most part. I enjoy life and I think that for the most part this comes through in how I react to things.

The problem with the last two weeks is that I have had things that I didn't see coming happen to me. Multiple times I have stopped and looked back and asked, "Did that really just happen?" The answer time and again was yes, it did just happen. It has not taken me more than a couple of hours to get myself back under control and to this point I have not done or said anything rash that would hurt anyone. I have done my very best to react the way that I want to react to situations. I try to think the best of those involved and consider their feelings and what is going to be best for them in the long run. That keeps me from saying or doing things that would be hurtful just because I had something happen to me that I didn't expect and didn't really enjoy.

As far as the highs...I have had my share of those as well. I have become closer to some people, I have had a couple people open up to me and share part of their life with me. That is always something that I enjoy. I want to be someone who you can come to when you need anything and I have been able to be there for a few people recently. I did have one amazing friend who needed me and I wasn't there. I apologized for not being there but as of right now my apologizing didn't make me feel any better about not being able to be there for this person.

I guess what I am wrestling with right now is not the past two weeks but the next two that are coming up. I have some things that are technically unresolved. Things that I have said I will deal with "sometime". The problem is that if I don't deal with them before I go back to WA for two weeks, will they ever come up again? If the answer to that is no...then is it worth talking about them at all? I was given some advice a long time ago. I was told that when you get upset, go to a window and look outside. Ask yourself the question, "In 20 years is this going to matter?" If the answer to that is "no" then you need to let it go. If the answer to that is "yes" then you need to deal with it. The problem I am having is that right now I don't know the answer to that question.

I think that "Love" would not bring it up right now, and that is why it is still unresolved. I guess I will have to wait and see how this week goes. I will not go out of my way to bring it up. If it is still worth talking about when I get back from vacation then I will look at what needs to be done.

On a side note; I have some amazing friends and family. I am truly blessed beyond measure and I am more thankful than I may show sometimes. Thank you all.

i want your opinion...

2008-12-10T03:20:00.001-06:00

I may even give you my opinion. I have a question that want to ask. Would you lie and or not tell the "whole truth" to spare someones feelings? If I asked you a question, would you only tell me part of the story because you were trying to protect me?

I posted this question as my status on facebook and I got a few comments. One comment was that some people can't handle the truth. I am curious to see what my response on that status will be when I repost it during the day tomorrow.

I want to know your opinion and now I will give you my opinion. Growing up my Mom told us that a half-truth is still a lie. At that time I didn't really agree with her but now I couldn't agree more.
I have seen this business of not being open and up front just so that you can "spare their feelings" end marriages. I have seen it break apart friendship and ruin the trust that someone has for you forever.

I am a big boy, I can handle the truth. I ask for honesty and respect in every relationship in my life and I try to always give both of those to everyone I come in contact with. I am not perfect and if you know me then you are well aware of that fact. Even in my imperfection I will treat you with respect and I will be honest with you. Don't ask a question you really don't want me to answer.

So my answer to the question: would I not tell you the truth if you asked me a question because it might hurt your feelings is no. I will tell you the truth and I appreciate it when people do the same thing for me.

*edit* I have had several people say that they would use "tact" and go around the truth so as to not hurt someones feelings. I am not saying you shouldn't use tact. I AM saying that half truths turn into whole lies and that is the problem.

This could be trouble...

2008-12-03T05:38:00.000-06:00

I am WIDE awake! It is around 5:30am and I just got home from work. In theory I am supposed to get 2 hours of sleep before I go back to work, the problem is that I am not even a little bit tired right now.

Tonight at work I figured out why my mind is always in over-drive when I get home. I have at least 2 hours each night at work where I am in a room alone. No one talking to me, no emails coming in and no text messages. Before I started working at night I would have been lucky to get 2 straight hours of time to myself in an entire week, let alone 3 nights in a row EVERY week!

It gives me time to reflect, time to ponder and time to take a step back and look at things in a "big picture" sort of way. What I have found so far is that I need to set some time to do this aside whenever I am done working this job. It is important to take the time to process all the things going on in your life. Too many times we all get caught up in the here and now. We live our life going from one event/crisis to another and never stop to look at what direction we are truly going.

Another thing this time to myself has shown me is that when given the time to think about it, most situations that seemed to be huge...really aren't that big of a deal. They only seemed like a big deal because at that moment the situation was right in my face. Perspective is a nice thing to have and sometimes it is the first thing we lose.

This being said, I am going to try to set aside a little more time where I can be alone with my thoughts. I am considering turning off my phone for an hour or two a night (the nights when I only work 1 job) and going into my room to be alone. I would like to see what this will do for my perspective and outlook on life. I guess only time will tell.

I should try to get a little sleep. Do me a favor and smile at someone when you don't feel like it. See if they smile back, a lot of people are looking for an excuse to be happy. Be their excuse.

I will sleep on Thursday...

2008-12-02T16:27:00.003-06:00

Today has been a crazy day from the start! When I say from the start, I mean from 12:00 midnight until now. I worked longer last night than I expected to work, I have had conversations today that I never expected to have and I have been thinking about things that haven't crossed my mind in years.

Someone asked me when I sleep, I said I sleep Thursday through Saturday. :) Tonight will not be a restful night, I will go home in a few minutes and start reading. I will read until I am tired enough to fall asleep and then I will sleep until I am rested enough to get up for work. I will work from 11:00pm until most likely 5am and then go home for a few hours until work again. I am not looking for sympathy or understanding, I am simply stating the facts. This is my life right now and it will be my life for the foreseeable future. I have good reasons for why I am putting myself through this and some of you know what they are. If you don't know then it is because I haven't told you and this blog is not the place for me to go into it.

In the past three months that I have been working nights I have had people who I have grown closer to and people who I have grown farther apart from. That happens at every point in life, I know this. The problem is that it happens at a much great pace when you are put into abnormal circumstances. The fact that I don't see anyone outside of work the first half of the week is something that is strange and puts me into the "out of sight, out of mind" category with some people. That is human nature and if I didn't know you very well and then all of a sudden I stopped coming around then what reason would you have to try to continue to get to know me better? Then there are those people who it doesn't matter how long I have been gone or how little I have been around they treat me like we have been hanging out every day. Those are the times I smile because I can appreciate that our relationship is not based on what I can do or how I have been able to entertain them recently but it is based on them wanting to be a part of my life.

Remember that people are only as much a part of your life as you will allow them to be. I might not be a part of your life at all and that is fine. Just remember to show the people who you care about how much you care about them. It can be as easy as telling them you appreciate them or giving them a hug next time you see them. Do the small things, the unexpected things, the things that will not get you anything back but a smile. Do those things for the ones you care about and see how your life changes. Relationships matter, people matter, the stuff that takes up most of your time probably doesn't matter.

So I am 30...

2008-11-29T02:30:00.002-06:00

...and I have been 30 now for 2.5 hours. So far my 30's are going great! I went bowling (where I won...hehe) and then I went out to birthday breakfast at 1:20am! Nothing like starting your morning off with 3 pounds of fried cake with blueberries and whipped cream! Teri took me bowling and to breakfast and we had a great time. She gave up sleep to be the first person to see me on my birthday and I appreciated it.

While I was bowling and eating breakfast I got a bunch of texts and facebook messages saying happy birthday and I appreciate all of those people who were awake and remembered that it was my birthday.

To me spending time with friends and family is more important than anything else on my birthday. That is why it meant so much that after working a double today Teri took me out for my birthday. Not everyone would have taken the time after a long day to spend 4.5 hours with me just hanging out. Also my Dad took me out to dinner because he will be gone on Saturday and wanted to spend some time with me. That is pretty awesome, and Amy had dessert with us when she got cut from work. Then my Dad and Amy sat and talked with me for a half hour after we were all done eating. This is what I am very thankful for. I have amazing friends and an awesome family. I am more blessed than I deserve and I try to let people know how much they mean to me. Sometimes I don't say it enough but all of the people in my life are amazing and they mean more to me than anything I have or ever will own. Relationships are what matter in this life. Our relationship with God and then our relationship with those around us.

After I sleep a bit I will look back at my life and I may write about it; where I have been and where I see myself going. Right now I am just thinking about how much it means to me to have people who care around me. Sometimes I don't let people get too close to me because of where I live. I am in Broken Arrow and I am around Rhema all the time. People come here to leave, I know that. It is hard to make good friends and then every two years have to do it all over again. I know that because of this I keep a lot of people at arms length away but I have tried to open up a bit more and let down my guard. What this has done has brought people into my life that I will always be close to. Maybe I won't live in the same town and I know that it won't always be the same. That being said I know that my friends will always be there for me and I will always be there for them. I also have already had my family be there for me when times were tough. They have always and will always be there for me.

How can I ask for more? I serve a God who loves me, I have friends and family who will be there no matter what. Sometimes people look at their lives and they get down because things haven't worked out exactly like they thought they were going to work out. Well my life is nothing like I thought it would be by now...but I wouldn't change where I am for anything. Thank you all for being a part of my life, no matter how big or small a part you think you have remember; we never know the full impact that we have on the lives around us.

It is Thanksgiving...

2008-11-27T08:31:00.003-06:00

So many thoughts, so many things to say. Growing up Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday. It was a time when the whole family came together and just had fun. We ate too much, watched football, played cards and talked a lot. It was kind of like Christmas but without all the decorations and without all the presents. No one had lists, no one got me socks and we actually got to spend more time just being around family members talking than we did on Christmas because there was not a three hour block of time taken out to open presents.

Now Thanksgiving is a bit different. For only the second time in my life I will be around no one from my family on Thanksgiving. In the past 11 years (since I moved away from home) I have only been back with my whole family 3 times. Until this year I have had someone (Chris or Dad) around me on Thanksgiving. I have amazing friends and I have spent Thanksgiving with their families most years and this year is no exception. I will be going with my roommate to his parents house. My friend Abigail had her family decide to leave town last minute so she is coming with me. She didn't really want to come to a house full of people she doesn't know but I didn't think it was right that she was alone on Thanksgiving.

So what is Thanksgiving to me? If this year it isn't about family then what is it about? My parents always wanted us to remember that we were thanking God for all that He has done for us. Without God where would any of us be? I know that we should all live a life of thanksgiving and we shouldn't need a day set aside to give thanks to our Maker, but life can get crazy sometimes. We get caught up in our jobs or in just the little things that happen every day and we lose sight of what is important.

I try to set some time aside every day to thank God for my family, my friends and the fact that I am still here. I have been in 2 car accidents that I shouldn't have walked away from and yet I am still here. Now I say I try to do that every day, but like everyone else I have times where I start to get my priorities out of balance and things that don't matter take center stage.

Well last night I got one more dose of reality and it brought things back to where they needed to be. My friend has been witnessing to someone she works with and last night he asked Jesus to come into his life. This is the second person in the past 3 months that she has led to the Lord by just being a witness to them in her everyday life. I have told her this before but Teri inspires me to be a better witness and a better reflection of God's love when I go out into the world. I know she isn't perfect but she tries to show the love of God in everything she does. When I heard about the guy getting saved last night it made me remember that the most important thing to be thankful for today is the fact that God sent His only son to die in my place so that I could have eternal life with Him. I am thankful that my parents made the decision to raise me in a Christian home. I am thankful that they portrayed God's love to me and taught me who He was from the time I was born until now. I am thankful that even though I am going to be 200 and 2000 miles away from my parents today, they will both remember me when they pray and list me with the things they are thankful for. I have been blessed more than I deserve and more than I can ever repay, so now all I can do is thank God and try to go out and be a blessing.

I am asking you, what do you have to be thankful for? I know that my upbringing is not typical. My parents are amazing and I have a huge family that loves me and they love each other. You may not have that, but remember this one thing; we ALL have a God that loves us. Jesus died so that we all could live and if you say you have nothing else to be thankful for today, remember that Jesus loves you and so do I.

I had a friend tell me not too long ago that she had nothing left in life. I reminded her that she had Jesus and me...and I was pretty sure she had other things too. We forget sometimes that although things may not be going exactly how we want them to go they are still going better than they could be! We have a God who loves us, food to eat, a place to live and a place to work. Now it is possible that someone who reads this will say that they don't have one of those things, I know personally of places in all the areas that I have lived that will help you if you are truly in need but most of you reading this are not in that situation. It is all in perspective.

I should be asleep...

2008-11-25T03:46:00.000-06:00

I should be asleep...but I am not. It is almost 4am and I just got home from work. I have a few hours until I need to be up for work again but I felt like I needed to write. I want to be creative but I don't know if I can. I have had the start of a poem floating around in my head the past couple of days but I haven't been able to slow down enough to write it out. I will take the time one of these days to write something beautiful. For now I think I will just write what is on my mind.

I was told the other day that I have a "savior complex." This was in reference to my dating habits. My initial reaction was to say I don't agree and to just leave it there but that didn't seem like the right thing to do. I know this, reality to each person can be different. My actions are based on my thoughts but since you can't see my thoughts you may feel that my actions mean something very different than what I intended. This being said I wanted to see if this was just that one friends opinion or if it was truly how my actions come across to other people as well.

I asked three other people if they felt I had a "savior complex" when it came to women or even a "savior complex" in my life at all. I got 3 different answers. The first person I asked didn't agree at all. They said that they didn't see it and that I should just disregard it. The second person said that I didn't have a "savior complex" but that I did look at dating as a conquest or a competition. They gave a couple of examples and said it was obvious to anyone who knows my whole history. The third person I asked said I didn't have a "savior complex" but I was too into helping people, sometimes to my own demise. I said more people should help others and not always worry about how it is going to benefit or not bebefit them. He agreed and that ended that conversation.

I guess what I learned through this is that people all have their own opinion of what your motives are in regards to your actions. It is up to you to keep your motives pure and let people think what they want to think. I didn't change anyones opinion of me during the 4 conversations that I had and that wasn't my goal. I just wanted to know what people thought and why. If I can understand that then I will be able to better express what my true intentions are and people will get a better picture of who I am.

Remember that who you are to others is not defined by your intentions or your thoughts. It is defined by your actions and the reactions of those around you. People will never know how much you care unless you show them.

I am going to blog about my upcoming birthday soon...

2008-11-22T00:54:00.002-06:00

But I am not ready to do that just yet. I still have a week to get straight what is going on in my head. Last night my friend Kim took me on a birthday surprise. She took me to Steve and Barry's and bought me a couple of things. We then went to Turquoise for dinner where she gave me a C.S. Lewis book. Finally we went to have dessert at her favorite frozen custard place where her brother and sister-in-law met up with us. It was a lot of fun and I didn't expect it.

My birthday is not a big deal to me. It was never a big deal with my friends because my birthday falls right after Thanksgiving. Most people are either with their families or out of town (visiting family) during my birthday. This being the case, growing up my birthday was always about family. A lot of times it was celebrated at our Thanksgiving dinner and then I would have a small party with my immediate family on my birthday. So it isn't sad for me that I haven't had a lot of celebration up to this point for my birthday. I had a party last year (courtesy of Amy Dawson) which was the first birthday party anyone had thrown me as an adult. This year I am not sure how it is going to go. I know that something is going to happen at work but I don't know exactly what that something is. As far as on my actual birthday I have no expectations.

For me it really isn't about me. I am not one to make a list of things I need or even things I want. I am more interested in finding out what you want and trying to find a way to give it to you. My favorite part of Christmas is watching other people open things. I am going to be home for Christmas this year (home is WA). I get to see my nephews open their presents and I get to be around family that I only see a couple times a year. I am excited! My family is great on both the Johnson and the Cameron side. I will be back in WA for two weeks so I will be able to make time to see both sides this time. It should be a great trip.

This wasn't a deep blog and I didn't impart any wisdom to anyone. Just remember this year that it isn't all about you, try to do something for someone that they will remember forever.

Well...

2008-11-15T01:15:00.001-06:00

I haven't felt this way since January of 2000. Not fun. I feel like sleeping...for a long time. I like to think that I am stronger now, that I have grown as a person. I hope that I can deal with this better than I did last time but I guess only time will tell. I don't like this feeling and it makes me want to never put myself in this situation again.

100 Skills Every Man Should Know

2008-11-14T14:10:00.002-06:00

According to Popular Mechanics magazine there are 100 Skills that Every Man Should Know...let's see how many of them I know...

Automotive

Y 1. Handle a blowout
Y 2. Drive in snow
N 3. Check trouble codes
Y 4. Replace fan belt
Y 5. Wax a car
Y 6. Conquer an off-road obstacle
N 7. Use a stick welder
Y 8. Hitch up a trailer
Y 9. Jump start a car

Handling Emergencies

Y 10. Perform the Heimlich
Y 11. Reverse hypothermia
Y 12. Perform hands-only CPR
Y 13. Escape a sinking car

Home

Y 14. Carve a turkey
Y 15. Use a sewing machine
Y 16. Put out a fire
N 17. Home brew beer
Y 18. Remove bloodstains from fabric
Y 19. Move heavy stuff
Y 20. Grow food
Y 21. Read an electric meter
Y 22. Shovel the right way
N 23. Solder wire
N 24. Tape drywall
Y 25. Split firewood
Y 26. Replace a faucet washer
Y 27. Mix concrete
Y 28. Paint a straight line
Y 29. Use a French knife
Y 30. Prune bushes and small trees
Y 31. Iron a shirt
Y 32. Fix a toilet tank flapper
N 33. Change a single-pole switch
Y 34. Fell a tree
Y 35. Replace a broken windowpane
Y 36. Set up a ladder, safely
N 37. Fix a faucet cartridge
N 38. Sweat copper tubing
Y 39. Change a diaper
Y 40. Grill with charcoal
Y 41. Sew a button on a shirt
Y 42. Fold a flag

Medical Myths

Y 43. Treat frostbite
Y 44. Treat a burn
Y 45. Help a seizure victim
Y 46. Treat a snakebite
Y 47. Remove a tick

Military Know-How

Y 48. Shine shoes
N 49. Make a drum-tight bed
Y 50. Drop and give the perfect pushup

Outdoors

Y 51. Run rapids in a canoe
Y 52. Hang food in the wild
Y 53. Skipper a boat
Y 54. Shoot straight
N 55. Tackle steep drops on a mountain bike
Y 56. Escape a rip current

Primitive Skills

Y 57. Build a fire in the wilderness
Y 58. Build a shelter
Y 59. Find potable water

Surviving Extremes

Y 60. Floods
Y 61. Tornados
Y 62. Cold
Y 63. Heat
Y 64. Lightning

Teach Your Kids

Y 65. Cast a line
Y 66. Lend a hand
Y 67. Change a tire
Y 68. Throw a spiral
Y 69. Fly a stunt kite
Y 70. Drive a stick shift
Y 71. Parallel park
N 72. Tie a bowline
Y 73. Tie a necktie
Y 74. Whittle
Y 75. Ride a bike

Technology

Y 76. Install a graphics card
Y 77. Take the perfect portrait
N 78. Calibrate HDTV settings
Y 79. Shoot a home movie
Y 80. Ditch your hard drive

Master Key Workshop Tools

Y 81. Drill driver
N 82. Grease gun
N 83. Coolant hydrometer
Y 84. Socket wrench
Y 85. Test light
N 86. Brick trowel
N 87. Framing hammer
Y 88. Wood chisel
Y 89. Spade bit
Y 90. Circular saw
Y 91. Sledge hammer
Y 92. Hacksaw
Y 93. Torque wrench
Y 94. Air wrench
Y 95. Infrared thermometer
Y 96. Sand blaster
Y 97. Crosscut saw
Y 98. Hand plane
Y 99. Multimeter
N 100. Feeler gauges

83 out of 100...I guess I need to learn more skills.

I made a friend cry today...

2008-11-14T02:59:00.002-06:00

It is 3:00am and I am still awake. I didn't go to the new Bond movie because I was going to go to sleep early. I laid down at 11:00pm and tried to sleep but my mind was racing so I picked up 1984 and started reading. I stopped reading five minutes ago because I finished the book. My mind is still racing.

I made a statement that hurt someone that I love today. I made a friend cry. There are very few things that are worse in life than to hurt someone you care about. I didn't do it on purpose but that doesn't excuse that fact that it happened. I made a statement based on something that had been done to me in the past. It wasn't her fault and she wasn't the one I was upset with in any way. It just came out as a reaction and I didn't see it coming. I can't go into exactly what I said or why I said it because that is not blog material. What I can say is that the reaction was based on something that happened to me over 10 years ago. It was a reaction to a set of circumstances that I hadn't even thought about in years and yet I felt the pain/anger like it was yesterday.

I see that it is something I need to work on and I have given it up to God. I am going to have to process these emotions now since back then I just buried them. The reason I am writing this is not really so that you can hear my story but so that you will think about your actions and your reactions to the situations that you face. We react sometimes without thinking. We react based on our past experiences and sometimes our reaction doesn't really fit the current situation. Mine didn't and I am willing to bet that I am not the only person who this has happened to. I for one am not going to let my past failures control my reactions and my actions in the future. Things that you don't deal with now will come back up in the future. Sooner or later we will either have to face the situation or live our lives governed by our past. Too many times we use the excuse, "that is just the way I am." I don't believe that, I believe we have a choice on how we deal with people and situations. Don't live life on auto-pilot.

Now I am going to try once again to go to sleep. Let's see if it works this time.

It all comes back to love...again...

2008-11-13T00:51:00.003-06:00

Yesterday I admitted to a friend of mine that for the first time in my life I completely understood the statement that I have heard thousands of times in my life. That statement which is made by men every day. The statement that I have always said didn't really apply to me. You probably already figured out what I am going to say. I don't understand women...go ahead and laugh...up until yesterday I could always find some logic in the actions or a reason, however small, that would lead up to the reaction that they would give. Now I am totally lost...and I am not going to go into the situation. That is not the important part of this realization. My friend told me that she thought it was good for me, she thinks I need to be left in the dark a little bit and have something that I can't figure out. I am not sure that I agree but I kind of see her point.

I came to a crossroad yesterday. What would I do? I decided to live what I preach. You might think that living what I preach should not have been something that was difficult. I made the statement tonight when I was speaking, "I like to preach what I live." That means I put it into practice and then I can preach about it. So what do I mean I decided to live what I preach?

I am going to walk in love. That means I will love without expecting anything in return. That means that I will always be there and instead of pulling away I will press in, even if I get hurt in the end. What love means to me (as posted in previous blogs): A decision based on your character for the selfless promotion of someone else. If I truly believe this then I don't need to be loved back. I don't need to know that my love will ever be returned or even seen for what it truly is...if I am waiting for something in return then it isn't love. If I am waiting until I know that I will be appreciated because it makes me feel good to be appreciated then I love myself more than I love that person. So I will walk out love as best I can. I am not perfect and there are times when I know I don't show God's love through my life the way that it needs to be shown but that doesn't mean I am not going to try. I am going to do my best and if I get hurt in the process at least I will know that my motives were pure.

It all comes back to love...what love means to you and how you choose to show that love through your actions. This was for me more than it was for anyone who may read it. I have found that when I write about things I am going through in my life, there are usually a few other people who are facing similar situations. I don't have all the answers but I try to make you start to look for your own answers. Now I need to go to bed.

I just read a poem....

2008-11-10T02:15:00.001-06:00

I really enjoyed this...I hope you do too!

Waiting
By: John Burroughs (1837-1921)

Serene, I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea;
I rave no more 'gainst time or fate,
For, lo! my own shall come to me.

I stay my haste, I make delays,
For what avails this eager pace?
I stand amid the eternal ways,
And what is mine shall know my face.

Asleep, awake, by night or day,
The friends I seek are seeking me;
No wind can drive my bark astray,
Nor change the tide of destiny.

What matter if I stand alone?
I wait with joy the coming years;
My heart shall reap where it hath sown,
And garner up its fruit of tears.

The waters know their own and draw
The brook that springs in yonder height;
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delight.

The stars come nightly to the sky;
The tidal wave unto the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away from me.

I have been considering writing some fiction...

2008-11-09T22:20:00.002-06:00

The only writing I have done recently (apart from the one poem that was lost when my old phone died) has been non-fiction. I am doing a bit of freelance writing now and that is non-fiction as well. For some reason I have had the urge to write some fiction. I wrote poetry during high school and for a few years after that but I haven't sat down and written any stories since my freshman year. I used to write stories a lot...I am not sure if they were any good since at that time I didn't let anyone read anything I wrote unless it was for school.

I may just have to write a bit some time soon...see if I can still do it. I understand more about writing than I did then. I would like to think that this would help me but I guess I will have to give it a try to see how helpful it really will be. Well I am off to my night job, it is going to be cold tonight!

Friday night

2008-11-09T16:28:00.004-06:00

I went to a concert at Shades of Brown (a coffee shop in Tulsa) and I had a 30 minute conversation with two brothers. I have been trying to figure out what exactly I wanted to say about it for the past two days...

Basically it boils down to me having a chance encounter with two brothers. Both of them used to go to Rhema Bible Church and now they are not going to church. They both told me that they believe in the following: the Trinity, Jesus is their Lord and Savior, Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave and is seated at the Father's right hand, that the Bible is God breathed and is completely true and last but not least they both believe they are going to Hell.

They were both drinking and the younger brother was drunk. He remembered me from when he was in youth and I was a youth leader. We started talking and I told him that I was still working with youth and he started telling me what he was doing that he thought was wrong. Then his older brother came over and joined the conversation.

They both explained to me that if they were to die today they would go to Hell. Not because they didn't believe in God, not because they hadn't accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior...no they were going to Hell because of the sins they were committing right now. The older brother said he couldn't change. He said he could be good for a year or two but then he would get right back into the same stuff he was doing right now and there was no hope for him to change. It was who he was.

These guys knew scripture. They were quoting it to me, but they didn't have the relationship with God that someone with as much knowledge as they posses should have. They started asking the question, "If God knows what choices we are going to make, then why would He create the people who were going to choose to go to Hell?" The older brother said, if you create something and you already know what it will do then it isn't a choice. He also said that two opposites aren't a choice. I told them that God said that He placed before them blessing and cursing, life and death, therefore choose life...they didn't know what to say to that. I brought up that they can change their actions if they renew their minds with the Word and started working on their thoughts. They didn't really know what to say to that. Right before I had to leave one of them said well look around at this room. At least one person here will choose to go to Hell. Why would God create them? I answered with another question: Why don't you go to that person and show them that they have another choice and help them not choose Hell. I left them with a statement, I told them that they know enough to be dangerous to themselves and they need to make some choices. I said that I am here for them and I will help them if they want to talk to me but these are choices that they will have to make. I gave them my email and my full name on a piece of paper and then I left.

I never tried to condemn them for what they were doing although I did say that they were not making the right choices, but I tried to give them hope that they could change with God's help and I would do whatever I could do to help them too. The problem I was running into with them was that they know the truth. They know how they should be living and they are making a choice not to live that way. Walking away from them was one of the hardest things I have done because they both feel so hopeless. I don't know if I made a difference but I tried. In the 30 minutes that our lives crossed paths I tried to make a difference. They are both in my prayers and I am believing for a happy ending to this story...but they have choices to make.

The one thing that this does is show just how important it is to work with youth. The younger brother got "sent home" from a Valentines banquet because he was drunk and was hitting on all the girls. No one who was close to him at that time was able to show him or help him make different choices. He is still making the same mistakes he made when he was 16 and right now he doesn't see how he can make any other choices. You can help those around you see God's love and see that there is a better way. Please make the effort to touch the lives that you have a chance to touch.

Here is what I think...

2008-11-03T18:38:00.004-06:00

People won't really read a blog post that is too long. If it was a book, that would be one thing. This is not a book, so I need to keep my posts shorter if I want them to have any kind of impact. Our attention span is getting shorter and shorter. I really enjoy writing about the subject of Love so my last post got a LOT longer than I originally intended.

So what am I going to write about right now? That is a fantastic question. I know I should be sleeping and not writing. I have been awake for 42 of the last 48 hours and I work again tonight. I don't have to be at work for 5 hours so hopefully I will go to sleep eventually. I tried to lay down after work but I just laid here thinking about writing something. So I got up and ate something and now I will write for a minute and then hopefully get some sleep before work. If I don't get any sleep I will be alright, it will just make tomorrow a rough day.

Today I was pretty awake until the last hour or so that I was at work. I did have a bit of help in the form of Starbucks but still I was wide awake and fairly productive. Tomorrow is going to need to be a productive day as well. We have to set up our booth for the Men's Conference that is starting on Thursday. Also today I was asked to work John Bevere's book table on Thursday. I accepted and I think it will be fun. I met the people he had work his book table at one of the book conventions that we both attended and they were very nice.

One thing I have noticed to this point when writing on this blog, other people seem to go through a lot of the same things that I go through. That being the case I am going to write a very short section on why it has taken me a week to apply for two part time jobs I found online. I have had a bit of trouble getting myself motivated to apply for some freelance writing jobs and I am not sure exactly what my problem was but I think I got it all worked out. I know that if I get either one of the two jobs that I am applying for I will eventually stop my night job. Kekoa was aware that I would not be doing this job forever and I will make sure that I give him plenty of warning when it is time for me to quit.

So what is my problem in getting motivated to actually apply for these jobs? Well the main reason is that I don't consider myself to be a very accomplished writer at this point. This is because so far I have only taken one English Comp. class in college. I don't like to do things unless I am good at them already, so there are time when I will not do something because I don't want to have to learn how to do it. If it comes naturally that is one thing but if it takes more time...truthfully I have historically gone with something else. That is something that I saw in myself years ago and I have tried improve on my attitude when it comes to learning things that take me more time to master.

I saw I was dragging my feet so last night I applied for the first job and as soon as I am done with this post I am going to go apply for the second job. I have to write a short essay on one of four topics that they give you to choose from. I am going to write about sightseeing in Tulsa. I will make sure to let you know how it goes.

Love...then and now...

2008-11-01T23:26:00.002-05:00

"Paint the world with your thoughts. Love with the heart of a child." -Unknown

I ran across this quote on a friends livejournal page earlier this evening and it made me start thinking. Well to say it made me "start" thinking would not be a true statement. I have been thinking about love for a while now. There are lots of reasons I have been thinking about it but the one I am going to talk about is because one of my close friends brought up the subject about a week ago.

She sent me a text in the middle of the night. I had been working that night and I didn't set my alarm right (on the replacement phone that I received) so I woke up late. I woke up to 20+ text messages and several missed phone calls. Since most of the messages were simply people asking where I was or if I was awake yet I just deleted all of my unread messages. The problem with this was that I didn't really read her message or check when it was sent. She sent a message and said she needed to explain her text from the night before...I was confused but said that we should talk. When we talked I found out that her message had said a few things and one of them was it contained the phrase, "I love you". She was freaked out and didn't want me to take it wrong. We are friends but we will never be more than friends. That is a mutual feeling and there is no problem with that on either side. She was worried that I would take it wrong since that word is not thrown around very much here in Tulsa between friends of the opposite sex.

So since then I have been thinking about love and what I think love really means. I remembered that I had once written a blog about it on myspace, so I re-posted it tonight. That was my feelings on love in 2006 and I wanted to see how much it has changed in the past two years. Since I wrote that post I have told a woman I was dating that I loved her (I don't say that very often...one reason is that I don't date very often...but still the number of women I have said "I love you" to while I was dating them is only 5), I read The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis and I have started to write a second book on the subject of Love (my first book was lost when I left NY in 2000).

I think I need to say something right here, I tell people I love them. Most of the time it is friends and family that I say it to. The reason I don't say it to a lot of women is because I know what love means to me. There is no one who I have told "I Love You" that I don't love today. Some people don't really understand that and they don't believe me, but hopefully when I am done with this post you will at least understand what I mean by that.

My definition of the word "Love" in my previous post is one that I still believe. Love is a decision based on your character for the selfless promotion of someone or something. C.S. Lewis, in his book The Four Loves, breaks down love into...you guessed it!!! 4 catagories. I know he is a much smarter man than I am so I could take some of his points and mix them into this post...but I won't. We are going to stick with the single definition and show you how I can say I still love everyone who I have ever said "I Love You" to.

If love is truly a decision and it is based on my character, then it stands to reason that I have a choice when it comes to who I love and who I don't love. I have had people tell me that they had no choice, that love just happens. I don't agree and the fact that I don't agree with that statement is usually where people tune out of the rest of my blog because all they are thinking about is the fact that you can't choose who you love!

I know that there are feelings attached to love. I also know that many people feel that affection and love are the same thing. I don't agree. The butterflies you get in your stomach, the feeling of floating on a cloud when you're around that special someone, the fact that you enjoy everything about them...all of those things can fade. You can't always choose who you are attracted to and you can't "make" yourself have feelings for someone, but you can choose who you love. I had a friend in school that I thought would be perfect to date...except I didn't have any of those feelings I listed above. She was attractive but I wasn't attracted to her. We never dated and lost touch after I graduated. I saw her again last year and I was still not attracted to her. So if you think that "love" is the feeling that you get when you meet that someone special then I agree, you can't choose who you love.

The problem with using love and affection as the same thing is that your feelings change. I didn't say your feelings "CAN" change, I said your feelings change. Love on the other hand does not have to change. I still love people who have hurt me more than anyone else in the world. I wouldn't want to spend all my time with them, I don't get butterflies in my stomach when I think about them, but I do love them. I would be there for them today if they said they needed me. Loving them was not based on what they made me feel. It was a decision that I made that I don't take lightly.

Many people say they love someone else because of how that person makes them feel. If that is how you know you love someone then once again I say you don't love them. You love yourself and you love how they make YOU feel. Love, at least in my opinion, is not concerned with how you feel but rather how the other person feels.

I made the statement the other day that divorce happens because one side or usually both sides are being selfish. That is not love...and it results in a failed marriage. You can say, now they slit up for other reasons than that, it wasn't because they were selfish! I beg to differ. If one of them cheated on the other, that person was being selfish. If they broke up because someone was lying about something, they were being selfish. You don't lie about things unless you are being selfish. It doesn't spare the other persons feelings when you lie, it spares you having to deal with the consequences of the statement. There are lots of reasons for a marriage to split up but being selfish is at the root of all of them that I have run in to so far. What does that have to do with my post on love? Everything! If you truly love that person then you will put their needs, their desires and their feelings above your own. That sounds a lot like the selfless promotion of someone...which is half of my definition for love.

There is a lot more to say...but I don't think I am going to write any more right now. Maybe another time I will go into this a bit deeper. For now I want you to think about something for me. Look at your life and those people that are in it your life right now. What are you doing to make their lives better. What are the little things that will bring a bit of joy into their life. Whatever those things are that you can think of...do them. Do them as often as you can. People matter and how we treat them matters. I didn't bring God into this post yet but remember that we have instructions to love your neighbor as yourself. If we all made a conscious effort to do that every day the world we live in would be a better place.

A repost from my myspace blog on Love...

2008-11-01T23:05:00.002-05:00

"A little while ago I asked about 200 different people on MySpace what they thought love was. I asked "What is Love to You?"

Many people felt this was a very difficult question and some said they couldn't answer it. Others told me that it would take some time and they would get back to me. Still more threw out cliche things like it is that warm feeling you get inside whenever you think of a certain someone or butterflies or never having to say you're sorry. The list goes on and on. I did have a lot of good responses by people who actually took time to see what love really is to them. Those were the responses that I enjoyed the most.

The reason I enjoyed them is the reason I love to watch and learn about people, they were so different! I can not say that they were wrong because my question was what is love to YOU! Not what is "Love" to me or what do you think I want to hear about what "Love" is. I want to know what you think "Love" is and that is exactly what I found out. I found out that most people don't agree on what "Love" is.

I am of the opinion that one of the major problems we have with people today is that they don't see "Love" the same as the person that they say they are in "Love" with. If you aren't talking about the same thing then you won't show it the same way! I'm not talking about the love languages I am simply saying that they don't agree on what "Love" is and what it means to be in "Love".

I have been asked what I think the definition of "Love" is. Here is the Reader's Digest version of what I think "Love" is.

I will start off by saying that there are different kinds of love and yet they will all have the same root meaning. I love the Dodgers, my Parents and Arnold Palmer's. If you really know me then you know it is true that I love all three of these things. Now if love to me was a feeling that I get in my stomach, or never having to say I am sorry or any of the cliche things that people say love is then how could that apply to both my favorite beverage and my parents?

The answer to that is that it can't. My definition "Love" is as follows:

Love is a Decision Based on Your Character for the Selfless Promotion of Someone or Something.

Now what does that mean to me? You can choose who and what you love. You can choose if you want to stay "in love" with it. Let's start out with things that aren't people. I have been a Dodger fan for most of my life. They have had some good teams and they have had some bad teams. That doesn't affect if I am a Dodger fan or not. My love for the Dodgers is not based on what they do. None of the players know me and so my opinion of them is not a top priority and does not affect how they play and yet I will root for them in a room full of Yankee fans. My cheering for a team that no one else is cheering for doesn't profit me anything. It does however promote the team I am cheering for. That goes along with my definition that love is a decision based on my character for the selfless promotion of someone or something.

Now it is time we looked at the "Love" we have for that special someone. I have had people tell me that love is that feeling they get when they are around their significant other. Those same people lose that feeling after a little while and they have fallen out of love. I simply don't agree with that. Everyone I have loved in my life I still love. That does not mean that I want to be around them all the time or that I have the same "feelings" for them that I once had. My feelings don't dictate who I love. I love my family. We don't always get along and we don't always see eye to eye. The warm fuzzy feelings are not always there but I still love them. My love for them is not based on what they do or say it is based on a decision. That decision is based on your character as well. People who say one thing and yet you know there word means nothing because they are not people of character, those are the people who will love you one minute and hate you the next. They won't stand by the decision they made.

Also love is the selfless promotion of someone or something else. If you love someone because of how they make you feel then you don't love them. You love yourself and what they can do for you! When your feelings stop your love for them stops. That is not loving them it is loving yourself. Love says that I don't care if it benefits me at all, I will stand by you and be behind you. That is loving someone else and not yourself.

Too often people get caught up in what makes them feel good. Life is not all about making yourself feel good. If you are out for your own pleasure than you will always be seeking something more than you have. Looking for that person or that thing that will make you complete. This will prove to be an empty pursuit and will always leave you wanting.

That is simply my opinion. You may agree or disagree, that is up to you. I am not here to tell you how or what to think, I just hope that you do. Think about what you are doing before you do it. Your choices matter."

-my Myspace blog from July 18, 2006

I don't know what just happened...

2008-10-31T15:55:00.002-05:00

It is AMAZING how one comment can change your whole day! I was talking with a friend and one comment, that I know was not meant to mean anything, really brought me down. The comment fit in the conversation and was not mean or anything like that.

I don't enjoy the fact that anyone else can control my emotions like that...even when they didn't mean to do it at all! I know that people will say, because it is the first thing I thought when I stopped to look at my situation, "The Joy of the Lord is Your Strength Michael"...and I am not saying that I don't agree with this statement. I don't draw my joy in life from other people or what they think of me. That has never really been something that I struggled with, so why right now has my whole afternoon gone down hill in a matter of minutes?

I am not asking this question so that someone will answer it, I am asking it so that I can answer it. We all have different reasons for why things affect us the way that they do. I am trying to learn myself and why I react the way that I react.

I really think that me being tired has something to do with my reaction. When I am tired I get more emotional and worked last night, so that is part of it I am sure. There is still something else that bothers me. Being tired simply magnifies the feelings that I can normally keep in check. That being the case, this is an emotional response that would have been there no matter what. I just would have been able to suppress it if I had been getting more rest.

I am not a fan of being controlled by anyone. Work is one thing and I can submit but when you can get me to do something either against my will or out of character simply because I "reacted" to whatever you did, that upsets me. I need to spend some time praying...and sleeping tonight.

Well I just needed to get that out and now I won't have to think about it for a few hours. I have time to figure it out and I can put on a happy face for the evening until I do. :)

I just found out...

2008-10-30T17:52:00.000-05:00

That a friend of mine from High School passed away last month from cancer. I knew he had been battling cancer for several years and after four years of fighting he passed away.

I lost touch with him after he graduated (95). I am sure he doesn't know the impact he had on my years in high school or the fact that I still tell stories about him on the football field.

When I showed up as a soph. he was a senior and there was no reason he needed to pay any attention to me. He did, he helped me with football and he accepted me as a friend. We didn't "hang out" off of the field but he would always say hi when I saw him.

I didn't have any bad experiences or any fights with him that were left unresolved...but I wish I had been able to tell him what he meant to me. I know it didn't cost him anything to be nice to me but when you don't know anyone else...it really matters. He impacted my life and for the short time I knew him I will always be grateful.

Next time you see someone who went out of their way to be nice to you when you really needed it, say thank you. On the other side, remember that a smile can change a life.

Today has been interesting so far...

2008-10-30T16:10:00.002-05:00

I am not sure what to expect tonight. I work my second job tonight, which I have never done on a Thursday. Also this is my second night as the "lead" person. At my night job we have a lead person and a support person. I am the lead person again tonight. The first time I was the lead person was on Tuesday and we set off the smoke alarm and I burned my hand. Also the job took longer than either of us wanted it to take.

Now I have that coming up and work today has been strange. Dealing with things that have never really happened before. No huge issues just a bunch of strange small things. Also it is the last day that Josh's Sno-cone Shack is open for the year, so that is a bit sad.

I don't know, I have a lot floating around in my head right now that I don't think I am going to write out. Not because it would be bad...but because I feel like I can control things in my life better when I keep my thoughts to myself. If I let you see what I am thinking about then you have the ability to change something in my life. I never considered myself a control freak but recently I have seen that there are areas where I don't like to share control.

At work I have no problem doing exactly what someone asks me to do. If what they ask me to do is to think for myself I will do that but if they need someone to follow orders I will do that as well. I have been volunteering for the same youth pastor for 6 years now and I will do whatever he asks me to do when it comes to church. I am out to take his vision and make it a reality.

The issues that I am having a hard time with in myself are the "small" things that I don't talk about. My emotions, my feelings about situations, my views on people or events...the list goes on and on. I just don't let people know what is going on in my head very often. I know it is a control issue and I am still struggling to find out where and when I picked it up. I am trying to be more transparent, all you need to do is read my last post and you will see that. I had a really hard time leaving that post online...and I still haven't double posted it on my facebook. Almost all of my posts are double posted because most of my friends have a facebook and won't come over to my blog. This is a safer place for me to blog about things that I really am not sure I want to share. Like Bob (Bill Murray) said, "Baby steps..."

All that being said, I am not going to write about the 4 or 5 things running through my head right now. I am just going to leave them there for now and maybe one day I will be ready to share some more.

Wow...

2008-10-29T23:00:00.000-05:00

I haven't had this feeling in years...literally years. I was looking at the "status" section on my Blackberry facebook application. I read one status that said one of my friends was reading his daughter a book until she fell asleep and he wished it never would have ended.

Most people who know me very well are aware that I was married and am now divorced. It doesn't come up much in conversation anymore, mainly because it has been over 8 years since we both signed the papers. The thing that I want to do eventually is to have a family of my own. My parents (who are now divorced) were always there for me when I was growing up. I never had a babysitter or went to daycare. My Mom didn't start working until I was in Jr. High so she was there for us as we grew up. One of my parents was at ALL my sporting events and that is a pretty big deal. Especially since I played three sports a year and I have two brothers who did the same thing. They laid down their lives for us and in turn I have amazing family memories from my childhood.

I see my older brother and his wife doing that for my two nephews. She is a stay at home Mom and they are doing a lot already to create memories for the "J Team". I admire what they are doing so much. I just haven't had a night like tonight in a long time, a night when I ask the question, "When is it my turn?"

I know that I have time. I know that my past choices and actions have extended my time-line farther than expected and I am happy with where I am in my life. Maybe it is because I am tired, maybe it is because I heard today that my Aunt had surgery to remove some cancerous tissue from her breast...whatever the reason the thoughts are there. I have to believe that God knows what He is doing. I have to believe that when the time is right and I am ready I will be able to start a family.

I don't like to open up this much but I am lonely. Not lonely because I don't have people around me. Not lonely because I don't have people I can talk to either because I have a couple close friends who I know I can open up to about anything going on in my life. I guess I am lonely because I don't have someone to spoil, someone to leave notes for that only she will find. Someone to bring gifts home to, someone that makes me want to do whatever I need to do just to see her smile.

Well...I am not sure that I am going to keep this post up. I guess we will see how I am feeling when I wake up tomorrow. This is more of me on a page than I am used to posting...this is just enough information about what goes on in my mind to be dangerous. :)

I didn't get my poem back...

2008-10-25T16:27:00.002-05:00

My phone died...and I was not able to get any of the information off of it before I sent it back. Sad times for me. I am going to try to write some more next week. Time will tell if I can work it out. This is going to be a strange week because I am working Monday, Tuesday and Thursday night. My second job is starting to take it's toll on me, I will keep doing it at least for a couple of months.

I think I need to clarify something...

2008-10-21T08:42:00.002-05:00

I cross-posted this on facebook and some people got really upset about it. Just for the record, there is an order in my commitment. It goes:

1. God
2. Family
3. Ministry

It wasn't trying to say (and neither was Dwight) that his wife should come after his ministry. In leaving God and Ministry behind she would be walking away from him.

It felt like he was talking just to me...

2008-10-18T23:50:00.002-05:00

This weekend is Rhema's Sr. High Fall Retreat. I am a Jr. High leader at Rhema but I go to most of the Sr. High events as well. I used to help with the Sr. High so it works. I got to go up to the ranch last night and be part of one service.

The speaker this year is Dwight Kilborn. I had only heard him speak once before and I really enjoyed it so I went in expecting a good service. What I got was so much more than I thought I was going to get!

I doubt that I will be able to portray exactly what it was that I got out of the service. There were at least two completely different directions that I will have to go to completely explain it. I am going back and forth on which one I need to write about first.

Well I started this post almost a half hour ago and you can see how far I am so far. I am delaying putting my thoughts into words and I am not exactly sure why. I am not sure if anyone has this but most of my writing is for me as much as it is for anyone else. If you take the time to read it then I want it to push you towards a decision or at least make you think about something...but usually I am writing it so that I will think about whatever that subject is. The problem tonight is that my mind is not slowing down long enough for me to get a focused thought typed out. Well here we go...we will all see how this turns out together.

So this message from Dwight was amazing! He started it off with a video clip from Ironman. Since I really enjoyed that movie I got hooked early. He used the quote where Ironman (Tony Stark) tells Yinsen thank you for saving his life and with his dying breath Yinses says, "Don't waste it. Don't waste your life, Stark."

From there Dwight went on to tell about how he re-committed his life to God and accepted the call to the ministry. He made several statements that shook me all the way to the core. They were about different things and I will only write about one tonight. He said that he got in trouble for saying this before, but he was going to say it again because it is true. As much as he loves his wife, and she would never do this, if she said that if she came up to him and said she was done with God and the ministry, that would be the last time he ever saw her. That is commitment that you don't see every day.

That statement shook me up for several reasons, but only one of them is going to make it into this post. He said that he was willing to give up ANYTHING for God. Now there are a lot of people who say that they commit to things. Dwight is someone who actually does commit!

Why would this shake me up the way it did? He was talking about the fact that to get into God's plan for your life you are going to have to give up some things in your life. You will have to choose to cut out some things, end relationships, focus on your relationship with God, listen to what He tells you and actually DO what He told you to do.

Again, this does not really sound like a profound statement. Well first off, I don't really like to end relationships with anyone. There was a time in my life when this was easier for me but right now I feel that relationships are one of the most important things that there is in this life. I know that there are times when we need to end relationships...but I was thinking about my closest relationships that I currently have (outside of people who are related to me). What would I do if I needed to lay one of those relationships down in order to fulfill what God has called me to do? Would I be able to do it? Could I make that choice today? I want to say yes and yet I can think of at least two people that I would have a REALLY hard time saying goodbye to right now. Even if I knew it was the right thing to do.

The next thing that I was thinking about was the actually doing what you heard God say part. I have a couple things that I KNOW I am supposed to do/be doing now. One of them takes time, a lot of time. It is something that I have been kind of doing for a while but I have not focused on it the way I know I need to.

It is time for me to re-focus my everyday life. My down time will be used more effectively. We only get one time around and I am not going to let my one time pass by without doing what I was made to do. My choices every day need to be filtered by this question: Is this getting me closer to my goals? Will this choice take me to where I need to be or will this be a step to the side that will move me out of the path that God set up for me to follow?

My question to you is simple: What are you supposed to do? If you don't know, find out. Ask God, He will tell you. If you do know, are you doing what He told you to do or are you preparing yourself for the time when you can walk out His plan?

No one can tell you what you should do. Just make the choice that you won't settle for what someone else thinks you need to be doing. God is the one who made you and sent Jesus to save you, He will let you know what you need to be doing with the life He gave you.

So I wrote a poem the other day...

2008-10-18T18:49:00.002-05:00

It came to me while I was waking up...so I wrote it in the "note" section of my phone. Then a few hours later my phone died. It was the first one I have written in almost 10 years that I even kind of liked. Now I have to hope that I can get the software to download all my notes from that phone before I send it back to Blackberry next week.

Sad times...I guess we will see if I decide to write any more. Time will tell. I think I am going to go to either a movie or a corn maze tonight. Hopefully when I am done I will write some more. I have a lot left unsaid right now.

What really matters...

2008-10-14T09:37:00.004-05:00

I am going to try to make this post pretty short. I had a long post about all the different things that have happened to me since Friday when I got off work. I have had an interesting few days. Some of it actually is worth talking about so this morning during my break I started writing. There was going to be a play-by-play breakdown of what I went through and how it made me feel.

Well instead of going to lunch today I went to Starbucks with my friend Teri . We sat there and talked about a wide range of subjects and I left feeling better than I did when I arrived (last night I got home from work at 5:30am and slept for only 2 hours before getting up again to come to work). Now it is the afternoon break and I was going to finish the post I had started this morning. When I sat down to write I started thinking about all the things that had happened to me. I came to the conclusion that I only had one thing that happened in my life in the past few days that really mattered...and it was simply a story that Teri told me!

Sunday morning during a food and fellowship time at Synergy School of the Bible (Sunday School) Teri told me a story/testimony. It started out like most stories, I got some background on what she was doing and what time the event happened. Basically she stepped out of her comfort zone and during a bbq led her friend in the sinners prayer. There is now one more person who professes Jesus Christ as Lord of their life because Teri stepped out when it wasn't comfortable!

Now keep in mind that this didn't happen overnight. I Teri live a life that was a witness to her friend. She was there for her and helped her when she needed help. Many people say they will be there for you, but when you make a mistake...where are they? Teri was right there next to her to hold her up when she couldn't stand on her own. Her previous actions gave her the right to speak into her friends life. If Teri had condemned her for doing things that someone who doesn't know Christ would do then she would not have had the opportunity to be there when she was ready to give her life to Jesus!

Sinners sin...that is what they do! They have no reason to do anything else and as a Christian it isn't your job to come up to them and tell them all that they are doing wrong. Teri showed God's love through her actions and her lifestyle. Teri was the one who got the call when she was in trouble and needed somewhere to sleep. If you will walk in love and build relationships with the people around you than you are doing your part. The reason that we don't go straight to heaven the moment we get saved is not so that we can go out and get the "wealth of the wicked" that has been stored up for us (the righteous)! It isn't so that we can get lots of stuff or live easy lives basking in the blessings of God. The reason we are here still isn't even so we can go to church and have a wonderful Holy Ghost time praising God and thanking Him for His goodness.

The reason we are still on this planet after we confess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior is: TO GO GET PEOPLE SAVED!

That is our mission, that is our mandate, that is our calling! Every Christian has this calling, no matter if you feel you are supposed to be in the "ministry" or not! That is the only answer, anything else that you do is just icing on the cake. I know that God wants to bless us and we have things available to us because of our covenant with God...but we are supposed to be blessed to be a blessing.

The goal of this post was to give you something to think about. I have heard time and time again that "preparation time is never wasted time". Just because you don't feel like you are doing what you are ultimately going to do, take the opportunities that come your way to touch your world. We all have goals, or at least we should. God gave us different abilities and different talents. That means one thing to me, you can reach people I can't reach. You will come into contact with people that I may never see. I will talk to people that you will never talk to simply because of the dreams that God gave me. Simply use the chances that you have to show God's love to someone today. We have opportunities every day, how many times to we walk by our chance to speak into someones life because we were focused on the our own life? Just think about it...that is all I ask.

Perspective...

2008-10-02T19:10:00.002-05:00

I am still house sitting, so I am not in the comforts of my own home tonight. I just sat down a few minutes ago and I knew that tonight I was going to write something. I was not sure what my topic would be or how long it would take but I knew I needed to write.

Today I had a rough day. Not because anything major happened and not for any reason that I can specifically name. I just had a bad day. I got off work and I felt like either breaking down in tears (which has not happened in many years) or just driving out of town. I don't have any idea what my problem was or why I felt this way but the fact still remains I was not in a good mood.

I sat down on the couch and turned on my computer. Then I opened up my blog to write, but I thought I would check on my friends blog first. She posted a new entry that I had not seen so I read. It changed my perspective on my day and helped me break out of my funk.

I needed to remember where my joy comes from. The joy of the Lord is my strength! Also there was something else I needed to be reminded of, there are more important things in this world than my day at work. People are what matters. There is a lost and dying world that needs to know that Jesus is the answer that they are looking for. It is all about perspective. Some times we start to let our everyday life take the place that should be filled by eternal perspective. In the words of John Bevere, we need to be "Driven By Eternity."

From my phone...

2008-09-25T23:25:00.000-05:00

In someone elses house...that is where I am writing this post. I am house sitting for a friend who is on vacation this week.

I was laying here trying to write and my mind started to wander, as it does late at night. I started to think about how different life looks late at night. When it is dark and quiet, things that mattered before don't seem as important. At least in my life I have a different perspective late at night.

Earlier today I was sitting in my living room with my Dad watching reporters talk about the Presidential election that is coming up. They were discissing the meetings that went on today in regards to the economic bailout plan that is on the table right now. As most of my friends know, I am pretty fed up with politics in general right now. At the time I was kind of interested in what they were saying, at least for a minute. Then the republicans were talking about the democrats and the democrats were talking about the republicans and they were both saying the other one was lying. Now they are saying that there probably won't be any agreement made, at least not for a while.

My opinion during the day was to get upset at them all. They are acting like kids and it was annoying me. Now that I have had time to think about it my opinion has changed.

I think that they were acting like adults. We say that people are acting like kids...but what are kids acting like? They just act like smaller versions of their parents most of the time. We tell kids to share and yet we won't give the person in line at the gas station a quarter, even when we see them searching through their pockets. Why don't we give them a quarter? Well if I give them a quarter then I would have to use my checkcard to buy my coffee instead of paying cash and I don't want to do that.

We don't really change as we get older most of the time, we are just more diplomatic about things. We don't scream and cry as much, but we do still work out ways to get what we want. I try to make it a point to put what other people need before my own wants. I was thinking about why I do that and I came to one conclusion. I blame my parents. They are the ones who showed me how to treat other people. I know we are all "told" how to treat people, but I saw what I heard put into action. Whenever someone needed a place to stay, they opened up their home. My parents worked opposite shifts while going to school so that one of them was always at home with us. They sacrificed a lot to be at all of our sporting events. Our needs were always put before their needs.

Since we had good role models, all three of us boys have turned out to be above average when it comes to giving. We do things that most peopke don't understand. We give when it isn't expected and we don't ask for anything in return.

What would happen if more people started being nice and thinking about others needs first? What would happen if you were that role model for someone else? You may not think people are watching, but they are. We can change the world around us, even if it is just one person. Do something nice for someone today. Not because you want something, just because it is the right thing to do.

Mixed emotions

2008-09-25T09:21:00.002-05:00

Why have I been so scattered lately? It has been almost 2 weeks since I have been able to compose my thoughts into any sort of order. I know that it stems from the untimely death of Mitch Morrison and seeing how it affected so many people.

The issue that I am having is one of perspective. This is a similar issue to the one that I had when I came back from my missions trip to India. People (including me sometimes) put so much value on things that don't matter. We all get upset and stressed out about things that will pass and next week won't even be an issue. In some cases you won't even remember what was so important! We will blow people off to go see a movie that will be playing in the theater for a month and probably is not going to be worth your $8.50.

I am having trouble putting value on the little things in life that don't have to do with relationships and people. That is what is important. Family, friends and even the people who you don't know but that you can make a difference in their lives.

It is obvious to me that most people do not have the same opinion as I do about what really matters in life. A lot of them will say that they agree but their actions speak louder than their words. If your focus is on yourself and your happiness then your life will always be shallow. You will always be struggling to find the next thing to make you smile.

If you focus is on other people then you can smile with others. You are happy for their success and you will never need to go out and try to find yourself. I believe that we are not here on earth for ourselves. We are here for others and that is where I will keep most of my energy focused.

"You Can Only Get What You Want, If You Help Enough Other People Get What They Want" -Zig Ziglar