I don't know what just happened...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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."