Two Stick Figures

Who knew that two stick figures could mean so much. Yesterday, I was visitng a communtiy called Love Canton, which is just a group of people who are madly in love with Jesus, and want to do whatever they can to spread that love to others. At this celebration meeting, Jason, one of the leaders drew two stick figures, and they meant the world, actually they meant more than what the world could ever mean.

What I am about to relay to you. Jason relayed to all of us from a training with 3DM ministries. He drew two stick figures on a white board. In fact, right now, grab a pen and something to write on. Then draw one small stick figure. Then in the left hand of that stick figure draw a little ball. Next draw a much bigger stick figure who is holding on to the right hand of the small stick figure, and then in the right hand of the bigger stick figure draw a sword, and then I want you to circle both hands of the larger stick figure, and just look at the picture and meditate on it for a few seconds, maybe even a few minutes. Just ask God to illuminate to you the truth contained in that picture.

Now here is the truth. You are the small stick figure, the little kid, and the big stick figure is God the Father, or just Dad. Now notice that Dad, Father God, the King of the universe, and Creator of everything is holding your hand, because you are his child, and He never let's go. However, He is not just holding your hand, but He is also holding a sword. He is not holding a sword to punish you, but He is holding a sword because there is an enemy against you whom God will use that sword, so they can never hurt you. Your Dad, who is always holding your hand, will stop at nothing to protect you, and get you where you need to be. Nothing can stand in your way.

This here is the foundational, and probably the most transformational truth in all of Christianity, that is if you allow this truth to take foundation in your heart. This truth, that you are the son/daughter of God, is what allowed Jesus to do what He did, and will allow us to do what we are called to do, and with out this we will most certainly fall and burn out. We need to let God give us revelation into the meaning and power of this statement. I believe this so much so that I do not want to spend more time illuminating it for you. Go talk to Dad. Ask Him to reveal the importance in this truth to you. Ask Him, to reveal the power in this statement. Search the scriptures, see how Jesus was motivated by the knowledge that God was His Dad and was holding a sword. See what it allowed him to do. And look in the only recorded tempation of Christ, see what Satan really attacks. "If you are really the Son of God..." There is so much here for us to learn!

Our place as God's beloved kids is so priceless. The power of this simple statement allows me to trust God completely with my shaky finances, and go into missions, where I am not getting paid, but am living off support, because I know I am holding His hand, and He will protect me at all costs. This statement is what has propelled me to pray for people and see healing. In just the last week I have seen a girl's torn miniscus and ACL healed because she began to understand that God is her Dad, that truth sank into her heart, and she asked for healing and believed it would happen and it did. And it motivated a father to pray for his son who was losing his sight, so that it could be regained, and it was. Now his son can read on his own. No thick glasses. No magnifying glass. Just God. God is our Dad and he wants nothing but the best for us, and will stop and nothing to make sure the best is what we get, even though sometimes we may stop, He never does.

You want to know where the power of the kingdom is, it is here in this simple truth, that has more meaning than we could ever know.

I am so thankful for such an awesome Dad. At the end, of this week, Dad and I will be going hand in hand to Kansas City to reunite with everyone in IWT, and I cannot wait, I miss them all like crazy. I am super excited to get back to work, and see more people grab Dad's hand. So, please pray for travel mercies and the finances to make my way out there and to get settled in.

I just want to end by telling everyone how faithful Dad is. For the last year I have been praying for a new computer to work on, and God just told me He was working on it and to wait. I came home in desperate need of one, so that I could better communicate with everyone, and I was looking anywhere to try and get one. With in a week of being home and talking to my home church they were able to raise the money and buy a brand new laptop for me. Dad, new I needed one, and He motivated his people to provide for me. He is so good! If we will just rest in His arms He will provide the desires of our heart. I love you guys, and I hope this truth will rock you like it has rocked me.

God bless you guys!!!

Going Home

I have been in Cincinnati for close to 5 months, and today I am leaving to go home for about 2 weeks. Then I will head out to Kansas City, to start this new season in life that I am transitioning into. On one hand I am super excited. God has spoken a lot to me about this new season. It will be a season of trial and purification, which at first was intimidating, until He informed me that this will develop a deep intimacy and connection with Him. I will learn to trust, hear, and depend on Him like never before, and this will unlock things in the Kingdom that I can only have dreamed of before. So, when you say it like that, it is really exciting. He has also said this will be a season where I learn to rest and dwell in Him, which seems very paradoxical when it is paired with the other, but maybe that is how you know it is from Him.

This reminds me a lot of Paul and his life. Paul was imprisoned, but full of peace and was able to rest and worship in the presence of God. He was being chased, harassed, people were rioting to stone and kill him, but through this all He learned to trust and rest in God. No trial was big enough from keeping him from having peace and rest in God. I feel this next season will help take me closer to that place, which is super exciting.

However, like any transition, it also is a little nerve wrecking. I have to leave all of the awesome people and relationships that I have made in the last 5 months here, and God has blessed me with meeting some awesome. First and foremost, is my host family which I am going to miss a lot, but at least we got to have an awesome last breakfast together, omelets, pancakes, sausage gravy, buscuits, fruit, and breakfast potatoes. It was awesome. And there are just a lot of uncertainties that lie ahead, but that is what makes life fun and exciting, but at the same time you wonder where certain things will come from. Such as where am I going to live? How am I going to afford that? But the cool thing is that because I know I am right where the Lord wants I do not have to worry about those things. Yes, they are question, but I know they are being taken of, and that God will provide, because He is awesome like that.

So, I am off to Canton. Cannot wait to see my friends and family. It is going to be an awesome two weeks, and then I will be making my way out to Kansas City.

There are a few things that I would love for you to pray for. First, is that God would open up some doors for IWT in the Cleveland/Akron area. I have a few meetings with some key people, and I am hoping God really speaks to them, and gives us the opportunity to spread his Gospel back home. Also, pray for guidance and wisdom for me as I try and reach out to some of my family members who are going through some rough times. We really need God's wisdom and peace. Finally, please pray that I would rest, and spend some quality time being refreshed with Dad, while getting some more vision for what lies ahead.

Love you guys! If there is anything I can being pray for let me know!

The New Horizons

The blind folds have been taken off! There is something different about my life, and the way I am living it. Before, I was so concerned about the things of this world, marriage, finances, etc. I mean they dominated my mind, no matter how hard I tried to get free, so I could focus on Christ, and Christ alone, I was unable.

Then recently something happened. I met these amazing people, and the Lord just radiated off of them. His love for them, and their love for Him, was tangible. It was like I could touch and feel it. God was showing me what He was trying to create in me that type of contagious and tangible love. Then all of a sudden that love in some unexplainable way was transferred into my life. God had definitely planted the seeds for this transformation in my life in the preceding weeks, but when I met them I saw the picture of what I was to become in my own way, and by seeing the picture God made me into that picture. I do not believe the process is over or finished. I still have a long way to go, but a major has definitely taken place in my life.

It was not anything radical in the natural sense. The fireworks did not go off, but everything radically changed, my vision and my motivations became radically different. My spirit had been awakened. I watched everything else fall in comparison to the Kingdom. The Kingdom must advance, and we must take it to those who don't know, so they can take part, so they can feel Love. There is nothing else is nothing else that matters. This our ultimate and primary purpose. Everything else is an extra. A gracious addition from our Father to bless us. That is unless it becomes a block to spreading the Kingdom and knowing Love, and then it is an idol that we must rid ourselves of.

Like I said I do not know what happened that day. I just walked into a room with amazing people following God. They talked to me and listened to my story, and then something just happened. God happened I guess. I am not even quite sure how to explain the change that happened in my body, soul, and spirit, besides my vision and motivations have been altered towards Him. I am sure this shift is more radical and powerful than I can put it to words, and God has just begun to illuminate the shift He caused in my life. What I do know is that I have been made alive, and I do not think there could have been a better time then now.

Why now? Well, my life is changing. I am moving cities, going to new horizons. Leaving Cincinnati and going to Kansas City. Opening a new tour in Minnesota. My life is just moving, but it is more than just moving, it is beginning to pick up speed. Dreams and visions that God has given me are starting to come to fruition. God is beginning to awaken the sleeping giant that is within me! My spirit is starting to pour out and transform those around me, like those peoples spirits poured out and transformed me.

In the past two weeks God has taken me to places and used/allowed me to see people lives engaged by His presence. I have seen a mom watch God heal her two 3 year old twins. I have seen a man receive healing in his back, which awakened him to his call to ministry, which He thought He was not good enough for, and then his entire family lined up for prayers for healing, and they were ALL HEALED. A single mom was given a passion for Jesus and was led back to her church and ultimately to the love of Christ. He has awakened my spirit and it is impossible for me to contain. None of this is because I am good. It is because I asked God to use me to change the world and He was gracious enough to grant my request!

Not to mention in these last few weeks He has led me to key people for my life. My next journal entries will fill in the blanks to this one, but He has given me contacts to Germany. Why Germany, aren't you going to Minnesota next? Yes, I am, but Germany is to come, and these are opening the way for after Minnesota. I will explain more next week. He has led me to people who want me to help create this networking database. Again, what database? It was one that I believe will have power to change to world because of the people it will connect, but again I will explain more in the coming weeks. There is just too much for me to write in this one entry.

The moral of the story. God is good, and He is changing me and wants to change you. He is encountering me and granting me intimacy with Him, and He wants to encounter you. He has given me stories and He wants to give you stories. He wants to take off your blind folds like He has taken off mine. He wants to show you the Kingdom like never before, but you must be ready for life to be like never before, because there is no going back, but it is awesome that is how it is!

I love you guys. Please pray for me in this next month of transition which is full of potential. I am closing up Cincinnati with the rest of the team. We just closed our office this past Tuesday. Then I will be traveling home to spend time with family, spread the vision of IWT back home, and try and gain partners and financial support, so I can continue with my work. Then I will head to Kansas City at the end of the month, to reunite with all of the IWT staff out there, and my boys/best friends, Ian and Andrew, who I miss very much. They are my brothers. After that it looks like Minnesota, just in time for the snow, to open a new tour which I am pumped about, for a variety of reasons that I will share with you more later. In addition, to all of that there are side projects that God has me working on, and they are growing by leaps and bounds that I cannot wait to share with you as God brings them into fruition.

I pray blessing and grace over all of you, and that God's provision and love would be abundant in your life! God bless!