Just a note of encouragement

Have you ever felt like nobody cared or that the things of life are way too hard? Maybe you feel like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders and there's no help in sight.

Well, I am facing that reality right now. It's one of those times that I need to tighten my boot straps and start practicing the Word and making it come alive in my heart. Here I am a minister and yet I'm facing discouragement...haha..Not so funny is it?

From my last blog you remember that a lot of doors were shut in my face. I mean one after another, after another..and so on. Today was no different. I called several churches who were looking for a Sr. Pastor to see if I could come and bless them until they found their man. One denomination who I had thought was Pentecostal, told me that they had miss givings about me because I was Charasmatic...That means I Believe the Bible and that I am a Spirit-filled believer.

I understood what they meant and thanked them anyways for their consideration. The fun stuff came when I got off the phone and all these doubts started to flood my mind and and possibly creep into my heart. When you're faced with circumstances that don't stop, it's really easy to give up. So many ministers have quit the ministry because of hard times and other issues. But when the hard times come, don't give up!!! Press in to God and allow His grace, peace and mercy to flood you.

Right now I should be exercising, but I needed to get this out before I put it off and forgot about it. I mean Scripture after Scripture kept rising up from within my heart penetrating my mind into siding with God. I choose to believe God no matter what!! Even though things appear bad and hopeless, I know that my breakthrough is on the horizon. I just need to stay in an attitude of Joy and faith. Joy unspeakable and full of GLORY!! hahaha..hehehe..Heyyyyy!!!

Psalm 43:5 Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; FOR I SHALL YET PRAISE HIM, the help of my countenance and my God.

Psalm 34:1 I will BLESS the Lord at all times; His praise shall CONTINUALLY be in my mouth.
- Just read this entire Psalm

Psalm 103:1-5 Psalm 118:24

Psalm 112:6-8 Phil 4:4-8

Psalm 126:1-3

Updates and other such fluff

As of late, it seems as if I've fallen off the wagon when it comes to blogging. Could it be that blogging really isn't my thing? Maybe it could be the fact that I have nothing relevant to say or that I just don't care to blog anymore. Well, I think that it may just be a combination of everything.

Blogging really isn't an outlet for me to share my deepest thoughts, ideas and whatnot. Many people have volumes of diaries where they share everything that has happened...Today I had waffles for breakfast.....BIG DEAL!! LOL

But seriously though maybe I should start blogging ones a week or a month just to keep people abreast of what is happening in my world. So much has happened in this first quarter of the year that I'm not sure if I could fit everything in. What do I talk about? What do you want to know or even care to know? Whatever it is then I'll try and summarize my life for you and what makes me tick.

As you all know, I'm a 28 years old traveling evangelist with and unshakable confidence in God. Following Him step by step and obeying His voice is something I take very seriously. Have I been perfect in following His plan for my life? Not really...but I do know that if I do miss it, I can repent and start over at the point where I fouled up and start afresh there.

As I said earlier, this year has been pretty interesting for starters as you very well know, the economy tanked in the Babylonian System. This shouldn't affect the Believer, but it has because people got all freaky over it and fear set in. Giving in most churches has dropped and in some places stopped all together. Churches have closed because they couldn't afford to keep the doors open. This isn't a bad confession, but a statement of fact (which by the way can and will change), opportunities for me in the first quarter have pretty much dried up. I was expecting to preach at least 3-4 times each month and yet so far I only preached 3 times. I preached only a quarter of what I was believing for. Did I miss it somewhere? In some areas yes, but none of those had anything to do with me not preaching. There is a devil out there and he doesn't want the Gospel of the Kingdom to go anywhere....A lot of the places I was supposed to go or called all told me the same thing, "Sorry brother, our economy is bad. We can't afford to have anyone" Oh, really?!!!

In my humblest opinion, you can't afford not to have anyone. During difficult times is when people need to be encouraged the most. When people are at the bottom of the barrel, they need some good news in their lives. I have that Good News because I have Jesus...So anyway, sorry about getting on my soapbox there, if you'd like me to elaborate more, just ask...I'm like Kenneth Copeland when it comes to stuff like this; It makes me so mad that Christians would rather believe the devil's lie, instead of God's Truth, His Word.

Because of this, I've had to fight the Good Fight even harder because with all the negativity that has been surrounding me, finances have been low and I have had to double up on the Word and stay in a positive attitude of faith. Affirmative faith is what I call it..Faith that isn't moved by anything, but God and His Word.

On a brighter note, I have been in an interesting relationship with a Special Someone. I went to Rhema with her back in 2001. She was second year and I was first year. We're about the same age, except I'm a few months older. Our story began several weeks ago when I got a message froom her Pastor to call her. At the time, I wasn't dating anyone or even remotely interested in anyone. I asked him why and told him that I didn't even know her number...Bad move...LOL

He wrote back with a more imperative tone and said, "CALL HER NOW!!" I actually thought that she was in some sort of trouble and I was concerned. I saw her more as a sister and I didn't realize that her Pastor was trying to set us up. So I called and the rest is history. If you want to know more, just ask.....Am I in love? Yessss *blushing and grin* Are there marriage bells in our future? Only time will tell because I do need a helpmate, but I need the one that God has ordained especially for me.

My heart is so full this morning. Full of love for this Special Person in my life, but more importantly that the Lord has been truly good in my life. The Bible says in Proverbs 10:22 that "The Blessing of the Lord it makes one rich, and He adds no sorrow with it." Even when hard ties come, I can still rise up victoriously no matter what. Who cares what people say, what the news media says or even what our government says...MY GOD WILL PUT ME OVER!!!

Lafayette or Bust

Well, it's been a few days since I've been home from my trip to Louisiana and so I think that I should fill you in on what happened during the trip. To be quite honest with you, I was totally psyched about this trip, so much so that it was all I really talked about for days leading up to it.

Gene and I graduated from Rhema together in 2002 and hadn't seen each other or talked to one another in the seven years since graduation. In 2006 I was led by the Holy Spirit to google him. Now I hadn't seen him or even thought of him in all that time; why now? Thank God for the inward witness because after reconnecting with him, we because to just share with one another what was happening in our lives. The good, the bad and even the ugly. One day Gene told me about him and Mary becoming engaged and he asked me to be in his wedding, which I gladly accepted. The story of how Gene and Mary got together is just awesome and if you know Gene, you know that he has a real genuineness about him.

Well, I dislike sap and fluff and so I'll save you that part and just jump into the trip. The trip for me actually began the night before because I had so much trouble sleeping because of the excitement. I finally ended up falling asleep around 1:30 and unfortunately had to get up at 3:30am. That is so depressing having to get up that early. I arrived at Pittsburgh Int'l around 5 to begin my trip my checking in, going through security and the other stuff. This didn't take too long and so I figured that I could have slept in til 4, arrived at the airport at 6 and still had time to spare. After making my connecting flight in Memphis, TN, I arrived in Lafayette, Louisiana around noon. After picking up my car, (Chevy HHR- It was a retro station wagon), I wen to go to my hotel and ended up getting extremely lost and wound up in a bad part of town. After driving around for almost an hour, I found my hotel and checked in.

Lafayette isn't really all that bad as long as your familiar with the main roads. I'm used to the grid system of roads, Lafayette on the other hand, is far from that. The locals told me that a drunk man designed them. This I had to believe. By the end of the trip I knew the roads better than Gene and his family (not really, but I come close to).

I met up with Gene at the Church on Thursday and got to meet his beautiful bride. Mary is just an awesome woman and she'll be a great help to Gene. Really they're a great help to one another. I even got to meet Mary's daughter Liz as well. After hanging at the Church, we wound up at Cracker Barrel for some lunch and to just have some fellowship time. Gene and I had some fun with Liz because she wasn't feeling to hot, she had the sniffles and that just opened the door for us to tease her a little. This was all in good fun.

I do not like to share personal stuff, but I'll just say that my heart really went out to Liz. No in a romantic sort of way, but in a way that she needed someone to just love on her and to just reaffirm her self-worth. I continue to pray for Liz because I know God has some great things in store for her life. I think of Liz as a little sister and really think and speak highly of her. Mary did a great job raising her and her brother Billy.

Friday began like any other day where I went exploring to learn the roads better and to just add miles to the car. I eventually met up with Gene and 2 of his girl's (Misty-16 and Molly-9) to pick up our tuxes and head out to lunch. Gene's girls are just adorable and I count it a huge honor to have met them.

I am skipping around a bit because I want to give each person their own story without making this too long. Tomorrow I will continue to talk about Gene and Mary all they way up until they left Saturday for their honeymoon. Monday I would like to talk about Gene's sister Rachel and her family as well as their parents. I know Rachel will read this and so I'll try and say nice things about her...hahaha..She is a tremendous woman of God and I count it an honor to be a part of her extended family.