So, after an extended hiatus, I have posted yet again. A lot has happened…I lost my job in September, Praise the Lord!, my wife and I had our 4th child in October, Praise the Lord!, I got a staph infection in my leg in December, Praise the Lord!, and now I am working in a warehouse in Marietta, Praise the Lord!

I am in the midst of transition you might say. One thing is for sure, God is good and His provision is more than abundant. I may not have as many earthly treasures as I once did, but I feel snug in His Hands right now.

“I feel happy!”  That’s for you Monty Python fans out there.

I am still here…been busy with family stuff and such.  I have been wrestling with some things for a couple of weeks and I have come to the conclusion that God is good.  I am not just saying that, I mean He really is phenomenally awesome…the fact that He loves me and chooses to use me, despite my stumbling, is beyond humbling.

I got to see some of my college days homies over the weekend.  It was a good time and I played guitar hero for the first time.  I definitely need to avoid that game with all that is in me.  But I digress….I started thinking about how different my faith is now from college.  It is definitely much…”juicier”.  I can’t think of a better word to describe it.  I don’t think I was baptized in the Holy Spirit until after college, so that is a big change.  One thing I did have then that I am realizing I need to rediscover now is JOY!

I have been listening to some of my older CD’s – Switchfoot (old school trio foot, not the still awesome footness), Audio A, and others.  They get my blood pumping and put a smile on my face.

God is good and He is fun, too!  I watched Him move in my family during my sister’s wedding a couple of weeks ago…it was ridiculous how cool He worked in my peops.

Be prepared cause He is on the move.  I am seeing His Hand everywhere these days & I am excited to be a part of it.

Glory!

I read about a guy on CNN today.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/06/19/heroes.agoglia/index.html

His name is Tad Skylar Agoglia and he started a team called the First Response Team of America.  Basically, he gave up his profitable job and used his money to buy some state of the art emergency equipment, recruited 3 other guys, and now travels around the country helping victims of disasters free of charge.  He gets there before anybody else and does some amazing things for people.  None of his information states that he is a Christian, but the article mentions that he is a seminary grad.  But I notice on his website that he doesn’t like to brag about what he has done.

Tad, you fire me up!  You are doing what the Lord asks of us in incredible abundance!  I pray for you and your team…and I pray that you will never worry about provision or a lack of helping hands.  I would love to be able to help with this kind of service.  If you read this and have some extra money, please donate to his cause.  It would be awesome to see a team like this in every state….

http://www.firstresponseteam.org/

Yesterday was my birthday.  31.  It seemed like it was going to be uneventful.  Boy was I wrong.

Church.  It was prolly the greatest service I have ever been to at RiverStone.  We sang Revelation Song and I do believe we were singing with angels in the throneroom of heaven.  It was so beautiful.  I thought my head was going to asplode.  I wasn’t sure if TT was going to give a sermon or not, everyone was so locked in.  I have never been in a room where the entire congregation was in-sync like that.  Lord, please bring more!  We need the Holy Spirit to flood our community and our church!

When we got home after lunch our beloved dog, Sadie had passed on.  She had been struggling for about a week and we had spent a lot of time and money at the vet trying to help her out.  She was only 7 years old.  She was Jessi and I’s first baby.  We got her just before we got married and she has been there from day 1.  It is already really weird not having her around…she was such a fixture for our family.  When I felt sad, she was always there for me.  Sadie didn’t seem to mind that I got fatter, balder, and wrinklier.  She was very good with the kids and one of my very best friends.  I will miss her very much.  The world will never hear about her, but that little brown dog was a huge part of my life.

Eli started crying last night when he realized Sadie wasn’t coming back and he started asking questions in his 4 year old way.  How come we asked God to heal our Sadie and she died?  How come God didn’t obey?  Why did you bury her in the ground, Daddy?  Is she with Jesus and your daddy, Daddy?  If she is with Jesus, how come she is in the ground?  Jessica and I started bawling (again) and tried to ease his mind so he could sleep, but I am praying that God will use this for our family to learn more about Him and His goodness.

I did tell Eli that Jesus got himself a good dog yesterday.  And for the record, I like to picture Sadie and my dad sitting on the end of a dock, fishing.

Thank you, Lord, for giving us such a good friend.

Sadie Bear Curiosity Praying-Paws Little Mm-Mm Harvey  March2001-June2008

So I haven’t posted in a while…I am not sure why not.  This one will prolly be long.  No status on the work situation, but I have some photos from my trip to share.

Me & the Ladies

Someone Stepped on Gary’s Toe!

Team Prayer

What Makes the Red Man Red?  Ask Gary & Joe!

Here is the beach we stayed at and a famous temple nearby:

The waves were big and rough…a couple of us got hurt pretty bad…but the Lord saw fit to heal and bring us home safely.

Here are some of the sights we saw there:

The Sad Standard of Many Families

Me on Brigade Road

It was a very satisfying trip

But, is this the line to America?

It was an awesome trip.  God is truly moving around the world.

Speaking of His movement, have you seen what is going on down in Lakeland, FL?  It looks like an amazing anointing is falling down there!  And guess what?!  Some of those guys are coming here to Atlanta next week!  They are coming to the Cobb Civic Center to pray for an impartation of the outpouring.

Are we ready for this?  Have we emptied ourselves enough to let God fill us up?  I am desperate for the things of God and am praying that He would give us all new wineskins to hold what He has for us.

In the words of Dieter Dengler: “Empty what is full.  Fill what is empty.”

Are you ready?

So I am thinking of a hundred different things right now and I am not sure what to write down. I am frustrated at a few things in life at the moment, but all of them are pretty much rubbish. So to put it in a little better perspective, here is a picture to remind me of how good I have it here at home.

Common Indian Family SUV

Yes, that is 6 people and 1 motorcycle.  No helmets, and probably all sandals.

I want to be a blessing and not a stumbling block.

Along with those thoughts comes one of my first “challenges” since I have gotten back home.

It turns out my team at the office may get the opportunity to do some engineering for one of Atlanta’s most notorious “Gentlemen’s Clubs”. Now, I am not trying to pass on judgment on the ladies who work there (see my post on March 13th) http://techspoon.wordpress.com/2008/03/13/praying-for-a-hooker/

but as a leader in my church, my family, my community, and as Christ’s ambassador in my company, I cannot take part in this project. Work is slow, and a couple of folks have already been let go in the last month or so; but I can’t face my Jesus if I help spread the Kingdom of the Flesh. I am supposed to help advance the Kingdom of Heaven.

Pray for me, please.

I have been home almost a week now and I am still chewing on the events of the last couple of weeks.  I am learning that I need to be completely reliant on Jesus in order to see Him work.

Here in the west, we are so used to taking care of things without praying that it is almost like we walk beside Jesus and look over at Him every once in a while to say “Hi.”

I don’t think He wants us to relate to Him that way.  I think He wants us to completely rely on Him; to let Him carry us and when we walk, to hold His hand so that we go where He goes.

The things I keep praying for: community transformation, healing, revival…they will all come if we put Jesus first.  I am not saying to not pray for those things, but praying for those things must not take priority over my pursuit of Him.  He really is all that I need.  Everything I could ever want.  Everything.

Here is one of the stories from the trip that sticks out to me.  I don’t want to use her name for safety reasons, but T-ma is the mother of the home I was at.  T-ma told us of a day when the kids came home from school and she asked them what they did there.  A couple of the kids non-nonchalantly said they had had their picture taken with Tony Uncle and Cherie Auntie.  T-ma was curious as to who these people were and the boy from the picture said he wasn’t sure, but asked Tony Uncle how is walk with Jesus was.  He didn’t get much of a response from Tony Uncle.  When T-ma finally saw the picture (which I think was in the local newspaper) there were 2 of her kids sitting next to Tony & Cherie Blair.

Here was a child, seated next to one of the most powerful men in the world and the first thing on his mind was this man’s relationship to Jesus.

I pray that I may also put Him more than just first in my life!

I am home.  Actually, right now I am sitting at my desk at the office.  I made it back to the ATL at dinner time last night.  The last 2 weeks have been life changing and world altering.  I will try and post pictures once I get them from the photo takers on the trip…they took about 2,000 pictures, so it may take a while to wade through them.

Immediate thoughts I have….

India has some very beautiful places that clearly show the Creativity of God.

India has some very horrible places that clearly show the corruption of man.

God loves India and the 1 billion+ people that live there.  God is moving there and India needs our prayers.

I am proud to live in America and I love the land that God has graced me to live in, but I learned some deep lessons on necessity and provision while in India.

I have seen 50 Indian Christian children pray more deeply and fervently than many pastors I have known in America.  That is not an indictment against the American clergy, but rather a glimpse of the lack of desperation in the American Church.

Those children see Jesus has their father and the provider of everything.  If they see a need, no matter how small, they immediatley cover it in prayer and He meets that need every time.

Middle class in India means you live in a house made out of something more solid than a tarp.

AC & ice are big time luxuries in India.

I found fruit to be an amazing treat in India.  The orange I ate in Mamallapurum (MA-HA-MA-LA-PURR-UM) was the sweetest fruit I have ever eaten.  Not because it was especially tasty, but because I had eaten spicy & salty rice dishes for 10 days and the sweet, juicyness of the orange was almost coma-inducing.

It is 4 pm at the office.  I am sitting in AC, I ate a huge bacon cheeseburger from Fuddrucker’s at lunch, and my body thinks it is 1:30 am so I am struggling to type this post.

I love seeing God move.

That’s right!  I am headed to the airport to make my way to India.  2 weeks!  I am excited and nervous and anxious and everything else in between.

God has taught me that fear is the opposite of faith…so I am working on surrendering myself completely to Him.

So…here am I, send me!

This morning’s commute was less than desirable.  When you wake up to the sound of a helicopter hovering over your neighborhood, you know traffic (in Atlanta) is going to be fun.  Overturned vehicle on the interstate at my exit (thank you WSB).

I took side roads through upper Marietta/East Cobb.  I observed an individual, who apparently learned something at Alabama A&M, drive his entire truck through a decently landscaped median to get the turn lane cause he didn’t want to wait for the light.  I guess they do things a little different in Abbalamma.  The car behind him and next to me had a woman who was tweezing her upper lip.  That was a first for me…I have never seen anyone tweeze anything while sitting in traffic. I am glad that I didn’t eat anything beforehand, cuz it was pretty gross…and yet, I don’t know why.

Behind the Tweezer sat a fellow in a jeep.  This fellow whould eventually go on to cut me off later down the road.  The thing I noticed was that he had a Queensryche bumper sticker.  Queensryche?  I have never encountered a fan so devoted to Queensryche as to put a sticker on their car.  To make it even odder (is that a word?), it was the only sticker on his car.  I hope his day is filled with silent lucidity.

I leave for India in 2 days…and my stomach is in knots.  I have a lot of stuff to get together before I go.  I trust Him.

My father-in-law emailed me a little message this morning wishing me a good trip.  I don’t talk to him much, so that little email made me feel pretty darn special this morning.  He is a good man and I plan on trying to spend more time with him.  I think he, Eli, & I need to go on a fishing trip this fall.  With my dad being with the Lord, Daddy T is the closest thing to an earthly father I have.