The future is...

Unknown.
I have to leave it up God. I have to. I have desires for things, but they are worthless unless I have given myself up to His desires for me. I fully realize that!

I know that people don't want to hear that because everyone has a plan. Well, my plan is God's plan. I leave it all to Him, everything. Do I have goals? There are ideas of what I want to do, but they do have to match what He wants of me. So those are on hold or might not happen at all. All I can do is pray to the Lord on the direction He wants me to take.

What is my purpose? As Rick Warren put it at the beginning of his book, Purpose Driven Life, "It's not about you." Life isn't about me and the moment I realized that, things changed. I wanted to do what the Lord wants of me. I try and I know I'm not perfect. In fact, I have stumbled and failed many times, but I have had major victories because of Him being in my life. Because of my own stupid, foolish actions, I am with Him now, loving and encouraging others in the Family of God. I want people to succeed with knowing the Lord. The rest is up to them.

The things that are happening now, belong to the Lord. Sure, I am struggling to adjust my schedule so that He gets the first part of my day- after my brain wakes up. I admit, I am a very dumb person in the morning and it takes me several minutes to wind up. So I try to give Him my best state of mind.

I so want more of the Lord in my life. I know that sounds dangerous, and it is, but it is something I truly desire. When I am close to Him, my heart sings out in praise, my soul dances with glee, my spirit plays beautiful music- which all glorifies Him. Those days, when I am not as close as I want to be to the Lord, my heart is in pain, my soul dances like it has two left feet, and my spirit plays out of tune music.

He knows I am troubled by my inability to get my schedule under control. He knows, how I feel about the new job; I am thankful for it, and is worthless without Him in it also. God comes first in my life and I will be very blunt with people about that: I will pick God over you any day.

If He wants me to do something, I will make sure it gets done, even if it means my own discomfort. I work in two ministries at my church (as I have mentioned before) and one of them involves designing and printing CD labels for the messages. I have been at my church for hours on end, work, designing, printing, baby sitting equipment as they churn out these CD's. I do this all for free and the CD's are give away for free. My church strongly believes one should not charge for a message! I feel the same way.

I have been to a church that had a bookstore/message center and I was curious what they had to offer. I understand charging for books, and in most cases, for a tiny, tiny profit. But the CD's and DVD's this church had to offer were insanely priced!! $35 for a DVD?! That was all I wanted to see and left the store. I felt like Jesus when He entered the temple and overturned the money changers tables- I was angry! How could they do that? Sure, they need money, but that much for a video? And it was the senior pastor of the church, not a guest speaker! It was then, my eyes saw what the Father wanted me to see and what was going on at this church. They seemed to be all about the bling and not the saving. They seemed to be more interested in your money and not filling your spiritual tummy. Those types of churches seem so fake to me, empty of real passion, and genuine kindness. I hope and pray to the Lord, my church doesn't turn into one like that and stays humble and accepts the will of God, and His plan for its future.

-Father God, Lord Jesus, I give up to You my sins and I pray for Your forgiveness. I know I am a sinner and I continue to pray for Your changing influence in my life. Lord, I want to be closer to You, I want more of You in my life! I also want to be used by You, because I know, I am Your man to help as best as I can! Jesus, help me bend to this new schedule I am in so I can give You a better slice of my time each and every day. Teach me more of Your Word and how I can use it to help others find You and see Your love for them. You are the light of my life! You are the way because I see that now. You are a part of my life that none can separate. You are the love of my life because none have been able to get close to me as You have. You are the reason I live. Thank You Lord for giving me life and for allowing me to experience what I have gone through. I feel more blessed each and every day, even it I don't realize it! In Jesus name I pray, Amen.