The Soothing 80s Vibe

May 20, 2013 in Mustard Seed Year with 2 Comments

I’ve had an rough but good day.  Counseling was great…but worked me over and left me really mentally drained.  So I spent a lot of time tonight listening to 80s music that just makes this child of the 80s feel better.  I thought, “hey, why not share some of this with the 4 people and my mother who read this blog?”

So check some of these out if you don’t know them. And if you do know them, enjoy this wonderful 80s goodness.  It’s not all the songs I’ve listened to tonight but they were definitely played.  And believe it or not…I didn’t play much of my beloved hair metal or heavy metal tonight.

Ian Hunter – All of the Good Ones are Taken (1983)

Ian Hunter – All Of The Good Ones Are Taken

Slade – Run Runaway (1984)

Slade- Run Runaway

Golden Earring – Twilight Zone (1982)

Golden earring – Twilight zone

Nena – 99 Luftballons (1984)

Nena – 99 Luftballons 1984

The Cure – Lovesong (1989)

The Cure – Lovesong (Official Video)

R.E.M. – Fall On Me (1986)

R.E.M. – Fall On Me

Dire Straits – Brothers In Arms (1985)

Brothers in Arms – Dire Straits

Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble – The House Is Rockin’ (1989)

Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble – The House Is Rockin’

Dead Milkmen – Punk Rock Girl (1988)

The Dead Milkmen – Punk Rock Girl HD

When The Mirror Clears And You See You’re The Problem

May 19, 2013 in Day to day, God, Growth, Mustard Seed Year with 2 Comments

ghostriderbookPack up all those phantoms
Shoulder that invisible load
Keep on riding north and west
Haunting that wilderness road
Like a ghost rider

Carry all those phantoms
Through bitter wind and stormy skies
From the desert to the mountain
From the lowest low to the highest high
Like a ghost rider

(Rush, “Ghost Rider”, lyrics by Neil Peart)

I relate to Neil Peart, the drummer for Rush, in a lot of ways.

5.0.2Neil lost his daughter in 1997 and his wife 10 months later.  The result of the overwhelming emotional pain was that Neil took off on his motorcycle and rode 55,000 miles in an attempt to find healing.

Yes.  55,000.

While I haven’t lost a child (thank you, God) and I haven’t done 55,000 miles in one stretch, Neil and I share the same feeling about traveling being a healing balm.   If I had the financial means to do it, I’d take off for months and just go.  (Stopping in my kid’s town twice a month, of course.) Continue Reading…

“Christians” You Know Have Gone To Hell

May 16, 2013 in Bible, Church, Faith, God, Growth, Mustard Seed Year with 0 Comments

dlmoodyGod has been showing me all kinds of things in the Word.  He’s also been taking the words of Christian leaders and using them as well to really wake me up.

One of the books that I stumbled across that has surprised me with its power is “The Way To God and How To Find It” by D.L. Moody.

I want to share with you a passage from the book (which, by the way, is free on Kindle).  It’s a mildly long but I want you to see what sparked the comments I’ll make after it. Continue Reading…

Christ’s Body Needs A Physical Therapist

May 15, 2013 in Church, God, Growth, Mustard Seed Year with 0 Comments

babywalkingImagine you had a baby who had yet to learn how to walk.  You want to teach them to get up and walk on their own but to do so means getting the parts of their body to do the job for which they were created.

The feet to stand on.

The knees to bend the right way to help them move in a way that’s not wobbling like one of the Walking Dead.

The bones in the legs…the muscles in the legs…the tendons…

But then there’s also the parts of the brain that help regulate balance.

There are a lot of parts of the body that need to work together if a baby needs to walk.

So what would happen if the knees, for example, were replaced with ears?

Or the feet replaced with livers? Continue Reading…

Why Are You Coveting Another Man’s Wife?

May 12, 2013 in Day to day, God, Growth with 0 Comments

covetLast night, I had to repent of coveting another man’s wife.

No, it wasn’t in real life.

It was on my computer.

Literally.

I came home last night from a rather interesting day where God took me to a number of places I could have never planned ahead of time. (Most days in my life don’t involve a Starbucks-Dollar Tree-Wal*Mart-Gourmet Mexican Restaurant superfecta.)  When I unloaded the car and clicked on my computer to post a “happy mother’s day” note to my mom on her facebook page, God just spoke plainly, clearly and cut to the quick.

“Jason, why are you coveting another man’s wife?”

On my computer I had a wallpaper of an actress who’s appeared on network TV.  The picture was not anything most people would consider racy.  Why?  Well, it was nothing more than a head shot of a picture from a time she was on a “Downton Abbey” style British show where she had been made up to look like a maid from the 1800s.  Nothing showing below the shoulders.  Just a beautiful woman smiling at the camera.

And I thought she was rather pretty.  And me, being a single guy that if I’m being honest women just don’t give the time of day to, had used it as the wallpaper on my computer.

And that’s when God asked me why I was coveting another man’s wife.

bridegroomholdinghandsI didn’t know she was married.  Honestly, I wasn’t that deeply interested to find out everything about her.  I just thought she was cute and it was a good picture.  I wasn’t planning to rush to Hollywood to woo her.  However, I visited Wikipedia and she had been married to a guy for well over a decade.

So I removed the picture and put up a picture of Rush.

You see, that may sound to us like it wasn’t coveting another man’s wife.  ”Hey, it’s just a picture of a woman you thought was cute and you’re a guy who appreciates beautiful women.”

But the standard for what is coveting is not OUR standard.

It’s GOD’S.

And if God says “that’s coveting”, it’s coveting.  No debate, no discussion, no argument.

So I did repent…although, again, to be honest, I did throw up a little protest at the end of it.

“…but if you want to help me avoid this sin again, you could provide me with my own wife, God.” ;)

 

God May Have Made You A Toilet Bowl

May 8, 2013 in God, Growth, Mustard Seed Year with 0 Comments

porcelainflaskImagine, if you will, that you are a piece of porcelain.

Yes, porcelain.  You’re part of a long tradition that includes Ming vases.  You have aunts and uncles that are bowls and cups in castles and the homes of world leaders all over the world.

Your niece is even in the White House.

So you’re excited to see what you’re going to be turned into by your creator.  You’ve come through the fire that burned so hot it changed your entire nature.  You’re ready to be turned into something that your creator believes you are uniquely created to do. Continue Reading…

One Site is Coming Back and One is Not

May 5, 2013 in Day to day, Faith, God, Mustard Seed Year with 4 Comments

robberykittyAs many of you know, I had a robbery at my house two weeks ago that resulted in all my computers AND all my back up external hard drives being stolen.  Unfortunately, my insurance won’t be covering any of the losses and the police did not have enough evidence to launch an investigation.  With the bankruptcy and other financial issues (such as trying to get rid of the house) there was no way for me to continue Human Trafficking News and I really felt like God was calling me to just stop Mustard Seed Year for a while.

The time away has been good for me.  I stayed mostly off Facebook for a week and didn’t really miss it all that much.  I’d still be off it if my boys weren’t around this weekend and provided some good pictures and things to share with my friends. :)  But I value my friends so much and I’ve had more than few messages asking what’s going on so I decided to update you all at once.

Some very gracious people have worked with me to get a replacement MacBook Pro.  I should have it some time in the next week or two.  Then I won’t be having to use a friend’s computer to get online and make postings!

That being said, I’ve been praying A LOT about MSY and HTN.  Basically asking God if I should just quit all of it and spend more time offline in prayer and Bible study.  I feel like He’s given me some direction in regards to all of it.

itsoverMustard Seed Year, the video year, is over.

The reason that brings me peace is that MSY, while I try to share lessons I get from the Bible and other lessons in my life, is inherently focused on me.  My life.  My walk.  My experiences with God.  My Bible study time.  Me. Me. Me.  While it’s important for us to share our lives and stories with each other, it can also become very easy for us to realize that we’re not here for ourselves.  We’re here to serve others and to use what God’s given us to reach out to other people.

I will not be posting every day on this website going forward.  I feel like God is telling me that the time I spent on MSY over the last few months…sometimes hours a night…are going to be better placed in other ways that He’s opening up to me.  One of them, I’ll be honest, I’m VERY excited about but I’m playing it close to the vest for now.

Will I still post here?  Yes, as I feel led to do so.  Will I do videos?  Who knows?  If God tells me to do it, I’ll do it.  I feel a great sense of peace without the daily restriction on top of me and I think perhaps it will free me to do more of what God wants me to do rather than what I felt I had to do because I said I would post every single day.  If you’re offended or angry I won’t be posting daily, I am truly sorry that you’re upset by that.  But this is what I feel the Lord saying to do and so I’m going to do it.

chumbawambaHuman Trafficking News is coming back.

I don’t have Photoshop and the other tools I need to tweak the layout of the website.  (I don’t even have the basic templates I bought for the site but I think the folks I bought them from will be gracious enough to help me with that.)  Not having Photoshop will be a hindrance to the level of quality I was trying to obtain on the site but I will do my best with it. (And if you get my sense of humor, you’ll get the picture going along with this paragraph.)

HTN had a very small reader base and virtually zero support from the “established” community of ministries and online sites dedicated to fighting the scourge of human trafficking, so being honest the logical thing was to let HTN just fade away.  After all, what good was it to post daily news articles and try to bring attention to the problem when it was the same 20-30 people checking the site out every day?

But fighting human trafficking is a passion.   It’s something that I just can’t let go and no matter how much I pray for God to give me peace to forget about HTN and the battle against trafficking it just doesn’t happen.  All I keep getting when I pray about it is…

Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel’s hand. – Zechariah 4:10 (NLT)  (And, for the record, I don’t study the NLT so I don’t know why that version has been in my head.  I’m an ESV guy!)

So the time I had spent daily on MSY will go HTN.  And the time I spent on HTN?  Well, that will either be HTN or whatever God puts in its place.

spiritualwarfareI’m hoping to start up with HTN again sometime mid-May.  Once I get the new computer and start get1ting some pieces in place, I’ll see how things can best move forward.  And I so appreciate those of you who have prayed for me during this time and have prayed for HTN.  I had a friend say the robbery was Satan’s last ditch attempt to stop HTN before it could really roll and being honest in the past it would have just knocked it out for good.  But I gave it to God.  And He gave it back to me.

What’s interesting to me in all of this is the total peace on everything.  Moving forward, there will be little of “me” being posted on the internet.  I’m not social networking to the degree that you’re supposed to do if you want to “be someone.”  I’m not twittering my every move or taking pictures of myself in the bathroom with earrings stuck in my cheeks.  I’m spending more time in the Bible, more time praying and more time focusing on what’s really important in my life.  And riding my bike too.  And some other things I hope pan out.

So if you’re an MSY follower, thank you for being here all along the way.  I hope you’ll support and follow HTN.  And I’m sure I’ll post here sometime that a Bible passage rocks my world.

And if anyone has a copy of Photoshop for Mac they don’t need, well…donations are always welcome…

 

Day 118: Maybe God isn’t guiding me at all

April 29, 2013 in God, Mustard Seed Year with 0 Comments

As I posted a few days ago, I’ve been reading Billy Graham’s book on the Holy Spirit and it’s been working me over in many ways.  Hard ways, but good ways.

I’ve had a question that is just knocking me on my backside that didn’t come directly from Billy’s book but is certainly inspired by the reading.

What if those of us who thought we were being lead by the Holy Spirit to do something were not being led by Him at all?

It would be a real humbling moment for those of us who have stated we felt led by God to do something that it was our pride and not the leading of the Holy Spirit.  It could be any of us from the pastor standing in the pulpit to the blogger writing every day because they believe God told them to do it.  ;)  Any of us who have done something that we said was the Lord only to have second thoughts about it or a feeling of uneasiness once things didn’t seem to end up where we thought.

You see, the Holy Spirit is never wrong.  The Holy Spirit will tell you the truth and guide you to perfect truth 100% of the time.  That was a takeaway for me from Billy’s book…we so often seem to lose sight of the fact that the Holy Spirit, being totally God, will not tell you a lie.  He won’t lead you to believe something that’s not perfect because the Holy Spirit CANNOT sin.

If you felt the Holy Spirit was leading you to something or told you something specific that didn’t come to pass, then it wasn’t the Holy Spirit.

It could have been one of Satan’s minions.   And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.  (2 Corinthians 11:14 ESV)

It was also very likely your own flesh working against you.  For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. (1 John 2:16 ESV)

In the end, whether it was you being deceived by an outside spiritual influence or your own flesh, you’re still outside of the will of God for your life.  You may have been right in what you were doing…even lined up with what a “good Christian” is supposed to do…but it was still outside of what God wants you to be doing with your life.

And if that’s the case, you haven’t been led by the Holy Spirit.  And if you said that you know you were being led by the Holy Spirit, you need to fess up that you really were not being led by Him.

Now, it’s possible that you may not know right now where the Holy Spirit is leading you.  I’m in that boat right now.  After last Sunday, it’s been a bit of a rough walk.  I’ve pretty much been questioning everything.  I honestly wonder if I’ve ever been led by the Holy Spirit into anything that I’ve done.  It certainly would explain what I call life right now.  Then again, it’s entirely possible it’s been God’s plan to bring me to this place where there is nothing in my life that I enjoy so that I know He is all that matters.

So where do you go when you realize that you have basically been misrepresenting the Spirit?  Well, stop.  (Yeah, I know, simple, right?)  Spend time in prayer and those you trust to join you in praying.  Accept the fact you might not hear from God right away.  For months, maybe.  Years.  Accept that right now you might not be able to tell God’s voice from the deception you’ve allowed to guide you for however long it’s been guiding you.

If you have to step away from ministry work or a small group or something, then do it.  Your relationship with God far surpassed any “thing” that you have on Earth that you think you “have” to do.

Maybe you’ll go back to what you felt led to do.  Maybe you’ll do something new.  Maybe you’ll end up with none of what you thought were your hopes and dreams coming true in life.  In the end, life’s about God and not about you.

And with that, I’m going to say that right now, I’m not sure God’s calling me to keep writing this blog.  So I’m going to quit.  It may be for a few days, weeks or just plain ever.  I don’t know.  I’m sure God will tell me if He wants me to pick it up again.

 

Day 117: An interesting day

April 27, 2013 in Mustard Seed Year with 0 Comments

I wrote the first chapter of a fiction work today for the first time in years.

It’s crap.  Serious crap.

But I did it.

 

Day 116: 2 Job 42

April 26, 2013 in Bible, Day to day, God, Growth with 1 Comment

jobIf you’re familiar with the Bible, you’ll likely say “um…there is no book of second Job.”

Yes, you are correct.

The title’s a bit of a play on the struggles of the last few years.  I’ve had more than a few friends make Job references over the rough road in the valley I’ve crawled through and I would jokingly say I’m writing the book of second Job.  I’m nowhere near as bad as what Job had to face but I will admit there have been more than your average share of trials.  (Hey, someone has to be higher than average so others can be lower than average, right?)

Today as I was studying Job something hit me about the end of the book. Continue Reading…

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