God's Plan

We have all heard that God has a unique plan for each and every one of us. We have probably all thought that is so cliche, or not me, or why would God waste time on a plan for me. I'm not worthy to carry out a plan he has. I know I have, and I struggle with this all the time. Well, I guess I don't struggle with it, I do believe that He has a plan, I do believe that He cares about me and has this perfect plan for my life. What I struggle with is the execution of the plan. How can I execute a plan where I don't know the details. I struggle with the things in life that get in the way of His plan. I have had some recent experiences that help me a little. I do know the plan will never be crystal clear and we have to have faith, be open to the "signs" of the plan and be willing to act when God gives us one of those signs.

Recently I have visited Shanghai twice within just over a month. OK, that's not a big deal or nothing new, I travel for work all the time and have been blessed with visiting the better half of the USA, some of the middle east including Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Israel, Jordan, and probably a few countries I don't remember. I've been to Germany, India, England, Denmark, Norway and several other countries in Europe. So why has this trip been so special to me. One is the 14 hour flight home which has given me some time to reflect on the past few months. It's clear God has a plan for me, I just don't know the end game yet.

As I look back over my last 41 years, my schooling (or lack of), my career, and everything else I see the plan that has already been executed. This gives me some glimmer of what the future plan might be. Now I may never know His full plan, but having this glimmer gives me hope. Having this past experience of seeing so many places around the world I believe has had some valuable lessons from God that He felt I need to learn. It's interesting to me that a guy with my background (barely graduating high school, spending some time in and out of college classes but never graduating) can be the success that I am today. By no means am I the most successful person on the planet, but I think I do pretty good. I have a great career that I know a lot of people would love. A career that most people would need to have a college degree to get. But the experiences God has given me through earlier parts of my career has given me the experience to land the career I have now. The places I have visited has given me the connections, the culture, and skills to do what I do.

For a long time I have thought that the place I am right now in my career (working on creating the software) was my end game. It's a career dream I have had for a LONG time, a dream I have been chasing for just as long. In fact, I have written about that journey a couple of times and how we can never give up the battles we believe in. We also have to remember it is not our timing, it is on His timing. I can see that this dream I have had for so long (making the software) has started to give me the skills for the next thing in life that He has planned for me. So in fact, what I am doing now isn't His end game, it's just a step in the execution plan. I like to think I have an idea of what this journey will have in store for me, but the truth is I don't. I need to release the outcome and simply follow the journey. You hear people say that when one door closes, another one opens. I think that is so true. Behind this door, are of course some new skills, some new talents so to speak, it's also an opportunity to use existing skills and talents. More importantly the past few months have been for me about building new relationships, I have met a few people in my travels to Shanghai who I now consider very close friends. This one guy, Nick, and I have had some deep discussions about life and also shared some career skills. He is an inspiration to me and is very wise in life and the "pursuit of happiness".

I believe that God has put me in Shanghai to meet Nick, to learn from him some things that I will need in my journey in this life. I'm extremely thankful for that. Nick has been a great friend, welcoming me into his life, introducing me to his family and ensuring that while I visit Shanghai I am taken care of.

When I take a step back and reflect, like I am now I think about how big the world is, and how many people are in it, it becomes very clear to me that He does have a plan. How could someone from 7,000 miles away have such an impact on my life. Someone that I would have never met if there wasn't a plan. You don't just randomly meet someone 7,000 miles away. You randomly meet someone in the neighborhood or local grocery store. I'm looking forward to this amazing friendship that God has blessed me with. :-)

Holy Spirit

Heavenly Father, Thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit to guide us in our daily lives. Thank you for giving us hope, love, joy and so many other gifts through the Holy Spirit which is in each and every one of us. Father I pray for you to fill me with the Holy Spirir. Fill me with the love and joy and hope. I pray that you give me the eyes to see people as you see them. I pray that you give me the ears to hear your calling on my life. I pray you God me the courage to follow when you speak with out asking why.  Father I want to serve you, I want to do your will. Whatever you have plannwd for me I want to do it. I thank you for this plan. I pray in Jesus mighty name.

Amen

Releasing The Outcome

It is quite often as people we get to caught up with what the outcome is of a given task or aspect of our life. I have been guilty of this most of my career and adult life. This puts added stress on ourselves and typically tilts the outcome because of it.

During my trip to Bethlehem we had a phrase that we started to live by that week. "Release The Outcome". Its really out of our control anyway. If we focus on letting God lead us the outcome will always be the right outcome. Matthew 6:25 says "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is life not more important than foos, and the body more important than cothes?"

I think there are a couple of important things here in this passage. First is release the outcome. Dont worry about what the results are. If the journey is right the results will follow. The second thing is if we forget about the outcome and focus on God he will provide what we need. The outcome is out of our control anyway so why worry about it.

What Happens When You Serve???

I recently was blessed by getting the opportunity to serve the business community in Bethlehem. There were 4 of us who listened to the call from God to serve on this trip. I have to say I was a little nervous about this trip. It would be unfamiliar country, people, food and many other things. I wasn't worried too much about the conflict that we see in the media about the middle east. I was mainly worried about the food. Don't laugh, I was a very picky eater.

We arrived in Tel-Aviv on Saturday late afternoon / early evening where we had some delays getting through passport control, and security. No big issues and we were on our way after the short delay. We met our driver and we were on our way to Bethlehem. During our drive I was taking in the sights as they blurred by the window. As we got closer to Bethlehem we started to notice differences in the surroundings. We approached the separation barrier where guards were standing with guns. Our driver got us through pretty quick and we headed to the Bethlehem Bible College where we would spend most of the week. The rest of Saturday night was simply unpacking, eating and resting.

Sunday morning we woke up, had breakfast, which I was glad to see it was foods I was very used to. We then ran a quick errand to a local business to set plans for later in the week, then headed to Church. To be specific the largest Christian church in the area. Immanuel Evangelical Church - Bethlehem, Palestine. As we walked to the church it was much different than going to church back home. First our church back home we drive to, second there is a big sign, and huge campus. This church you must know where you are going in order to find it. There are no big signs, large parking lots or any other recognizable landmark. We walked in without knowing what to expect, service had already started but we were welcomed in. 

After getting our translation earpieces we went and sat down a couple rows back from the front. Down in the basement sounds of beautiful Arabic worship music filled the air. Of course we didn't understand arabic but the translation earpieces were a huge help. The topic was the Holy Spirit and all the great things that He provides us with. There were several times of worship music and then Dr. Jack Sara, president of the Bible college was invited on stage to be the guest Pastor. Dr. Jack Sara is a powerful speaker. I was moved by his passion for the Word of God. After the the service was over we met in the lobby and were welcomed by many of the members of the church. As we were walking out the door to head to lunch we noticed our pictures on the wall. They were pictures describing us and describing the workshop were were in town to present on.

We headed to lunch with Jack, his wife, Pastor Nihab and his wife and daughter. We were invited into Pastor Nihabs home where his wife prepared a traditional Palestinian meal. Our lunch consisted of some things very new to me, stuffed grape leaves, stuffed zucchini, stuffed eggplant, I believe sheeps tail and chicken. I was pleased that there was chicken but I was strongly advised to try the rest. :-) I respectfully tried a little. This was the first step in a week of slightly adventurous eating compared to my normal. The meal was very good and I am glad that I tried it.

We went to meet with a local business after lunch and that started our week of meetings. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were packed full with meetings. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evening we presented at the Bible College to around 20 local business owners. Our sessions were great, with great interaction from the community.

After we were done serving Thursday evening we prepared for our day of site seeing on Friday. Friday started out with breakfast, then saying goodbye to the Bible College and some of our new friends. We met our driver and we were off to Jerrico, well we thought we were. Instead the driver took us to the second location which was the Jordan River where we were going to be Baptized. When we arrived at the baptismal site we were pleasantly surprised to see that we were the only ones there. We were able to spend a few minutes talking about baptism and what it represents. We were all able to get baptized without having a large crowd watching. As we finished the tour busses were rolling in. We spent a few more minutes after changing and letting our clothes start to dry before heading up to the Sea of Galilee. When we arrived at the sites around the Sea of Galilee that we wanted to see it was much of the same. Very small crowds if any, as we were preparing to leave the tour busses rolled in. We then ate lunch at St. Peters Restaurant.  I had fresh fish, still on the bone and still staring at me. It was delicious. After eating lunch we moved on to the Mount of Beatitudes. This was a very cool site, we were the 3rd car in the parking lot. We proceeded down to a location on the grounds and read different scripture. This was an amazing experience.

After leaving the Mount of Beatitudes we headed toward the border to cross over into Jordan where we would fly out to Paris. Again, we were blessed with short lines and smooth crossing. We were literally the second group in line to go through the process. After successfully crossing into Jordan we found out our driver was "stuck" about 3 miles away because he couldn't get onto the property of the border control. Our trip leader jumped into action and somehow got the Jordanian police to escort us part of the way, then got a special driver to take us the rest of the way. This was really royal treatment.

We spent some time in the Jordan airport winding down from such an amazing week. We then took our flight to Paris at 1:30 am and arrived in Paris at 5:50 am. After spending 5.5 hours in the airport in paris we headed on our flight back to Detroit.

We spent so much time serving which was very rewarding, life changing and helpful to the people we were serving. I personally had many life changing experiences that I will blog about over the coming weeks. Overall the week was a HUGE success and I am looking forward to future opportunities to lead a group back there.

God Bless, serve one another, love one another and you will be greatly rewarded.

Holy Land Trip

It has been way to long since I have posted. The last time I posted it was a sad topic as I had just lost my grandfather. This topic is a positive one. A few months back I decided to go on a mission trip. This is a different mission trip in the fact that it has a focus on business mentoring. Those who know me know about my love for business and that I have started businesses for the past 15 years. I always have some new idea for a business. Anyway when the Church I go to mentioned this mission trip it was a no brainer.

Details:

 We leave Friday May 17th, 2013 and land in Israel Saturday May 18th. We have a very busy week planned and will be meeting with local businesses as well as conducting a 3 evening seminar at the Bible college in Bethlehem. This is such an amazing experience. There are 4 of us going with different backgrounds. We have pulled together 12 different topics we will be presenting on.

We will have some time to go see some of the amazing sites around the area. We are also looking to have the opportunity to get baptized in the Jordan river. I can't even begin to imagine how awesome this experience will be.

Please pray for our team as we prepare in the final days before our trip.

Thanks

Grandfather Passed Away

Friday, August 24th 2012 my grandfather passed away. Its all to often that we let the opportunities to spend time with our loved ones until it is too late. We let it happen over and over again with loved ones here on earth as well as with our heavenly Father. No matter how hard we try we always fail spending time with him as well.

I don't know about you but I am sick of failing.

Heavenly father, I know I can never deserve the love, forgiveness and great life you have provided me with. I pray that you can grant me the dedication to not only talk with you daily, but to d your work, to spread the Word of the Gospel 's to those in need. I pray this in your awesome sons name Jesus Christ.

Prayers Wanted

I don't know many pepole are following this blog but I need some prayers for my uncle. He has a terminal cancer and has been given a short time to live. He is a candidate for a transplant but the odds are not good.

Can you please pray for his healing.

Thanks