Today was tough

This morning I found out a coworker passed away over the weekend. I wasn't close friends with him but we talked on a regular basis. John, you will be missed.

My heart goes out to his wife and son. I will be praying for you to get through this difficult time.

God be with you.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Great Message at Kensington Today

Don't be that guy. Today's message was about the story of Jonah which goes as follows: (in my own words)

God spoke to Jonah and asked him to go preach to the city of Nineveh who has been wicked. Jonah rebelled against God and went the exact opposite direction almost 4 times further than the distance God asked him to go. Essentially saying, not only do I not want to go speak to this town, I really don't want to do it.

Jonah went on a boat with some sailors. Because of his betrayal to God there were some major storms. Jonah was thrown overboard and swallowed by a big fish. The storms calmed down.

While Jonah was in the belly of the fish he prayed to God for 3 days and 3 nights.

Jonah then goes to the city and preaches, however he is not passionate about it, he is still angered. Even though he is not as convincing as he could be all the people of the town believed and were saved.

Jonah then argued with God back and forth about the city essentially wanting to play God himself about who gets to be saved and not saved.

The message for the week was Don't Be That Guy. After thinking about it all day I can bet that most of us have been that guy in the past. We have probably all judged other people and said because I don't like this person, or what they have done we want to be the one to say they can't do something, or shouldn't be loved by God. I know I am guilty and will be saying some prayers tonight.

Everything for him.

Rob

God is Awesome

The other night I had a long talk with God on my way home. I told him how much I loved him, I told him I was sorry for things I have done in my life, I prayed for other people and things that they have done to me. It felt amazing to get that off my chest. I will continue to pray for those other people.

Good Food, Good Talk and Great Friends

This afternoon / evening I had the great pleasure of time with some friends from work. We were meeting because an old friend came back to work for the company. We talked about work for a while but it was great when we started talking about Christ and the things that God does for us. My one friend that was with us has been raised Catholic and like he puts it that lasts for the 38 minute service then it was back to normal life as he was growing up. He too is on a journey and I am glad to be going through this at the same time as him.

I truly believe that God has a plan for all of us and it's amazing how things work out. I used to work with this friend for about 5 years or so. I left that organization about 2 years ago and we kept in contact because we are like minded "geeks" who like technology. One of the other gentlemen I worked for about 1998 and he has been following Christ for a long time. The last gentlemen is my current boss and has been a follower of Christ since he was seven I believe he said.

As a new follower this was an awesome opportunity to learn the way. I have so many questions and some of those got answered tonight. We talked about how do you know when you are "saved" how do you know when it's time for an "adult baptism". One gentlemen pulled out his pocket bible and went to John 11:21 and read the next few verses and we talked about them.

Lord, Martha said to Jesus, If you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.

Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."

Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

"Yes, Lord, " she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who has come into the world."

We discussed specifically the last thing Jesus said to her. He who believes in me..... Do you believe this...

Yes I do believe this, I believe it in my heart.

What an amazing evening. Thanks be to God for bringing us all together.

I am truly blessed

Last night while we were getting the kids ready for bed we were having a discussion on the things we are thankful for, where we need help in our lives. This was after reading some of the kids bible that we bought a couple of weeks back.

Wyatt - 3 years old, almost 4. "I am thankful for cottage cheese, macaroni and cheese, Turkey and Ham sandwiches."

Hunter - 6, almost 7 - "I am thankful for stores."

Zachary - 6, almost 7 - "I am thankful to be alive, for food and our house."

I see a wide range of things to be thankful for. I agree, mac and cheese is awesome. :-) I too like stores, and I am thankful to be alive, especially with such an awesome family.

Thanks God, you are awesome.

Purpose Driven Life

I have joined forces with a few guys at work and we are reading the Purpose Driven Life. The latest chapter talks about becoming Gods best friend and how you can do it. One thing it says is that you can't do it just by going to church every sunday, then walking away and forgetting about God the rest of the week. Here are a couple of things that it says you can do:

• Be in constant conversation with him - talk with him all day, every day.
• Breath Prayers - These are short prayers that you can memorize and say throughout the day to keep you in that constant conversation with God. ("I'm depending on you", "I want to know you", "I belong to you", "Help me trust you")
• Use short phrase of Scripture ("For me to live is Christ", "You will never leave me", "You are my God"
• Pray as often as possible - We all live busy lives but we can pray more than just a set time every day. For example the Monks use the hourly chime of the clock to remind them to pray. We can use our cell phone alarms to set several times throughout the day to pray. It doesn't have to be a long prayer.

I was talking with a friend about it and basically keep it short, simple and often.

Bible Study Tommorow

Tomorrow we will be watching the second half of a testimony by Pistol Pete. The first half was awesome, very moving. For anyone who is interested I have posted a few links below so you can learn a little more about Pistol Pete. Also after we complete the Pistol Pete movie tomorrow I will reflect any thoughts on the blog later in the day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Maravich

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z31E7rBNx-M

http://www.christiancinema.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1502

Great testimony, the youtube video is about 9 or 10 minutes from the testimony we are watching in our bible study tomorrow. I am excited about it.

Men's DIG Bible Study

A couple of weeks ago I joined a Mens study group to better learn the word of God. The study is currently focussing on the book of Genesis and we are currently discussing chapter 34. In this chapter basically Jacob's daughter is "raped". Wow, I am a father of 4 kids, one being a daughter and I can't imagine how I would feel if someone did that to my daughter.

After the raping the guy who did the violating wanted Dinah as his wife. Not because he was truly in love with her but he was in love with the fact that her family had a lot of things such as the animals. So his dad went to Jacob and asked for his daughter in marriage for his son. By this time Jacobs sons were back and said that the whole town had to get circumsized or it is a discrace. They agreed. While the town was healing from the procedure the brothers came to the town and killed all the men, took the women and kids and all the stuff in the houses.

Wow, talk about an intense chapter. There is a lot going on here and its hard to say you wouldn't feel rage if that happened to your daughter. This got me to thinking about what is the right thing to do when someone wrongs us. What should we do when someone does something against someone we love, how should we as followers of Christ address this? I am sure this new journey I am on will help me to know what is the right thing to do.

Until next time, may Christ be with you.

Awesome little story about prayers

This is something I have been struggling with all my life. Obviously before I really started to try to walk with Christ I didn't focus on praying. But lately I have been trying to pray and have those "talks" with God. Recently my 6 year old boy and I had a prayer that we both prayed for together and at separate times. Here is the story.

Anyone who knows Zack, knows that he freaks out when he is going to the doctors, starts crying before we even leave the house. Sometimes has been known to cry weeks in advance. Even when he is strong he always cries when we make it to the dr and he gets called back. Recently he had to go get two fillings done at a specialist dentist and he was nervous about it. We tried a couple of things different, first is I went to the appointment also. The other thing is the night before Zack and I were talking and him and I prayed that God would give him the courage to make it through without getting stressed. I also said a prayer on my own to the same effect the day of the fillings on my way to meet them for the appointment. He made it through the procedure no tears at all, he was very strong and after when him and I were driving home he told me that God helped him through. Talk about making you believe even more that God is always out there helping us, always looking out for us.

So 6 years old and his first real prayer to God was answered. That's just awesome.

Thank You

It wasn't until recently that I realized everything that I have in my life came to me with his guidance and help. I have an amazing wife who puts up with my excessive work-aholism. I have 4 awesome children, Hunter, Zachary, Wyatt and Cheyenne, who are truly gifts from God. I have had a great career so far, I have traveled a lot of this beautiful country and some of the world. I have a fantastic reputation in my industry which helps me to continue to move forward in my career. I have a side business that is doing very well. I have loving friends and family all around me. My parents are always there for me.

I now realize none of this would be possible if it wasn't for his guiding hand, even though I didn't know him at the time. Thank you God. I couldn't have done it without you.

Welcome to My Walk With Christ

The past few months have been very exciting for me. I have always considered myself a believer of Christ but I didn't really know what that meant until recently. I recently accepted Christ into my life with open and loving heart. A few months back I found myself lacking something, longing for something more in my life. I first thought it was something with my career only to find that wasn't it. My boss at the time invited me to a Bible study and I was apprehensive at first. I was afraid of how people would look at me by joining a Bible study at work. What would they think, how would the view of me change? After a couple months of going on and off I started to get this feeling in my heart. Something I hadn't felt in a very long time.

I since then have started going to church regularly, joined another mens Bible study and sharing what I learn along the way with my kids. I am loving it, they are loving it. My intentions for this blog isn't any more than to share my experiences as I learn to walk with Christ. I have so much to learn and I think if I can share my experiences and one person out there can maybe benefit that would be great. If not, then in 20 years my kids can look back on this blog and see the things I have experienced if they ever lose faith.

In Christ,

Rob