i_will_go

So I have decided to move to blogger because it allows me to do more of what I want for this blog. The new blog is at http://i-will-go-rv.blogspot.com  Hopefully you can all find your way over. God bless.

I know we all have those times were we start to doubt that we heard God correctly or maybe even our sanity. One of those times happened yesterday. About two months ago in my prayer time I felt God say to me that we should put everything that we need in the rv and sell the rest at a garage sale. Now first of all I am not one that is usually a fan of garage sales. In general I think they take a ton of time and you end up with a tenth of what you had hoped for in the first place. So, when God said this I was willing but not overly excited as I approached BB with what I felt God was saying, the reception to what I was feeling was not shall we say a positive one. BB was not a fan of getting rid of everything because we still are unsure of how long we were to be gone. Now to be clear, she was not saying heck no God forget it but rather, sure we can sell most of it but it makes no sense to get rid of everything. She knew that God wanted us to travel and thus get rid of some of the unnecessary stuff but had her doubts on the authorship of an idea that struck so close to what I typically say when it comes to housework. ("This would be ten times easier if we didn't have all this crap!") So after about a month of going back and forth it finally came to a head yesterday with a conversation that ended with me taking a long walk around the block. On my walk God and I had a long talk in which I told him how crazy all this is and how we needed some sort of stability for our kids, decisions had to be made after all! At the end of my rantings where God could have easily put me in my place such as in Job 38:4 "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand." But God in his grace didn't remind me how many times he has calmed my fears or how many confirmations he has given me. Instead Daddy God wrapped his loving arms around me as I walked and reminded me of the section of the bible he has been having me read lately. I have read and re-read the story of Abraham, God told him to pick up and leave and Abraham did as God called him to do. When I got home I looked at BB and told her what God had told me and that I was sure about what exactly God was asking of us but that she needed to know it for herself to. I handed her a bible and told her that God needed to speak to her also and not just to me and I went about my work. About fifteen minutes later she came back to me and said that God had given her the same word. So today we had our first of several garage sales preparing to selling everything that won't fit in the rv. And all I can say is that God is so Good. Not only did we sell most of what we put out there but we actually had multiple people come up to us through out the day asking specifically about things that we hadn't brought out to the sale. We ended up giving a couple of complete strangers tours of our house so they could see additional things that we hadn't even cleared of or emptied yet. All I can say is that when God calls you to something he blesses it  and I can truly say that we have been blessed this day my Lord. Thank you Lord for your blessing that flow down to your children. Until next time, may his blessing overtake you and his character be revealed to you. 

God had spoken, we were positive about that. We knew that He wanted us to travel. That sounds so simple doesn't it. Just one little word, travel. The list of things that needed to happen for us to travel was staggering. We started getting things done on the house and rv and were feeling pretty good about our progress for a while. Then we stopped looking at the goal and what God was doing and started looking at all the stuff that had to happen before we could simply travel. Looking back I feel somewhat like peter in
Matthew 14:29b-30 "Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”"

We were doing what God had told us to do but we began to look at the waves of adversity in our lives and we began to sink. That was when we went to a friend of ours home church desperately hoping for a word from God to ensure us we were in fact on the right track. When we settled in our friend looked at the group and told us that God had been laying it on his heart all week that we all needed to pray for each other and give any words that God gave us. Just as in verse 31 of matthew 14 Jesus reached down his hand to us and set our feet on the path of his calling. Most of the people there had no idea what we had felt God tell us to do and yet every person there shared word after word that confirmed what God had been sharing with us. The one that sticks out the most was from a teenager who looked at us and said that she heard God saying "Just do it". After a night of confirmations that we were doing what God wanted  we literally felt as though God had pulled us back onto the top of the see and the waves didn't feel quite so daunting anymore. Until next time, God bless.

Church, what does it mean? I have been going to "Church" my entire life and have had it defined several different ways. We are the church some would say, to others it is the building and still others would say the church is a bunch of hypocrites. The list could go on all night. My mind goes to the scripture in Mark 8:27 where Jesus asks the disciples who people say that he is. They went through a list of various options until finally Peter says in verse 29 that Jesus is the Christ. So, if Jesus asked you today who is my church, what is my church? How would you respond? I know that I too often would immediately flash back to some christian brothers and sisters that I have had a hard time loving, or some of the buildings in the area. But what does God say the church is? 
Well, I looked it up. The word church is used over 100 times in the bible, and all but one use the same Greek word. Now if you are anything like me your first question is what's the deal with that one lonely greek word that was different? Well Acts 19:37 is that one, and it is simply talking about someone who robs from a church and that is the defined in that way. All the rest however are defined by strongs and several others as "A calling out".
The church is not a building, it is not a person or even a group of people. It is a calling. If you are a Christian then  you are called. To what? What is my calling? That my friends is the question, what does God want me to do. To answer that I think we must again go back to scripture and ask what did Jesus do? Jesus set aside heaven to come here for us. Jesus healed the sick, spent time with the outcast and basically lived a life that was not his own. In my opinion, that is our calling. Mark 16:15 "He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation."

I have never been a person who takes a pill for every headache or pain but at the beginning of this year I found all that had changed. I was suddenly taking the max doses of both tylenol and ibuprofen spread out through the day just to get the pain to a point to a manageable level. Work was out of the question, suddenly we found our families income plummet like a rock. And here is where God in all his kindness and love step into the middle of our families lives. You see one of the things that makes my family unique is the fact that BB is in a wheelchair and needs a certain amount of physical help from me. I literally couldn't pick up a ketchup bottle with my left hand at this point without screaming out in pain and yet I was able to meet every need of my wife's without the slightest problem. Philippians 4:19 says "My God will richly fill your every need in a glorious way through Christ Jesus." (Gods word translation) How awesome is God! I needed to be able to help my wife and God made it completely pain free.
During this time we also began to see that we really could live on much less than we had been. We started feeling God call us to a very different lifestyle. Instead of desiring more room and things we started realizing just how much excess we really had. Now I don't mean to make it sound like we were living in mansions and spending thousands a month on lattes, but we definitely had more than we needed. We began to realize that by constantly wanting more and bigger all of your time gets sucked into maintaining those things and achieving those things instead of reaching the world around you. I mean just stop and think if you no longer had a house payment or spent the time doing the fancy yard work how much money and time would you have to give to his kingdom? God very bluntly showed us that we were to focused on ourselves and our lives instead of who we could impact in our world today. Who you love Lord, I will love. Who you serve, I will serve. Until next time, may Gods heart become real in your life today.

For quite a long time my family has had a desire to travel, in fact in one year we traveled from Iowa to texas three separate times. We had desired an rv but hadn't been able to find one that met our needs both physically and financially. When God supplied the rv at the price we could afford and with the perfect layout we felt like we were on cloud nine. But then the realization set in that to use this gas guzzler for anything more than a weekend trip over to the closest campsite would be almost impossible with our current financial goals and income. I specifically remember the end of a conversation we had about wondering if God was calling us to travel either full time or part time and my beautiful bride( henceforth referred to as BB) said to me "The only way I would even consider traveling is if for some reason you couldn't do your job anymore." Now I should clarify that I am self employed in a profession that although not requiring one to be in prime shape it does require you to lift and carry items weighing upwards of 50 pounds. "If for some reason you couldn't do your job anymore" Looking back I wish that little sentence had been worded differently. Like, The only way I will travel is if God tells us to and confirms it with a sign or something along those lines. But if you hadn't guessed no more than a couple of weeks after this comment I hurt my shoulder bad enough that I couldn't work anymore and required me to hire someone else to do it. God had our attention! Until next time may God's love become tangible and overwhelm you.

This is a blog whose purpose is to track the spiritual journey God has my family on. We are feeling called to a ministry in travel (though we don't know what exactly that means) that was spurred on late last year by the song by Chris Tomlin whose chorus goes " Where You go, I'll go. Where You stay, I'll stay. When You move, I'll move. I will follow You
Who You love, I'll love. How You serve I'll serve. If this life I lose, I will follow You". This song really started making us realize the calling to follow God anywhere, and that is why I am calling this blog "I_will_go".
I will follow You