Season's Change, its God's Will

In just the past few weeks my pastor in my ministry (Tech Production) and good friend had decided to go back to the high tech life of corporate America. On top of that the co-pastor at my church (pictured with me) had a tug in his heart to migrate his family to Redman, WA and become the lead Pastor at Timberlake Church, another big surprise.

Some of my first initial thoughts were:

"God, what the heck is going on here?"
"I don't want them to go?"
"They cant leave now, I still need them"
"What am I going to do now?"

Its funny how quickly our thoughts immediately take a selfish turn when "change" you don't want to happen in your life occurs. Its human nature to get comfortable and we want it to stay the same. However if GOD allowed it to stay the same we would not grow in our faith nor grow as individuals. Their season at Eastlake church and their ministry has been fulfilled.

Each season in a year is beautiful (although in San Diego we have only 1 season ;)) when your in the middle of it, but when its time to change there is that ugly, messy, or awkward transition to get to the next season. The interesting note is, the environment eventually adapts to this change as we go into the next season and so on.

Our Heavenly Father has a plan for all of us. Lets not pray to Him to ask Him to change things for our own selfish reasons, but rather seek his guidance, take the next step in our faith, and continue to build our relationship with Him.

Its clear to me, that GOD's will for these two gentlemen are to help others seek Him as I have, not to hurt our current church family. Jesus says to go and make disciples and they have.......and they are continuing to do so.

Temptation - Can you resist it?

I was in Las Vegas on a family vacation this past week. We had a lot of fun and adventure for the whole family even though the highs were 122, we were lovin it.

We had to stop by the mall to pick up a few items and beat the heat, then again everyone had the same thought. Parking was a pain. A parking space was nowhere to be found. We finally found a couple who just walked out of the mall so we started to follow them to their car. As they approached their car I turned on my turn signal so people would know my intentions. Another car (minivan) was motioning they were going to take the spot, and we motioned back indicating the same thing. I finally rolled my window down to tell them we had been following the couple, and they responded they were following them. It was starting to get ugly and I KNEW I had the rights to their spot. They kept talking and a women hopped out of the minivan and stood in the spot to ensure I didn't get it. I was pissed, we were all pissed. We slowly crept up pass them and decided to let it go. I looked at them and they gloated and stuff. I rolled my window down and said the only thing that came to my mind. "God Bless You". They all laughed and said something about my comment, and yelled out, "and we got your space too"

Boy did I want to get out and give them a little bit of "Thunder and Lighting". I didn't. in those few moments I calmed down, let it go, and forgave them. It was hard, but I did it.

15 secs after passing them, I drove around front of the mall (even though parking was scare I had to get around to look elsewhere) a parking spot was empty and waiting for us in the front of the door to the mall. 100 times better than the spot I was about to argue for. It made my day!