"Throw Me In The Fire!"

A few years ago, my friend Tom and I led a wild and crazy prayer meeting in Murfreesboro Tennessee. We were absolute maniacs for God and this "prayer meeting" was super raw and intense, but God would show up. Well one night, I guess I was feeling like I was getting too soft spiritually and my faith wasn’t cranked up to level 1,000, so I prayed a prayer Tom and I both laugh about to this day: “THROW ME INTO THE FIRE GOD!!!”

I didn’t really know what I was asking for, but I knew that I wanted to want God more than I did at that moment. Well sure enough, God answered that prayer. I think it was two or three days later that I lost my job. God threw me into the fire! I was put into a place where all I had to hold onto was God Himself. This experience really marked me because I remember being pushed into an even deeper place with the Lord. It’s funny how God has to sometimes rock the boat in our lives in order to bring us into a new place spiritually.

I feel like this has really been the last year and a half of my life. Plans have changed. A lot has changed. Hopefully I have changed.

I sometimes get so focused on the thing I think God is building in my life, that I forget what this is really all about: simply following Jesus.

You know, a year ago, I believed with all my heart I was planting a church in West Tennessee. I had moved to a new city, started working at a new church with my in-laws (who are great!), and was really looking forward to planting a church. And as many of you know, right at a year into the process, the Lord changed the plan: well, changed what I THOUGHT was the plan. The church plant wasn’t going to work out. It was all super confusing to process. So much of my identity had become wrapped up in being a future church planter. I had no idea that if the plans were to fall through, it would rock me like it did. But they did fall through; and I did get rocked.

God threw me into fire once again!

Never in a million years could I imagine that I would one day move to White Plains, New York; half an hour away from NYC.

But thank God I did. I am so grateful God changed the plans on me. I am being challenged and growing in ways that I didn't know I needed and making real relationships with some of the most amazing and genuine people I have ever met. This has become an amazing season of life and ministry for Lacey and I. And not to mention, Lacey is now leading her own ministry too as the worship director of our church up here.

I still believe that one day we will plant a church and it will be everything I ever hoped it would be. But today, I can honestly say I trust in God's timing. God has an amazing track record in my life- He truly knows what He is doing. I don't believe God wastes seasons of our lives and these past two years must have been necessary in the grand scheme of God's plan.

I want to thank everyone who has walked with me up until this point; I honestly couldn't do it without you.