HS Sweet Hearts!?!

If I were born in the fifties I would not have taken my eyes off this hottie.






Of course sportin' a bow tie like this it was destiny we would go steady. After 10 years of marriage I feel as if Emie and I are shifting into second gear now. With four beautiful children, amazing friends (who we miss), crazy God adventures, seeing the Holy Spirit poured out on us and others, witnessing healings, provision beyond calculation, traveling the world and connecting fewer times than Emie would like, here we are entering another decade of marital bliss. How could God be so faithful to us?

Emie and I had a strange beginning to our relationship (as many of you know). God spoke clearly to us on the same night that we would be married. The only hitch was we were not dating, nor were we close friends. So what were we to do with this revelation? Well, Emie freaked out and told me to drop off the face of the earth.

I was excited, I had found "the one." Life was going to be great. I had been given the most attractive, intelligent, driven women I could have ever asked for. I was told I needed to marry a housewife, but what I wanted was a teammate who would change the world with me. All the years I had been praying for my wife, Emie was the answer. She embodied God's reply to my heart. How could I have been so lucky?

Of course I do wonder why she has put up with me (maybe she didn't pray hard enough).

Over the last ten years I have taken her up and down, over and around the world. She has learned to be content with plenty and with little. She has had to re-establish a home 11 times, 4 of which while living with other families. She has put her desires (which mean "of the Father") aside countless times to fulfill what I believe God was asking of us. She has mothered our children amazingly and poured herself into discipling them for the Kingdom.

Emie has never once complained about what her Father has asked of us. She only wishes she could devote more time and energy to him. She is an ocean yet to be discovered and a treasure yet to be spent. The world is in for a shocker when God fully releases her into her destiny.

Coming from dysfunction junction myself I am in awe how God has blessed me so much with a woman who selflessly gives and can still laugh with me. Emie is my earth angel sent from heaven. I never thought I would ever admire someone as much as I do her (now if I could only tell the way she needs to hear it).

We have had our struggles (like all) but have learned to get up and fly again. We have seen the best of times and the worse of times. I guess that is what being married is all about, loving when our spouses are jerks. And wow have I been a jerk (that happens to be Emie's favorite word to describe me when I am in my element).

When we mutually submit to each other (as if we are one) then anything is possible. I am the luckiest man on earth to have such a woman as I do. And my children are equally blessed to be raised not only with a mother who adores them but who loves Jesus more than herself.

My prayer is that the world will see the Master in this masterpiece he has created between Emie and I. And though we weren't around in the fifties maybe we'll make it fifty more years. If we do I know this lady of mine will be just as hot then as she is now.

I love you babe!

Better than the Ark?

Though King David and all Israel were singing before God with all their might, with all kinds of musical instruments God was still not in it. Neither did he tell David to move the Ark of the Covenant. It was “the right thing to do” they all agreed, but it was not God’s thing to do, at least not his way of moving.

As a result when they came across the threshing floor, the most level place, the oxen stumbled. Mr. “Strength-in-Self” aka Uzzah puts his hand out to steady the ark and finds himself dead. “David was now afraid of God” and named the place “outbreak against strength in self, aka Perez-uzzah.

As a result an obscure gentleman receives a box. Obed-edom wakes up one morning to realize the King is bringing God over, in a box. “There was only one time God ever put himself in a box and he said, ‘If you touch this thing I’ll kill you’ (Graham Cooke).”
The result is astonishing; the Lord blessed him and his entire household. He is so blessed that David hears about it and wants God back.

What happened to Obed-edom’s house for the king to become jealous and want the Ark back? Did his crops grow larger, goats produce more milk, and/or his pigs have a record litter? Was his marriage outstanding, kids get into the top universities? Was he voted mayor? Did his businesses make the Fortune 500 list? What could have happened in three short months that everyone knew that God in the box was tangibly impacting his “entire” household? Whatever it was his mother-in-law was reaping the benefits and it was not just spiritually. I can’t help but believe we are in a better position than Obed-edom was. “God no longer dwells in things made by human hands” (Acts17:24), he dwells in us, his Body, his Temple, his Bride.

If Christ dwells in us then shouldn’t all aspects of our life be abundant? We are the Light, shouldn’t the world be a little blinded? We are the salt, shouldn’t they be thirsty? Better yet, we are co-laborers with Christ. "We know that the world around us is under the power and control of the evil one" (1 John 5:19), shouldn’t we be getting it back? Maybe we have had a wrong perspective, one that can't wait to leave this earth, that we no longer occupy ourselves with bringing His Kingdom now. . . . “His will on earth as it is in Heaven.” We have settled for preaching the gospel and getting people saved, only to have forgotten about preaching the Kingdom so the saved have something to do.


As Christians, we bring the very presence of God into everything. We have access to wisdom the world has yet to discover. When you show up at work believe what is reality. “Don’t be content with sitting in the Heavens, rather operate from it (Lance Wallnau).” Bless your pagan boss, Joseph did! It was Joseph’s sinful boss that God used to catapult him into his destiny.

I have had some great times at my current job. I see it in two parts; one to slow me down so our family can enjoy some stability. Emie is still the love of my life. After ten years of marriage I am still awed by her. With the days coming closer to having our own place, she has become a new woman.

Secondly, this new journey has taken me deeper into my destiny. I am getting wonderful training and being challenged in a new environment. The last 5 weeks have been an adjustment from having a boss to little time to hang with the family. Through it all, I have seen God show up in the market place. There are no professional ministers, we all minister. Life is ministry and we advance the Kingdom of God wherever we find ourselves.

In the last week I have had the opportunity to pray for one co-worker who had a pinched nerve in his hip. This created a twitching down his leg and he could only sit for a few minutes before he would have to stand up. Being a Christian himself, it wasn’t difficult to convince him to let me pray. I did and he sat the rest of the day without pain and the following Monday was still in shock that he was healed. God had not only rocked him in the healing but also rocked him back into a revived life.
Another co-worker (who is not a Christian) had the flu. After a day of kicking myself for not praying for her immediately I got the boldness to ask. After I briefly prayed, she said she didn’t feel anything. As she was talking, the shock was kicking in because all her sinus pressure had disappeared, then her ears cleared up. She couldn’t believe it.

Yesterday I was able to communicate the gospel to another co-worker who was living the player life. He was very open about his selfishness in relationships, so I was very open in how he probably should reconsider his lifestyle. We had a fascinating conversation about not lying, trust, character and integrity. I shared the simple truth of being separated from God and in darkness to being alive in Christ. I communicated that whether he agreed with his pastor/priest the truth is, he was still accountable before God with his life. He could not blame his view on God because of a priest he didn’t like. I could see the fear of God come over him and the wheels spinning.

It has been an amazing week on the job and I can see things rising in the supernatural realm. The Lord has also given me amazing dreams in my sleep that are glimpses of what is to come. What exciting times we live in.

If an obscure man named Obed-edom aka worshiper can be blessed, then the ones who worship in Spirit and Truth and put “no strength in self” can be blessed and have some left over to generously give away. We are better than the Ark, because in Christ, everything prospers.

Who knows maybe a king will be jealous of your blessing and come offer you a better job than the “prison” you’re in now.

Blessings
He@th

MLK

“I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live.

You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.

You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.

Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.

And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

You died when you refused to stand up for right.

You died when you refused to stand up for truth.

You died when you refused to stand up for justice.”

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
From the sermon “But, If Not” delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church on November 5, 1967.