My inspiration for writing this is a worship leader that battled cancer and claimed healing from God. After becoming fairly popular from his story and his music about his battle, it was revealed that he didn’t actually have cancer, but had been involved in a life of lies to convince everyone around him that he was sick. As the truth came out, the true battle that he was fighting was the battle with pornography.

This story of lies and deception has really bugged me since I learned about it a year and a half ago. Since the truth came out, the song this guy wrote has increasingly become popular. And this popularity in light of the lies surrounding the song, has really caused conflict in my heart as I’ve sung this song. It has really agonized me.

But tonight I realized this guy who wrote the song was really seeking healing from his ‘cancer’ that he was too embarrassed and ashamed to talk about. It was not a cancer of the body, but a cancer of the mind and soul. Pornography had infected him and was causing him tremendous pain. That same pain has hurt more men than any actual cancer of the body. And I can attest that God can heal men from this battle with pornography.

Now when I sing the song Healer, it’ll have a different meaning. It’s not just a plea for physical healing of our bodies, but a healing of our hearts, souls, and minds. Below are some of the lyrics from this plea for healing:

I believe You’re my Healer
I believe You are all I need
I believe You’re my Portion
I believe You’re more than enough for me
Jesus You’re all I need
Nothing is impossible for You
You hold my world in Your hands

God, I pray for all men that are battling pornography. I pray that they will seek your healing and support with this battle. Nothing, not even a battle with pornography, is impossible for You.

Well, below is a recording of my thoughts and insights about praying for my kids. Take a quick listen.

How about you? Do you have any messy prayers for your kids?

Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

But, sometimes in my own life and those that are closer to me, I don’t honestly expect God to show up such miraculous ways. I get used to the hurting and brokenness that faces me regularly and have almost given up on the idea of God fixing those issues. I notice myself internally voicing the following kinds of things:

• “Well, that’s just the way Joe is. He’s been sexually abused when he was young, and he’ll always react in bad ways when he’s hurt or confused.”
• “Since, Mikey is young and been brought up in a dysfunctional home, I shouldn’t expect him to be as mature as other kids. He’ll always be that way.”
• “I’ll always suffer from the hurt and rejection from a couple of years ago. I just have to be tough and not let that hurt bring me down at times like the holidays.”

But, wait a minute. Didn’t I say that Jesus wanted to bring ‘hope, healing, and restoration to His children’? Isn’t He the blessed redeemer? Didn’t He come to seek and save the lost? Didn’t He come to bring healing and wholeness?

My king can bring healing to Joe, Mikey, and me.

Lord, continue to work in my life to bring healing and wholeness!

Merry Christmas!

A month ago I was also remembering how I’d signed up for the Navy ROTC program when I was a college freshman.  I’d initially applied for NROTC for the tuition scholarship that came with the program.  But, I ended up getting another full scholarship that didn’t require me to sign over my life after college.  So, after the first 2 weeks of college and NROTC, I began to question why I was still in NROTC and ended up dropping out of it before I had any commitment to our US military.

While ‘signing over’ a few years of your life to a trucking company or to the military might not sound like your cup of tea, I think either experience could have been good for me.  I’m sure my life would have been both better and worse from either experience and I’d likely be in a whole different situation, better or worse, than I am now.

I really like where I am now.  It’s not perfect, but it’s good and God has definitely worked some big stuff in my life over the past few years.  I don’t regret any of the big life-choices I’ve made, but I sometimes just wonder how things might have been different.

God, thanks for leading me along my life’s journey.  Often times life’s choices are hard and unclear, but you are willing to offer us guidance and wisdom about such decisions.  Thanks so much for your guidance in my life.  I can’t wait to see what lies ahead along our path!

I’d do almost anything for my mom if I know she really needs my help.  If an emergency comes up, I’ll take off from work and drive 100 miles to go be with her at the drop of a hat.  She’s family and I love her.  And I’ll do just about anything to help my family when they’re in serious need.

As an unmarried, only child, my physical family is pretty small.  But, as a child of God, my family is ginormous. God asks us to live life together as a family and share and help one another as need arises.  Unfortunately, either I often don’t see the needs of my family, or my family doesn’t express their needs to me.  But, I know various people in my family are hurting and needing help.  How can I better realize their needs and help them in both practical ways and lifting them in prayer?  I want to grow in this area.

Last week my mom had several physical needs and I took off several days from work to help her and be at her side.  About the same time, I learned of 3 families at church who had deaths of close friends and family.  And I also learned about 2 marriages that were going through some pretty rough times.  Normally I’d probably say a quick prayer for these situations, but this past week God has somewhat broken me over these hurts and needs.  I’ve actually spent many different times praying and crying over these hurts and needs of my ‘family’ members.  It’s been an eye and heart opening experience to be broken by these hurts.  I want to continue to grow in noticing and helping my family.

Lord, continue to work in my life so that I’m broken when my family is broken.  Help me to notice when my family is hurting and broken.  Help me to grow in my willingness and passion in practically praying and assisting when my family needs help.  And, continue to lift up and strengthen these 6 groups of people in my family.  I especially ask you to bless these 2 troubled marriages, as well as 2 others that came to mind tonight.  Touch them in a mighty and miraculous way as only you can!

Well today I’m out to lunch with my coworkers and I see this same aquaintance come walking into the restaurant.  We eventually make eye contact across the crowded room and exchange friendly waves.  So, after lunch I went over and said hello again.  I think I said something about it was odd to run into him again so soon.  Then I took off back to work.  Like I said… I’m slow.

So, tonight as I’m thinking about my day it hits me… God crossed our paths again today for some reason.  Maybe it was for me to open the door a bit more with this guy.  Or maybe it was just so I’d start to recognize opportunities that He puts in my day.  Whatever the reason, God’s funny that way.  He orchestrated my day and this other guy’s day so that we’d run into each other, just a day after I’d realized the first meeting was a God opportunity.  God is funny.

Well, I’m pretty sure I’ll take advantage of the opportunity if I run into this guy again in the next few days.  But, the bigger question is… How can I better recognize God opportunities when they show up?

It was the end of our first day working at the River Centre shelter.  We’d driven through the night the day before and I was now working on only about 6 hours sleep for the past 48 hours.  I was exhausted and at the end of my rope.  But, we now had a 5 year old boy latched onto us who needed some love and attention.

His mother had left the shelter that morning around 10a and he didn’t know where his mom was.  It was now about 9 hours later and we didn’t want to leave this boy alone.  I’d already sent most of our team off to find the place where we were supposed to be sleeping, but now after searching for his mom for about 90 minutes I was at the end of what I could handle.

In selfish desperation, I said a short prayer…

Lord, if there’s any way possible, it’d sure be nice if this boy’s mother could show up here in the next couple of minutes.

Literally about 90 seconds later I see 2 women walking in and this boy going to them.  It was the boy’s mother and aunt.  God had answered my simple prayer.  I couldn’t believe it.  The timing was just too weird to not have been God’s personal response to me.

So, why do I tend to only turn to God and ask for his help as a last resort?  Why do I think I have to solve things on my own and exhaust all other resources, before turning to God?  It’s either that I don’t trust him, or I’m too proud to feel like I need his help.  Either option is stupid.

Lord, help me to come to you with my daily needs.  Help me to trust and depend on you in both the little and big stuff of life.  Without you I’m not all that hot, and I need your help.

Do you have any stories of when God answered a really simple prayer of yours?  Do you have trouble asking for help with the simpler needs in your life?

On that Monday and Tuesday I served in a temporary data center for a 6,000 person shelter that had been setup at the River Centre in Baton Rouge, LA.  As a computer guru and web application developer, I knew that a few technology tweaks could make this data processing much more useful.  It was frustrating to be there and know that something better could be done.

Then on the drive back to Illinois on Wednesday, we were listening to a Steel on Steel podcast and they were talking about how technology could possibly solve our oil shortage.  I was like, “Yeah… technology can solve any problem.”

Then, suddenly, I realized what I was saying.  I really did tend to think that technology can fix any problem.  Technology is amazing.  It can solve starvation, resource scarcity, data analysis, recovery from natural disasters, etc.  It can literally save people.  Or can it?   Can technology fix all our problems?  I sure tend to think it can if we can just wrap our minds around a solution.

I realized that much of the time I look to technology to fix us, instead of God.  The world’s core problems can only be solved by God.  My deepest problems can only be made right by God’s miraculous touch.

If I don’t watch myself, I start to worship technology, rather than the one who created order to our world and gave us the left and right parts of our brains in order to develop and apply technology to our worlds.

Lord, help me to rely only on you and realize daily that technology is something you created for us to use to glorify you.

How do you tend to worship technology?  What else do you worship instead of God?  Politics?  Wealth?

But, tonight I was reminded of a huge thing I learned during Labor Day weekend in 2005.  That was the weekend following disaster in the Gulf Coast, known as Hurricane Katrina.  As I was thinking about this one lesson that I learned that particular weekend, I realized that there were some other lessons I learned that weekend.  And each of these were really huge, significant lessons that have shaped my life since then.

So, this is an introduction to 5 key lessons that I learned from the weekend after Hurricane Katrina.  Read about my 5 lessons here over the next few days:

1. Techno Savior
2. A Little Less Action, and a Lot More Talk
3. Pray Tell What?
4. It’s Safer Driving from the Back Seat
5. Shouldn’t This Be Less Fun?

One of the habits that I want to develop is documenting my life lessons and glimpses of when I’m certain God showed me something.  These lessons from this one weekend are just that.

How do you remember when you learn a life lesson?  How far after an experience do you typically need to be to understand what that experience has taught you?

Recently Ken Coleman at Catalyst interviewed Pat for their podcast.  Pat offers up some advice on:

• team building by understanding personalities
• athletic coaching
• how to keep a job from being miserable
• interesting comparison of Obama to JFK

Check out the interview with Patrick Lencioni, starting at about 20 minutes into the following interview:

• Patrick Lencioni – Catalyst Podcast #50

I’m quickly becoming a Lencioni fan.

What do you think makes for a miserable job?

What do you think of Pat’s comments on Obama?

Last week an idea really clicked with me. Living a disciplined life should not be the goal. Rather a discipline is something that I do so that I can live a certain way. The act of taking out the garbage isn’t my goal. Eating healthy isn’t my goal. Rather those are things that I do so that I can live life and not get distracted by those things.

So, what are some of my goals? I want to live a life full of passion. I want to be connected in meaningful relationships with people. I want to help people experience a meaningful life. So, I need to strategically lead my own life so that things don’t distract me from these goals. That’s where discipline enters the picture.

I want to focus on a few disciplines that help me to not get distracted from my goals:

• By spending time in God’s Word, I can learn from His passion.
• By focusing on my health, I can live more vigorously and invest more freely in relationships.
• By studying and reading, I can develop skills in leading people.

I need to understand what my motivation is. It’s so easy to get caught up in a task and forget why it’s even important.

Where have you lost your motivation recently? What is an area of your life you want to grow in, and how can a discipline help with it?

Here’s what it looked like from my driveway between 9:15-10:00p CDT:

Sometimes one chapter or book comes to a dramatic end and it’s hard to imagine how the next section could continue.  Recently I’ve been feeling a bit abandoned.  The woman I loved walked out.  My job could end anytime.  Another job opportunity that looked exciting never developed.  My close friend, mentor, and pastor has decided to quit his job and move away.  A couple close friends are drifting away.  Sometimes a chapter or book ends on an exciting cliff hanger.  Other times, they end without a sense of resolution and it’s hard to imagine how the next section can continue.

But, I know the writer of my story.  He’s the greatest author ever.  Why wouldn’t I expect the next section to move forward and the epic adventure to continue?  Is my author less skilled at writing a great epic than J.R. Tolkien or George Lucas?  Heck no!  Those are novice authors compared to my God.

While it’s a disappointing time in my story, I’m confident the next book will be even more exciting.  I can’t wait to see how the story unfolds!

It actually started over a year ago. In October 2006 God really started challenging my faith and belief.

“Bill, if you believe that faith in Jesus is key to people finding hope, forgiveness and eternal life, why don’t you seem to care? Why don’t you care about people? People who are far from God? People you work with? People from church? Family? Bill, what have I called you to? Didn’t I say love me and love the people around you? I didn’t call you to some other mission.”

I never heard an audible voice or anything, but God started putting that burden on my heart last fall.

So, life lesson number 1: Relationships matter everything. God’s core desire for us is to know Him and share our lives with people around us (see: Greatest Commandment). If those relationships aren’t at the core of what I’m doing, I’m not really in the game. This wasn’t really new to me, but the newness was an understanding and appreciation that God sets this as the top priority.

So, in October 2006 I started to move toward investing in relationships as a core focus. There are times when I’ve gotten off track and sat on the bench, forgetting how to play the game, but this new passion for relationships has been the basis for making the past year incredible. You’ll hear about some of these new relationships in future parts of this post.

What about you? Do you really let the value of relationships be the top priority in your life?

Do you have any advice for keeping this a core focus in your life?

Our Deepest Fear

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

by Marianne Williamson
from A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles

This poem struck a chord with me when I heard it. After looking up Marianne Williamson online, I’m pretty sure I don’t agree with her on a lot of her philosophy and theology. But still, I like this poem.

What do you think? Do we often play small instead of shining like the stars?

(I promise that I’m not going to simply turn this blog into just a posting of videos, but I thought this one was very special.)

Can you identify with Logan’s loss and insight?

Worship Sets:

LifeChurch.tv South OKC:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=216314816
LifeChurch.tv Tulsa:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=256184053
Mars Hill Music:
http://rss.marshillchurch.org/mhcmusic

Video Podcasts:

LifeChurch.tv:
http://www.lifechurch.tv/rss/messagecast-itunes.xml
Don’t Waste Your Life:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/DWYL
Mosaic:
http://mosaic.org/podcast/videofeed/
Mars Hill:
http://rss.marshillchurch.org/mhcsermonvideo