Where have you pitched your tent?

When Abraham and Lot separated, Abraham gave Lot his choice in what land to take. In Genesis 13:12 we find that “Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom.” A brief study on the people of Sodom at that time will tell you that they were a prosperous town but they had very little morals. I can only speculate here but I am willing to bet that Lot did not have any intentions of becoming wrapped up in the sin that flowed from Sodom; he just wanted to take advantage of their riches. I am sure Lot knew where his boundaries were when he first pitched his tent. He may have even walked around his tent and marked them, making a mental note to himself about how far he would be willing to go. However if we turn a few chapters ahead we see that Lot is now a part of Sodom. The Bible does not go into much detail about the events that surrounded his moving into Sodom but I can speculate that the boundaries that he set up became blurred the more and more that he let himself be apart of the culture of Sodom. Absolute truths became relative as he was immersed in this wicked town.

Okay so now to why I even wrote this blog. We all know that the devil’s number one tool is deception and I truly believe that is what happened to Lot. The devil led him to believe that he could partake in the goings on of Sodom without becoming one of them. How many things in our lives do we do, thinking that we can handle it? Thinking that our lines will not get blurred, we know the truth and no movie or environment will change what I think. Flirting with familiar spirits to the point that vampires and demons seem okay. That lust and premarital sex are just a social norm that should be accepted. How many horror movies depict a séance or demon incantation? How many can you watch before it does not seem odd to speak to spirits from the “other side”? I in no way am saying that you will go to hell if you see the movie or read the book “Twilight”, but how much darkness can you take before you become a sodomite like Lot? In Corinthians it asks “…for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?” Vampires, while being a mythical creature, signify all that is dark, evil, and lustful. They are always depicted as being sexually depraved monsters that seek the blood of others. Do these things sound as though they are glorifying to God in any way, or do they sound as though they are in direct disobedience to God’s Word?

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Who is worthy to judge

We pass so many people on a regular basis and form opinions of them. Opinions that we pass as fact on their lives, without ever knowing their story, and I am guilty most of all. Whitetrash, she's loose, he smells......all thoughts that go through our head before we have a chance to censor them. We probably walk down a different aisle or go out of our way to avoid even walking past them. What if that person I have just judged has lost a child recently? What if they just need someone smile and say "Hello"? The only man to walk on this earth, that was worthy to judge someone, walked with the most compassion and love. My God please help me to see people through your eyes, touch people with your hands, reach people with your compassion. Make my everyday about reaching your children and making myself a servant of all.

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Where does time go?

Alarms, passwords, security cameras, and locks; we go to such great lengths to protect our “stuff” but neglect the theft of our time. There are tiny thieves all around that plunder our precious time. TV, Video Games, Internet (Myspace, Facebook, Poker, Miniclip, You Tube….and so much more). Now don’t get me wrong I am not saying that any of these things are “wrong”, but what I am saying is that if you honestly assessed how much time you spend doing each of these things in a day and then compared that to how much you read your bible, or prayed, or even just talked to God that you would find a very unbalanced scale. I also want to point out that I would not be writing this if I had not seen these patterns in my own life.

The bible says in Hebrews that “…He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” and the devil knows this better than anyone. His sole purpose then is to distract powerful Christians from the call of God on their lives. Think of the things that may be different in your life if you cut your TV time in half and spend that time reading His word. What could you glean from the Bible if you read it for a just a half hour a day? Think about how powerful your prayer life would be if you got up 15 minutes earlier than you normally do and spent that time in prayer. Believe me, I know how hard it is and I am speaking to myself just as much as you; I have 4 kids, I work full time, and my wife and I are the youth leaders at our church, but because I believe 2 chronicles 7:14 with all my heart I am going to make a pact with anyone that wants to take this challenge with me. I dare you…..

I will get up just 15 minutes early every day and spend it in conversation with God
I will read my Bible for at least ½ hour per day, every day
I will actively seek out someone to give a home bible study
I will write in my spiritual journal every day

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Path to Redemption

Before I give any details about my life I want to first explain that the first step in the path to redemption is forgiveness, not only God forgiving you but also you forgive others. So this retelling is meant only as a testimony to God's redeeming power and not a tool to stir up guilt or hard feelings.

Just because I remember very little from my childhood, I will only give you a brief synopsis. My mother raised my sister and me alone until I was about 2. She met and married my stepfather (I consider him my father now, but for the sake of the story I use this term). Shortly after they were married came my brother. So now it was the five of us. My parents started a tree trimming company. Everything seemed fine until the business took a turn for the worse and money became tight. You see my father spent his late teen years in drugs and alcohol, which is exactly what he turned to when things got tough. Combine that with the fact that my mom had been abused by her alcoholic stepfather and you have a very volatile situation. We moved around a lot and they did a lot of fighting. She would get fed up and kick him out, he would plead forgiveness and she would let him back in.
When I was about 14 my Uncle Bill reached out to me and invited me to their youth group. I went because I was searching for an escape from my troubled home life. I sought after the Holy Ghost and God filled me with His Spirit when I was 14. I went to Church camp and while praying at the altar the evangelist who preached bent down and said to me that God was going to use me to save many people. This promise will come into play later in the story, because at the time I did not know what it meant, nor did I understand the call that was on my life.

Unfortunately, by the time I was 15, I had fallen out of church and forgotten the whispered promise from God. I had already started smoking cigarettes and drinking. It was about this time that I met a girl, Laura Landor. Our relationship involved much of the typical teenage events, parties, basketball games, and football games. I drank most of my problems away even at this young age of 15. After we had dated for about a year, we convinced her mother that my current situation was so bad that she allowed me to move in with them and took me in. I slept downstairs in the family room and they treated me like a son. Shortly after I moved in with them Laura convinced me to quit smoking and drinking. I did not really speak to my own family for around a year. Well just as any real relationship is tough when you get married and live together, our fragile teenage “relationship” suffered. Just before I graduated high school we broke up and I moved back into my parent’s house. Even though I was the one to do the breaking up, I was devastated. Everything reminded me of her, so I had to get away. Just when I was feeling the worst a NAVY recruiter called and I decided I was going to join the military. I was still 17 and headed into the biggest decision I had ever made in my life.

The next 3 months were terrible. I can remember being in Boot Camp and just wishing I was back home. I acted out a lot in these 3 months. Needless to say I spent much of my time being punished. I can remember one time having to put on all of my gear, every piece of clothing I had with me and exercise in the drying room until I couldn’t breathe. During boot camp I thought I had made a mistake by breaking up with Laura, so I convinced her that we were supposed to be together. When I graduated, she came with my parents and we were officially back together.

From boot camp I went to “A” School at the naval base in Great Lakes, Illinois. I was hundreds of miles from home and alone, aside from the letters and constant phone calls to Laura. Well once again I turned to drinking and smoking. Wearing a uniform and carrying a military ID gave me free reign at many bars around the base. I spent most of my off duty hours drunk and miserable. This is truly where my drinking got bad and dangerous. I spent many nights where I should not have been and in situations that could have quickly turned for the worse. I was in and out of trouble and things seemed bleak. My only redeeming quality at this point was the fact that I was very smart and was at the top of my class. We picked orders and I got San Diego, California. The drinking age in Tijuana, Mexico is only 18 and it was about 15 minutes from the Naval Base, not a good situation for a binge drinker. It was only by the grace of God that I even made it through this time in my life (and many more times like it, which I will get to). Mexico is not the safest place for a sober tourist, much less a completely obliterated drunk. By the time I convinced my captain to let me out of the NAVY I had a list of charges against me as long as my arm. I spent 30 days in restriction before my release back home. When I landed in the Cleveland airport, I was so relieved to be back home and under my own control.

I was released from the Navy with an other than honorable discharge after a year and half, If only it ended there. This is not to glorify an ungodly lifestyle and only to truly explain how deep into the world I was. I was under the control of so many drugs I had no clue who I was and I lived with a drug dealer so everything was easy access. I spent my time in a haze of Ecstasy, GHB, Cocaine, Ketamine, Oxycontin, and Crystal Meth. I spent the next 3-4 years in an endless cycle of depression that was caused by drugs, which I did because I was depressed and did not like who I was. There were many times that I should not be alive. I wrecked my car into a telephone pole, twice. Wandered the streets in the middle of the winter at 3am, knocking on doors asking people if they knew where I lived.

I ended up back at my parent's house with no real future and no other options, which I believe is exactly where God needed me to be. I received a call from my brother, who lived in Cleveland, asking if I was interested in coming up and helping him with the bills. Now this may seem like an odd request seeing as I was still doing drugs and drinking, but I have always had and kept a job. My parent's did not agree with me going up, after all I had seemingly no ambition and I was still doing drugs. I decided I needed a change of scenery and decided to go.

Things were pretty much the same when I first went up, I looked for a job and continued to drink and smoke. After the first month, it looked as though things were going to stay the way they had been. Then one day while I was in the shower God reached down out of nowhere and called me back into His redemptive arms. I found myself praying in tongues after almost 9 years of living in the world. I cannot describe in words what it meant to be given a new chance at life. I quit everything that was keeping me bound in sin, no more drinking, smoking, or drugs. The chains that held me down for almost 9 years were broken by one word from the Creator. I am convinced that the only two reasons I made it through all of this was my mother never quit praying for me and the whispered promise from God when I was 15. It has always been so amazing to me that no matter how far I fell and how much I denied it, God was always looking out for me. I can say without a shred out doubt that there is a God and He saved me by His amazing grace. The best part of the story is I am now married with 4 awesome children and I am the youth leader at The Branch Community church. I know that God will still fulfill that promise He made.

No matter where you are in your life and no matter what you have done, He is waiting for you to just whisper His name. He will meet you wherever you are; He has already paid the price.

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