Wednesday Nite Supper

Oh WOW what a night. We started Wednesday Night Supper again. Although we are not sure exactly how many we served, we are estimating 90! WOW! We had Baked Ziti with Meatballs, Roasted Potatoes, Salad, and Dessert (Peach Cobbler). Oh MY! The food was awesome, the people were awesome and God was Awesome. How could such a simple thing like eating be about God? Well, It's Simple really!

When we let God be first in everything we do, God shows his greatness. Todd is always emphasizing "Expect More" from our God. Well I Expected 80 and we got 90! The girls in the kitchen with me were funny. They said, Richard why does your faith have to be so faithful? I laughed and mentioned it was Todd's Fault. HA HA! Even though it was a funny moment, I believed God would deliver 80 people for supper tonight. I expected God to handle the #'s and money! He DID! Everything fell in to place.

I mentioned money because sometimes, WNS is sometimes difficult to budget each week. Sometimes we have to get supplies and the funds are not always there. This week, I spent $14 over my budget. God provided enough adults and the income took care of the overages. Next week we have a little to work with to get some supplies now. God really worked this one out for us.

Recently Michele and I had our niece with us for 6 weeks. We had to travel to Illinois 2 times. Every time we travel to Illinois it usually costs around $400 - $500, depending on gas prices. My salary alone does not cover 2 trips to Illinois within 2 months time. Anyways... Money fell really short this week, with rent due along with other bills. Last week early on, I told Michele, God will provide a way. Somehow I really believed it this time. Other times in the past, it was like going through the motions. I wanted to believe it but in the back of mind, I had doubt. This time because I truly believed God would provide, he made a way.

In the last several weeks, I have learned that if you truly believe with all your heart, mind and soul, God amazes us. He continues to be faithful to those who trust Him and are faithful to Him.

I am still learning little by little, day by day, walking closer to God and trusting Him more everyday. The more I trust the More He shows me that He is watching and rewarding me in different ways. The rewards from Heaven surpass the rewards of men.

Although every part of my body is aching right now, I always enjoy serving my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ at Church.

There is so much more that I want to Thank God for. I will write about those another time. ( if i remember to write that is... LOL )

As always Thank You for reading.
Your Brother In Christ
Richard

Friends

Friends...
There are many songs, poems, stories ect... about Friends.

Today my heart is breaking for a dear friend of mine. I didn't know God could let me care about others the way I do now. It's amazing to feel this pain. I know it sounds weird that I like feeling this pain. But the pain let's me know that I care. I am so thankful that God has opened my heart to loving others. I still don't love all my "neighbors" yet though. That is a tough one. Still working on that one. Anyways...

This friend of mine has a big heart and has so much potential. My friend is struggling and it hurts to see my friend this way. If my friend is reading this, I don't want them to think that I am burdened, because I am NOT! My friend also is a good spouse and parent. I am trying to respect my friend's privacy here and not letting too much out of the bag. That is for them to decide. I do want my friend to know that I am honored by their trust that they can confide in me.

So this has taught me that the word friend is more than just a word. It's more than just actions or feelings but a connection. And when "Friends are Friends forever if the Lord's a Lord of them, and a Friend will not say never, cause the Friendship never ends." Who I used to call friends and who I call friends now have changed. There is one friend I still keep in contact before I moved to Tennessee. Friendships with God involved are more real than platonic ones. You know those old friends who you hung out with... before God. They are not around any more, or at least in my life they are not. Those were the friends that you did sin with. In the last few years I have met some amazing people who I am honored to call my Friends er... I mean Family. Because who I would call friends are now my Family with God.

Friends is one of those awesome gifts God has blessed us with, through Him. Only through Him do friendships flourish and last.

I am still learning and thankful that I can still learn and accept what God teaches us everyday through our experiences with friends and family.

Thanks for reading
Your Brother in Christ
Richard

Videos Of Brandon

Thought I would share some videos of Brandon, Michele and I made on the computer. We took a bunch of pictures and animated them to music.

BRANDON - THE 1st DECADE
Ages 1 Day to 11 Years


BRANDON - Christmas 2007


BRANDON - Baseball Pics


BRANDON - NOW!

Spinning out of Control

Spinning out of control....

Do you ever feel like your life is spinning out of control? Dumb question huh? Of course you have, if you haven't you're probably not human. The point to all of this is....

This week has been a hard week. If the devil really knows how to kick us down more at our weakest points then he is doing an amazing job right now. The past few weeks our car has been having issues with the clutch. I called a repair shop and they wanted $442 to fix it. Anyone that knows how much money I make will know that is not something we can fit into our budget within a few weeks. That kind of money would take several months to raise. So we decided that if we were going to spend that much money on this car, why not invest it into a down payment for another car. We went looking at cars and it was disappointing to find that apparently $300 or $500 is enough for a down payment. What is the purpose of financing if you have to have that much down? Whatever! So then we changed gears again and went back to just coming up with the money to fix the car. Ok no biggie right?
Today I took the car to church because I had to be there an hour earlier than Michele. I was invited to be part of the praise team this morning and didn't want to miss practice. On the way to church the car was acting up more. I was able to get to church ok. I was so excited about the praise team. I felt so honored to be part of leading worship. I really felt like God was calling me back to music again. Worship was really awesome.
Todd spoke today out of Galatians 5:13-25. To live of the world was condemnation but to live the life of God we would be able to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. It really kinda went with the thoughts I had earlier this week. What if we quit everything we were doing and totally depended on God for every need. Every need, clothing, food, a place to sleep, spiritual and anything else God may seem fitting to provide us. To totally just live our lives as Christ did. Christ had no home to call his own. Christ depended totally on God to provide every need as Christ traveled to teach to everyone who would listen. Jesus performed miracles so that people could see the wondrous power God had. To live as Christ, how much simpler would our lives be? We would never want or need anything.
I don't know if we would have to go to that extreme. I believe God can use us right where we are. But to let him take control would mean forgetting everything we knew about control and taking care of things and leaving it all up to Christ. If we just let God take us where we needed to be how much farther do you think we would be in our lives with that kind of GPS system.
I know that sometimes my life seems out of control especially right now. The car blew up on the way home from church. It's embarrassing as Husband and Father is supposed to provide safety and security to my family, not be able to afford getting the car fixed. The hardest part for me is swallowing my pride as a man of the world. Through all of this there is that comfort that God will provide a way for us to get a second vehicle again. Remember what I said about the devil? He is really trying to kick me harder when I am down and disappointed in myself. I am resting on the reassurance that God has always provided a way in the past and He will provide a way again. I know that money is not the cure all. I know that God has to change my heart about money. I have been trying to not let money control my actions and what I do in life. I must say it is difficult to not let money control my life when it seems that others around me think that money controls our lives. Its difficult because everything they need or want is dependent on me. If they need something for a special event or something special at the store, I want the people around me to feel loved so I say yes and then face the consequences later. That's like a bad apple ruining the basket almost.
So through all of this, the hardest part for me is to say NO to those I love the most. I just want them to be thankful and happy for what they have and not want everything that they don't have. Todd mentioned that sometimes we go through life sacrificing everything for moments of happiness. Why can't we just learn to sacrifice everything for a lifetime of JOY. Moments of happiness are just few and far between. They don't last long and we are always looking for the next big or new thing. I know in my life there are alot of things that I want that would satisfy me temporarily, but I have realized that if I am not content with what I have, then why would I waste my energy on something else that won't bring Joy either.
JOY is only found in the peace of God and his arms. JOY comes from letting God be God and not a fall back solution. JOY comes from letting go and letting God take care of us. JOY comes from letting GOD be our GPS in life.
I am crying out to God right now to let Him be in control.
I can't live like this anymore and I am not able to do this without Him.
So GOD I know you have been tearing at my heart alot recently about letting go. This is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. Todd today said we needed to Die to Live again. So God I want my old self to Die and for you to bring Life back to me and be my GPS.
Thank you for Being the God of Everything!

In God's Love
Richard

Long Time

Yes it has been a long time since I have written anything. I have come to the realization, that writing everyday was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I actually came to a point where I was uninspired, or had writers block. Whatever you wanna call it. Anyways, I thought I would share something about today.

This morning at church Todd talked about dreams. 1. We have to have "Courage" to voice our dreams and to share those dreams with others. 2. It takes "Action" to move our dreams into reality. 3. "Persistence", we must stay persistent, it is our dream and we must continue to keep the dream alive and inspire others to continue the dream.

How true is all of this? I believe it to be completely true. It really hit home to me. It really made me realize that I have not made any of my dreams a reality. I have never taken the courage to put my dream out there, let alone any action or persistence. I never got past the first part of making a dream a reality. You know those dreams we had as kids, the ones where we saved the world, go to the moon, sing as a rock star, or become the best sports player. As we grew older we let our limitations hold us back. But with GOD there are no limitations when we let God be in control of our dreams. Todd asked us to keep dreaming for the church. To allow God to direct us in ministries and new opportunities to reach out, serve, love and grow.

On of my dreams in the last year was to be able to sing at church. I know that really seems weird for some people that know me. But for me I have always enjoyed singing. God has gifted me with a fairly decent voice and the ability to sing to Him. I was able to share what God has given to me tonight. I sang a song by Rich Mullins. It was amazing to know how many people knew the song. I had just encountered the song about a month ago. So during practice, I was pretty nervous. And even during our worship time I was nervous, but when it was time, God gave me the strength to sing with out any nerves and God's voice rang through. It was pretty awesome.

I will share more about that song and why I chose it at another time. It's late but I wanted to get something out there again.

Thanks for reading.
God Bless
Richard
"Learning Daily"