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Today in worship I was singing along and praising God when right after I joyfully sang the following lyrics I was struck and had to stop

Lord use us (me) as You want, whatever the test

I was struck by the power and responsibility of that statement. As I was standing their silently reflecting on this I was convicted that I don’t believe that I could sing that with full truth. I have said yes to the Lord in many places and callings not knowing what would come of it… spreading the Gospel, world travel, unemployment, sleepless nights…

But am I ready to stand before the creator of the universe, my Savior, my God, my redemption, my Lord, my all and say; use me as You want, no matter the test!?!  I know what my Jesus would want me to say, I know what my heart should say.  My Savior Jesus left eternity to enter this world and be humbly born as a human, lived among us, taught us, feed us, prepared us, lived without sin and then was crucified brutally on a cross and died.  His death was not for anything He had done, but instead the punishment for my sins and the sins of all people from eternity to eternity were laid upon Him.  So where is the joy, where is the hope, why would submit my life to this Lord and be used no matter the test?  The joy is found in the resurrection of my Savior Jesus Christ, whom on the third day was raised from the dead, defeating death and hell for all of eternity.  My Savior lives, my Savior has concurred death so that I can live, so that all might live if they place their faith, trust, their all in Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

So, whatever the test… what is your answer?

Copy of a post that my lovely wife posted on our family site:

It is absolutely amazing to think about the significance of the month of March for us over the past few years. In March 2010, God spoke clearly to us while we were on vacation that we were to embark on the journey of adoption. One year later almost to the day, we were meeting Julia for the first time. And now, here we are one year later – celebrating our Forever Family. In between, it has been a series of highs, lows, and frankly, the darkest moments of my life. Let’s break it down…
Opening our hearts to a precious child born physically outside our family – EASY. Flying halfway around the world, adjusting to the 12-hour time difference, and spending 2.5 weeks away from our other children – NOT HORRIBLE. Loving a little girl as she howls over the loss of everything she has ever known?…Teaching her the rules of the home while still giving her the extra care she needs to work through her grief?…Living nearly an entire year of your life in a sleep-deprived state, waking up every one to two hours and hoping that prolonged screaming won’t be involved?…well, you get the idea. Adoption is HARD.
But then, somewhere along the way the days become marked by more joy than sorrow. The grieving becomes an occasional occurrence rather than a daily event. Crawling gives way to first steps, followed by running. First smiles turn to tentative giggles, which evolve into quick smiles and belly laughs. And stress and tension give way to familiarity and love. But I think pictures speak louder than words…to me this picture of Julia is a perfect, adorable representation of how far she has come in the past year. (Special thanks to Warner Photography for capturing the moment and allowing us to share it here!)

I could spend paragraphs telling you all the milestones that Julia has achieved already – and maybe I will at some point. But for now, I just want to say thank you. Thank you to all of you for your support over the last year while we adjusted to our new family. Thank you to Julia’s birth parents for bringing her into the world. And thank you to Our Heavenly Father, who led us to Julia and shows us all the ultimate model of adoption through His love for us.
And to our precious Julia – sweetheart, it has been a very long year in so many ways yet I also can’t believe it has already been a year since you were placed in our arms. I am constantly amazed by your resilience, amused by your antics, and in awe of the progress we have all made together in the past year. We love you forever.

As some of you as friends and family know, our youngest daughter is currently in a stage where she does not sleep well at night. This is a heavy weight on my wife and myself as we help comfort her for what seems like endless hours night after night. This morning in worship this song was spoken from God’s heart to mine as I sat there in tears trying to listen. So I sat there thinking: What if my healing comes through tears? What if a thousand sleepless nights? What if those are what it takes to know God is near? What if trials of this life are God’s mercies in disguise? What am I really praying for? What are you really praying for? The song is titled: Blessings, by Laura Story.

We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

‘Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we’d have faith to believe

‘Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know that pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home
It’s not our home

‘Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise

Tomorrow will mark one year since I entered into a time of transition in my life.  After an interesting nine months of prayer, family time and job searching I accepted a position back into the corporate world.

It was clear from the very first day that I was let go from Messiah that this clearly directed from God… it was just up to several months of prayer understanding.  There were moments of frustration, anger, and desperation.  The time was spent in joy, the love of Christ and seeking after Him.  The time that was spent with my family is priceless, nothing can replace that time.

So what did the job search look like?  Well the first item was I was not out to look for a job but I was seeking out what my next career would be.  After applying with over 12corporations, grueling interviewins with 3 of them I accepted a position at The Dow Chemical Company as a UNIX Architect Specialist.  There is some amazing computing going on at Dow.  I am working with an amazing team; small, agile and highly empowered.

For the side venture that Erin and I are pursuing, well that is still in the works and more to come on that as far as location and time of opening.

Place this on the next book to read after Sun Stand Still.

In Radical, David Platt invites you to encounter what Jesus actually said about being his disciple, and then obey what you have heard. He challenges you to consider with an open heart how we have manipulated a God-centered gospel to fit our human-centered preferences. With passionate storytelling and convicting biblical analysis, Platt calls into question a host of comfortable notions that are common among Christ’s followers today. Then he proposes a radical response: live the gospel in ways that are true, filled with promise, and ultimately world changing.

As you read this, you will hopefully see clearly that there have been a few times now that I believe God has clearly spoken to me. How you ask, well let me tell you by way of the accounts.

The first time that I clearly recall hearing God, freaked me out. This to date is the only time that I believe I audibly heard Him. I was showering and praying about what the heck the day would bring when, as clear as can be, I heard a voice tell me that I was going to pray at the firehouse and over the fire fighters. I seriously looked around to see who was in the bathroom. I was a bit freaked at first, and spent most of the day then wrestling with God on if He really wanted me to do this. Really, I spent most of a day bantering back and forth over something so small. I finally said You got it, picked up the phone book, found the number for one of the stations in town and called. I headed over around dinner time and had a chance to sit around and find out a few of their stories. Before leaving I had took the opportunity to pray over the firehouse and the men that were their. It was humbling to hear the voice of God asking me to do something so simple yet so powerful.

Like I said above, that is to date the only time that I have heard the voice of God audibly speak to me. The other two encounters I am going to share came differently.

Messiah believed that we were being called, and still do believe, to take journeys out of our current building and to bring it to Main Street to create a coffeehouse ministry venue. Early in the process of imagining what this could be, I had been seriously praying over where God wanted us to place the coffeehouse. We had found a location right on Main Street in Midland and really felt like it was the place. Several of us had prayed over the location, but there were other offers starting to come in all at once on a building that had been sitting empty for over a year… So one night after a long day of working numbers for the new venue and endless hours working on other portions of the technology issues around Messiah, finally I made it home. Family time is always a wonderful thing to come home to after a long day, and as on every other normal night, Erin and I did the standard family routines and then Erin and I dropped into bed. I was exhausted off my feet… but I could not fall asleep. After tossing and turning, I found myself praying and asking what was on my heart that I had not confessed or didn’t understand. God and I had a great talk that night and then I drifted off to sleep. A few hours later, I had the most vivid dream I can recall having. As simple as the dream was, I clearly heard God tell me that the He was giving us the building and to not worry.

Okay, so first I tell you that I audibly hear the voice of God while I am showering and now I tell you that while I am sleeping one night He comes to me in a dream and tells me that He will give Messiah a building for launching a Main Street coffeehouse ministry venue… if you are still with me, that is right. It was an amazing and powerful dream that woke me up and I knew that it was truly God that had given me the dream and spoken to me.

Now to the present where I have been wrestling in pray for months with God over something and not knowing which way to go, what side is up or down, and really at a loss for the direction on how to proceed. While Erin and I were recently on a small vacation I had lots of time to do nothing. Nothing except spend some amazing time in prayer as I continued to wrestle with God over this. After several days of this and being deep in His Word, I was awoken by another amazing dream that laid out the answer. I know above I said the dream about the coffeehouse building was vivid, but this tops it. The details of this dream are captured and will be shared in time, but I am humbled to have been awoken by this dream and to know it was God clearly speaking to my heart on the matter. Simple and humble amazement washed over me for my Creator.

So there is it. I don’t know how or why God has chosen to speak to me in these ways but I am blessed to have listened and acted as He has called.

Today marks an interesting day, a time of transition shall now begin. My first post college career with Sun Microsystems (now Oracle) I made the choice to transition to new employment. Today the decision was made for me to transition into the next area of life. I have loved to serve at Messiah on staff for three years. In that time I had the privilege of helping to give birth to journeys, and bring the technology Messiah uses to reach the world and spread the message of Christ much further along.

I leave this post with a word from our Lord.

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. Philippians 1:6

Be Blessed
dl

This upcoming week my wife and I are taking a huge step forward in bringing a small dream that we have to the next level.  The full back story of the dream will come as the process moves forward.  So why write about it now?  A wise friend gave me this counsel:

When God gives you a vision for something you need to write it down and do something about it. Christians have walked away from God’s command to steward the whole planet, which is why so many people have picked up the call even though they don’t believe that God created it in the first place. Collaboration is important to sparking innovation. But innovation should not be slowed by pride (people wanting credit for the new ideas). There are business strategies that are creating the potential of unleashing opportunity like never before.

So we are taking the steps to write it out in legal form so that something can be done about and with it.  The glorification of this work shall not be placed on us but to the Lord, it is all about the Kingdom impact through a vision that has been given.

God Bless,
dl

It is blueberry season here in Michigan.  One of the ways that we like to enjoy blueberries is in the following blueberry muffin recipe.

Blueberry Muffins

• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 cups flour
• 1 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups blueberries

Preheat the over to 350 degrees.  Sift together flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.  Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs to the butter mixture and blend well.  Add the milk and the flour mixture and beat until combined.  Fold in the blueberries.  Fill muffin tin sections 2/3 full and bake 25 to 30 minutes.  If you wish sprinkle a small amount of raw sugar on the top of the muffins before baking.

Enjoy and feel free to send some along.

A second in the new recipe posts, the chipolte slaw that I use to to some amazing fish tacos.

Chipotle Slaw

• 2 tsp chipotle powder
• 2 tablespoons honey,
• 1 tablespoon lime juice
• 3 tablespoons light mayo
• 2 cups shredded cabbage (1 cup white, 1 cup red is a nice mix)
  
• 1/4 cup fine chopped or thinly sliced red onions

This makes for an amazing topping to fish tacos along with some guacamole… that recipe is to come.  Enjoy all.