If I told you that I was planning on stealing your name… your identity, so I could wreck havoc on your financial status, your reputation and mess with all your relationships…would you let me?

This is the critical junction of one’s life—being able to identify and accept God’s vision for us—as sons first. This is where the doorway to manhood hinges, here is the thrust, and the sending off point of our lives. Here we taste of the goodness of God and become able and willing to make known that goodness to others.

I think we can learn a lot from cardigan wearing, Presbyterian minister/TV kid show host. He had something to say about being a neighbor…at least his life did

Finding my heart again is one reason I believe God messes with me. My heart is valuable to Father God, He fought for it, and He redeemed it and made it alive again. This search and rescue mission proves the value of my heart and helps make sense of the time when I feel so restless.

Changes are one of those constants in life, like seasons they carry promises and challenges but with deadlines not of our choosing.

This push me, pull me, tugging sensation is the tension of following Christ, abandoning my selfish desires and pursuing His and His alone. It’s the leading of the Holy Spirit, placing us, positing us and aligning our will with the Father’s. What we see…or don’t see is not as important as what we know.

To understand hope is to capture a vision of how God sees life.

Romans 15:13

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Romans 15:13

I do believe that hope is oxygen for our souls… it breathes life into the empty part of our souls. Hope makes you believe redemption is possible.

Will we choose to see God as Father… will we only accept the lens of Jesus Christ to see Him through? Not our past, not our failures, not the way we were raised or the abuse we may have walked through…just the way Jesus shows us.

We have to make a stand…let’s go 1 Corinthians 16: 13-14

“Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. 14 Let all that you do be done in love.”

This verse is saying Keep your eyes open, hold tight to your convictions, give it everything got, be powerful, and love without stopping

One of the greatest mistakes I made in the early days of this journey with God was projecting the image of my dad (and the way he treated me) onto that of Father God.