Yesterday was yet another day of spending a lot of time in my car. I have become accustomed to driving in my car multiple hours by myself. I joke around that I am developing a slight case of schizophrenia, that way when I drive all these hours by myself I’m not lonely. But all joking aside I have had some very rich moments between me and Jesus as I have been on the interstates of America since I have been back. Yesterday I had one of those moments! See when I know I have to drive I fill up my old school 20 gigabyte iPod with as many great podcasts that I can! So I have hours and hours of solid podcasts, mostly sermons, that I can delight in. Yesterday, I listened to Erwin McManus’ series, entitled Chasing Daylight, which happens to be the same title of a book of his. (Check out Mosaic’s podcast page) It rocked me. The section of Scripture that he was preaching from was 1 Samuel 14:1-23, which is about Jonathan, the son of the king, and his armor bearer, who is some punk kid that’s purpose was to carry armor (glamorous position?), going up to the camp of the Philistines, the enemies of the Israelites, and picking a fight. Here are some highlights of the passage:
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For those of you who don’t know, yesterday I turned 26 years old. Yes that means I am closer to 30 than 20 and you know what? I’m okay with that (more about this in a second)! Yesterday was a day filled with driving, lifting furniture, and great conversation as I spent the majority of the day helping my Czech Director, Billy Crossan. It was a great day because Billy and I haven’t had much time as he has been here on furlough this year, which is a bummer but that is part of life – busyness.

Beyond that yesterday was one of the few birthdays I can remember where I felt so deeply loved and treasured by God and so many people!

I must have had over 15 voicemails and another 10 emails or so from people like you that took the time to shoot me an email or call me. Here is one of my favorite ones. It is from Onrda, my Czech buddy that has been a Christian for the past year, here is a portion of the email (remember he has been a Christian about a year and he is freestyling about me and Jesus!) he wrote me
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This morning at our fall planning meeting with our staff team, Matt and Sally, our campus director and his wife, shared about one of their friends who appears to be in the last stages of brain cancer. It was a sobering experience as we began our meeting today. I wanted to direct you to Erik and Kelly’s website, because they need prayer. Hearing Matt and Sally talk about the faith of Erik and his wife, Kelly, blew me away and had be asking myself, “Would I have the same faith in my Savior if I were in their shoes?” I pray I would, and I pray you would as well. Click here to visit their website and I encourage you to pray for them as things seem to be getting worse before better, as far as his condition goes. Here is a portion of one of the more recent blog entries:

Kelly was reading Ps 91 to Erik today, and as she finished the final verses:
14 “Because he loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
15 He will call upon me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.
16 With long life will I satisfy him
and show him my salvation.”
Erik said “that’s wonderful!” and fell asleep. It’s the perfect picture of what we’re asking the Lord to do right now: that Erik’s mind would be fixed on Christ; he would dwell in His presence; he would be at rest, and not fixed on fear.

Here are a few of the songs I made reference to in my last post. I hope you enjoy them. Three of the four songs are from Christian musicians and you can click on their names to go to their myspace pages. The last song is by my good friend Danen Kane. Click here to go to buy his newest CD. Really go buy it! It’s good!
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I have a confession to make – I am a self-professed “hopeless romantic.” It’s true. My family knows it. My friends know it. I am one of those rare guys that actually enjoys those sappy romantic comedies. (case in point: yesterday I bought and watched How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days) And you know what? I’m alright with it. Really I am. I’m comfortable in my identity in Christ and I am also comfortable with my sexuality to know that it is okay to enjoy these films, within reason of course. Now don’t get me wrong, some of these films irritate the heck out of me and I would, almost, always go with an action or a big sweeping epic before going with a cliché “chick” flick.

But I bring this up, not to simply let you in on a part of my life, but to share with you something I have been learning over the years. To be honest, I don’t feel like I have a lot to offer here (that is advice about dating, courting or whatever the heck you want to call it), because I have dropped the ball many times. I have dropped the ball enough to toy with the thought of writing a book entitled, the misadventures of dating: life lessons learned about what not to do. I can’t say that I’ve had any publishers banging down the door to get a hold of the manuscript for that one, but through the few misadventures I’ve had, I’ve continued to learn about trusting God with every area of my life. Yes, even the opposite sex. And I hope that sooner or later, my misadventures will pay off and I’ll actually do something right, by God’s grace, and end up in the relationship and partnership with the woman I’ve prayed for for years, again by God’s grace, because I’ve seen I need a ton of it!
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