ImNoBetterThanU

Do you raise your hands during worship? Do you pray out loud? Why? Why do you do these things? Is your heart in it? Often times the aforementioned actions are done to impress those around you. Or maybe you do those things to hide the lies of your "private" life and private sin from others. Or you do them just because you feel like it is what you are supposed to do. When this occurs these all become ritual idols . You spend so much time thinking about these things that they themselves become an idol.  Others may be thinking that there is no need to raise your hands during worship or no need to pray out loud. Be careful, do not let these actions become idle rituals either. There is meaning behind the lifting of our hands. It shows surrender and we are designed to worship. Just send anyone to a sporting event, concert, (or whatever it is that gets someone excited. You scream, raise your hands, jump up and down, just to name a few). Praying out loud (or e...

I feel like that is what God is wanting me to do these days. He has been doing such an amazing work in my heart over the last month. For several months now he has been telling me to be a better steward. Not only of my finances, but of everything He has blessed me with. My job, time, friends, family, health, etc. I feel that I have been doing a great job of being a better steward in all areas...but we all know God will allow trials to enter our lives in order to stretch us as individuals and make us more mature in the physical realm as well as the spiritual. Well, Friday July 30th my income dropped over $12,000.00 year. This is a significant amount of my net income. This happening at a time when my insurance renewal is due, vehicle maintenance is rapidly approaching, the need for new tires seem to be on the horizon, and that is just expenses related to my car! Needless to say, this is one of those trials. It was extremely discouraging initially, but...

So I realize it has been a while since I have written a post. So much has happened since then. There is much to rejoice about! Will you rejoice with me? I will start with some great things about my son Andrew. I have kind of kept him out of the blog for a while, but this is worth sharing. Recently he graduated pre-K; at that time they had a math test of 100 problems of addition and subtraction. The children were then told they had five minutes to complete as many problems as they could. Well, my son Andrew completed all 100 and got them all correct! How incredibly exciting and awesome is that! WOOOHOOOOOO! I got to talk to him about it and he spoke to me longer than he ever had previously. We must have talked for a total of fifteen minutes or more. He told me about a medal he got and then he sang to me! It was incredible. Then a couple of weeks ago when we spoke he was reading with his mother when I called. So when he got on the phone he asked if I would like ...

Breath brings life... God took dust from the earth and with the breath of life  formed man. ( Genesis 2:7 ) He also provided the  breath of life  to bring dry bones in the valley to life. ( Ezekial 37:9   - 10 ) Are you asking how we get the  breath of life ? It is easy. You read His word. It is our  breath of life . It will cleanse the soul, mend the heart, strengthen us emotionally, etc. The power of the living Word is beyond limitation as we know it. It will cause a fire to burn within us, feeding our passions ans desires that are God given. Once that fire is ignited you then need to feed the fire. One way of doing so is to live life with godly people. Keep them close and dear. Share your struggles so they can support you through prayer. Share you successes so they can rejoice and praise with you! This is one of many ways to feed the fire. I for one am very grateful for the people I have had brought into my life through divine...

Do you ever find yourself boasting about future events? Yeah me too. Should we? Absolutely not.  Should we faithfully plan for a better tomorrow for ourselves, our family, and friends? Absolutely. We should simply do so in humility, faith, and with much gratitude. The reason I write this is; what if you sustain a fatal bite from a viper ? I know what some of you may be saying...there are no vipers around me. Well more specifically it was a highly venomous snake that sank its fangs deep into his flesh and injected a fatal amount of poison. What did Paul do? He shook it off. Will you do the same if this occurred? Could your viper be a devastating tornado, drunk driver hitting you, or heart failure? Let's even tone it down a notch. What if your viper is losing your job, losing your home, losing your significant other... Will you allow that circumstance to gain control of your life or will you remain steadfast in thanking our Father for His inherent goodn...

I want to preface this post by stating that last Tuesday was a ministry night for leaders and emergin leaders within the church. During that time Alan Smith  had an amazing word for me that spoke directly to my heart at just the right time in my life. It gave me a new perspective on life in general and has been yet another turning point in my life that I can add to all the great advances that are occurring in my life over the last couple of years.  Memorial Day Weekend, this used to be one of my favorite weekends because there were plenty of parties. For me this weekend consisted of ingesting drugs, alcohol, and likely times of being sexually immoral...oftentimes with multiple partners (or the same numerous times). Sounds fun right? Wrong!  None of it was ever enough. Tuesday (if I even made it in that day) I would drag myself into work feeling as though Mike Tyson had his way with me in the ring. All for what? To go out again Tuesday night after wo...

Well, I know it has been a long time since I have posted anything here and for that I apologize. In our society, it is quite common that we get so caught up in our day to day routine that we rarely have a moment when we do not have some "important" matter inundating our minds. I too fell victim to this. The good news is that I am now moving beyond that point! I am beginning a new season in my life. I just auspiciously moved and I am quickly getting settled into my new place. In addition to this, a lot has happened in my life over the last two and half years and I can honestly say that I am in a better place and doing better as a person than I have in well over a decade. I am looking to get back to writing more often and sharing my thoughts with you all by 'Typing Out Loud'. I hope I have not lost all my readers and hope I can grow larger whereas I feel this is a tool that I am to use to reach out to others and impact my friends, ac...