Only one day, 11 hours, 15 minutes, 26 seconds...

Until I get back to my bride!!! I guess that is actually minus one hour for the time change. I'll be coming off of mountain time. Speaking of mountains, I climbed one today in Rocky Mountain National Park. Freaking ridiculous. When I go places like that, I find it absolutely hilarious that some people actually believe that we just "got here." Hilarious.

So we have done camps all summer. And most of the time you just take what you can get with the speakers (camp pastors, whatever you're supposed to call them), usually trying to find some nugget of good to actually come from their lips (besides some stupid jokes and crappy application of the one verse they read from). I know, I know, I'm cynical. But I'm honest. While I am desiring to be less cynical, I write transparently, so you see the incomplete not-fully-sanctified me. But back to the bad camp pastors. Well, this week has not been the case. Student Life never lets us down, and this week we have been truly blessed to be fed from the Word by JR Vassar, the pastor of Apostle's Church in NYC. (www.apostlesnyc.com) FYI, it's an Acts 29 plant, so I'm biased (Just ask Keith, my buddy from Macon...) But the teaching has been so impacting this week, not only to the hearts of the students, but also to the staff, youth leaders, myself, and pretty much every person that is actually listening and paying attention. He is a rad guy. And God has given him a heart for the city of Manhattan, specifically the upper northeast Manhattan. It's a really cool story. 

So I'm off to bed. I miss you, babe. Can't WAIT to see the most beautiful face I've ever seen in my life, and slap a big kiss on those lips of yours. I love you. And Jesus, I love you for giving grace to such a wicked heart. Please don't kill me before I get back to my wife. She is really hot, as You know. You did make her that way for me. And for that I love You too. And for the whole salvation thing. Wow. You are changing me each day. It is not easy, but it's great. Love. Peace. Goodnight.

Philip Wilson

The second best thing to seeing Malerie is getting to see Philip Wilson. I have 7 more days until I get what I really want (to see Malerie), but I do get to stay with my best friend from college tonight, and that will be awesome. We've got about 5 and a half more hours to drive (in the rain), and we will be in Brighton, Colorado. Should be some good times before I get back HOME! Sweet home Alabama here I come! Seven days and counting...

Haircuts itch, why?

Ok, I got a trim today at this coffee shop. Right, why would you get a haircut at a coffee shop? But this lady new one of the guys on set that overheard us needing haircuts, so he called her up and we got some trims sitting in the humidity of Tulsa, Oklahoma. On the drive back to the hotel, and even right now after the showering off of the excessed and removed hair, I'm still kind of itchy. What's the deal with that? It doesn't itch on top of my head. But as soon as you take it off, wow, does it itch. That's my curiosity for the day. Peace.

On the way to Tulsa, OK

We are finally making our way out of the God-forsaken state of Texas. I am really excited about that. 

Today we led worship at the National Worship Leaders Conference. Funny story about that:

When we first had the date added to our schedule, I actually thought we were going to be participants of it, not one of the actual performing bands. It made me chuckle when I found out that was the case. Either way, it was cool to get to see some pals like Matt Maher, some of the worshiptogether.com fellas, and the boys from Leeland. Good kids. Good times. Wes and I also had lunch with the Hispanic Pastor from a large church in Houston. Won't name any names. No comment. But as far as the worship set went, wow... I wish we could take 2,500 worship leaders with us every we go. We hardly had to do any work.

Tomorrow we will be shooting our new music video. I find it quite hilarious that some tv station would actually be psycho enough to put us into their circulation, but hey, God is sovereign. And He is good. So we will sing about it, even in front of cameras. That's all for now. Peace.

I Should Pray More

As I'm trying to get some rest, I'm watching Mark Driscoll (www.marshillchurch.org) preach his first message on a series called "Pray like Jesus." Nothing profound really (for Driscoll anyway), but I'm just reminded how weak and needy I am of Jesus, and how most times my prayers are just religious statements that are about an inch deep.

"God bless this food..."

"Lord use us for Your glory and not ours'."

"Though we are wicked God, help us to worship You tonight in spirit and in truth."

Though these prayers aren't heretical, they become redundant (maybe even worthless) after too much usage. I mean think about it. Am I really speaking from my heart prayers to God after saying the same thing to Him 537 times with little detail to distinguish any differences from those 537 prayers? Not likely.

So if I am to pray without ceasing, I desperately need to believe and say in my heart what I say I believe to the rest of the world: that I am nothing without God, that I am worthless apart from His grace in my life, that I need God for each and every breath because my wicked heart is prone to screw pretty much everything up, and that the only thing that is beautiful in me is Jesus. If my pride wins, my prayers lose. Just because people believe I'm spiritual doesn't mean I am. But if it must be known, I whole-heartedly wanna be. I want to be passionately in love with God so that I can passionately love my wife and my family and my church. Since I am passionately loved by God, I ought to be conversing more with Him than I do with my dog, Belle. But I don't, and though it's kind of funny for me to think of it that way, it's sadly true. So I guess I should start now...

God, I suck. And You obviously know that. But I know that You have done something in my heart that changes everything about me, and I can't even figure it out. Help me yearn for You. Give me the love of Your Word that faded with my pathetic arrogance of the Scriptures, like I have anything figured out yet. Oh God, help me be a Godly husband to my absolutely gorgeous bride. I want to love her as Christ has loved His baby, us. If I can't lead my household, I can't do anything good. Don't let me keep screwing things up with my quiet times. Though they exist at times, they have pretty much sucked for some time now. I desperately want that to change. God, You know I need sleep, so I am shutting up for now, so please give me rest to be able to bring Your name and Your kingdom glory tomorrow. You are incredible. Thank You for loving me. Be with my bride as she is at cheer camp this week. Oh and Holly too, even though she gets to be with Malerie. :-) I pray for my church as well as the church planters across this globe getting to live my dream. I pray for Your missionaries here in our Jerusalem and throughout the ends of the earth that are proclaiming Your gospel. I pray for peace God, though countries and politicians and I don't always want it enough, I know I've been called to be like Christ, and Christ is love. Thanks for my newest obsession with the word and idea of LOVE, pretty much sparked after seeing the greatest show of all time, the Beatles LOVE show in Vegas, which reminds me to thank You for the greatest vacation of my life. God I love you. A lot. Goodnight Dad.

*Though I usually edit, forgive me for mistakes in that cause I think editing a prayer seems like a stupid idea. 

I really am going to sleep now. 

This is long post for my first return to the blogging world.

Wow, I've sucked this up.

I'm going to be placing this site on my bookmarks, in hopes that I will notice it every now and then and use this blog in order to chart random thoughts of my life. Here's hoping. Peace.