It’s been a while since I had an entry… and LOTS of things have happened.

1.  I will no longer be an employee at Starbucks as of this Thursday.
2. I am currently the newest member of the Washington Mutual Sales Recruiting team, the newest recruiter.  The process of getting this job at Washington Mutual was nothing short of AMAZING!  God’s hand directed every aspect of it from start to finish.  He prepared the way ahead of time in such an astonishing way…  honestly, I shouldn’t have gotten this job, but thanks to a friend’s referral, I got an interview and somehow, the interviews went really well.  The second interview, with the VP of recruiting, lasted 1 hour and 20 minutes… we just kept talking and talking… and from the time of the first interview to the second interview, 2 days.  The evening of the third day, I was offered a position with incredible pay, more than I had asked for.  So many more details… BUT, the most important detail of all… GOD IS AMAZING!

Another important detail is, they offered me accounts in the East Coast, which is what I wanted, so my hours will be like 6 AM to 3 PM.  My friend said that these things never happen, they just don’t offer things like this.  This allows me to continue working my real estate business, too.  I’m also slotted for a promotion in April already and I just started.  WHAT THE HECK, RIGHT?  The crazy thing is… I never even asked for them… they just offered all sorts of things to me.  God worked in a way that I couldn’t even imagine… and that’s the way He likes it…  God is amazing, though we are undeserving.

3. This new job allows me to pay off all my school loans and other debts in 6 to 9 months, which means I can save a ton of money for seminary, too!  WOW!

to be continued….

Priase God, Praise God, Praise God… that’s all I can say… Praise God.

I had some great experiences this weekend at the retreat and Sunday worship…

At the retreat: leading worship on Friday was fun, without so much of the pressure of perfection, which I am so far off, which also screws me up so often… I started to care less about performing and more about enjoying what we were doing: praising our King… even though I goofed, our Lord’s glory was not denied…
and as Kenny was leading Saturday night, I began to really “worship” with my heart and in Spirit and the world around me faded away… my eyes were filled with tears… the first in a very long time… and in that moment, a passion sprang forth that was missing for so long…and my heart began to beat again as flesh and blood, no longer hardened stone… fears and hesitation slowly ebbing away as I began to absorb HIS confidence…worshipping Him freely and wholly.
The words came alive and I was there, just like Mary, at the foot of Christ… basking in His presence…

and today, the Lord’s Day: Sunday, playing my guitar, “Nikki” (yes, I actually named my Taylor), and singing as part of the praise team… it was the most fun I’ve had in so long while praising our gracious Lord and Savior… and I was deeply blessed to have the gift of praise and worship… How else could we express what lies deep within us, ineffable gratitude and thankfulness caused by limitless and boundless love…

From this point, my heart will worship with complete freedom from old chains and it is my hope that I would be completely unashamed to do as David did, dance in the streets to express my joy that is in and from the Lord… God has been good…God is good… God will always be good.  I’m FREE!  Amen.

There’s so much on my mind… but not enough thankful things.  It takes conscious and deliberate action thoughts to be thankful… sooooo… I choose to be thankful….

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU,
JESUS!!!!!!!

And yeah…I finally got my first listing as a real estate agent…  WOOHOOO!

AND I’m off to a retreat to relax and focus focus focus… and relax ^__^

Blessed are those who learn without suffering or failing… it is through much tribulation one learns gentleness and patience.  I have so far to go…

So it finally happened last night… my body began to crash.  Driving home yesterday was 30 minutes of horror… I kept falling asleep at the wheel and when I’d wake up, I’d be in a different place each time…scared the crap out of me every time.  I did everything I could to stay awake from singing, slapping myself to talking to myself…it all failed.  It’s a miracle that I made it home and sure sign warning from the Big Guy upstairs that I need to stop running myself ragged… that the human body needs more than 2 or 3 hours of sleep a night…  I’ve been doing that for almost 2 months now… IT IS TIME to stop doing that.

So I got home around 5 PM and fell asleep… woke up somehow for work this morning at 4:00 AM, without an alarm clock… that is also a miracle. 

Despite my body crashing…it’s a good feeling knowing that our Heavenly Father is watching over me and He has made it clear what NOT to do from here on out.  So… I should be getting at least 6 hours a night…hopefully.

In addition to this lesson, our bodies are spiritual temples in which the Lord resides… and Scripture makes it clear that the Temple of God is a holy place, a place to be set apart.  I do not wish to anger the Lord by defying what He has deemed to be holy…as contradictory as it sounds, this body is a holy place.  ^___^

I’ve been seeing the world through sad eyes lately… the tsunami… the continuing conflict in Iraq as the death toll keeps rising… another deadly car accident today, an entire family lost… a woman and a man, both in court because the woman’s drunk driving landed her car in a river, drowning her 5 year old daughter… and the man, hit a 43 year old pedestrian and carried the dead body on the hood of his car for 4 or 5 blocks…  and the world continues to seem full of “me’s” and very few “we’s”…even amongst Christian fellowship, the “we’s” are far between and an uphill battle… 

but I am encouraged by how quickly the world reacted to help all those people afffected by the tsunami… A friend of mine works at World Vision: he told me that the first day after the tsunami, more donations came through the internet in the US in that one day than the entire year of 2004, at 6.2 million dollars… and even more on the second day after the deadly quake.  People are so generous in these kinds of situations, but it takes such a devastating event to unleash the compassionate side of human nature.

Isn’t it like that with most of us (especially me)?  Most of us run to God and cling to Him most when tribulation strikes…it’s only natural that we call out to God amidst calamity… but what about supernatural living? 

I tend to think in ideals and in terms of what would be ”perfect”… and it gets me into trouble quite often, since reality doesn’t give a rip about what’s ideal… and I dwell too much in my mind… but Ideals are…dreams… without them, where would we be?  Dreams and visions… the Bible says that young men (and women) would have them…  I’m still young… relatively ^___^

Just a random thought…

It’s as if an invisible thorny limb penetrates the core of my heart… each instance of “Guys are jerks” or “I hate guys” and vice versa, “girls use guys to get what they want”.  If only we could uphold the standards that God has set for a man and woman in the realm of holy matrimony, much antagonism wouldn’t exist… not that I’m oblivious to the fact that marriage and relationships need teamwork to work out all the kinks, communicating openly and honestly, bearing with one another patiently and with utmost importance, LOVINGLY… but it saddens me greatly to see the divide between men and women… we expect the other to love us first and love us more… we are unwilling to be the first to love and the first to open our hearts to vulnerability, because that’s what it takes sometimes… so much heartache could be avoided if only we could love confidently more often without placing expectations and burdens on the other… just like Jesus does with us.  (sigh)

I confess of my need for much more growth in this department as well, as much as, if not more than, the person next to me… to love people first without expecting a return and when it happens, to always strive to love my future wife first and love her more… and to tell her everyday, “I love you so much”. 

Wouldn’t it be great if every couple in the world would compete with their loved one, to out-love each other everyday? 

I’m a fool and I know it…but I don’t care.

I’ve been wondering what profound words would be written in my first entry for 2005…all I’ve got is…

I traded in my Honda Civic Si for a Nissan Xterra today… what the heck?

I’m calmly excited about this coming year… I have a strange sense of “expecting”.  …of what exactly…I am unsure, just expecting…

My previous entry about the whole “fear” thing was so absurd in hind sight.  WHEN I return focus on Christ and off the storm that’s around me, I’ll stop sinking in the waters of the Sea of Galilee and a simple cry for ”Help!” will result in our Lord’s hand reaching down to pull me up.  As our heart becomes more in likeness to His and we fill our thoughts with “how can I love Him more today”, we will be transformed and begin to love what He loves and hate what He hates, namely sin and anything sinful; we will begin to embody the very nature of God, which is love.  Standards for our spiritual living will rise and tower over the enemies’ weapons of discouragement… leading to crossing the Jordan on dry land and into the Promise Land.  Finding spiritual freedom and power starts simply, by asking “What can I do to love our Lord more this very moment?” 

Accountability…just one way of many ways to keep track of our progress.