A song I wrote

Wrote a song that I feel like the Lord placed on my heart yesterday morn. Can't wait to put it to music. It is a song to help teach my children and our spiritual children how to pray.

When We Pray

When we pray
We thank Him for another day
We tell Him how great He is
For He gives us all good things

(chorus: Then we quiet ourselves
We focus on Him alone
We listen for Him to speak
In whatever way He wants to speak)

Then we confess
Our faults to Him who loves us so
Loves us more than life itself
His mercy will renew us

(repeat chorus)

And then we ask
For strength to make it through the day
Keep us walking in Him today
And give us help to do His will

(repeat chorus)

Of course we ask
For Him to help our families
Our close brothers and sisters
The ones we live & work with in Him

(repeat chorus)

Not afraid to ask
He said ask and you will receive
He said you don’t have because you don’t ask
The constant cries of His church will yield results

(repeat chorus)

And as He leads
We cry out for our lost friends
The ones stuck in sadness and sin
The ones who do not yet know Him
We ask believing
We plead for them as for ourselves
Cry and wail as the Spirit leads
We don’t take no for an answer

(repeat chorus)

And He will lead
His Spirit will lead our prayers
He’ll show us where to go from there
He’ll take us into the deep

(repeat chorus)

And when we’re done
We worship and we love on Him
He wraps us in His arms again
And tells us we’re His own again

Tells us we’re His own again (repeat)
We’ll always be His own

Angels in the dugout

My wifey saw an angel the other day.

Hopefully she doesn't mind me telling this. She was at home the other day with our 2 boys, looked up and saw (in the Spirit) a man standing in the hallway. He was as tall as the ceiling, and very big. He was huge African man and had a very soft face. She asked him, "Are you my angel?"

He shook his head no. Then he looked down as if to motion towards the floor... The boys were playing downstairs.

"You're my son's angel?" ...He nodded yes.

Then he was gone. The whole encounter took about 15 or 20 seconds. Now the beautiful part is that just a little earlier that morning as Jessica was spending time with Jesus, she was feeling worried about the boys and all the evil influences in the world... she had prayed, "Lord, please put a forcefield around my boys to keep them safe and protected from evil everywhere that they go."

A couple hours later, the Lord was gracious enough to open her eyes into the spirit world to see the Lord's "forcefield" that He's placed around our boys -- his angels who minister to those who will inherit eternal life!

Isn't it good to know that God protects and keeps those who love him - and their children - even when we don't realize it? This is important to understand, because all that is not of faith is fear, and fear is sin. God has not called us to fear, especially when it comes to believing that he really is in control and really keeps us and our loved ones. We are not to fear. We are to trust Him.

Caleb's Dream

My elder son is 7 years old and had a dream the other night. In his dream he says he heard a voice telling him to look in his pillow case. When he woke up he reached into his pillow case and pulled out a 20 dollar bill! He says it was Jesus who told him that in his dream.


Now we did not put any 20$ bill in his pillowcase -- in fact, 20$ bills are quite precious commodities in our home and we never leave any more than a few dollars just laying around... and when the tooth fairy comes, it's nowhere near 20$...

He showed us the 20$ bill -- and it can't be anything other than a miracle.

He said that he was supposed to spend it on himself, so he did. He now has a thick stack of new pokemon cards (a portion of which he gave to his brother) that he can hardly hold in one hand.





I thought of at least 2 things that God could have been doing through this happening:


1. Showing Caleb how to hear his voice -- who knows the ways that God plants his seed in our lives as we grow up?

2. Reminding us that he can provide whenever he wants to and whenever he sees fit. He doesn't need our help to provide the things that we need... so we needn't worry... Ever.


I just want my boy to learn to be a generous and selfless giver, and to hear the voice of God for himself even at a young age...

144 million dollars

I had the most mind-blowing dream a couple months ago and I am exciting to finally tell you about it on this blog. I'm sorry this is so long, but I promise it will be worth the read:

I dreamed my wife and I were touring a great mansion. We were going to buy it, and we knew it was going to be ours. We started through the main doors and proceeded through each room. The furnishings were not as lavish as you might guess in a mansion, but the carpeting was fresh and the rooms were white, and the furniture new yet modest. The furnishings were like the house I grew up in. As we toured the place, room after room, there was a feeling of peace, and wonder, as if the place was not of earth.

And indeed it was not of earth. This was a heavenly place! Think what you want, but it is God's honest truth... this is what I saw and how it happened, just this last February, without exagerration.

Even now, a few months later, I still remember the highlights of the dream as if it were last night. It was incredibly real, and it was one of those dreams where the emotions I was experiencing of bliss and happiness were just as beautiful, poignant and lasting as the actual surroundings I took in.

There were many many rooms, all simply and homely, but they went on and on. At one point we entered a different room where the ceiling was at least 100 feet high and the room was as vast as a great ballroom. There were mirrors all along one wall, a wooden floor across the whole place, and in one corner of the ballroom an area with banquet tables. I remember my grandfather on my mother's side next to me (who I suddenly realized I was leading by the arm) and I was explaining to him how the vast the room was -- I was telling him it was similar in size to Landmark's sanctuary.

At this point, I awoke in the middle of the night, but was too tired to digest what had happened in the dream. I then fell back asleep and continued the same dream. It seemed to start again, but it continued past the previous point to where we were with my parents touring the house, as if they were going to buy it, and Jessica and I hoped they would like it as much as we did. More than once my dad mentioned that the house cost 144 million dollars. He said it matter of factly, not as if they couldn't afford it, or it was a huge amount, just a statement of fact: it was 144 million dollars.

We all got more and more excited as we finally made it to the back of the house. The kitchen area had a fountain, and plants growing inside, with windows outside all around the back of the house. It was so beautiful, and at this point, my sister and my brother and my sister in law were all there looking around, amazed and excited at the prospect of buying such a wonderful place for all of us.

I also remember seeing the master bedroom and the bed alone was about 40 feet across.


This is the part of the dream which effected me the most - as I walked outside (and it was my first glimpse outside - the majority of the dream had been inside the great mansion) the beauty that surrounded me was breathtaking. It was like a southern mansion estate. The backyard area was closed off by massive trees with moss and foliage so that I couldn't see beyond my own backyard. There was a fog or rather a mist that was creeping over the grass. Marble walkways coiled around the back of the house and tall columns stood watchful on the back of the house. As you can tell, I don't exactly remember every detail, but there was a light, a pink or purplish light filtering through the fog - and there was an awe and a wonder that filled every fiber of my being as I stood and took in the beauty all around me. My mother told me that they were definitely going to get this place for all of us, and although I couldn't really hear it, everything around me was singing and filling me with wholeness.

It was like a Steven Spielberg moment in a beautiful film scene, except it was more than just a visual view - the sensation of peace and joy seemed to fill me to overflowing.

At that time I awoke with my alarm going off and instead of waking tired and groggy, I was wide awake. I was in a daze as I arose to my morning routine before heading off to work and I could not stop thinking of the dream. As I was dressing myself for the day, a scripture I had not thought on for a long time was suddenly fed into my mind:

"But as it is written:
'Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.'
But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God."(1 Cor. 12:9-12, from Isaiah 64:4)

After pondering my dream all day I emailed my family members who had shown up in my dream and told them about it... but what kept hitting me was the 144 million dollar price on the home. So about a week after my dream I was sitting around and I did some research on the most expensive homes in the world. They range from 5m to over 100 million dollars.

And the most expensive one? The 103-room mansion (pictured below) - set on 58 acres in the wealthy London suburb of Surrey. It has five swimming pools and every possible trimming. The cost of the most expensive home on the market today? 122 million.

See the Forbes article here: http://www.forbes.com/realestate/2005/07/29/expensivehomes-world-realestate-cx_sc_0729home_ls.html

To me this was the most amazing part: God was showing me that not even the most expensive home on this earth today could compare with what God has prepared for those who love him.

So incredible that we couldn't even imagine it with our carnal minds.

"Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.
In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.' " (John 13:36, 14:1-4)