Engaged!!

That's right!  Ya boy's engaged.  haha!!

At approximately 10:15pm on December 31st, 2012, Ms. Chelsey Nicholson said yes.  It was one of those moments that is indescribable.  Perfect.

Chelsey and I have known for a while now that marriage was on the way.  We've been talking about it for months, and she's even been planning some things early--gathering addresses for invitations, buying a dress, deciding her bridesmaids' attire, etc.  We are way ahead of the game!

So with the wedding so certain (and the tentative date closing in quickly), it was tough keeping the proposal a surprise.  Chelsey was starting to get a little antsy about the whole thing and actually asked me the day before I proposed I if I at least knew when I was gonna do it.  She was so happy when I told her I knew you would've thought I proposed to her right then!

So anyways, I had my whole thing prepped and ready to go.  I was gonna pop the question in the exact spot that I first met her.  For us, that first meeting happened at Promiseland Metro Church.  And since I'm the worship pastor there, I have keys :)  Thus, no problem getting in the building when nobody else is around.  Success!

On New Year's Eve, she had no clue it was coming.  We had just eaten dinner with some friends and were on the way back to my house to prep for some people coming over later.  The church is on the way home, so I said I needed to drop some stuff off real quick so that I wouldn't have to worry about it on January 1st.  I get there all ready to go, and I had forgotten my keys.  Are you kidding me?!  Mind racing, I told her I would just have to drop the stuff off tomorrow when I had my keys on me.  So we left, her none-the-wiser.

We get to my house and I'm fervently thinking of some way to make this work tonight as I had planned.  If you know Chelsey, you know that Chelsey loves coffee.  "Aha," I thought, "I will use this for trickery!"

"You want to go to the Creme?" I asked.  "Oh, I think it's closed," she says.  It was.  "Well you said you wanted some coffee...how about Starbucks?" I came back.  Of course she got all happy and said "sure"...she will take any offers for coffee (I usually don't make these offers).

We get the $5+ coffee from the monster that is Starbucks and then head towards the church again.  I really wanna get this stuff dropped off, ya know.

When we get there I ask her to come inside with me and then I give her some work to do to distract her.  While she is working on things, I'm in the sanctuary setting up my scene:  dimly lit, guitar set up, Bible opened, and a folder of dreams/visions/words ready for reading.  Now I'm ready.

I go get her after she finishes up her job.  We begin to exit through the sanctuary and I say something like, "I've got something else for you before we go."  She sees the setup...............and STILL doesn't know what's going on.  Of course, I didn't know this until afterwards, but wow--she must've really thought that I wasn't proposing any time soon :)

I take her coat and ask her to sit in the exact place we first met.  My Bible is open to Song of Solomon chapter 4.  I read her some lines out of there that we both really like, and then I grab my folder.  I read her the word-for-word prophecy I received about her about a year before I met her on 12/11/11.  Then, I grab my guitar as I'm telling her about a song that I started writing for her before we even met.  I sing the song to her for the first time.  She is starting to realize what is going on.

I turn from her for just a moment to retrieve the box from it's hiding place.  I get on one knee in front of her and tell her about how blessed I am to have met her and how I intend to love her, about how I thank God for her and how I intend to be a husband to her.  Finally, I ask her if she would do me the honor of marrying me.  And she said yes.

*     *     *     *     *

We are still just starting, but our whole relationship is a fairy-tale.  Too good to be true many would say.  I beg to differ.  Your reality is different when you live from a different world.  We've got a King who is not confined to the usual.  We've got a King that made love, and we've chosen to honor Him as first in our relationship.  We are not perfect and cannot even pretend to be, but one thing we are is honoring of what we feel God has laid out as boundaries for our relationship.  To honor these boundaries is to bring life--more love, more hope, more goodness.  All these flow as we obey the Father's commands.

I cannot wait to see what the future holds.  I am sure I cannot fathom the blessings that lie ahead for the both of us, but I know it will be good...and I know this because God is faithful.  He is always good and He is always pleased to give good gifts to His children.  I'm so incredibly grateful that He ran Chelsey and I into each other and let this love story start.  Our story is a showcase of God's faithfulness.  He is always good and always faithful, and He will be the same towards you as well.  Love and obey--it's the way to go.

A Prophet Without Honor

Do you know who is sitting next to you? That’s a child of God with a unique manifestation of His character. That’s a vessel containing the power of the Holy Spirit if they choose to walk in it. That person sitting next to you could be the key to your breakthrough.

Have you neglected to notice who they are in Christ because you see them every day? Do you fail to acknowledge their anointing because you’ve seen them at their worst, or seen them grow up, or seen them fall a few times? Just because you know them as your friend, your mother, your son, or your colleague doesn’t negate the fact that they could be a live power line.

These people we know intimately are no different than the people we sometimes put on pedestals. We tend to clamor for these “big” people to speak to us or pray for us, but we look right past the people we see every day. These “big” people are really not that much different than you and I—they contain the same God that lives on the inside of every single person that is born again. And I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about it, but these faith giants probably deal with the some of the same shortcomings, stumbling blocks, and perception problems that you and your friends and families face. After all, these giants of the faith are somebody’s friend, somebody’s mother, somebody’s son.

It is much easier for us to honor the people we view from afar because we probably don’t know their every weakness or know who they were before they became the person we see now. We can honor them (or their ministry) much easier because we usually only see the good stuff and hear about their best moments. But I submit to you that the very people that you do life with can hold the miracle in your life that you are looking for if you will choose to start honoring them for who they are in the Lord. And that means you honor them fully…let me explain what I mean:

Let’s say I get to see one of my uncles a few times a year at family gatherings. I’ve known him my entire life. He has watched football with me, taken me to amusement parks, and bought me gifts at Christmas. I know him pretty well and have been around long enough (and heard enough stories from the family) to know his interests, how he used to be, and what he is like now. Now let’s say this uncle is a preacher. He travels around and preaches the Gospel. He is a great family man and loves his wife. I have the opportunity to approach this man in a several different ways. I can honor him as 1) the guy who grew up with my mother and tormented her; 2) my uncle that I’ve always known; 3) a man who probably doesn’t care all that much for money; 4) a provider for his family who is faithful to his wife, 5) a man of God who has led countless people to the Lord; etc, etc, etc. The way in which I choose to honor him is equivalent to how much I can get from him.

Notice that in Matthew 10:41, Jesus says, “Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and anyone who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward.” Thus, by merely honoring a person according to their place in the Kingdom you can get everything that they have. In the case of my uncle, I can choose to honor as little or as much as I like, but whatever level I honor him that is how much I can receive. If I only look at him as ‘the guy who buys me presents at Christmas’ or ‘the funny uncle who makes fart jokes’ then I am missing something. If I don’t stop at the familiarity of knowing him and instead choose to honor him as a man of God who has spent his life to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ then I can receive so much more from him. The amount of respect and honor I give him is directly tied to how much I can receive from him.

It’s so much harder for us to see people that we know intimately as people who could be special…as people who could have a very unique place in the Kingdom. What if I said my uncle was Billy Graham? Would that change how you think I should view him? Guess what—Billy Graham IS somebody’s uncle. Somebody has the opportunity to only see him as their parent’s brother…only as a guy they see mostly at holidays. They get to choose if they will honor him as somebody they’ve always know intimately and heard crazy stories about his past, or honor him as being an evangelist to the nations.

You have the opportunity to look at the people around you differently than you have always done. These people aren’t only your friends and family; they are children of the Most High God. Choose to honor them fully and watch more life flow into your relationships.

11:50pm

One of my goals for 2011 is to write more music—worship music, music for my band, music for me. As far as worship music goes, I put a very specific measurement on myself to make sure that I keep on top of things: I must write and have ready to present to our worship team at least 1 song per month.

January was pretty easy. I wrote “Who We Are” (which I will post on here once we get a good recording) in basically 2 or 3 days. It was one of those songs that just came quickly and wouldn’t leave my head until it was completed. Gotta love those kind :) And it seemed like February was gonna be easy, too, because I had already gotten a good start on a song that had lots of potential. In fact, I had started working on this song before composing “Who We Are”. But as the month wore on, no real progress was made on it. Every time I sat down to write, I would just replay what I already had done…then just sit there, stuck. Even when I sat down very deliberately a week ago to hammer something out (which is what this post was about), nothing substantial ever came.

So February 28^th rolls around and the song still isn’t done. I’m still lacking an entire bridge, and at least half of the 2^nd verse. Plus, I still haven’t determined the exact structure of the song…. Does it need a bridge? If so, should there be the 3^rd verse? Where should the buildups be? 8 or 16 measures for the guitar solo? Should there even be a guitar solo? Ha. You music people know what I’m talking about.

Anyways, since I’m determined to meet my goal of finishing one song per month, I made sure to schedule lots of time on the 28^th dedicated to completing “Your Name is Love”. Due to unforeseen circumstances, I didn’t get started until around 5 in the evening...not good. Then when I finally do get started, it’s not exactly with a bang; just more of the same—replaying things I had already done, and not coming up with anything I want to keep. But then I start to get pieces here and there that I begin to weave together: the chord structure for the bridge (and a melody to go with it!), the topic of the material that will become the 2^nd verse, and snippets of the lyrics for the bridge and 2^nd verse. Looks like it just might happen!

…11pm, and I’m still not done. I’ve stopped to eat, and just take a break. I’m hoping that clearing my mind for a little while will help me when I attack it again. But when I sit back down nothing new comes immediately. I consider calling it a night because I had truthfully made some real progress—2 or 3 lyrical ideas that I was pretty sure could become half of the 2^nd verse, and I had definitely finished the first half of the bridge lyrics. Plus, I didn’t want to “force” myself to write something if it just wasn’t right, ya know?

But instead of giving into the urge to do the easy thing and quit for the night, I told myself at the very least I would sit there until midnight and see if anything would come. I prayed for more words to come. And they did. Out of the muck in my mind, actual phrases that I could use in the song started to form and piece together. The first half of the 2^nd verse rolled out and fit together with another lyrical idea I had written out earlier. Then, it hit me to let the 2^nd half of the bridge wrap back around to lyrics from the 1^st verse. Far beyond just “filling the gap” in the song, wrapping it back to those specific words was a perfect fit and made for a great transition to then go straight back into the chorus; thus, solving the structural question as well. BAM! Song complete!

All of this got done around 11:50pm. So I did, indeed, get my song done by my self-imposed deadline.

* * * * *

I believe the Lord helped me honor my commitment to Him and myself because I chose to stick it out. I really do think that since I consciously chose to at least put forth the effort in trying to meet the demands I put on myself (which, in fact, were designed to make sure I was nourishing that aspect of my life, gifting, and calling), God came in at the last second and helped me make it to the finish line.

Making promises to God, yourself, and others is a big deal. Following through with your commitment is a big deal. I want you to know that God does care about what you care about—after all, He put a lot of those things in you. I also want you to know that you’ve got to make a decision to go after what you care about; it won’t always fall into your lap without any effort. But I have first-hand experience that says when you make a choice to push through the hard stuff and ask God to help you with what you’ve made a commitment to (when what you’re doing is inside of His will, of course), He is faithful to show up and help you out.

He will do the same thing for you that He’s done for me. God is no respecter of persons, and He loves us all. Go do YOUR thing. In Jesus' Mighty Name, Amen.