But, if you put away all the driving around and sit down and write about this, you find yourself, like I am, reflecting on the past 14 months and can’t help but think about all the amazing high points in that time.  The first one is the day that we started dating, May 8, 2009 at 10:30pm.  I remember the nervousness, the anxiousness and all the excitement in it.  Boy did I not know that a year later that we’d be getting married.

The second thing that I remember is when we said that we started talking about getting married.  We had talked about getting married early on in our relationship, but did not want to rush into it but rather we decided to take our time and get to know each other.  Which, by the way, I’m still getting to know Meredith and I love continually getting to know her!

The third memory I have is getting engaged on December 9, 2009 to Meredith.  To read the entire story please visit our website at http://meredithanddarrell.wedsite.com.  It was such an awesome time.

The last memory, which is really not the last one but really the beginning, is this Saturday.  This entire week and flown by and I can’t wait to see her walking down the aisle in her dress.  I can’t wait to be on a plane Sunday morning to St. Thomas and I can’t wait to live life together with her for the rest of our lives.

Please be in prayer for both Meredith and I as we start our lives together on Saturday afternoon.

I would also like to express my gratitude and thankfulness to all of our families and friends for all of their love and support.  You guys are amazing!!!

I’ve never been so excited about something in my entire life to be marrying my best friend and to embark in this love story then with Meredith.  As my sister described the other days, “She makes you a better you.”  And I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.  She makes me a better person.  And I make her a better person.

Even in the midst of worry, fear, drivenness, finances and everything else that we will face in our lives together she makes me better at.  When I’m struggling with things, she’s my rock.  When I don’t understand how to balance a checkbook, she’s there to help me.  When she doesn’t understand how to not kill flowers (lol) I’m there to help her with her green thumb.  When she’s struggling with anything, I’m there to not fix things, but to encourage, love and to listen/hear what she has to say.

John and Stasi Eldredge in their new book on marriage, Love and War, call marriage “hard.”  And that’s because it is.  It will be the hardest thing that we will ever take on.  Yet it will be the best thing that we will ever do.

This thing called marriage is one of great risk, great love and great reward.  And if  you think that it will all be hunky dory and it will be the perfect thing ever you are sadly mistaken.  When God created man and woman and then instructed us to join together in holy matrimony and to leave our father and mother and become one flesh he set us in the midst of a war.  Marriages are, in my opinion, one of the the enemy’s most hated, despised and attacked unions in the history of mankind.

From the early church marriages were attacked, Gomer and Hosea, David and Bathsheba, to all of the continuing centuries following til now, marriage has been under attack.  Satan first of all has a special hatred for the beauty.  Back in the garden Satan came to the woman first and deceived her.  And ever since then he has attacked her with a special hatred.  The man also was deceived by Satan and has robbed him of his manhood for centuries.

To live in your marriage as if there was no enemy if like trying to live without water for a week.  You can’t do it!  The body needs water and we have to live as if we are fiercely opposed.  Men we need to offer strength not be cowards, we need to offer ourselves to our woman in every way imaginable.  Women you need to offer your life, your beauty, your heart in the same way that your man does.  The only difference is that men and women offer it in different ways.

If you can remember back to the first marriage, Adam and Eve, there communication came under attack and it got them kicked out of paradise.  Communication is one of the, if not the, most attacked venues that the enemy tries to use against man and woman.

Twists, lies, perversions, condemnation, guilt, shame, all come from SATAN.  Love, truth, grace, discipline all come from GOD.  We have to be careful what we hear the Enemy whispering to us because it can very easily be communicated to our spouse and it can have very harsh repercussions on us.

I in no way know everything about marriage, for I’m not even married yet, 33 days away, but with these subtle truths and wisdom gained from others who have walked down this path in marriage we will be great!

This thing called marriage is wonderful and I can’t wait to embark.  Let us set sail into the greatest mystery and love ever!

Relationships are set in the midst of a love story with our creator, yet they are completely fought hard against by our enemy Satan.  If Love and War are written the way that the other books were written then I know that I feel like I have more resources to help me in my relationships with others as well as with my soon to be wife.

Communication leads to feelings of anger, resentment, bitterness, spiritual fatigue and the most important thing agreements.  Someone not communicating effectively leads to misunderstandings and agreements.  For me I struggle daily with communicating effectively to people.  My mind races a million miles an hour and at times I don’t think before I speak and it gets me into trouble.

Someone asked me the other day if I had ADD/ADHD and my response was, “Nope!  My mind goes crazy with things to do, say, and things to process all the time.  And as I look back on the past few years I’ve noticed a big change in my heart.  In college I was a humorous crazy person with lots of unresolved issues.  I used to be someone who could process things quickly and use something funny to get my way out of it.  NOT ANYMORE!  As I have matured, gone through my heart and resolved some issues and sought God more, those same fleshly desires spring up like a geyser spraying everyone in the way and leaving them feeling unloved and shocked by it.  And now its that constant battle and struggle to work through those issues and find not just spiritual relief but to find and healing and holiness.

Paul in Romans 7 offers a unique perspective about this when he says:

12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.
13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.
17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.
18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.
20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.
22For in my inner being I delight in God’s law
23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.
24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

We all do the things sometimes we don’t wanna do and it is not because we are wicked to the core or anything else like that we do it because of sin and our fleshly desires.  The change I know that God is doing inside of me even as I write this is not to just “work on things,” but rather to go fiercely into battle and go into the depths and the dark night of my soul that bounds my heart is bitter chains.  Now you must know that my entire heart is not bound up in chains, but anger right now nags and pulls me down.  And the truth of the matter is thats not who God has made me to be.  God does not desire any of us to be angry, jealous, selfish, prideful, arrogant or any of those other devices that sin and the enemy throw at us.  God desires us to be holy.

I’m fortunate and grateful to have a loving community, family and a wonderful fiancee to encourage me and to help me to fight through the trenches with these and other issues.  I am not a completed work and God is still making me new.  Revelation 21:10 says, “Behold I make all things new.”

God continue to make me new!  Make us new!

Webster’s Dictionary describes joy as, “the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires.”  Honestly I have mixed feelings about this definition because as it states it is the “emotion (feeling) evoked by well-being or success.” Does God desire us to be well-off or successful?  Yes by all means he does.  God does not want us poor and living in the dumps.  However, people who are not “well-off” and are living pay-check to pay-check are some of the happiest and yet sometimes the most miserable people.  What’s the balance here?  Have people found joy in being well off and yet those who have nothing are they joyful?

Does God reward those with joy who have “Good fortune?”  Good fortune to me sounds like winning the lottery or gambling.  Does God honestly give those who desire to win the lottery or to gamble their life savings away joy?  If it was the case then shoot I desire to win the 252 Million dollar North Carolina Powerball Lottery.  If I don’t win it yet keep pouring in the money every night or every week when they release the numbers to the Lottery and its not my numbers do I still have joy or would I have some disappointment?  Does joy sometimes equal disappointment?

Now the last part of this definition I totally agree with.  When we find out what makes us come alive, as St.  Iraneaus once said to the early church, we find joy.  We find joy everywhere we go and whatever we are going through.  There is great joy to give $25 a month to feed hungry children in Ethiopia.  There is great joy in your children asking you about a relationship with Jesus.  Yet there is also joy in barely scraping by.

I feel that there is a direct connection between joy and faith.  I have faith that every month God is going to provide the necessary (whatever it is).  And while he desires to come through for us we have to not sit and wait for God to act if we are not doing anything at all.

We all find joy in whatever comes our way, whether it be who wins the basketball game, how many lives are saved by feeding the poor at a soup kitchen.  We even find joy in hard times.  No one ever wants to admit it but even in hard times we find joy.  When our grandparents pass away or when a 4 month old has to have an emergency surgery.  Even in the crap, frustrations and disappointments of life joy lurks around the corner like your best friend.  I’m reminded of a song that has the lyrics, “joy unspeakable.”

And that’s exactly what we need.  Joy Unspeakable.  No matter what we are facing in this world, economy slowing down, housing market crawling, health care reform which doesn’t really feel like a reform, to church wars over crazy ideals and other nonsensical jargon about traditionalism and worship.  In the midst of it all we find joy.  We must find joy.  We must find joy in every circumstances and not let our circumstances define our joy or what makes us joyful.

Find joy today.

⁶Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
⁷but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
⁸And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
⁹Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. (From Bible Gateway, NIV)

This passage in Philipians reminds me on this Holy Week the very nature of God.  And I’d like to take just a few moments to capture these words from my heart to you.

The first part of this verse tells me of God’s heart toward humanity, “Who being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.”  Jesus became God (John 1:1) and in God’s very same nature, thus making God and Jesus equal, came to the earth.  Jesus coming to the earth was nothing to be grasped.  The Message says, “He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human!”

Jesus didn’t have to come down with guns blaring ready to shoot people up, he came down, “humbled himself as a servant.”  He came down and became one of us.  This is spelled out perfectly in the Gospels when Jesus tells people after a miracle or a healing, “Don’t tell anyone yet, its not time.  If you say it too soon it will not be good.”  And most of the people even though they heard Jesus say that, did not listen to Jesus when he said that.  Many times after Jesus instructed the people not to say anything yet, they immediately went and told people.

Yet he didn’t get mad or upset, he went on his way and did not begrudgingly say to the people, “Will you leave me alone, I’m tired of you people.”  Rather he loved them with all of his heart, for that heart was the love that crucified him to the cross.  Jesus made himself with the appearance of a man, to “blend in,” like a covert agent who was sent to infiltrate a world with love.  David Henderson, Lead Pastor at University City Fellowship has expressed this type of infiltration called, “Guerilla Lovers.”  And this is exactly what Jesus was, he was a Guerilla Lover.  He came down being the very nature of God, humbled himself as a servant, carried the pain of the cross, died a horrible death of the cross on the hill called Golgotha all to show love. And because Jesus did all of this he was rewarded by being exalted to the highest place in Heaven and on this earth so that, “…every tongue would confess that Jesus is the Lord, to the glory of God his Father.”

Even in the horribleness of the cross, Jesus still did not take the credit, did not take the glory.  This was not about him, this was all about God and his power, love and compassion on all of humanity.

Easter is not about Easter Eggs, Jelly Beans and Cadbury eggs, although they are good things, Easter is about the nature of God, his compassion towards his beloved, to show love!

Happy Resurrection Day on Sunday!

Happy Easter Week!

Happy Easter Everyone!

This blog is not an “Obama” bashing one, or even a praising one.  Rather this is about how politics messes up the norm.  Yet again, I’m reminded of the gospel stories of Jesus when he encountered the Pharisees and the lawmakers.  One such account was on “one Sabbath.”  Many of Jesus’ epic teaching moments happened on “one Sabbath.”  The Sabbath was very important to the Jewish community as it was literally, “a day of rest.”  The law stated that from sun down to sun up you were not to do any form of work at all.  If you were caught doing work than you would be in trouble by the law.

Luke 6:1 is where we pick up this story at where Jesus is in the grain fields with the 12 knuckleheads  picking grain, rubbing them in their hands and eating the kernels.  Some of the Pharisee’s saw this and asked, “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”

Jesus being full of sarcasm quoted scripture at them saying, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions where hungry?  He entered the house of God (the temple) and taking consecrated bread, ate what is lawful only for priests to eat.  And he also gave some to his companions.”

Jesus broke the mold when it came to destroying the law; he obliterated it.  He came to fulfill the law, which is a conundrum to me because he came to fulfill the law yet he destroyed it.  This guy is awesome!!!

As we continue reading this passage in v. 6 the scriptures tell us yet again, “on another Sabbath,”; get the picture here?  There was something political going on here.  But it wasn’t Jesus that was being political, he came to bring change to the law, not to mess around with politics.  Jesus went to the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose hand was shriveled.  The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath.  But Jesus knew exactly what was going on and said to the man with the messed up hand, “Get up and stand in front of everyone.”

Pause.  Don’t miss what Jesus is doing here.  We read at the beginning of the story that “on a sabbath” Jesus ate some grain from a field.  And then on another Sabbath he healed a man with a mess up hand.  The law stated that no work, no healing, no nothing was to happen on the Sabbath, according to the law.  But Jesus is defying that and doing it anyway.  Was Jesus being a rebel here?  You darn right he was, but he wasn’t doing it maliciously he was doing it for a reason.  And that reason was so that people would know that the law had faults in it and that no one could be perfect enough to follow it.  It was impossible for every Jew to follow the law.

Jesus wasn’t concerned with the law.  He did not come to fight the law but to completely destroy it.  If we look ahead in the Gospel stories to Jesus death we see that when Jesus was on the cross, dead, on the third day when he arose and ascended into heaven, the veil in the temple was torn in two.  Therefore bridging the gap between the law, the lawmakers and with every force of politics out there.

Now I want to switch gears now and talk about whether or not Jesus cares about politics now.  The greatest commandment that Jesus told us what to, “love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, body and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.”  The neighbor here is the people who are in power over us, meaning that we should support and love those who in the public office.  No matter if you are conservative, liberal or moderate we are called to love and support those people that we have elected.  And we should voice our opinions lovingly to them if they are doing a bad job or going against their word.

For example, if an elected official says that they say they oppose abortion or stem cell research or whatever the issue is when they are campaigning and then when elected they go against that we have every right to peacefully and lovingly tell them how we feel about the issue that we feel wronged with.

Paul instructed us to pray for those who are in office over us.  Encourage them, Pray for them, no matter what beliefs they are.  No matter what you think about them.  Jesus said to love everyone and this includes those who make laws and govern us.  We elected the officials because we felt like they were going to do a good job and they do do a great job.  Therefore, instead of getting huffy or in a tussle about politics let us love one another.

And that’s what grinds my gears

D

Under this umbrella of disrespect are such terms as lying, talking back, attitudes, tones of voices that display disrespect, etc.  Therefore, throughout the day I notice every one of these signs of disrespect.
Disrespect according to Webster’s simply means, “rudeness.”  Some examples that immediately come to my mind is in traffic when someone cuts you off in traffic and flips you the middle finger.  Another example is when someone says something maliciously about you trying to destroy your reputation or to put your name down.

I’m reminded yet again of Jesus when he was being spit upon, beat up, whipped, flogged and mocked and yet he said nothing at all.  Even on the cross he could have sent down legions of angels from the heavens to obliterate all of humanity.  But he DIDN’T!

Let us all follow Jesus’ example here that even when people are blatantly showing disrespect or even disrespecting someone, let us not retaliate but show love instead for ourselves and for others.

I am in no way saying that these kids are bad or mean or anything.  Every single one of these kids are great kids.  What I am saying is we all need to watch how we act, respond, react to people.  Jesus never reacted poorly or disrespected anyone.  He reacted in love and with compassion.  Kids get it from other kids, who get it from teachers, pastors, parents and others who don’t show love but rather disrespect each other.  Someone has told me that “actions speak louder than words.”  And it’s so true.  When we show disrespect our actions show that we do not love.

Loving Loudly,

D

I’ve taken a few days off to really decided on what the next thing that “Grinds my gears is,” and I’d have to say it is when people do something for someone else and they expect something back in return.  Jesus calls us to “love” and to love without condition or even getting anything back in return.

Just the other day at the YMCA, we celebrated National Nutrition Month and instead of the normal apples and bananas on a table we decided to do something a bit different.  In the afternoon we had granola bars, wheat thins, and Juicy Juice for the members.  One of the very first members came up to me while I was sitting at the table and asked, “Do we have to do something to get this food, like take a tour or something?”  And my response was no, “This is for you as our member, we love you and we want you to be healthy as we celebrate National Nutrition Month.”

I had this overwhelming sense of concern because for the rest of the day people would ask that same question repeatedly.  And it saddens me greatly that people would do something for someone out of the generousness of their heart and then want something in return.

I John 4 tells us, “We love because he first loved us.”  We love because he first loved us!  My challenge for us is to be grateful for what we have and when someone does something for you, don’t expect it back.

And this is what really grinds my gears!

**Note of caution**

This does not apply when you have bills due.  Pay your bills, they expect you to pay them.  If you don’t pay them, you won’t be able to have the power turned on so you can read this blog.  (j/k)

So for the next three days or so I want to look at some things that I think that we as Christians, as Americans, as people need not to be offended by but rather things that we need to change!

The first thing that I think that has not changed yet, but desperately needs to is racism.  Many of  us have heard stories after stories of the underground rail road, stories of people overcoming segregation (Rosa Parks who sat in the front of the bus instead of the back) and so on.  We all have heard the stories and they move us all to want to end it immediately.  However, people today feel as if “they are owed something” because they feel like someone is being racist towards them.

Fredrick Otto Hertz said about racism that,

“At the heart of racism is the religious assertion that God made a creative mistake when He brought some people into being”

Many of you who read my thoughts know that I am not racist at all.  God says to “love all;” which means it doesn’t matter what skin color you are.  I recently saw a video of a 9 or 10 year old boy who is trying to get the “N-word” scratched from the dictionary.

Oprah recently interviewed Jay-Z and in response to a question about the “N-Word” she said,

“If blacks use the word casually, so will whites.”

Oprah went on to say that, “I was once at a Jay-Z concert, and there was a moment when everybody–including white people–was screaming the N-word,” she recalled. “I gotta tell you, it didn’t make me feel good.”

Education about racism is one of the most important aspects in order to change what we have lived with for centuries now.  Racism sucks.  Racism is nothing more than saying,

“I’m better than you are and I’m going to let you know that by treating you like dirt, whether or not it is because of your skin color, socio-economic status, or because you are tall or short or whatever else the excuse is.”

In I John 3:23 it commands us:

“to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.”

I John 3:11 says,

“This is the message that you have heard from the beginning:  We should love one another.”

And one of my favorite verses in the Bible, I John 4:19-20,

“We love because he first loved us.  If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother he is a liar.  For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.  And he has given us this command:  Whoever loves God mus also love his brother.”

Notice that it didn’t qualify that and say anything about the gender, color of skin, race or anything else.  It simply says to “love.”

Racism offends me and it should offend you as well especially when I see middle schoolers deliberately being racist towards other students.  And the problem that pops up for me, “Okay where did they learn this from?”  And immediately I think of parents, society, TV, radio, social media and the Internet.  Racism may be all around us, but does that make it right?

Racism should offend everyone because it doesn’t show love.  I know for me as I sit here watching these 16 students in my first core class of the day no matter what is going on in their life, no matter what they look like, God tells me to love them all!

The question though remains, “What are we going to do about ending racism?”  My fiancée and I were talking about this some time ago and we wondered if racism has slowly gone away throughout the past 50 years or so.  And our conclusion is that in certain ways yes while in others no.  Parents who raise their children teaching them to hate or even dislike someone else goes directly against what the scriptures tell us to love one another.  However, in these cases where parents teach their children to love each other there is a direct change in how they love.

Basically here’s a graph that shows what I’m talking about:

Parents and Society —-> Educate and show Hatred/Racism —-> produces more people who continue the cycle of racism.

————-or—————-

Parents and Society —-> Educate and show Love —-> produces a cycle of Love for everyone

We must love without condition.  David Henderson, lead pastor at University City Fellowship in Charlotte, NC, has recently stated that,

“We are in a new type of war with love.  We are no longer getting the job done with loving one another in the church and in society.  We must start over with how we love and go back to guerrilla warfare where small groups of people go on small missions not for the good of ourselves but for the “good of the world.  We’ll call it guerrilla love-fare.”

Let’s start this guerrilla lovefare now before it is too late and the next generation is the same as ours!