God - THE Master CONDUCTOR

The last few days God has been showing me a painting in pieces. A painting of how big, how strong, how capable, loving, amazing, magnificent and wonderful He is! My recent days have been filled with "AHA" moments. The latest is God as a conductor, the greatest most AWESOME conductor of them all!

So ... there I am... talking about how amazing this years baptism will be and how cool it will be to volunteer at it THIS year since I was baptized LAST Easter morning on the beach... and this person who I've been doing life with for many months will look at me and say "are you kidding? I was ALSO baptized last Easter morning on the beach!" This exact situation has occurred more times than I can count recently. Now how wild is that? That I shared a very special moment with a lot of people last year, who I didn't even know, never even noticed them at the beach taking the SAME step I was taking at the SAME time I was taking it.. and in this year... God brought us together and drawn us close... and now... a year later God is showing us that it "wasn't an accident" (as Pastor Troy says) that we met... we were put there... in that moment... in that place... together... TOTALLY on purpose by God! MAN that is BIG!

God is AWESOME!!!!!! He isn't just working in our lives on occasion... casually. He is ALWAYS working... diligently so. Planting seeds, creating connections, sewing lives together.... That is sooooooo comforting to me. God is the Master CONDUCTOR!

No matter what difficulties or hard times you face in your life... YOU are not ALONE! God is ALWAYS there... ALWAYS working... ALWAYS reaching out to YOU!

God Doesn't Carbon Copy

I was in a new small group last night studying the book "Launching a Leadership Revolution." This book has created such a stir at Flamingo. There are so many groups studying it. I must say it is a very good book and I am learning a lot from it even though I am just now heading into chapter 2.

In chapter 1 there is a list of all these quotes on leadership from different people. I LOVE quotes so this part was wayyyyy exciting for me. Our small group leader asked us to get together in groups of 4 and collectively come up with a favorite. Out of the 10 I had 4 that I absolutely LOVED. They spoke to me. No one seemed to have a passive opinion... everyone was passionately moved by one of the quotes. But as I sat there listening to people passionately speak about which quote moved them I was in awe. At first I was scratching my head wondering... how did they get THAT out of that quote? How could they not have been set on FIRE by a quote that stirs my soul? Then I was hit with this thought... And I do mean "hit" it soared in from up above and settled... KAPOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW right in my brain and I was opened up to an AWESOME thought. We are all so incredibly... wonderfully different!

Okay... I'm sure you've noticed that we were all different before. But have you ever REALLY thought about that? Last night as I pondered this... I was totally AMAZED! God gave birth to our entire beings. I picture Him in an artist studio planning each beauty mark, each wonderful crevice in our brains. Think of the planning, the creativity, the artistry, the intense focus that must be necessary for Him to be able to create each and every one of the millions and millions of people that have lived, are living, and will live. It is totally unbelievable that He has been able to create us all without ever creating a duplication of something He did before. He has never ONCE used a carbon copy or some other duplication method. We are ALL different!

It is incomprehensible how He has been able to do this. To put in the amount of work, blood, sweat, tears, and passion necessary to do something on this enormous scale???? TOTALLY speaks to me of His LOVE for us! Man.... He doesn't HAVE to expend that kind of energy creating one of a kind originals... but He does... because to Him... we are EACH so special and so loved that He works to get us just right, just perfect as He has envisioned us in His amazing mind.

Realizing this, I feel renewed and filled with a wonderful responsibility. God selected each part of me, each part of YOU. He did it for a specific reason.... every quirk.... every tiny piece of you is put here by GOD, the sum of YOU is here to carry out a purpose, a mission, ONLY YOU can do. So each day I will remind myself of this... and I will work to stay connected to God... tune in to His guidance and He will take me to that purpose day in and day out! AWESOME!

500+ Salvations

This past weekend was AMAZING at FRC! Well, truly they are all AMAZING but this one was way over the top, extra special, life time memory bank filler upper AMAZING!

This weekend at Flamingo Road Church Campuses 500 people took the step and accepted Christ as their Savior. The thing that made this moment so special for me when I attended was being able to watch it unfold, watch people with the tears streaming down their face taking the step towards Christ and then being able to celebrate with them. Pastor Troy called for everyone there to stand and celebrate via applause.

It was AWESOME!