Unless I had a really boring job, I could never imagine getting paid to travel and not enjoying it. The first time I ever got to experience this was while living in Texas. I travelled for All Access Today to Las Vegas to work at the Professional Bull Riding Championship Finals. It was an awesome experience, I even kind of learned to enjoyed the sport of bull riding. But the amazing part, to me, is that I got to spend my time traveling, in airports, on planes, in new places, a new city, an amazing car accident, etc... and I got paid to do it all.
Tomorrow, I am traveling with a good friend, Jon Willis, who is an awesome photographer doing a photo shoot in Iowa. I'm just going as a simple assistant, but its awesome to get to travel and consider it work, because no matter how valuable your time is to your employer, its still crazy that anything like this counts as work! We were discussing it and he enjoys the traveling too, which makes it even cooler. I'm pumped to get to go on a work trip again!
Sweet!

The Lord is pulling some serious crap out of me. Or I'm assuming that's what this process is all about.

I've been unemployed for two months now. In this time my life has shown an increasing level of negative pattern. These may be things which some would consider normal, but its not healthy. My personal spiritual life, my community fellowship and discipleship, my leadership with Lisa, and even my efforts to find a job have all been hindered by something in me that doesn't know how to respond correctly in this situation. I have a strong feeling its all something very deep rooted, a remnant from my childhood. I only say this because as this is being prodded at the depths of my insecurities are stirred up. I'm still not sure how this all connects together but its something the Lord is working out, and I trust that, so I'm just going to work on allowing Him to break open the dark parts of my subconscious.

That's it really, I've got big things turning up, and I don't even know what they look like yet, but they are being pulled on and I'm confident they will soon be uprooted.

Hello Sozo!

Recently my father started his own company. After about 20 years of working in real estate for West Shell (when it was just West Shell), ReMax, and other smaller companies, he is finally his own master. He got his broker's license this past summer after much laborious work and is finally on the small business owner path. Its not too big of a transition as far as mentality, because he has technically been self employed for a long time, but now he gets to reap the benefits of the adventure that is total personal control.

All this goes to say, I am excited and proud, and ready to try my hand at helping him optimize his business capabilities through self marketing and all the intricacies the Internet provides for doing so. I think its awesome when people like my dad can start a small business with a real purpose in mind. Sozo Realty is a company that is truly there to help people, and that is the owner and founders heart. I know it from a lot of personal experience. Its cool to get to try your hand at helping those kind of people!

Its amazing the ways in which the Lord can teach us to know Him.

As I learn to love Lisa in a reflection of His love, I learn more about who He is to me, how He wants me to know Him. One of the biggest things He is teaching me is how He wants to relate to me in life. I'll steal an analogy a friend and I have been using lately to grasp this. My friend and his family recently moved into a new, awesome house. His son helped him in the moving process. In a move of sheer genius parenting, he decided that connecting with his son was more important than efficient moving time, so he allowed his young son to take up some of the decision making process and do as much of the moving as he was able to at his age. He could see that his son came away with a sense of accomplishment, he learned and worked and found fulfillment and confidence. He knew his father trusted him and wanted to help him take on a big task.

I have always been afraid in the position of the son who is moving. God knows what He is doing, and I always want Him to tell me to sit on the porch while He moves all our boxes, then we can just go get another load when He is finished. But He doesn't do things that way. I want Him to take control, because He knows what He is doing, where to put things, how to carry them. But His goal is not to get the boxes into the right rooms. His goal is to relate to me. His goal is that I know who He is, who He wants to be, that I know who I am to Him, and that I grow in relation to Him. He wants me to take steps in the move, and I can ask questions, but He won't ever just give me all the answers, and He won't just do it Himself. I am always asked to learn to know Him more in every situation.
That's what the Lord is teaching me. It is one of the strongest confirmations I have ever had that I am moving in the right direction, which is ironic since a lot of it is learning how to move in the right direction.

Its seems foreign that I am learning to know Christ better so much so because I am called to be an image of Him in many ways to another. I'm learning to trust that He is full of truth and that's where my confidence should be founded. I am something new because He asks me to fill roles I am not personally qualified for, but He's showing me the ropes.

THANK YOU JESUS!!

(Epiphany + Video) = {Epipheo}

Some good friends of mine have recently become pretty heavily involved in a new wave of internet phenomona termed "epipheos". An epipheo is basically an instructional video falling somewhere between a short documentary and a commercial. They are designed to be viral, with an intention of creating paradigm shifts in enough viewers to influence e-culture. As a result of these friends involvement I've become modestly interested personally, so I will post those which interest me from time to time.

Think youtube video on documentary steroids.

Their site is http://www.epipheostudios.com/.
You can check out the new "youtube" of epipheos at http://www.epipheo.com/.

This first one is definitely one of the most straightforward examples, and the first I've seen without any text necessity.

dove evolution

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Lordship is on my mind.
In studying Lordship as of late, I come to realize how important it is that Christians get this concept. Its something I have recognized (at least for its effects if not for what it is) for many years. This doesn't mean I've lived by it.
Lordship is something which is defined by a moment. There must come a point where a man surrenders all and comes under a new master. This is left out of the modern American gospel in the majority case. It is required of a man's self to die, and any who is unwilling is not ready for Christ.
But at the same time, one is never able to consistently remain in this role. Fallen men are always trying to fix, control, and design their lives, and one is required to continue to return to this principle, to maintain a heart of brokenness. One has to continue to come back to believing the truth of God's promises and the nature of the lies coursing through his own veins.
The paradox here brings strange emotions. To come to a place of sheer brokenness and willingness to surrender is one hard found, most are not often ready to accept. It is not too basic to mention that its just simply hard. However, when you find yourself available to this perfectly intervening grace, your filled with relief, peace, and joy. It is the only solution in a world which inevitably demands one. To know the truth intimately is to experience true love and know what hope means for the first time.
The truly cognizant heart cannot continue on long in this world without finding ache in recognizing the continuation of his rejection of this surrender. Eventually a heart will always believe the lie over the truth again, and at some point a betrayal reoccurs. This is perhaps the most agonizing experience a human should be able to know, if he truly could understand the gravity.
This week, I have been studying Lordship. And in this time, I have recognized how wonderful and beautiful a life can be when lived from this place. I have known this truth in a far less definitive form for many years. At the same time, I have even this week known the pain of betraying this truth, of accepting lies as the proof that slavery to self is worthwhile, and I have known the after effect of fear which comes in trusting such broken systems.

Lordship, Lordship, Lordship, when will Your way in me be complete?!?