Numb...

Numb is a curious word. At work it is my greatest ally, but in my personal life it is my nemesis. Numb is defined as: deprived of physical sensation or the ability to move; incapable of action or of feeling emotion; lacking or deficient in emotion or feeling; indifferent. Sometimes a blessing, and sometimes a curse.

While at work I have seen many things that would cause most people to break. Emergency services are not for the weak stomached or weak minded. I have seen peoples insides on the outside, decapitation, child deaths and deaths of those that were way to young, along with a host of other disturbing images and smells. One of the main reasons I have survived is due to my “switch.” It seems that I was born with, or developed over time, a switch that shuts my emotions off. In essence, making me numb to everything and able to concentrate on my job. Here numbness is my ally and a great friend. It has kept me sane and focused on my job throughout my years in emergency services.

At home is where the numbness turns on me and becomes my greatest foe. I love my wife and kids with every fiber of my existence. Other than my relationship with God, they are the most important things on this earth to me. However, when little bumps in the road start to occur in our personal lives, my switch gets flipped on. This does not cause any major problems in my relationship with my wife, because she knows that it is there and can tell when it has been thrown. Where being numb really becomes a problem is when the little bumps don’t stop for months, and when the bumps keep getting bigger and more frequent. That is when the switch gets stuck on.

When this happens, I almost reach a point of depression. I get very close to shutting down. My motivation disappears. I can’t sleep. I either can’t eat or I eat until I want to throw up and feel miserable. Somehow during these feelings, I continue to function as a husband and father, but I am numb. My joy feels zapped, jokes are not as funny, the world just looks and feels distant and different. When this happens, I thank God for giving me a strong wife to love me and stand by my side with complete understanding.

The only way that I get my switch to turn back off is spending time with my wonderful family and spending time with God. Yes I said God. I pray, listen to praise and worship music, I get deeper into studying my Bible. I try to shut out the entire world except for God, my family and my church family (the things that make me the happiest in the world). I surround myself with life-giving things and I slowly make my way back into the world emotionally.

I guess with all things in life it comes down to this: balance. Finding the balance where my switch is only on at work and is off when I walk out of the firehouse. I haven't struggled with this much lately, but I felt a great desire to put this out there. So, I hope this helps someone see that they are not alone in their struggles and with God and great family support, you can break the cycle and no longer be numb.

Thanks for stopping by and God Bless!!!

From burnout to warrior...

The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name. Exodus 15:3

I know I've said this many times (and this probably won't be the last), but we have an amazing leader in Pastor Chad at Destiny Church. He delivers such relevant teaching and many times spoken words for many at the perfect time. This past Sunday was one of those perfect times.

First, let me say I am going through a very difficult time in my life. I have reached a point of burnout. I find it very hard just to get out of bed in the morning, but by God's grace I get up and make it through the day. I hope you don't mind if I am completely transparent for a bit, but I really need a time of refreshing from God really bad. However, I don't really have the time to get away or the financial means to get away. So here I go, trying to continue doing the work God has called me to do and go from burnout to warrior!!!

Back to this past weekend. I am gonna try to make this short and sweet. The challenge that Pastor Chad has put on the men of Destiny Church is what I think needs to happen in every home. So here are the cliff notes. It is time for men to be men. Step up and be a MAN!!! Stop letting this world try to make you a female and be a push over. The world (especially the American mentality) is trying to castrate men and take away our natural tendency to be dominant in all we do. Men are made to be the leaders of their homes; physically and spiritually. One of the best quotes from Pastor Chad this weekend was, "The world is trying to turn men into women and the results are in: MEN DO NOT MAKE GOOD WOMEN." It is time for men to go from being forced into this unnatural role and become warriors.

Now, I'm not saying a woman has to stay home and be "bare foot and pregnant in the kitchen." It is just time for the men of the church to step up and lead their families. Men, it is your responsibility to lead your family to Christ, to provide for their needs and protect them from this world. We have to stop being pushovers and letting our families be beaten down and run over by the perversions of this world. It is time for men to spend time with their children (this one is for me too). It's time to stop sitting in front of the tv or video game and play with our kids or love our wives. Get up, go for a walk, play catch, go to a playground, have a date. Just be the head of your family and be there for them and with them.

Here is going to be a tough part to swallow. Men and women, you are your children's PARENTS not best friends. It's time to stop letting our daughters leave the house in clothes that advertise their physical attributes. It's time to teach our sons to be gentlemen and treat females like ladies, no matter who they are. It's time to teach our daughters to be ladies and not act like they are for sale and to save themselves for marriage. It is time for discipline, when our kids do something wrong they need to learn what they did is wrong and accept their punishment. Our kids must learn that WE are in charge of our homes not them, and we will not be pushovers anymore.

Bottom line, men be MEN!!! You can be loving, compassionate and strong. You can be fathers, protectors of your families, and lovers to your wife. You can do these things, you just have to be a MAN, a warrior, a leader.

There is your challenge and it will not be easy, but it is time to go lead and love your kids and wives!!! Thanks for stopping by and God Bless!!!

Working through vacation...

1 Peter 4:10 (NIV)

Each of you should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in it's various forms.

I am very lucky in my job at the fire department in the fact that I get lots of vacation time. So much in fact that I had to take the entire month of May off so that I wouldn't lose any vacation that I was accruing. My family and I had several plans of fun things to do during this time, but unfortunately every single plan we had made was cancelled for some reason or another. This really bummed me out and made me want to pull my hair out.

So, during my vacation time, I worked at church to get better at setting up all of our technical things for services. I have even learned to set up the stage lighting during this time. I have worked more hours than my wife really wanted me to, but I have been getting a lot of stuff done. I have been joking that I need to go back to work to get some rest.

A major part of the work that I have done in the second half of the month has been to help those affected in the Joplin tornado. On the evening it happened, I was called into work at the FD. I joined the crew that was requested to go to Joplin. I spent all night in staging at Joplin after getting to see some of the devastation. Unfortunately, it took so long for rescue to get organized that we had to leave before being allowed to do any search.

After we got back, I went home, changed clothes, came to church, and we loaded a 24ft trailer with water and food and went back to Joplin. We handed out half of it in the damaged area and dropped the rest at a drop site to be handed out later. Needless to say, I had been up for about 40 hours and was exhausted when we got home.

The next day, Pastor Chad and a few others took the 24ft trailer back again. I went to church and helped load a 53ft tractor trailer with even more supplies, this time included clothes, diapers, and toys. We delivered the semi load to Messenger College just on the outskirts of Joplin.

Needless to say this has been the best worst month of vacation. Yes, all of my plans got cancelled and I worked way too much, but I got to use my talents and the desire God gave me to help others. Now, I don't want to sound like I'm having a pity party, but sometimes I feel like I am the most overlooked person at church because everything I do is behind the scenes, however when these days that I get to help happen, God takes all that away and his joy and love overflow from my heart.

So what is all this rambling really about? I know I have said this before, but wherever God has you is where he wants you to be. Do what God has asked you to do not what you want people to see you do. No matter how little the task, in God's kingdom it is huge. Just remember this (this has become my motto for serving at church), God may be the only one who sees what you do, but everyone will see when you don't do what he has asked you to do.

I hope someone can get a lift from reading this. I know that it has lifted me just writing it down. Thanks for stopping by and God bless...

Fork in the Road...

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. Matthew 7:13-14

Ok, so at Destiny Church we have an amazing leader in Pastor Chad, and every once and a while one of his thoughts gets completely stuck in my head and I mull over it for a while. His most recent series is called Roadtrip, and this last week he spoke on asking forgiveness then turning around and going back to our sin (aka, Dead Man Walking).

As I have thought about this, I have had a few sayings and thoughts come into my head. The most notable would be: like a dog returns to its vomit. That is how most of us are with our Christian lives. We want our sins to be covered by grace, but we won't stop living in sin. We ask God to forgive our sins and then we turn back to our lying, cheating, lust, porn, bitterness, or whatever it is that is a sin in your life.

Question: How stupid can we be? We have been offered the greatest gift ever in existence and we turn our back on it as soon as we walk out of the church doors. It's no wonder this world is going down the drain. If the world can't tell we are Christians, how will God know.

A line that has become famous from the movie Batman Begins is: "Why do we fall? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up." Well, here is my question, why do we have to fall repeatedly? We are all sinners and fall short, but why must we continually choose to sin? Forgive me for saying it this way, but we are the most stupid animals on the face of the earth. We are the only beings on this planet that do things against our better judgement and that hurt us or the people around us.

It's time to choose. Everyone is at a fork in the road. In one direction, a wide and easy path that leads to death, and many take this road. In the other; a straight, narrow, harder path that leads to life, and very few choose this road.

I'm not saying you cant have cool clothes or have a nice car. I'm saying that we have to choose God. It's harder than what it sounds, but aren't the hardest things in life the most rewarding? We must find time for God each day. Get in his word, pray, do things for others with no strings attached. We must be Christ for this world until He returns for us!!!

I have decided to take the narrow path and make a more conscious effort to avoid sins in my life. I don't expect to be perfect. I may stumble and fall, but I can still strive for His perfection.

You have now been challenged, I hope you will join me on this path. Together we can make it. Thanks for stopping by and God Bless...

Endurance: The New Virtue...

Hebrews 12:1-2

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.

It seems that here recently I have been put through the ringer more times than I care to count. I have repeatedly wondered and asked God why I have had to endure these situations. My wife and I have had to fight depression, loneliness, feelings of being pushed away from our friends, and at times feeling like God had turned his back on us. At one point it was so bad, we almost decided to sell everything and move somewhere else and start over.

Slowly I have started to realize what has been going on. During this time we continued to seek God's will in our lives and stay in his word. I have continually ran across scriptures that talk about enduring the race of life and making it to the finish line. Our endurance and resolve continues to every day because we continually look to Him for our strength and guidance. I'm not talking like what should we have for lunch or exactly how we should spend our money, but the stuff that needs guidance not discernment or conscience.

Needless to say we are following what God wants us to do, not what our emotions have been telling us to do. Things are becoming easier, not perfect but easier. Like a long distance runner in training, our endurance is making us stronger in Him. Maybe not all at once, but a little each day.

God has something big planned for our little family, and if you follow him and let him stretch you and point you in the right direction, you will find your endurance in life growing.

My prayer for today: God don't let me stumble. Let me endure on in what you would have me do today. Surround me with friends and loved ones that will strengthen me and lift me up. Let me be there to lift someone else up as well and help them run the race of life.

Thanks for stopping by and God Bless...

Sqwashing Giants...

This morning when my wife got up to go to the gym, I felt this amazing pull to spend time with God. So I spent time in prayer and then went and did my daily bible reading. I came across and interesting thought and felt like sharing it.

Last fall I decided to do something that I had never really done, read completely through the Bible. No longer would I just open to a page and throw a dart and hope for a revelation of how wonderful God is. Actually study Gods word and let it change my life.

Anyways, this morning part of my reading was in Numbers Chapter 13, where God told the Israelite's to go into Canaan and explore their promised land. I knew this story from Sunday School growing up, but God gave me a fresh perspective this morning. In this chapter, Moses sent out leaders from every tribe of Israel to explore and scout the land. He asked them to look for several things while they were exploring. After 40 days the chosen scouts returned to where the Israelite's were camped to give their report. All the scouts were excited for the land, because as God promised, it was a land flowing with milk and honey. They even brought back amazing amounts of fruit to show how fertile the land was. However, giants lived in the land and all of the scouts except one said they would die trying to take the land. Verse 13 says, "Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said 'We should go up and take possession of the land, we can certainly do it.'" After that the other scouts began to make excuses due to the giants in the land and saying how small they were in the eyes of the giants. They even went as far to say that they were grasshoppers in the eyes of these giants.

My thoughts settled on Caleb when I finished reading this chapter. What an amazing statement of faith in God. He believed God was going to do what he promised when no one else did. He did not fear the future or who stood in the way. God made a promise and would keep it.

So here is my thought, the future that God has laid out for us is our own personal Canaan. God has promised us an amazing future, and when we look through His eyes at it we see how amazing that future really is. However, we let doubters (sometimes this includes ourselves) begin to say how big the giants are that stand in the way of this amazing future. So, if I am a grasshopper to a giant that is in my way, how big is God to move that giant out of the way? Isn't that giant like a grasshopper to God? Hmmm...

I just have a simple prayer to end this. God please let me see you and your plan for me over the giants that are in my future, and help me to boldly face them when I come face to face with them.

Thanks for stopping by and God Bless...

Running Revelations...

I'm gonna try to make this short and sweet, but I just have to share this. I love to run outside. I have really missed doing it this winter. There is a walking/running track 3/4 mile from my house that I run to, it is 0.8 miles around. I normally run to the track, do two or three laps and run home.

This morning I was listening to the music that I stream to my phone and there was a popular song that came on that talks about God taking you under his wings. There is a line where they hold out the phrase "You're not alone" that just hit me in the heart. It made me want to take off sprinting, but then a thought popped in my head. My run today is like the race of life that I am running. Sometimes when I am motivated I just want to take off sprinting, but if I do that, I will soon be wasted and unable to even walk. Just like running through life, if I get excited and just go as hard as I can without thinking about finishing, I will fall flat and unable to move.

Acts 20:24 says, However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me-the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace.

Thinking that this was a good thought to meditate on, I had a second thought thrown at me less than a mile later. I all of a sudden felt my shoe laces slapping the sides of my legs. Now, for a second I thought about just continuing to run, because I was making pretty good time. I quickly put that thought away and stopped to retie my shoes.

This made me think that occasionally we have to stop and tie up anything that might cause us to stumble during this race. I mean how good will we be if we trip and fall, then who knows how long we will be out of commission. We can't ignore the things in our lives that will make us stumble and fall. Otherwise, the problem will continue to grow until we are so tangled up and tripped up the we may give up and not want to get back up and continue on.

Galatians 5:7 says, "You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth?

Keep running the race of life. Find some friends to run it with. Hold each other up. Stay strong. Strive to finish. Don't stop. Keep going. It will be worth the reward.

Sorry this is longer than I wanted it to be. Thanks for stopping by and God Bless...

New Thoughts: Fulfilling your passion Part 3

Here is the third and final part of my thoughts about fulfilling your passion in Christ. I hope you enjoy it.

Part III: Stepping into Your Passion

For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13

Once your passion has been clarified, there is only one thing left to do. Put on your “big boy pants” and step into your passion full steam ahead. Now doing this includes thought and planning. You can move forward with your passion or ministry with only an idea and not a plan and still be successful, but that would be the exception, not the rule. Put your passion down on paper and then figure out an outlet for that passion. Then start to write down what it will take for this idea to be put into action. At first, the steps seem ever growing and impossible, but remember that through Christ all things are possible.

Once a plan is laid out, then it is time to get your supplies and help lined up. Having faithful and trustworthy volunteers is one of the greatest blessings a ministry can have. If you continue to keep Christ the center of your passion, you will be greatly blessed in this area. Also, if people realize you are doing this for the sake of Christ and not your own gain, the financial backing and supplies will always be there when needed.

No one really likes to talk about finances when it comes to ministry or “Christian” dealings. Whether it is tithing, outreaches, or events. Asking for monetary help has become a dirty topic in churches due to past abuse by Christians. However, as I have previously stated, if you keep Christ the center of your passion, you will be blessed in every aspect as you move forward and people will be happy to support your passion.

Once everything is in place, it is time to BOLDLY step out and start your passion. If you step out in Christ and keep him the reason you are doing your passion, you will be successful and you will find it easy to be bold and make decisions you once thought were tough to make. I have learned that if I am doing something for my passion and I have Christ in mind, people don’t seem to mind if you ask them to do something. I used to hate to ask people to volunteer, because I didn’t want to put them out or want them to say no. I always felt like I was asking them to pull out their teeth with pliers. Now that I have focused my passion to what God is leading me to do, I look at these people differently when I ask. Instead of expecting them to say no, I expect them to be as excited as me and say yes.

You must also own your passion. Not just be a part of it, OWN it. It is your God-given passion, the direction for your life, and a life changing encounter for others. If you own your passion, peoples lives will be changed. If you just manage it or work part of it, you may change some lives, but you may also miss the opportunity to affect others that might have crossed your path had you owned it.

2 Corinthians 1:21-22 (NIV) is a great example of how we should impersonate God with our ownership of passions: “Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” If we follow God’s example and put our seal of ownership on our passions, we will be anointed and we will be blessed with his Spirit.

I am personally in the middle of part 2 and 3 in my life. I know what my passion is, but the specifics are still coming into focus. I must continually examine where I am in this process and fight the urge to throw my hands up and give up. Going through this stage of life is a stretching experience, and though it may be extremely hard, you can make it through successfully with God's help.

I hope these last three post's help someone in their journey to fulfill a passion that is in your hear. Some of my thoughts may be jumbled, but that's what happens sometimes when God gives you these thoughts in the middle of the night.

Thanks for stopping by, and God Bless!!!

New Thoughts: Fulfilling your passion Part 2

Here is the second part of my thoughts on fulfilling the passion that God has put in your heart. Again, some of my thoughts may still be kind of jumbled, but this was written while I was awake all night meditating on these thoughts that God had given me.

Part II: Clarifying Your Passion

I have hidden your word in my heart that I may not sin against you. Psalm 119:11

In my life, it was easy to realize my path but not my passion or calling. I am a fourth generation firefighter. I grew up around firefighting, so it was an easy prediction that I would become one. On my way to becoming a career firefighter, I realized I had a want to help people in need. One of my favorite quotes to say is, “I hate to see bad things happen to people, but I want to be there when it does.” I don’t want to be there because I am morbid or have a need to see people in pain, I want to genuinely help these people in need. I hate to see people hurting.

Now, I realized I wanted to help people in need, but my passion was still out of focus. I didn’t know where God was pointing me or exactly what my “ministry” in life would be. I've always just had a feeling that God has amazing things planned for my life and that I will touch many people’s lives. I always just had a generic passion that was never being fulfilled, which became increasingly frustrating. I moved from ministry to ministry, tried different life groups, helped at all the outreaches, volunteered in areas that I knew I had no interest in. I just wanted to find out where I belonged. Then, I figured out that there was a major item missing from my life that was keeping my vision from becoming clear.

I was raised in a Christian home with both of my parents who were very loving and taught me how to live with honor and be a gentleman. We went to church two or three times a week the entire time I was under my parents roof. I asked Christ into my heart at a young age and always knew right from wrong. Once I moved out, I strayed for a few years and, after several life lessons and battles, I moved back in with them. Over the next five or so years, I got married to the love of my life and found a church that felt like home. I learned more and more about myself and my relationship with Christ daily, and still do today. This is where I figured out what was missing in my life and was keeping my passion just out of focus. I did not have a PERSONAL relationship with Christ.

I had grown up in church, sang all the right songs, said all the right prayers, but had never completely taken what I was doing to heart. I didn’t read the Bible regularly, I just learned my memory verses. I didn’t spend any time in prayer, I just prayed at church during alter time. Most of all, I certainly didn’t volunteer any of my time helping my local church. These items all rolled up into one are the reason most of us never see the full potential of our passion and also live unfulfilled lives. They were the reason I had never seen mine, and to this day I sometimes struggle with keeping these things a main focus in my life.

I realized around the age of 30 that I have to constantly and consistently stay in God’s Word. I need to spend some time in prayer during the day, preferably not as I’m laying my head on the pillow at night. As I started to do these things regularly and make my walk with Christ the major priority in my life, my passion became focused and clear. A few of the edges were still fuzzy, but there it was staring me back in the face.

This is one of the hardest places to make it to in your journey. The majority of Christians never reach this point. Probably because they don’t realize the commitment it takes to have a personal relationship with Christ, or they don’t want to let go of some of the things that are cluttering up their lives in order to have time to pursue Christ. I fought with letting things go for a very long time, and occasionally still do. However, when I did and sincerely began to pursue Christ and his will for my life, amazing things happened. I began to see my passion clearly and started putting it on paper. Then things started falling into place for my passion to become a reality.

The only piece of advice that I can give someone in this position is this: don't move to fast. Just because your passion is now clear doesn't mean that you go charging ahead. You must still wait on God to help you put all the pieces in place to make your passion successful and life changing.

I really hope this helps someone in their journey. Thanks for stopping by and God Bless!!!

New Thoughts: Fulfilling your passion

Ok, so I know I haven't been on here in a while, but I have had these burning thoughts in my head. They have kept me up for several nights, and I finally put them on paper. They are still a little jumbled, but I have divided them into three different sections. Here is section one with the others to follow soon.

Part I: Realizing You Have a Passion

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his namesake. Psalm 23:1-3 (NIV)

I recently had a friend ask me, “Can someone say that they are made to do something
specific in life?” It took me a second to think about it, and then I had an epiphany. I looked at my life and realized that I had been made for one thing in my life: to help people. I looked at my friend, who is an amazing musician, and said, “Look at your life. Do you think you were made to do what you are passionate about or did it just happen?” He quickly realized that he was made to be a musician. Not just a musician, but a great musician that will bless and enrich peoples lives. So, my answer to him was a resounding yes. We are made to do something specific with
our lives. However most of us never realize our potential or see our passions brought to life.

This conversation started a unique thought process in my life on what my personal
passion is and how people seem to look for a passion but never quite find one. This process has changed how I view my past failures and how I am looking at my future. After a few sleepless nights, several thought filled days, and lots of time in my Bible, my thoughts and actions are starting to line up with what I feel God has built me for.

In Matthew 22, Jesus tells the parable of the wedding banquet. In verse 14 (NIV) he
states, “Many are invited, but few are chosen.” I personally feel this is due to most of us not even realizing that we have a calling or a passion that Christ has put in us. If we never realize what we have been put on this earth to do, how can we see our dreams come to pass?

The first step of fulfilling your passion is realizing that you have one. I don’t care who you are, you have a passion. God has given us ALL passions. All to often people seem to miss what their own passions are and pursue other peoples passions because they seem so much more amazing than anything they could ever come up with. However, following someone else’s passion usually leads to burnout, disappointment, or feelings of failure that lead to negative actions in your personal life.

In the first part of fulfilling your passion you are in a stage that I personally call “The Tunnel.” During this part of life you come to realize that you have a passion inside of you, but you don’t really know what it is. I compare this to being in a tunnel and you can see your passion ahead of you, but it is either too far away or too blurry to know what it is. No matter how hard you try you just can’t grasp it or bring it into focus, and it is always just out of reach. This can be the most frustrating part of life. I know, I was there for several years.

This part of the journey is a great time to learn and grow. Not just about Christ but also about yourself and what your made of. During this part of my life I was taught several lessons in patience, leadership, love, service to others, humbleness, and several other things I didn’t realize were needed to successfully pursue my passion.

Proverbs 22:9 (NLT) states, “Blessed are those who are generous, because they feed
the poor.” Notice that this verse is written in present tense. The author did not say they fed the poor, he states they feed the poor. Several times throughout Jesus ministry he says that we need to help those in need, or take care of orphans, or take care of the widows. It seems interesting to me that most Christian passions end up focusing on the same people: Those in need. Whether your passion is to be a pastor, to change oil for single moms, or to help people to their seats at a church service, almost any passion or ministry comes back to helping people. Every Christian should learn to love and help the less fortunate. Often when we learn to help the less fortunate our passions will become evident.

When we realize that we actually have a passion, we must also realize that we cannot
be selfish or self centered when pursuing it. Having your passion focus on you and not on God is a quick recipe for failure. If God is not the center of your passion, he will not bless it. That raises the question, if he does not bless it, will anyone be blessed from it? This is also one of the hardest parts of being passionate about something. Our normal response when we do any type of work or ministry is to pat ourselves on the back, or make ourselves look good so that someone else gives us praise. John 3:30 (NIV) states, “He must become greater, I must become less.” If we truly believe in our passion, we must realize our reward may not happen here on earth but after we see Jesus.

The biggest danger and downside to being in this part of the journey is overreaction.
You don’t know what your supposed to be a part of, so you may try to be a part of anything and everything. You end up volunteering too much or trying out ministries or career paths that you soon find out don’t interest you at all. On the other hand, you may sign up to do anything and everything just because you are excited about having a passion, even though you have no direction. You can quickly have too much on your plate and fall short of the commitments you have made. Without focus and direction you can quickly become overloaded or succumb to burnout, and that can quickly lead you away from your church and spiritual mentors that can help you during this time.

Stay in prayer and in the Bible during this time and you will start your walk down the "Tunnel" successfully.

This ends part 1. I will be putting up part 2 very soon. Thanks for stopping by and God Bless!!!