My Oh My, How I Hate Dieting

Man do I hate dieting, but I just have no choice. If I don't watch every calorie, every carb, every everything, I end up gaining weight. With me there is no such thing as weight maintenance; I'm either gaining or losing. It is tough, irritating, and a daily battle.

See the thing is that an alcoholic can quit cold turkey and avoid alcohol 100%. A food addict can't do that. Imagine HAVING to ingest the very thing you are addicted to multiple times a day. It's tough. Just look around and you'll see how tough it is.

Well anyway, tomorrow I begin another round of Low Carb to see if I can get this under control before I have to order the t-shirt you see above. Pray for me that God will give me strength and persistence with my diet.

Back From Vacation

I'm back from vacation, and I'll post a blog update as soon as I can. Stay tuned...

First House Showing...and Chainsaws

Yep. I am now the proud owner of a Poulan PRO 18 inch, gas powered tree-eatin' machine, and boy howdy did it get some use this past weekend! Tommy, my bestest bud here in the TRI sacrificed a LOT of time helping me purge my back yard of a lot of overgrowth. In fact, our back "yard" looked more like Endor than Gray until we whipped out the chainsaws. (That's a "Return of the Jedi" reference for you non-Star Wars types).

Who knew that 4 limbs would yield a whopping 7 truckloads of brush? Needless to say, it REALLY opened up the back yard, and it must have worked because here we are two days later with our first showing of the house.

Everyone be praying because we REALLY need this thing to sell so we can move forward with the purchase of our new home in Kingsport. We are a Kingsport family now, but don't live in Kingsport, so it's like we're in a foreign land. Now don't get me wrong, I really REALLY like Gray A LOT, but our lives are really centered around the KPT now, not Gray.

Here's the old house in Gray:

And here's the new house in Kingsport:

But I'm Strong.......

"The road is long
With many a winding turn
That leads us to who knows where
Who knows when
But I'm strong
Strong enough to carry him
He ain't heavy, he's my brother.

So on we go
His welfare is of my concern
No burden is he to bear
We'll get there
For I know
He would not encumber me

If I'm laden at all
I'm laden with sadness
That everyone's heart
Isn't filled with the gladness
Of love for one another.

It's a long, long road
From which there is no return
While we're on the way to there
Why not share
And the load
Doesn't weigh me down at all
He ain't heavy, he's my brother.

He's my brother
He ain't heavy, he's my brother."

=========================

Mmm, mmm. Just reading those lyrics again makes me choke up and get blurry eyed. Those are the lyrics to one of my all time favorite songs, and definitely my favorite secular song that I've ever sung. In college I was in a little do-wap a capella pop group called 7BucsWorth (later ammened to 10BucsWorth) over at ETSU. My freshman year I was called in a month before school started to go to "camp" where we would learn an entire concert in 3 days and then perform it for our peers at an event called "Preview". That "camp" I later found out was basically a performing boot camp. We got up at 6am and rehearsed all the way until nearly midnight, stopping only an hour for lunch around noon and an hour for dinner around 6pm.

I'll never forget the first three songs we learned in that very first session: "I Love a Rainy Night", "Here's That Rainy Day", and "So Hard To Say Goodbye to Yesterday". I can remember the arrangements in my head as we speak. But it wasn't until the afternoon session that a lightning bolt struck my heart in the form of a song called "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother", the lyrics of which are at the beginning of today's blog entry. We got about halfway through the song and our director (Dr. Jenrette for those of you keeping score) decided to let a tiny, squeeky voiced, really high tenor sing the solo. (Consequently, the guys later nicknamed me Keebler that weekend because I was so tiny compared with all the other guys. The group was called 7BucsWorth, but I was the 8th member, so when people used to ask why there were 8 of us instead of 7, the other guys would say "Oh Keebler there is just the pocket change".) Anyway, that was my very first college solo.

Every time, EVERY time we sang that song, I was moved to tears. EVERY time I hear it now I'm moved to tears. I saw the Osmonds sing it once at an anniversary concert, and they brought out the two oldest brothers (who most people aren't familiar with) who are deaf, and they signed the song while the brothers sang it. It tore me up.

I can hear you now: "What in the world is a Worship Pastor doing getting so torn up over a clearly secular song?" Well first of all, God can use anything He chooses to point us to Jesus, secular or not. If it glorifies God, it glorifies God. Period. If it defames God, it defames God. Period. Think about that, Christian, the next time you use dirty words or treat someone like a doormat. Anyway, I know that I was once lost as can be, a sinner condemned to hell, and the worst part about that is that while I was in that state, my parents were going through a NASTY divorce, and I was leaving my beloved hometown to start a new life in the Tri Cities. Life was rough.

Then someone gave me a Bible and I read the following words from Hebrews 2:10-13:

"In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. He says,
"I will declare your name to my brothers;
in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises. And again,
"I will put my trust in him." And again he says,
"Here am I, and the children God has given me."

Gulp. Jesus calls me brother? I am a child of God? Jesus suffered for me?

Yep, it finally sank in. I realized that when I repented of my sins and turned to Christ for salvation, I became an adopted member of another eternal family. No matter how bad life was with my broken, earthly family, all was well with my heavenly family. My forever family.

I was NOT alone. Jesus was with me.

And I came to know that singing that "secular" song during all those hard, difficult, painful moments where I THOUGHT I was alone, Jesus was there the whole time, covering me, carrying me, because I am not heavy for Him...my brother.

Middle of the Night Reflections

I'm not sure how wise it is to blog at 3:41am Eastern Time in a hotel room in Nashville, TN when you're 4 hours from home, worn out as can be, and blurry eyed from a lack of sleep over the past 8 weeks...but I'm gonna do it anyway.

The past couple of days have been phenomenal for me, and really in unexpected ways. I have heard from God from guys in worship leadership positions that really spoke to my heart.

Regi Stone said "It's gonna rain" and introduced me to my new life verse, Zephaniah 3:17:

"The LORD your God is with you,

he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing."

The "It's gonna rain" thing I'll have to blog about later, but let's just say it's about God raining down his goodness on you when you've been in a real scary dry spot.

Travis Cottrell said "How big do you need God to be? Well, that's how big He is!" That is really simply profound.

Tommy Walker said "The devil will try to steal your calling. Your friends, family, choir, and even YOU may have given up on you, but God hasn't."

Wow.

I mean WOW.

I'm going to be vulnerable here for just a moment and admit that the devil HAS been trying to steal my calling from me. He has been trying everything to derail me from what God has asked me to do. My self esteem has been attacked, my purpose has been attacked, my usefulness and effectiveness has been attacked, and my joy has been attacked. I have been especially discouraged at what's been happening in my ministry over the past few months.

It seemed like at Easter things were going really well and then **poof** it all seemed in my eyes to unravel. My choir of 75 began impersonating a choir of 35. Not cool devil, not cool. My weight has skyrocketed, even after losing 40 pounds last year. Yet again, not cool devil, not cool. My asthma got worse and I developed a painful umbilical hernia...hello...I'm a singer and a bagpiper...REALLY not cool.

I look over the empty choir seats and question why I haven't been able to express how beautifully awesome God is to those choir members enough to inspire them to show up and do what God called THEM to do. It is ESPECIALLY discouraging when I walk onto the platform and see 11 choir members sitting in the congregation, staring me in the face (which happened Sunday, by the way). That is a HUGE tool satan uses against me.

I had come to about an inch away from giving up on me as a full time "professional" or "paid" minister, before God spoke to me through these 3 men of God. Now I've got a lot to think about on my 4 hour ride home in my little pickup truck. I know it's not about me, it's about what God can do through me, but lately I have felt as useless as the filthy rags I know I'm made up of.

But I am reminded that God is big, HUGE, omnipotent...and He loves ME. Little ole, dirty, sin stained, useless-on-my-own-me. He wants to use me. What a thought. I don't want satan to steal my call like He's stolen my joy. I want to reclaim that in the name of Jesus.

God hear my prayer tonight in this empty, lonely hotel room in Nashville. Forgive me for allowing myself to become beaten down by my own sinful nature. It is MY fault for taking my eyes off of you and believing the lies satan has been telling me. You are the great One, the Rock, the Love, and I know You love me, and tonight I claim that love again for my own. Heal my broken heart and restore me to usefulness for You again. Please use me to touch the lives of others and to help point them to Jesus. All I want to be is a giant roadsign pointing to Jesus. Help me in my failures Lord to be more like You. I love You, I adore You, and I am sorry for sinning against You. I claim the blood of Jesus again today as I have every day since You first saved me. Cleanse me, renew me, and use me. I am and forever will be Your child.

Regi Stone

Just another quick update on the conference.

I've known about Regi Stone for a few years now. He's the worship leader at Christ Church Nashville, but more than that, he's a gifted songwriter, and a fantastic Christian. I've sat in on two of his classes this week, and right now I'm burning the battery up on my iPod with his newest project "Everything". For those of you in my choir, Regi can be heard singing the solo on our demo of "End of the Beginning", so yeah, he can also wail.

This guy is humble and is really being used of God in many ways big and small. Check him out at www.registone.com

I'll write more later. Right now I have to get cleaned up because I'm singing with the Christ Church Choir in a concert in just a couple of hours! Man I love it when I can be a singer instead of a director. **sigh**

Travis Cottrell is the BOMB!

Okay, now I'm impressed. Here at the Christ Church Music and Worship Conference there are hundreds of worship leaders from all sorts of denominations (mostly all evangelical and some pentecostal), and artists from all walks here, not to mention the "Voices of Lee" (incredible a capella group from Lee University) and the Christ Church Choir itself. But who brought the house down AND led everyone to the throne of God?? The Southern Baptist's very own Travis Cottrell.

If you don't know who he is, he is the former Worship Pastor at 2 Rivers Baptist Church in Nashville and is currently the Worship Pastor for the Beth Moore conferences. Check out his website at http://www.traviscottrell.com/

Consequently, he also gave the best seminar today. Tomorrow I get to hear from Tommy Walker, who wrote one of my all time favorite songs "He Knows My Name". This should be great.