Enter the Gates...

Today at my first Thanksgiving dinner, Cheryl's brother, Jim, shared some thoughts that his pastor spoke on regarding Thanksgiving. We read two scriptures...

Philippians 4: 4 - 7

⁴ Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! ⁵ Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. ⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Psalm 100

¹ Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.

² Worship the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.

³ Know that the LORD is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

⁴ Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.

⁵ For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Jim challenged us to look back over this year and to think through the things that God has done for us, all that we have to be thankful for. This has been a recurring thing for me this year. To remember what God has done in my life. To praise Him for all he has done and is going to do.

God, thank you for my life. Thank you that you brought me out of a life that was solely focused on myself and vain pursuits to a life of JOY and fulfillment. You have comforted me in my times of sadness and allowed me to step into Your Prescence. Thank you for the man you are making me to be... a man after Your Own Heart. I praise Your Holy Name, for You are good! Amen.

All About Me

Every year as the Holidays roll around, I find myself tensing up a bit.

You see, I am a very selfish person. God is helping me out with that, but I still want what I want, when I want it.

For example: In theory, Thanksgiving is probably my favorite Holiday of the year. You have turkey, Lions football (I don't know why I torture myself) and family time (again, I don't know why I torture myself... just kidding... not really). There are turkey induced naps and occasionally a movie or a little bowling (I'll explain that another day).

BUT... ever since the year 1988, my Thanksgiving fantasy world has never been the same. In 1988, I started dating Cheryl and that is when we started the "Blended Family Functions." Don't get me wrong, I love Cheryl's family but more people in the mix makes "Selfish Boy," slightly uncomfortable.

The dating years were not as bad, because when you are dating you are able to tolerate a lot more. You want to make the future in-laws happy, you know. Then the first couple of years of marriage you have all the "we went to your parent's house last year," fights. After that you start to crave your independence and you want to break away from both families and have your very own Thanksgiving, but unless you have kids there is no excuse good enough to pull that one off.

Let me get to the real issue I have with Thanksgiving. This will key you into how truly dysfunctional I really am. I just want to be able to watch the Lions game. No, I am not kidding, that is really it. That is how petty I really am folks.

Every year, all I want to do is watch the Lions lose a football game. When I ask Cheryl, "When do we need to get to your dad's place?" and she says, "Around 2:00," or when my mom tells me that we are going to eat around 3:oo p.m. I want to shout, "Am I the only one in my entire family who wants to watch football (the answer is yes by the way)?" Don't they know that the game starts at 12:30 p.m. and if we have to drive out to Cheryl's dad's place it takes 45 minutes? Halftime is only 15 minutes and we all know that is not enough time. Can't my mom just push dinner back a bit further to compensate for the game? Can't everyone just bow to the will of Lord Scotty?!?!

It sounds so ridiculous. It is ridiculous, but I still feel that way sometimes.

I'm learning more and more that God is trying to get a message to me... "It's not all about you, Scott." I keep hearing, "So the last will be first, and the first will be last (Matthew 20:16)."

Later on in Matthew 20 Jesus tells the disciples, "It's not about you," after James and John's mother asks for her sons to sit beside Jesus in Heaven. The other disciples hear about this and get pretty ticked off. So Jesus takes the opportunity to remind them that it's not about "you."

(26) ...whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, (27) and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— (28) just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

How much more clear can it be? If I truly want to be a Christ follower, I have to forget about me and make it all about others. Besides loving God with everything in me, what else is there? I have to love others like I love myself... it's so easy to say, yet so not human to do. My prayer is that the He will increase and I, the selfish Lions game craving Scott, will decrease.

Happy Thanksgiving... Go Lions!

Flippin' Tables

This is a rant. You have been warned.

--------------------------------------------

Larry (of the Daily Castle), an old friend from High School sent a link on to me about an accessory for the iPod Shuffle.

I'm sure that Larry had no idea how disgusted I would be by this thing. This whole thing might be fake, but one of my biggest hot buttons is that I am really critical of things done in Jesus' name. I am amazed at what people "market" in the name of the Almighty.

For instance if you check out the link to this piece of crap, you will see that their amazing marketing says, and I quote, "Just toss your old cap habit, pop on the divine iBelieve and rejoice!"

Divine?!? They even have a verse listed in the top right corner... "But now bring me a man who plays music, and when the man played music, the groove came upon them." That amazing scripture is found according to the site in 2 Jobs 3:15... Pathetic.

I have talked about walking into a "Christian" Bookstore one day and flippin' tables and cracking the whip a few times... I know they are not the Temple, but they are literally prostituting the name of Christ. I will save my Christian Radio experiences for another day...

I worked for a "Christian" Bookstore back in the day, and the things that we would sell just infuriated me. We had "Testamints" for fresh breath, a beautiful unisex fragrance called, "Shalom" and of course my favorite, "Scripture Cookies" in place of the dreaded Fortune Cookies. On top of that, just add on the next big book that everyone has to read or the latest craze in the "World" that we decide to knock off and maybe you can see where I am coming from.

What's even better is you can now get most of this stuff right inside your church. Just walk right into the "Resource Center" and plop down your cash for the latest craze. Then you can go read your new book or play with your iBelieve while you sip on your Frappuccino in the Higher Grounds Cafe (or just insert another clever name like, "He-Brews Cafe") while watching the pastor's "talk" on one of the many plasma screens available for your viewing pleasure.

Obviously, I need some prayer before I let go of this one, but let's be more careful about what we do in the name of our God. He deserves much better.

Close Encounters & Buckeye Crow

So last night we were at Red Robin in Livonia and the place was jam packed with people. One of those people just happened to be the Head Coach of the Detroit Red Wings, Mike Babcock.

Needless to say, I was quite excited. I mean, he was standing literally two feet away from us. He was there with his family and his kids were hugging on him and obviously were very glad to see him. The Wings had just returned from a Western road trip and hadn't done very well.

I kept thinking about saying hello and trying to get a picture with him, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. All I could think about was that this guy hadn't seen his family in a while and the last thing he needed was some crazy Wings fan bugging him. At one point I got out the camera phone and tried to nonchalantly snap a candid shot, but again, I couldn't do it. Just as I decided against it, his wife saw me and told her son, "That guy is trying to take a picture of your dad," I quickly let her know I wanted to, but didn't. She then responded, "Good choice."

So anyway, that is the second wing I have seen at a restaurant this year. I also saw Tomas Holmstrom at Max and Erma's out at 12 Oaks. But again, family members were present and I just couldn't bring myself to bug the guy in the outside world.

Also wanted to eat some crow for all my new friends in Ohio. Great job today in beating the Wolverines (like either of us had anything to do with it). Try not to set any cars on fire or riot, it's just a football game.

Sorry Penn State couldn't lose to Michigan State so your Big Ten season could be complete. Can't wait until next year... hopefully we'll be able to kick your butts in the Horseshoe.

Day 20 & 21: Marysville and HOME!

Friday night into Saturday morning in Marysville was amazing. We went out to Smokey Bones for Drew's 12th Birthday and then headed over to Derek and Casey's to hang out and have a little worship service. Smokey Bones was really good. I have never been a huge BBQ fan, but now that I have had some good stuff on this trip, I have to say I love it.

We eventually walked across the street from Dave and Kelly's house to Derek and Casey's house and then Aaron busted out his guitar, Derek got on the hand drums and Donovan (Kelly's bro) played bass. We just started singing worship songs and praising the Lord for all that He has done and is doing in our lives. It was so refreshing. We prayed for one another and thanked God for everything He gives us. When Aaron broke a string about 3 hours later, we just laughed and talked together while Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog, played in the background. We all laughed really hard at the sketch where Triumph goes to heckle the people waiting in line days before the premier of one of the Star Wars prequels. Classic. We ordered some Donato's and laughed some more until it was about 3 a.m. Then we headed back to Dave and Kelly's and laughed until about 5 a.m.

Around about that time, Aaron asked me if I would be bummed out if he stayed and Derek drove him back to Detroit later on Saturday. No offense to Aaron, but I could hardly contain myself! I wanted to hop in the car and leave that second... but I slept for a couple hours and darted off toward Detroit.

I never thought I would be so happy to see Michigan. When I saw the sign I let out this scream that sounded a lot like Howard Dean and had a smile from ear to ear. When I saw the city limit sign on 75 for Allen Park, I kid you not, a tear came to my eye. I was telling our pastor that yesterday and he said, "When I think about going Downriver I cry too." No respect for Allen Park, I swear.

Obviously the best moment was pulling up to the house and seeing Cheryl and Bailey standing in the door to greet me. Bailey did a double take like, "Is that really him?" Then as I got closer he crouched down and began to shake his hind end like crazy and jumped all over me as I came through the door. It was amazing to see how big he got while I was away. Then Cheryl and I embraced and held on to each other like we might never let go.

It's great to be home again. I missed my family. I missed my dog. I missed my bed and my own bathroom. I missed a lot of things. The great thing about this trip - there are many great things - is that it really made me appreciate all that I have. It made me realize that home sweet home really is sweet. I have become wiser and God has shown me so much.

I want to thank all the people who prayed for us. God's protection was over all of us and He revealed Himself in so many ways along our journey. I want to thank my family for all their love and support, Jim and Phiona, thanks for the text messages and phone calls to say "Hi." Matt and Sarah, thank you for caring for Bailey. Mom and Dad thanks for helping out and doing some odd jobs around the house when you got bored (retirement is great, isn't it Dad?).

I also want to thank Cheryl, the most precious gift God has given me in my life. She allowed her husband to head out on the open road for 3 weeks. She let me live a dream of mine. I am forever grateful. She's so amazing and encourages me to go after the desires that God has formed in me. We are so in love. Thank you Cheryl.

Finally, thank you God. Your love is amazing. Your beauty is matchless. Thank You for adventure and the thrill of seeing how beautiful this world You created is. Thank You for safety and protection along this journey. Thank You for all that you revealed through the Holy Spirit. Thanks for all the new friends and friendships strengthened. Thank You for the Cross and the cleansing power of Your blood.

Selah.

Day 19: Marysville, Ohio

Kansas City was great and I will most likely head back in the near future, but today it was time to inch a bit closer to home. We went through St. Louis and Indianapolis before heading to the Columbus, Ohio area to visit with Aaron's friends Dave and Kelly and their kids(plus their amazingly cute dog).

Kelly is really great. I can see why Aaron loves her so much. Dave, Aaron and I watched some crazy videos on Dave's computer and laughed until we cried. We kept Dave up way past his bedtime though. He's up and out the door by 5:oo a.m. God bless the workin' man...

I also got to have Donato's Pizza tonight. We need this stuff in Michigan. Aaron let me in on a little secret though. Donato's is owned by McDonalds. So is a new favorite of mine from our trip, Chipotle. I'm telling you, McD's must put some sort of drug in their food to make you love it!

It's tough being this close to home without jumping in the car and driving home to see Cheryl, but meeting and making new friends is always fun. I am excited about spending some quality time with all the Buckeye's tomorrow.

I can't wait to sleep in my own bed again... for now, thank you Aerobed.

Day 17 & 18: Kansas City

Well, Aaron and I arrived last night at around 10:30 p.m. and met up with Steve from my home church, Relevant, back in Detroit. Steve works here through the week and flys home for the weekend. Believe it or not, Kansas City is pretty cool. They have a night life and they didn't re-elect Kwame Kilpatrick!! Aaaarrrrggggh!! I digress.

We are staying with Steve, who graciously opened up his digs for us to crash in. We are forever grateful.

As I am writing this I am sitting in the "Higher Grounds Coffee House" at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Missouri (from here on known as IHOP). Yes, they have free wireless internet!

Where to begin... Just a little background on IHOP. They have been praying and worshipping God 24 hours a day, 7 days a week since September 19th, 1999. We'll get back to that.

I have been both excited and a bit scared about what I might encounter here at the IHOP. You see I grew up in a very conservative faith. I'm not complaining about that either. My parents raised me to love God and they demonstrated their faith in Christ all the time. They are amazing. Back to IHOP... IHOP is what you would probably think of as a Charismatic church, I hate to label it, but that is the best explanation I can give you right now.

God has been challenging me over this past year on learning to just go with Him no matter how uncomfortable it might be. No matter who might be disappointed. No matter who might not understand. He is the only one that matters... no offense.

So we came to IHOP today around 2:30 p.m. I took a seat and just listened for a while then I joined in on the worship and began to pray. Each team does 2 hour blocks during the day and they a "nightwatch" that does a six hour marathon. The people here are amazing. Everyone seems so full of joy - you know, that Joy of the Lord I talked about. The music was great and it's kind of free form stuff. There are worship songs thrown in there too, but there is also scripture readings and prayer that prompts those singing to create new songs all the time. It's awesome!

During the 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. block they prayed for specific requests and broke into smaller groups for prayer. Toward the end of the block, they asked for those who needed prayer for healing to raise their hands. Remember, conservative faith growing up. Feeling a little uncomfortable. But God kept prompting me to raise my hand. Well, my knees are killing me today, so I thought, "Why not?" Well, my knees were not healed, but God touched my heart so deeply I cannot even begin to explain it. Perfect strangers stood around me and laid hands on me and followed God's lead eventhough I told them I needed prayer for my knees. God revealed my heart to these strangers. The deepest darkest parts of me. My hopes and dreams. It was so powerful. I wept. There is no way to explain it away. It was an amazing encounter with my Heavenly Father.

I am forever changed... again. He never stops healing. He just keeps waiting for me to let Him.

I am not ready to share all of it here on this public forum, but to all those that I know and love, you will soon here about it I'm sure.

Until then, God Bless you all.

Day 16: Arizona, Utah & Denver

So we headed out a little late yesterday... but we saw some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen while heading to our first stop on the trek home, Denver.

Going through Nevada to Arizona was very nice, but it does not prepare you for what you are going to see as you go through Utah. It is by far one of the most beautiful places on earth (granted I have only seen parts of America, Canada, Scotland and South Africa).

The mountain formations and colors as well as the enormity of them literally takes your breath away. I only wish my beautiful wife was with me to enjoy it. I felt an awesome responsibility to praise God in that time. He is such an amazing artist. Look no further than the ones you love to see that.

We were listening to worship music in the "shuffle" mode on my iPod and just as we hit the most amazing parts of Utah, an instrumental version of Holy, Holy, Holy came on. I had just prayed moments earlier that God would play what we needed to hear. I didn't even know I had an instrumental version of that on my iPod... The line that blows me away after what I have seen on this trip is, All Thy works shall praise Thy Name in earth and sky and sea... Nothing could be more true!

As we headed toward the outskirts of Utah, the sun began to set and darkness came over the mountains. Once we made it into Colorado I finally relenquished driving to Aaron. I have a huge control issue with driving. I don't trust a lot of people with my life. Plus, there are a lot of bad drivers out there, you know who you are. In November arorund 5 years ago I let someone else drive (against my better judgment) and ended up in the worst car accident of my life. Cheryl ended up with stitches but the rest of us escaped by God's grace with minimal injuries. Trust me though, it was a horrific accident, God had His hands around us. All that being said, we headed from Grand Junction, Colorado to Denver at around 8:30 p.m. The roads on the way to Denver are anything but a straight shot. They twist and turn, go up and down and are generally a pain in the neck. It was totally dark too, so we couldn't even see the mountains.

We arrived to our hotel at 1:00 a.m. after starting our journey at 10:00 a.m. from Las Vegas, Nevada. We had to stop a few times and we gained an hour as we entered Mountain Time, so total we drove 14 hours yesterday. Today we will gain another hour as we head to Kansas City, but we are shooting for a modest 10 hour trip today.

Keep us in your prayers, I know you have been, so thanks.

I'm counting the days again Sunshine.

Day 15: Church and Leaving Las Vegas

My last Blog I was being rushed out the door to head over to the Green Valley Ranch and eat at their famous breakfast buffet. Well, it was pretty good, but it was brunch so I tried some Asian food. Bad idea. The mixture of Sesame Chicken and breakfast was not setting well. Three hours later we went to see Jarhead and the night before D.J. Qualls was on Conan and he talked about how great Movie Nachos are. I am highly open to suggestion, so Nachos it was.

So as soon the movie ended I was rushing out to lose the Nachos and the buffet. When we got home, I slept from 5 pm to 6 am the next morning.

Sunday we headed back to the Crossing. I love seeing Chris in his element. He was born to program and add his creativity to help communicate God's word. Don't get me wrong, Chris is also one of the best teachers I have ever heard, but even in that God uses his creativity to look at things with a fresh perspective. After that I finally got to enjoy one of my favorite pastimes... watching the Lions lose with Chris! It was great, I have no Football friends anymore (Don't cry for me). I also got to spend some time talking with Andrea which was really awesome. Their daughter, Quinn, is also absolutely adorable. Whenever you say her name or ask her a question she looks at you and says, "huh?" Unbelievably cute!

Last night we just enjoyed the Karls. They have been so great. They are some of the greatest people that we have in our life. It was also great to see Aaron get to know and love them just like us.

That brings us to this morning. It's time to hit the open road again. I hate leaving Cheryl again, but I know soon I will be back in Motown in my own beautiful home with my amazing wife and man's best friend, Bailey.

Denver calls our name, then we'll spend some time with Steve in KC and visit all of Aaron's friends I have heard so much about in Ohio.

Keep us in your prayers, we appreciate all the support. We'll check in soon.

P.S. Happy Birthday Matthew... hope you have a wonderful day!

Days 8 - 13: Vegas, LA, Good Friends and Good Times .

Well, it's been a long time. Not on purpose, but because we've been busy. We're not doing a lot of "things" necessarily, but we are just spending time together.

Cheryl being here has given me a lot of joy. I love her more and more each day and realize now more than ever that God has brought us together. So saying all that, I am cherishing the time while we are together before Aaron and I hit the open road again.

All that to say, haven't been Bloggin'...

---------------------------------------------

Let me start with Los Angeles.

The Good: Ocean, the Sites (I'll go into detail in a moment)

The Bad: Smog, Traffic and Gas Prices

I think I should start with the bad stuff and work toward a positive moment...

As we entered California and exited Nevada, gas went from about $2.59 a gallon to about $3.17 a gallon at our first stop in Cali. What is going with this place? Very disappointed with the Terminator.

As we came to San Bernadino there was a haze on the horizon that I had never seen before. Thick gray cloud that covered the mountains and sank down into the valley. Smog. Nasty. It was so gross. You would think with all the left-wing enviromentalists out there that cars would be outlawed by now. Needless to say, I understand the need to clean up the air a bit. Although from what I hear about the temps in Detroit, global warming has been good to us this year... just kidding.

Smog leads me into our next gripe about LA. Traffic. No matter where you live in this great country of ours, you will never really know what traffic is until you have driven in LA. Rush hour never ends, not while we were there anyway. They do have carpool lanes, which we took advantage of, but there was never a time where you could just drive freely in any lane. The other thing that will scare you to death is motorcycles can pass you in between lanes. I was not ready for it at all...

The good thing was Cheryl was with me. We went to Santa Monica Beach and it was beautiful. I love being near the water. It just calms you and makes you marvel at the wonder of God. He definitely knows what He's doing.

Well, I hate to cut this short, but everyone is waiting for me so we can go out for breakfast. I 'll check in later...

God Bless.

Giddy.

She's here! Now let us all rejoice...