Lately I’ve been feeling as if I have been flying through a storm cloud. 

You start off smooth sailing, clear skies and calm seas.  Things are going well, all systems check out and the flight seems like it’s going to go without a hitch.  You have your itinerary, flight checklist and the crew is all aboard and competent.  It’s going to be a great trip.

You climb to cruising altitude and get up to speed.  Things are comfortable and you start falling into a state of complacency.  You put the plane on auto-pilot so you can take a nap and get refreshed for when you get to your destination.  As you doze the plane starts to pitch, first left, then right.  Turbulence begins in earnest, waking you from your slumber.  The plane jerks up and down, left and right as you try your best to bring it back onto the right path.  You can only look at the instruments at this point, try as you may your visibility out the window is at zero.  You cry out through the loudspeakers for everyone on the plane with you to buckle-up, it’s going to be a bumpy right.  You don’t know how it’s going to end.  You don’t know where you are, did the storm knock you off course?  Have you dropped to a dangerous altitude?

You fight the plane, trying to keep it together and safe as you try to pull the plane above the storm.  You call on the nearest air traffic towers and you get no response.  This is a serious storm.  Panic rises up in your spirit as you realize that you are now flying alone.  The tower can’t talk to you, you can’t talk to the tower and it looks bleak.

Finally, you realize that you need to check the attitude of plane and though you’ve been pulling up on the stick, the attitude of the plane hasn’t budged.  You wake up the co-pilot (how could he still be sleeping?)  You get him to help you adjust the attitude of the plane by pulling up on his stick.

Slowly, the attitude of the bird begins to rise.  As you rise through the cloud, it gets a little easier to adjust the attitude.  The co-pilot eventually gives you back the control of the plane and goes about fixing some of the other controls on the panel.

All at once you are above the storm and immediately you hear the control tower calling for you.  From the conversation that ensues, you realize that they had beads on you the whole time, the problem wasn’t the link between plane and tower, it was from tower to the plane.  They could hear you, but you couldn’t hear them.

They begin to tell you how to correct your course, it’s still dark and you’ve lost your bearings, but the tower knows exactly where you are.  They guide you back to familiar territory and you continue your flight to your destination.

Today I feel like I’ve just broken through the storm.  I still don’t know where I am, but I do know where I’m going.  I must trust my control tower, who has never lost sight of me, to guide me there from my current place.

At the end of February, beginning of March, I will be flying down to Sarasota to pray over the city.  I will be walking the streets and talking to people from the area to get a feel about what they are looking for in a church.  I want to know the people before the move so I can pray targeted prayer over the area. 

My current storm revolves around my job situation.  I was put on the bench at the beginning of the year and I’ve yet to score an interview.  They came at me with a possibility today, but it’s in New Jersey.  I don’t want to be one of those guys that travels for 4 days out of a week to return to my family on the weekend.  I want my kids to know me.  I don’t want Rilian to not recognize me in 6 months because he only saw me a couple of days out of a week.  So, I probably won’t entertain that one.

I will say this though.  I will be coming to Sarasota in February.  If I haven’t found anything by the time I get there I’m going to work on getting a position down there.  If that happens I will push my plans forward and start building a ministry down there.

I will get to my destination sooner or later.  My goal right now is to listen to the tower until I get there.

I need to slow down at times.

I need to pull back the reigns and get the horse under the right control.  Just because I want something to happen in my time, doesn't mean it's the right time.

I'll be plain with this.  I'm the Microsoft Practice Director at ConsultUSA.  The biggest part of my job is to be billable at client sites using my skill at developing applications using Microsoft Technologies.  However, I've been losing the joy of developing ever since accepting that I was being called to Sarasota.  I want to move out of my career as a developer and get moving on to the next part of my life.  However, it's not the time.  I know it's not the time, but the joy is waning.

I want to be studying to show myself approved.  I want to be working on a plan for opening the church in Sarasota.  I want to be in a place where I can pray for the area that I'm being called to, and the other areas that FFCC is expanding to.

In the meantime, I'm still doing my work and doing the other things when I can.

I'm not asking God to increase my patience, however, it is something that the next couple of years will be developing in me.

Yesterday, on my way home from work, I had one of the most amazing times of prayer in my life.

I've recently begun praying regularly when I"m in my car.  Not only is it one of the few places that I can truly be alone, but it's been part of my introspection.  I've always prayed in my car, but now it's an "appointment" with my father.  Scheduled time for He and I to get together and pow-wow.

I've been doing this for the past couple of months and I've noticed that it's been getting harder and harder to pray.

It's not that I don't have the words, anyone who knows me knows that words are not the problem.  It's getting harder because I refuse to be a repetative prayer.  I don't want to speak just to be heard.  I don't want to sound like the old priests of Ba'al who would chant the same thing, over and over again just to be seen.  I want my conversation with God to be relevant.  I want it to have conversations with God like I have conversations with my friends, frankly, because I want to be friends with God.

My abiility to pray and be relevent has been hindered because of God.  It's His fault.  You see, He's been meeting all of my needs, so it's more dificult to just converse.

With that being the case, I've decided that I must increase my need!  If the basics in my life, food, shelter, love, have been met then I have to find bigger things to need.  So what do I need now?  Considering that He is able to do excedingly, abundantly, above all we can ask or think, what do I need now?  I need for my wife to be happy.  I need my boys to grow up to be great men of God.  I need to be out of debt with money in the bank when we open the church in Sarasota.  I need to be able to give to my community.  I need to be a blessing to those around me.

When you start getting into details of everything you need in your life, even past the things that are normally considered a need, you'll discover a whole new world. 

Now, what will happen when all of my current needs are met?  Well, I'll have to increase them again.  I don't know where I'll be when that point in time happens, but I'll know what to do when it does.

Another thing, since He is able to do excedingly, abundantly, above all we can ask or think, I think it's time we stop thinking and asking small.  I don't think he wants us to be coming to Him with small ideas.  If I am $20 short of paying my bills, I don't think He wants me to ask for $20.  He want's me to ask for as much as I can think of, because he is able to do so much more.

I have a vision of what I want my kids to grow up and be.  I know that each one has a personality that will be used to do great things.  I know that they will all do different things because they are all different.  I know that Josiah has the heart, he is compassionate.  I know that Braedon is the thinker/schemer (in a good way).  I know that Thorin is going to be the leader.  I'm not too sure about Rilian yet, he's a little too young to decipher yet.  However, I'm praying that the Lord lead them all to immense success no matter which path they take in life.  I am praying that he protect them from my mistakes in raising them.  I'm asking that he do more than I can imagine with them, and I have a pretty good imagination.

Ultimately, we need to never be satisfied where we are.  We need to constantly be growing.  We should be getting past our current needs and into the next round.  We need to start thinking bigger.  Our small thinking keeps us trapped in a pit of despair from which no one can get out.  Expand your horizons and escape the grasp of this worlds system.

On occasion, everyone needs to do a personal inventory of themselves.  This is one of those times for me, as I prepare for my future.

As part of my personal preperation for starting a church in Sarasota in the next couple of years is the need to discover all of my strengths, weaknesses and short-commings.

To define these three areas can be like splitting hairs, except for strengths, that one, not so hard, but to differentiate between a weakness and a shortcomming, that can lend to confusion.

• Strengths are the areas of my life that I am good at.  These are the things that I need to build my ministry upon.  I need to identify, with clarity and distinction, what my strengths are.  This is a process that I don't mind undertaking, considering that the process will uncover this that are positive for me.  However, I must discover my obvious and not-so-obvious strengths, so it won't be as easy as it sounds.
• Short-commings are those things that should be strengths but are not.  I may look at these things as weaknesses, but in reality, they are not.  This will be a little more painful of a process because it will uncover the areas where I have just plain dropped the proverbial ball.  I've fumbled these areas of my life.  I've been lazy at developing these areas.  These are things that I will need to work on to become strengths.  This will take work.  I'm not as young as I used to be and I'm stuck in my ways.  My task is to unstick myself and become the man I am meant to be.
• Weaknesses are going to be tough.  These are areas at which I am just not good.  These areas are the ones that I will hand over to other people when someone who is good at them comes along.  One of my mentors told me a long time ago, staff your weaknesses.  That is my intention on these particular areas of my life.  This will be painful because I don't like admitting that I am not good at something.  This will be a humbling process.  It's a good thing, but it will hurt.

A sample of something that is a strength of mine is my ability to program computers.  I'm a technological guy, so technology needs to be a part of this church.  God didn't make me a geek for me to not use it.  The church will take part in things that most churches won't take part in, but I will always be open to getting involved in areas that are not comfortable for most churches, if it means that we can be ministers of gospel to people who need it.

Another thing that I'm good at is that I'm not afraid of turning people against me if it means that they will get their lives right with God.  I have a tendancy to not give people an answer, I put them in a position to come up with their own answer.  I believe that if I make it easy for someone by giving them the answer, they will still struggle with that area of their own lives.  However, if I make them discover the answer on their own, they will become successful in that area of their lives.  If they hate me for doing that... so be it.

One of my short-commings is witnessing.  I'm not real good at being the instigator of a conversation.  Once the conversation is started I'm the champ, but I have always wanted someone to ask me about my beliefs.  At that point, I know they want to know and they will be open to what I'm going to tell them.  However, I need to be bolder at the outset.  This is a short-comming, because I know the material, I just don't have the confidence in myself to go up to someone I don't know.

My biggest weakness that I need to staff almost immediately is in the area of finances.  I'm not compitent at keeping them in line.  I like to spend money to advance the kingdom of God.  I'm a firm believer in prosperity.  However, in my zeal I, sometimes, tend to spend foolishly.  I want to make sure that all areas of spending in the ministry are in directions that God will approve.  I need someone who is financially saavy to make sure that I always stand with that goal.

Ultimately, this can only be accomplished to its fullest through alone time with my Daddy.  After all, he knows more about me than I do.  I trust His judgement far more than I do my own.  I really look forward to this experience.  It may be painful, but I know that the end result will be like being gold going through the furnace.  It may be painful removing the dross, but once it's gone I'll be much purer for having gone through this.

Pray for me over the next 6 months or so as I go through this process, I'll need all the prayers I can get.

As I move forward with my personal preparation for full-time ministry, I realize that there are 3 areas that I need to address.  These 3 areas encompass many things that need to happen.

1. Spiritual
2. Mental
3. Physical

Spiritually, I need to be prepared, not only to minister to other people, but to ensure that my relationship with my God and my family can endure the strains of being the primary target of scrutiny as the pastor of a church.

Mentally, I need to be prepared to handle the attacks mentioned above.  Also, there are many areas in which I'm just not the most qualified person in the world.  Financially is a big one.  If I don't have someone out of the box that is great at handling finances (I believe in staffing your weaknesses) then I need to make sure that I enhance my ability to handle this aspect of the organization.

Physically, I'm out of shape, or should I say, I have the wrong shape, because round is a shape.  I need to get into better physical condition.  Being a pastor is not for the physically weak.  Many attacks that a pastor takes are physical.  Not in the aspect of a fist fight, but the activities of the church will take a toll on the body.  I have to be prepared for these attacks.  Also, being that I am encumbered by diabetes, I need to make sure that it is in control at all times.  My preference, lose the weight before I come down to Sarasota and be done with the disease.

I used to think that my first priority was the physical, but I realize now, that I need to work on the spiritual aspect first, in conjunction, really.  Until today, I thought the area I was strongest in was spirituality.  Of course, a little prayer, introspection and revelation will smack that out of anyone.

I realized today that I am surrounded by too much noise.   Whether it is TV, the radio, or even my family, I never take time for quiet time.  Even now, I have my Zune on listening to music.  It's praise and worship (Delirious?) so it's not too bad.  

I've also been being hit by some self awareness that I wasn't prepared for.  I'm not the man I thought I was.  This weekend, being Mother's day weekend, made me realize how far I fall short on a normal basis at being a husband and a father.  If I can do what I did this weekend and it makes my wife happy, why can't I do that regularly.  I look back on this weekend and I still feel I fell short of what I should be doing on a regular basis.  This has revealed to me that I have to change my regular behaviors.  I have to consecrate the time I spend with God and the time that I spend with my family.  I can't let my experiences of my day at work effect how I am at home, after all, this is the day that the Lord has made.  I will rejoice and be glad in it.  

Anyway, I'm determined to be prepared by November 2011, so I have some work to do.  However, have no fear Sarasota, when I arrive, I'll be ready to deliver the word of God with clarity and power.