Count Your Blessings

"Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your blessings, see what God has done."

So go the lyrics to the old Church of Christ hymn. These songs have rang through my ears all day today. I imagine these lyrics have been in my head for many reasons.

Growing up, all my prayers were out of gratitude. "Thank you for the moon. Thank you for my parents and brother. Thanks for my house and my teachers. And always, thank you for this food."

So naturally when I would sing this song, I would try to literally sit in the pew and count all the many blessings I had been given. Little did I know at such a young age, I was doing something very practical, that today people go to counseling to learn this tactic.

After a few rough weeks of work and just life in general, the good lord has really been on my heart to count my blessings and see what He has done. Through counting my blessings, and getting nowhere close to counting all of them, life just seems to turn around. You see life through a new pair of lenses.

Through the week, singing an old hymn took me back to those days of sitting in church with my parents. It took my mind and my heart into sing-song, remembering another one of my favorite childhood songs.

"My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there's NOTHING my God can not do! The mountains are his, and the valleys are his, and the trees are his handiwork too! My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there's NOTHING my God can not do!"

It was always fun to sing this song because as we yelled strong and mighty at the top of our lungs, I preceded to flex on the whole church! But how true is this song? How true are all the lyrics we sing? There is NOTHING my God cannot do!

There is story after story I could tell you, even some occurring this week, of examples proving how strong and mighty God is. And countless testaments displaying that there is NOTHING that He cannot do!

So, next time you are in a building singing fellowship with your brothers and sisters, really think about the words you are singing. They are never just words, but more so praises and cries of help.

As for now, I'm am off to celebrate the birthday of one of the biggest blessings in my life. My beautiful girlfriend! Like I said... There is NOTHING my God cannot do! HAHA

The Unwritten Story

"Well umm... This league is umm... very unforgiving and I'm thankful that I have the opportunity to still be able to play."

As the small town, blue collared, too short to play white boy stood on the podium, he did everything he could to fight back the tears he so badly wanted to release. It was all he had imagined and more. It was what he practiced and dreamed about in the backyard of a small town, on the line of Callahan and Taylor county, called Tuscola. 

You see, all people ever see is the man on Sunday. They see him in that moment and evaluate him on that day. They don't take into consideration years and years of dreams and work that built up to that exact moment. No one understood, when that kid ran on the field in the second half trailing the the Titans, what was running on the field with him. 

What was under those pads was a lost state championship in high school. A lost heisman not only his junior year but also his senior year. An injury on the first series of the biggest game in college football, the national championship. An injury that wouldn't allow him to finish a dream. An injury that would knock him into a third round draft pick and land him with the Cleveland Browns. There, he would realize the turmoil of an organization trying to build a new identity, only to become another one of the guinea pigs they call quarterbacks in Cleveland. He preceded to bite the bullet, take it like a champ, accept the blame and punishment, and go back to work. He packed his bags up and moved across the country to San Francisco, where he decided playing for Jim Harbaugh and the 49ers was more important than the 1.5 million dollars he was supposed to make that year. So, he decided to take a cut to league minimum and stay a part of a team that played for a championship. Never getting his opportunity, free agency came his way and believed a man named Jay Gruden. Believed him when he said he wanted him and needed him. Believed him when he told the kid we will keep three qb's no matter what. And also believed him when he said "I believe in you. You're a pro. Go win this game."

I'm talking about a kid named Colt McCoy. 

With so much failure in his life, he trotted on the field with confidence and poise that transformed through the rest of his team. Making audibles and throwing touchdowns, the Redskins came back and won the game. Though he was the winningest quarterback in College Football history for a time, I believe that game might be at the top of his list. 

As Colt stepped on the podium to address several cameras that would portray who Colt really is to the entire world, he let them do exactly that:

"The good Lord... I think, just takes care of me, and umm... I'm just thankful I'm here."

Maybe he sparked a team to new heights this year, or maybe he didn't. Maybe he starts the rest of the season, or then again, maybe he doesn't. But what we do learn, is that we all have the opportunity to fight and we all have the opportunity to control how things effect us. So, next time you are watching a guy live out his dreams on Saturday or Sunday, stop and appreciate for a quick moment the story behind the kid. Because that story has a lot of chapters, and we are just getting started!

Far More

10:30 PM - Normal night activities of brushing my teeth, taking Gunner out to use the restroom one final time, locking up the doors and heading to bed to get a good nights rest for work tomorrow. I'm exhausted... Haven't been able to sleep to well this week. You see, Austin Stone has been doing a series called Far More. This series is stemming from the scripture Ephesians 3:20:

"Now to Him who is able to do far more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen."

The challenge throughout this series was to get everyone to take a step further in the different areas of their mission. That may be financially, prayer life, worship habits, or serving.

Serve: to perform duties or services for another person or organization.

1:00 AM - Still awake. I can't stop thinking about Peru. The faces of the little boys and girls who received clean water for the first time in their life. The thankfulness in their smiles and the gratitude in their eyes. Even though we were speaking in completely different tongues, we had a common bond. What that bond was... I wish I could tell you. But I brought it back to the States with me, and I can't get over it. I dream about them. I pray for them. I yearn to go back and see them. 

3:00 AM- Is the current time. I gave up on counting sheep and decided to blog for the first time since July of 2013. I have been challenged by my cousin Will and our good friend and brother Nick Brandt to blog once a week for a whole year. That would be 52 blogs! (Actually just 50 for me, I joined the party a little late).

I'm excited about getting back into the blogging world. I spent countless hours on the back porch of La Chosa in TamboGrande, Peru, blogging about the work the Lord was doing in our lives. It is fun to go back and read all those posts and look at pictures of the fun times we had over there.

We were so caught up in helping others, serving others, and most importantly loving others, that we lost the joy of this world and found joy in the journey of this world.

You may not understand what I mean by that, but if you read most of my blogs they all contain this underlying theme of living for something greater than yourself. I've tried to live for many things... School, girls, football and work, and none of these satisfy what our heart truly yearns for. We were wired that way. And the only thing to fill that void is to live in the way Christ lived... Loving everyone he came in contact with.

So my question is this, how do we serve in a world that is unfamiliar to that concept? How do we serve in our communities, work force, and families? It shouldn't take flying all the way to Peru to love people and serve people. Here, right where we have been planted for the meantime, let's find a way to do FAR MORE.