He's Back...

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.

-Nelson Mandela

I've returned and am inspired to tackle greatness in B'ham...

BH

Walk Away

You can't get your answer there. In fact, you can't get your answer from any of the things men chase after to find their sense of self. There is only one source for the answer to your question. And so no matter where you've taken your question, you've got to take it back. You have to walk away."

-John Eldridge, Wild at Heart


The more this search process has gone on, the more I seem to be chasing a sense of identity. I have grown tired of chasing and yet I'm still hungry.

Houston has served a great purpose... One that is necessary for me, especially the stage of life in which I find myself in. To come to the end of myself... and realize I don't have all the answers, or believe that I can even begin to figure it all out.

I don't believe that I am quitting or even walking away... I just know that all this running I've been doing is hopefully going to inspire me to look to the right source during the chapter that is to come..

Painting Pictures of Egypt...

I don’t want to leave here
I don’t want to stay
It feels like pinching to me either way
The places I long for the most
Are the places where I’ve been
They are calling after me like a long lost friend

It’s not about losing faith
It’s not about trust
It’s all about comfortable
When you move so much
The place I was wasn’t perfect
But I had found a way to live
It wasn’t milk or honey
But then neither is this

CHORUS:
I’ve been painting pictures of Egypt
Leaving out what it lacked
The future seems so hard
And I want to go back
But the places that used to fit me
Cannot hold the things I've learned
And those roads closed off to me
While my back was turned

The past is so tangible
I know it by heart
Familiar things are never easy to discard
I was dying for some freedom
But now I hesitate to go
I am caught between the promise
And the things I know

If it comes too quick
I may not appreciate it
Is that the reason behind all this time and sand?
If it comes too quick
I may not recognize it
Is that the reason behind all this time and sand?


I heard this song and it paints a perfect picture. It is so much easier for me to commit to my comfort than it is to any sort of calling. And how tempting is the past when the future is so uncertain...

Home is Where the Heart is...

I've done my fair share of John Eldridge reading this weekend at the neighborhood pool and there are two quotes that stick out in my memory and will hopefully trickle down to my soul eventually...

1) Life is a not a problem to be solved; it is an adventure to be lived.

2) If a man is ever to find out who he is and what he is here for, he has got to take that journey for himself. He has got to get his heart back.

Couldn't really tell you what either of those mean... but I love the thought of a journey; especially when I have no idea where or what my destination is...

One thing is becoming more and more evident in this so-called adventure. I need to quit exhausting all of my energy searching for purpose, and consistently give over my heart to the Lord and allow Him to awaken it.

Long Overdue

After an overly social weekend out of Brad, he's decided it is past time for him to start putting some of his tales of Houston down on wireless paper.

This city evokes much out of my thought life, so the blog could get a little bumpy at times. It won't win any best sellers, and probably will have little impact on the overall scheme of literature, but life is too short and entertaining for me not to share it.

This is more of an introduction post, so I won't throw out too much depth... but know that it is coming. Atleast my attempt to dabble in it. The last three months has seen me as a harmless defendant in a case for the ages, a skin cancer survivor, and an innocent bystander on the wild ride in Comet land. Only to say... 2008 is shaping up to be a real winner.

My only complex thought comes from a devotional book I am currently reading called Streams in the Desert -- which is quite a fitting name for this stage in life. A portion of it reads, "The secret of knowing God's complete sufficiency is in coming to the end of everything in ourselves and our circumstances. Once we reach this point... we will recognize these things as the necessary conditions for blessings." Those two sentences describe my purpose in life right now... to come to the end of myself in order to see what blessings the Lord has in store.