So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.

Romans 12:1

Seriously I think that verse kicks my butt every time.  Anyone else struggle with living their whole life as a worship?  Maybe it’s just me.  Sometimes I will do great.  But, let’s be honest.  A major part of my life is lived for me.  Painful truth.  He wants more from me than just my Sunday mornings.  More than just my Bible reading times.  More than my prayers.  More than my pre-deathdefiance promises.  He wants (and deserves) it all.  Every single ordinary thing.

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Yeah that’s right.  Billy Graham’s dirty little secret.  So what is Wild Bill’s secret?  Beats me.  Maybe he didn’t have one.  That’s not what this post is actually about.  Honestly I have no idea if he ever had a dirty little secret or for that matter ever sinned past the age of 11.  But the point is that it seems like we are just waiting for the next guy to fall.  Pastors, counselors, worship leaders, priests, etc.  It seems like every few months now we hear of another fallen comrade and we are just waiting to read about it.

Are we just waiting for our leaders to fail?  Ok, maybe we aren’t necessarily looking for it, but we sure wanna know when they do!  We see the headlines or read the Twitter and our first instinct many times is to click to find out more of what they did.  So and so had an affair.  This guy’s getting divorced.  He was arrested for drug use.  Whatever.  I know I’m guilty.  It’s hard not to.

A few weeks ago a leader that has some influence on me came tumbling down.  I had all the same thoughts as I have many times before.  I wanted to know what happened.  I wanted to know the gossip.  But then God changed my heart and showed me what I was thinking.  Showed me what I should be thinking.  My heart shouldn’t be digging for more details, but instead hurting for those involved and praying for God to shine through somehow.

So I have been working on that.  I still don’t know what happened.  I know that something did and I also know that our God is far more powerful than the stupid mistakes that we humans walk right into.  Now every time I remember or think about that person, I am trying to change my mindset and pray for everyone surrounding the situation.  It is not up to me to judge nor is it up to me to gather all of the information.  Any attempt for me to do so is me stepping out of line.  As Billy Graham put it, my job is to love.

They sinned.  Yes.  Let’s let those God has placed in authority over him to deal with him and the rest of us that have nothing to do with it can just pray and love.  Now we are reminded that they are not perfect either.  It doesn’t change how God has used them in the past.  It doesn’t stop God from being able to use them in the future.  God can still do amazing, life-changing, world-changing things through us even though we are screw ups.  So, next time you hear or see that someone fell off the perfect bus, remember you aren’t either.  Love them and pray for them instead of gossiping and tearing them down.

Ever been stuck in traffic so bad that you feel like your grandpa using his walker with tennis balls on it would be going faster?  You sit in the back with countless cars in front of you just praying to go just 20 mph.  You have somewhere to be.  You’ve tried changing lanes when the other is going faster only to watch it stop dead and the first start up.  Yup.  Traffic sucks.

When you are sitting back there behind all the traffic, it looks as though there is no hope.  All you see is brake lights.  No one moving.  Nothing good.  We all know that it is easy to see life this way.  Things get rough and there is no hope.  Nothing giving.  Nothing moving.  Everything seems to be standing still.  Even moving backwards.  Yeah, when all you can see from your point of view is the insurmountable problems in front of you, it is hard to see what is good.

But there is hope.  There is a different view.  There are many other angles to see.  Each one shows the situation to be a little bit different.  If you move to the access road on the side of that packed highway you can see that there are cars moving.  There is space between them.  There is good coming.  Maybe you need to see the good in what was prevented.  You lost your job only to miss out on the scandal that was about to take place.  You got caught in your sin before it took you to a place beyond the reconciliation of your friendships.  Because you had to sit in that traffic you didn’t get to the intersection in time for the car crash that could have taken your family.

It is definitely hard to see the good when everything seems stacked against you, but God sees all the angles that we are incapable of seeing.  He knows the plans that He has for you.  For future.  For hope.  Next time you are backed up behind that impossible traffic, trust that you will get there.  In His timing.

This is Dominic Balli.  He is a musician here in Southern California that is new to me.  I just heard him for the first time the other day (thanks Rich!) and wanted to share with you all!  So if you are into a little different flavor, then this may be your guy!  Check out his music on iTunes and maybe even follow him on Twitter!

Well, I am officially 30.  I guess now I will really need that nap after 6 AM setup (which manes getting up at 4:45 mind you) and a full morning of band followed by teardown.  So if it’s Sunday afternoon and you need me, good luck.  I probably won’t be answering the phones.  I might be calling the cops because everyone around me is too loud and I just wanna drink my prune juice and watch the news!

Here’s our set for Kingsfield this week.

Salvation Is Here – Hillsong United – Look To You
Hallelujah Jesus – Evan Wickham – Mysterious Things
Hosanna – Hillsong – All Of The Above
Glory To God Forever – Fee – Hope Rising

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Seeing as today is my birthday I thought I would give you a glimpse of 1980 as I see it!  I know there are so many more pictures and things I would add to this list, but the longer I sit here and do this the more pictures I add.  I will never be able to finish if I don’t just cut it off now.  So here you go.  I Love The ’80!

Well, we are officially less than 24 hours away from my 30th birthday.  That’s crazy!  I don’t feel old enough to be 30!  (We all know I don’t act it.)  I have been told that your body doesn’t build new muscles after 30.  I’m not sure I believe that, but I guess I better do a lot of sit-ups and pushups today just in case!  My 20s were great.  I had a blast.  A lot happened in the past decade.  These are just a few of the highlights.

• Did the college thing.  Well, most of the college thing.  For longer than most do the college thing.
• Moved to Texas and solidified the fact that I am not a Texan.
• Became a pastor.
• Bought a Jeep Wrangler.
• Switched from Windows to Mac.  Never looking back.
• Met the girl of my dreams.  Broke up with her.
• Re-met the girl of my dreams.  Got a 2nd chance.
• Married her.
• Moved to California.
• Lived at the beach.
• Had Jessika Kaye James.

Like I said there are many more.  But now I have to start looking forward.  I apparently have to be an adult.  But now that I am about to be over the hill, I will have to come up with new things to accomplish.  I’m thinking things like the following:

• Bingo
• Reading The Newspaper
• Getting confused with this new-fangled cellular phone
• Hip replacement
• Dentures
• Daily Crosswords
• Pick out a headstone and start carving my eugoogoly

That seems like a good list to get started on.  But I think I’ll wait to start on it until after I’ve had my morning coffee and senior citizen discounted grandslam breakfast from Denny’s at 4:15 AM.  So until then I guess I’ll enjoy the last day of my 20s.

PS – for those of you that are planning on calling me on my birthday, please do it earlier in the day.  I will be switching to my new “old man” bedtime of 6:25 PM starting Day 1 as well as adopting my new speed limit so don’t expect me early!

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Last night I had the opportunity to start a tradition with my little girl (and give mommy a break).  I expect we will make this a weekly thing (as it should be!)  As soon as I got home from work, me and the little one took off for a night on the town.  Granted she is only 5 months old so for a while we will be a tad limited on our options for what she will enjoy so for now we walk and talk and bounce and play peek-a-boo and fly and such.  Good times for sure!  Thought you might enjoy a couple pictures from our night at the beach.  (PS – They are all of her.  I’m not good at the self portrait thing.  Plus she is WAY cuter!)

I heard a requote of a quote (what boils down to a RT of a tweet if you prefer Twitter speak) the other day.  The original quote (as far as I know it was the original) was from Billy Graham several years ago.

It’s the Holy Spirit’s job to convict, God’s job to judge and my job to love.

It just stuck with me all day.  How often do I spend my time trying to do the job of the Holy Spirit and God?  It is not a crazy thing for me to think I need to make them see how they are wrong or have judgmental thoughts or actions towards someone.  What is crazy is that I for some reason act like it is up to me.  Don’t worry, brookjames will let you know when you have screwed up.

I need to take the advice that I believe Billy would give.  It is your job to love.  Love my friends.  Love my enemies.  Love the girl that cut me off for no apparent reason and then flipped me off because she was a bad driver.  Love the waiter that has a terrible attitude and poor service.  Love the homeless guy that sits on the bench downtown with his laptop.  Love them all.

I need God to give me strength to love.  That’s my job.  Maybe I should do my job.

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