I Dwelt In The Darkness

As some of you may have picked up on over my past few confession posts, I've kind of had a hard time lately.

In fact, it has not been just lately. It all started in July of 2007 when I had to turn in my resignation. Honestly, them asking me to resign was the best thing that could have ever happened for me. Only problem, is it was the start of what I felt has been the darkest nine months of my life.

It is interesting that I say that because early in 2007, I spoke two messages called God Dwells In The Darkness. You can read some more of my thoughts on that here, here, and here. Sometimes it's easy to get up and preach a message than to live it. I had thought I had gone through some dark times before, but had no idea what was to come.

Throughout this whole process I have kept my faith. There were times I wanted to pack it all it. There were times I wanted to shout at God and blame Him. There were times I didn't want to even set foot in a church. When you are hurt by a pastor and church as hard as we were hit with (twice in three months)...you might feel the same way.

So this has been one of the darkest moments in my life and all I have been able to do is stand...and when there was nothing else to do I would stand some more (Eph 6:13).

And after all that standing the result is that my faith is now stronger...I am more resilient...and I am pumped for what the future is about to bring (James 1:2-4). The sunrise has broken through the darkness (Psalm 112:4). The snare has been broken (Psalm 124:7).

God, over the past two weeks, has used some people to pump my confidence back up. I was beginning to question myself seriously. A huge thank you goes out to this guy, this guy, this guy, and this guy specifically for little things you have done over these past two weeks. You have allowed God to use you to breathe life back in to me. I could not say enough about my wife standing firm beside me as well.

I also have a huge, huge, huge announcement coming, hopefully next week. I'm so pumped and excited. It is a great opportunity we have accepted for our church plant. So stay tuned as you may hear about it very, very soon. Thanks for being patient through my confessions and for reading.

As a side note, this blog throughout this time has continued to grow. My hits have gone up around 25% and subscriptions have just about tripled since December. Thanks for being a loyal reader here. And now I'll turn this blog back over to bringing you ministry content that will help you minister more effectively.

[Photo Credit to flikr.com]