The Happiest of New Year's to each of you!

Today, our girls leave for Tennessee, for the "Passion" conference. How incredible it will be to lift up praises beside thousands of others, who love Jesus. They leave with a college group from church, and will be staying in a church in Tn. I am trusting the Lord will speak and minister to each of them in a very powerful way. I believe He is raising them up through this journey. I know He will direct their paths.

Deanna and I were discussing this past weekend, the direction of our lives at this point. I know at the beginning of each New Year, people tend to take stock of where they have been and look forward to where they are going. We are contemplating the same.

We are not looking at setting "resolutions," but are hoping that through His transformation, that we are found useful in His sight, and for His glory.

As I look back over my life, I can see ways that the Lord has been trying to develop me to lead. I say that with no element of pride. I do not like to lead. I like to follow, and play a supporting role. There are a skillion books out there on how to lead. I am not interested in them. I have already read many.

I am interested in being who Christ wants me to be. I believe that as I learn to follow Him, and attempt to walk in His footsteps, He will use me. Since the years just before I was called into ministry, the men who played vital roles in my life have been called home, or incapacitated. I have even warned a couple of my close friends that they need to pray that I am getting whatever the Lord is teaching, cause it is dangerous to be close to me. While I share that largely in jest, it is important to realize that when our Father is trying to show us something, it is important that we pay close attention, and learn.

I have been guilty of practicing the same old thing, in spite of what I have been taught. There is comfort in routine, for me. Consequently, I become a poor follower, and an even poorer leader. I become a distraction that interrupts the task at hand. Watching Beej's life has taught me much about being a radical follower of Jesus.

Setting aside self, and putting Him first changes my view of things. I no longer want what I thought I wanted. I find my desires in ministry changing. I hunger desperately to serve Him in such a way that it is making a difference for lost and hurting people.

I don't want to see them drawn into churches, and lost there. They need to be transformed into who Christ wants them to be, not some mold that we force them into, because it is our view of what a Christian is supposed to look like.

Beej didn't look like most Christians. He talked openly about His Lord with anyone willing to listen. When they stopped listening, he kept talking, and would draw new people into the conversation. Why? Because it does not matter what you want or what I want. It matters that we glorify Christ, and edify His body in the process.

Most of us Christians fall into our comfort zones, and never get involved in daily life-changing, transforming conversations. That would take too much energy, or cause others to look at us funny, or stop looking at us entirely, and we need to be seen! We even want to be heard. But the "stuff" of our conversation is often about how we look, or what we're wearing, or how our team did, or the next big event in our lives.

Beej embraced Christ as his life. He did not follow a pattern layed down by other believers, traditions begun and followed for generations. He followed Jesus, talked about Jesus, modeled Jesus. He pointed others in the right direction, and was not afraid to tell them when they were headed poorly.

I want to make much of Christ, and Him alone. It is time to stop pretending, for me. Exalting Him with my broken, imperfect life is the desire He has placed in me. I will seek to do this with all that I am.

dad