Mexico: part uno

Part Uno:

As we crossed over the border into Mexico stories of drug lords and images of U.S. citizens being kidnapped raced through my brain. I thought to myself, "I could be crossing right now into my death." I was then reminded of what the Lord told me over a year ago, that He was sending me to nations as an ambassador. Trusting that word, my faith was increased that I would not die on this trip, as I had many nations yet to visit.  

Going back a few weeks prior, I'm having a dream one night where I was the wolf boy in that Twilight movie New Moon. Now you should realize why I didn't start off with this statement. Its embarassing enough as a man at age 30 to admit that you've seen both movie installments of Twilight, but to admit that you dream about it gives plenty of ammo for people to poke fun. However, in my defense, my wife wanted to see the movies, and to be honest I was pleasantly entertained by the first one, so to go see the second movie wasn't that difficult for me. Anyway, enough said about that.

In my dream I was in a field and like in the movie I was this young man who was changing and could feel it deep within. It was night and as I looked out I noticed at the edge of the field these men standing there on the edge of the wilderness. They looked back at me and I knew these were the men in the movie that were werewolves and they looked at me as if to say, "its time for you to come out and learn who you are." I was hesitant though as fear gripped me. The thought of becoming what many consider a monster did not sit well with me. Not to mention the many dangers that are very present in the wild where wild things live. In my dream though I knew this moment may not present itself again, so with little hesitation I ran off into the wilderness with these wild men to become what was in my blood. 

I woke up from the dream and the Lord immediately began to write upon my heart. He said, "I have called you into the wild, and it is time for you to become what I have anointed  you to be. Do not be afraid, but come out from where you are into the wilderness, where I AM. " I laid there in bed trying to discern what I had just encountered. Its so strange sometimes the illustrations God uses to get our attention. While many believers have boycotted the movies, here I found God using it to speak to me in my sleep.  

The next day was I received a call from Grover Hope. Now, Grover Hope is a wild man if I've ever seen one. He lives in Cleveland, Tennessee and has a very strong Tennessee mountain drawl in regards to his accent. He's a man in his sixty's, but has more energy than most twenty-somethings. To many he is controversial, but to me he's been an inspiration of quick obedience to what the Lord is asking. In all my years I have yet to learn from people what I have learned from him. Sometimes I have to un-offend myself in order to hear clearly what he is saying. I say that because he has called me out on my tendency to choose sleep over seek and I am still learning how to rise early and seek the Father. He also just has a way of phrasing things that step out of the box of religious clamor, and yet he still holds to the idea that the King James Bible is the only one you can really get true understanding from. So I'm perfectly honest when I say that I believe the verdict is still out on that, however, my ears are open to any translation that speaks to me. 

I love this man of God though because he claims to be nothing more than a man in love with Jesus and spends endless hours in prayer and studying the Word of God to the point it makes you feel convicted for the 15 minutes you spent with the Lord that day so you could appease your religious duties and say you spent time with the Lord. We did, but did it change us? And did it reveal a new layer of our Father to us? These are the honest questions that present themselves to me when I hang out with Grover. It stretches me and pushes me. I have a love/hate relationship with these feelings, but in the end I grow in the Lord. At the same time this man is completely human and is one of the quirkiest fellows I believe I have ever met. I only hope that you have a chance to meet someone like him in your life. 

That day Grover called me on the phone and asked if I'd be willing to come with him to Mexico on an outreach trip. To which I asked, "well, depends, how long and when it is?" To which he responded, "next month and its three weeks." I have never been three weeks in a different country before and I only had a month to raise a substantial amount of money. Oh and did I mention that he wanted to drive down there?  I chose the safe response and said, "let me pray about it." 

Immediately as I hung up the phone the Lord raced through my mind the dream from the night before and whispered to my heart, "it doesn't get much wilder than this."  In a vision I saw us driving down and my friend Michael Anthony Roseman was with us. So I called him up. He and his wife were in Colorado at the time for a wedding. I told him about the trip and his response was something like, "hang on, let me ask my wife." I could hear them talking about it for a minute and when he picked the phone back up he said, "sure, Laura said it was okay, she think's it'll be good for me." I love that couple. 

That reminded me and I then called my wife to tell her about this wild trip. Without hesitation she said, "sure." That was all the confirmation I needed to hear to respond with, 'okay, this is it, it doesn't get much wilder than Grover Hope, Michael Anthony Roseman and myself in a van driving to Mexico, this is it! Let's go!"  So I called back Grover to tell him that we were in; we had no idea how we were going to afford to get there, but we were in. 

Soon after this conversation, Christmas occurred and my wife and I went to visit family in Florida. We had planned on being there about two weeks and during our stay it began to occur to me that we needed lots of funds to get down to Mexico for this three week expedition. However, I had a peace about that.  I knew that something this crazy had to be from the Lord so I also knew that He would provide the funding. 

When I came back home from Florida we had about 3 weeks to come up with what was then about $1500. Michael and I talked about it and agreed that $1500 was nothing for the God of the universe! However, we needed a God derived plan. Immediately as we prayed I got an idea for two things. One was Facebook. We would just post our need on Facebook. "You have not because you ask not." So we would just ask.  Second, Michael and myself are singers and songwriters, so we would host two concerts to raise the money. 

Then I received another call from Grover. Elaine Wilburn, the missionary who had invited us to come and had set up all the meetings for us, had been asked by the pastors in Mexico if we could bump our trip up by a week to come down earlier.  This would mean our trip would be extended to four weeks instead of three.  So a whole month in Mexico, meaning our expenses would go up and we have even less time to raise them. 

Okay, I was nervous. Did I mention that I stepped down from my salary position several months earlier, as I knew the Lord had asked me to, in order to step into full time ministry called Be the Reformation, (which is still in the start up phase). I heard one time that faith is stepping out on a limb and sawing away the tree. I had done that and now I was being asked to come up with money that I couldn't even really afford on a salary, not to mention on the little I was now making doing carpentry work on the side. This faith thing seemingly gets harder instead of easier sometimes. However, what I've discovered is that no amount of worry or anxiety will make anything happen, it actually hinders a work of faith, as faith must have absolute trust in order to be true faith. Best thing anyone every told me was from a friend named Frank Harvey, he said, "When God speaks to you, listen to it and let any man be a called a liar that would try to dispute it!" 

So with that in mind, we set out to raise money with only two weeks before our launch date. I placed a statement on facebook of our need and within a week checks started coming in left and right from close friends, to friends from over seven years ago, to people I hardly knew at all. Then we played a show at a local tavern and in the midst of playing our songs with the band, people came up and dropped money in our offering bucket to send us to the people of Mexico to preach the gospel and minister in song. When the wonderful whirlwind of the weekend had settled there was more than enough money to send us to Mexico and help out with some bills at home. God is good. 

To be continued...

Church of (insert your name here).

Obedience is always better than sacrifice!


I'm ever amazed at my generation. They won't tithe and then complain that the church is struggling! How can such a clear and easy concept be lost on people?


⁶ "I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. ⁷ Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you," says the LORD Almighty.
      "But you ask, 'How are we to return?'

⁸ "Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. 
      "But you ask, 'How do we rob you?' 
     
 "In tithes and offerings. ⁹ You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me. ¹⁰ Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. ¹¹ I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit," says the LORD Almighty. ¹² "Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land," says the LORD Almighty.


(matthew 22:20-22, mark 12:17)


Luke 20:22
Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" He saw through their duplicity and said to them, "Show me a denarius. Whose portrait and inscription are on it?" 
"Caesar's," they replied. 


 He said to them, "Then give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."


Tithing is a command, not a philosophy or theology. Its a command that says the least you can do is give 10% of your income to the place you are fed your bread. The crazy thing about it is God doesn't need your money, but if you will simply do this act of obedience, He is promising to bless you. So by robbing Him, you are ironically robbing yourself! 


Here's the problem, people think "Oh I get my bread from such and such online, but I socialize with my church!" You get your bread from whoever you submit to! Thats the problem. We want a reformation, but will not submit ourselves to the authority God places over us that will lead us into it. We want a buddy instead of a pastor and if we feel he's somehow overlooked us, we'll abandon him, despite the fact that they cover us and bear the brunt of our foolishness.  


I remember that one time I went up to my pastor in after service. I told him who I was, as if to expect that he would be impressed, and then waited for some glorious handshake and conversational response. Instead he barely made eye contact with me and looked at his watch and said, "Well, it's about time we all get out of here for lunch; see ya later."  


I could have been offended and then left for such "disrespect" of a shepherd to a sheep. I was there for him to say, "Come, follow me son and we'll win every nation in our generation." Instead, I was made humble and the Lord said, "You can leave offended or suck it up and sit under this apostle through obedience to receive an apostolic anointing." I chose the latter and the moral of the story is that I had to choose obedience.  


I could have labored and sacrificed in prayer for God to change his heart so that I would be elevated to some amazing postion or I could just sit and listen. To sit and listen, I actually learned. To tithe unto this apostle, laying our tithes and offerings at his feet brought a blessing for Jess and I. Tithing is for our blessing! Sitting and waiting under the people God puts over you is for your blessing! You want to be blessed, then start with obedience, not sacrifice!  


I was talking yesterday with a friend about our culture and society. We want a church that on the sign reads, "Church of (insert your name here)". People get offended if the music doesn't match their taste, the air temperature isn't what meets their comfort, sound is too loud or soft, music is too rock or country, and (my favorite) "the message is either too much of a shotgun message, rifle message, or its just too evangelistic." All shit! All shit! All shit! All shit!  


We've come to the storehouse of God to fling our feces on it's walls and write our names in it. Then we ask why the Holy Spirit doesn't move or healings don't take place. We have made everything about ourselves and are not willing to pay any price for change. We take pride in our amounts of prayer time and yet won't even obey something simple, like love your neighbor as yourself or bring your tithes to the storehouse and even test Him in our overflow of giving.


Sheep and goats. Sheep and goats. We are either going to be a sheep led or a goat that butts it's master! God I pray He shows us grace so that we might have the hearts and minds of sheep and not goats. What will it take for us as the people of God to repent and obey? How low does He have to bring us before we turn from our wickedness? If we aren't young, disobedient, and stupid we seem to be old, disobedient, and stupid. The young want change without sacrifice and obedience, and the old want comfort without sacrifice and obedience.  


The young are busy trying to throw out the old for the sake of change and the old are busy trying to cling to yesterday's manna even when God said, "Collect what you need for today and no more," so that they would always have fresh manna.


"Then the LORD said to Moses, 


'I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.'  


17 The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. 18 And when they measured it by the omer, he who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little. Each one gathered as much as he needed. 19 Then Moses said to them, 'No one is to keep any of it until morning.'  


20 However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them." (from Exodus 16)  


We keep doing the same thing. Holding on to yesterday's manna (if we collect any at all). Those who store their manna instead of eating and digesting it are now full of maggots and have a spiritual stench that is off-putting to the Lord and any seeker. Its time to repent, church, for we are suppose to be the spotless bride of Christ, not the haggard old woman protecting dusty cathedrals!

Reformation

Taken from Journal Entry 12-31-09

I received a revelation this morning that the word reformation is truly the equivalent of words like revolution, or declaration. Somehow we suppress this notion to assume that reformation invokes a peaceful resolve to change. Reformation for many conjures an illusion of prayer vigils and peace rallies that quietly change hearts and minds from the inside out. Reformation is however, quite the contrary.

Reformation equates death threats, accusations of heresy and slanderous gossip of all kinds. Reformation means public crucifixion for whomever is bold enough to lead it. Peaceful prayer rallies are met with violent armed men with water hoses, guard dogs and tear gas. Public beatings and private torture are reserved for anyone committed enough to stand firm til the end. Anyone who feels called to a reformation must be willing to count the cost. However, anyone willing to follow Jesus as lord and truly do what He says needs to understand they are signing up for a great reformation.

Jesus is always doing something new. And with the introduction of something new comes the immediate resistance by the old, not only because the old by nature disagrees, but because it is bursting the containers of what held and protected the old. Reformation must occur in order to refit the old containers for the new content that must fill them.

From Martin Luther to Martin Luther King Jr. reformation has been the advocate for the innocent who have been lost admist the hiearchy of religion and science and trambled under the traditions of men, in order to point men back to the true image of Christ. I am thankful for such men who would lay everything on the line to stand firm for what is right. I only hope to be such a man in my lifetime.

Aftermath

Proverbs 10:25  
When the storm has swept by, the wicked are gone, but the righteous stand firm forever.

I've been through a lot of storms in my life. In September 1989, I was a 10 year old boy who experienced a hurricane named Hugo. We were 200 miles inland and yet the storm maintained so much intensity that it knocked over trees and pounded our house with wind and rain for several hours. We were left with no running water or electricity for a week or two.

I remember standing in our downstairs closet when the wind was really bad. Thoughts of our roof coming off and having to endure this hurricane face to face ran through my young mind that night. That never happened, but just the thought of it terrified me.

When the sun dawned on the scene early the next morning we found shingles missing from our roof and branches of trees scattered across our yard. We discovered we were without power or running water and for the next couple weeks we lived a more simpler life, but we were fine. We just picked up the pieces of what the storm had done.

About a year later in the same house I remember it being a beautiful day, windy but absolutely gorgeous outside. I had been playing with my younger brother and had come in to the house for a break. I went upstairs where we had a sliding glass window in our dining room. I had come to get something to drink and something drew me to the window. As I looked out on our house's property I noticed a giant oak tree swaying in the wind back where our property line met our distant neighbor's heavily wooded forest. This grand oak swayed towards us and shook as if some invisible hand had grabbed its massive trunk to jostle it.

Suddenly out of no where this massive cloud came rolling over the tops of the trees and this 100 foot oak nearly bent over, along with every other tree around it. The wind was so strong and my mother yelled for me and my brother to run down stairs. I was mesmerized by everything going on and when I snapped out of my daze, I ran quickly to our basement. My mom tucked us away in our tiny closet located downstairs in the center of our house. I remember being so scared that my knees were knocking together uncontrollably.

And then just as quickly as this chaos began it stopped.

We ventured outside to see what had happened and to our surprise it wasn't much.  On the back side of our house leaves from the forest that nestled up to our property were scattered everywhere. To the front of our house a small dogwood tree had been uprooted and the cover to our well pump had been moved 200 yards away by the impressive wind storm we encountered. Shaken, but not harmed, we immediately began picking up the pieces of our yard.

Jump forward several years, I was a teenager and we had moved to a small town called China Grove. We moved there to live with my grandmother who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. We moved in to take care of her.

We were suppose to be leaving soon for a Vess family reunion, but soon for the Vess family meant that we were always at least two hours behind. My uncle had come by to pick up my grandmother earlier that day. My dad was yelling at my younger brother who was acting up exceptionally bad and for what ever reason, neither wanted to go to this reunion and especially did not want to get ready to leave.

The forecast called for scattered thunderstorms that day, but no one predicted what we saw.

Just about the time we were all finally ready and willing to leave it started to rain really hard. Then lightning and tremendously loud thunder kicked in. Then it began to get really strange. Suddenly the garage doors started to go up and down by themselves. Then it started to hail.

Now I had grown accustomed to seeing hail from time to time, and as it started to do so I noticed that there was an exceptional amount of it this time. You could hear the hail ping-ponging off our roof and it almost seemed soothing for sometime.

However, that did not last long. Out of no where it sounded like men were standing on our roof and hitting it with Louisville sluggers. We looked outside and the tiny marble sized hail balls had grown to become the size of golf balls.  Then it sounded like there was an exchange of the Louisville slugger for something with a little more weight, like say a sledge hammer. We looked out and there was softball sized hail pounding our yard and house.

We ran downstairs and brought our terrified dogs inside. My brother was about in tears and I was nervous, as well as my dad. My mother on the other hand was surprisingly excited as she began to shout, "Thank you Jesus! It's the end times, Jesus is coming soon!" To which we found more annoying than encouraging, as her yelling only frightened the dogs more and shook my nerves a little more to be perfectly honest.

The onslaught of this hail beating continued for several minutes.

The aftermath resulted in our minivan (that we had moved outside from the garage, because we were finally ready to go) being totally destroyed. Remember that scene at the end Michael Jackson's video Black or White where he turned into a panther, sashayed up to a car, turned back into a human, played with his zipper and then proceeded to beat the hell out of somebodies car with a baseball bat? Well, it was worse than that.  It looked like a whole army of people with baseball bats beat our poor minivan. The front and back windows were shattered and the roof was totally beaten in. It was incredible.

Tree limbs were down everywhere and not to mention softball to melon sized hail balls covered our yard and our neighbor's yard. I have a friend that said they actually had a hail log bust through their roof and land in their living room. We immediately went to work picking up the pieces of our car and house and trying to clean up what we could.

The truth is that storms will always come whether you think you are good or you know you are bad. You never feel like you deserve them and you find yourself feeling small and vulnerable in the midst of them.  And, if you're strong enough, you find yourself picking up the pieces from the aftermath of a storm. So long as you still have a foundation to build on, you rebuild. Or if your house was strong enough to endure the winds, rain and hail of whatever category storm you faced, then you simply repair the damage.  The test is not the fact that you experienced a storm, but rather the test is what you do after the experience. Did the experience wash you out? Did it move you on? Even still, did you learn from it? Did it change you, refine you, purge you? Or are you still the same? I'm speaking more figuratively than literally.

To remain unfazed is wonderful if you truly believe that you were perfect to begin with, but who really is? I believe that any storm you face in life can shake you and even crush you, but does that define you? No, its not the storm that defines who I am, the storm is only there to refine me. To chisel away the rough edges and smooth out the unrefined characteristics. Its the storms in life that push me from point A to point B or redirect me from taking point C. Either way storms come and they happen to everybody. However, its in the aftermath that you can discover new things about yourself.

Its in the rebuilding that you can remodel and reinforce yourself. Truth is, a storm will either make you stronger or weaker depending on your reaction.

When it Rains it Pours

Why does the rain fall on the just and the unjust alike?  One would think that because you live a faithful life you'd be omitted from all hard times.  I mean, life is full of winding turns, but we've all thought, "I don't deserve this."  You make plans and you attempt to follow through on them, but life comes at you fast and ultimately God determines the ultimate outcome.

Especially for His followers.  Which seems ironic to us. We live in a time of doctrine that teaches us that we are to be prosperous and if you are a 'true believer' then life should be a life of nice cars, extravagant houses and comfortable nest eggs.

Comfortability is  never and was never what Jesus offered when He said "come follow me." On the contrary, He promised that life will have its fair share of troubles. And trouble is what I have found. Just try to dedicate yourself wholeheartedly and see if your life remains comfortable. I had a comfortable life and then I read Isaiah 6.


  In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.  Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:
       "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
       the whole earth is full of his glory."
  At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
  "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."
  Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.  With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."
  Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"
  And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"


One day I was praying in my nice comfortable two story, three bedroom home in Nashville, TN that God had truly blessed me and Jess with. I was pacing back and forth in my room praying when this verse came to mind. "Who shall I send? And who will go for us?"


This verse echoed in my mind and I prayed out loud "Here I am. Send me!" From that moment my comfortable life ceased to exist. I have found that the closer I draw to God the more I repel the people that used to call me friend. Not only that, but I have found that persecution has occurred the more open I am about the One I love. And I have found that this hardship mainly comes from people inside the church. Those that have lived longer than myself and have developed their own form of religion to supersede their original relationship with their Father. What terrifies me is that I am only one hardened heart away from becoming the same. 


What I find however is that it is the rain that pours down at times that brings me back to a place of brokenness before Him. Sometimes the harder the downpour the harder my heart has become or even worse the more self sufficient I have allowed myself to be. When I am content with my own sufficiency then I am salt that has lost its saltiness. I am no longer good for anything, because I have said in my heart that I am sufficient for my own needs. 


The trials and tribulations however, drive me into His presence as I have no more of myself to rely on. When the storm comes through I am undone. And all that is left is me with saline eyes and a nearness of my heavenly Father showing me His unmerited love. Everything else is broken and ripped apart when the storm blows through. 

Testing is in progress.

Testing is in progress.  I hate tests.  Always have.  Never been good at them.  My SAT scores were 940 the first time and 960 the second time.  I just do not test well.  I know its not a reflection of my intellegence, because what I lack in testing ability I make up for in perseverence and longivity.  I just don't like to quit.  For as much as I hate taking tests, I loath quitting that much more.

Not that I have never wanted to quit. I've said to myself "I quit" or "I can't do this" countless times, but something in me pushed me on past the breaking point to complete what I started.  So even if I do not excel with flying colors on a test, I never quit it.  For me the pass is not the percentage of what I get right, but whether I finished the class as a whole.

So what am I getting at?  Its simple.  Finish what you start. And understand that testing is always in progress. The tests never stop coming.  Its the stress of them that stretches us to grow into the people we are designed for.   Let me reiterate that I hate tests, but I love completing them. I love filling in the last bubble and handing it in with some sort of confidence that I completed the thing I hate, and pass or fail, hell or high water I'm still learning.

Why Jeremiah?

You may be asking yourself why I chose the name Jeremiah for my blog.  Well...its really deep and spiritual. Actually, truth be told, Jeremy was already taken.  


Jeremiah however was the name my parents indended to give me when I was born, but when the nurse asked my dad what my name would be she wrote down Jeremy, even though he clearly stated Jeremiah.   I suppose my parents figured Jeremy was a derivative of Jeremiah and its shorter, so it makes for signature convenience. So Jeremy stuck.

JEREMIAH

Gender: Masculine

Usage: English, Biblical

Pronounced: jer-ə-MIE-ə (English)  [key]

From the Hebrew name יִרְמְיָהוּ (Yirmiyahu) which meant "YAHWEH has uplifted". This was the name of one of the major prophets of the Old Testament, author of the Book of Jeremiah and (supposedly) the Book of Lamentations. He lived to see the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in the 6th century BC. In England, though the vernacular form Jeremy had been occasionally used since the 13th century, the form Jeremiah was not common until after the Protestant Reformation.


___________________________________________


Of Hebrew Origin, meaning "appointed by God"
Guided by the sure and the true
What he promises he does
Willing to go that extra mile
Others think he has a great personality
Many see in him the power of love and faith
He will accomplish great things
He greets each day with joy and wonder


(C)1996 The Historical Research Center, Inc.


That came from a frame that Jess and I keep in our bathroom. When we first got married back in 2002 we went to Williamsburg, VA for our honeymoon and while there we went to Bush Gardens one day. There was a booth there that let you pick a picture and then put the meaning of your names side by side to each other. We picked a scene of the beach with ocean waves crashing, since we had been married on the beach with ocean waves crashing. Jess then picked a violet matte to frame the picture since that was the primary color of our wedding.  Jessica's name means:


From Jessica, a name of Hebrew origin, 
Meaning "wealthy one"
Fascinated by unexplored lands
She understands that everyone is not perfect
She is energetic in all that she pursues
A charitable, giving nature is what she has
She capitalizes on all her strengths
Overall, a very thoughtful person
A genuine and true friend. 


I've tried to hang this picture in our bathroom wherever we go so we are reminded who we are and what are names mean every morning and evening when we wash our face and brush our teeth. I have found that we seem to be living out our name meaning a little more each day. Its quite fascinating actually. 


_________________________________________________

Another website stated that Jeremiah means, sent by God.  

So either way I've got a calling.  Jeremiah, Jeremy, Jerm whatever you want to call me. I'm not picky. 

to 2010

The Number Ten

It has been already pointed out that ten is one of the perfect numbers, and signifies the perfection of Divine order, commencing, as it does, an altogether new series of numbers. The first decade is the representative of the whole numeral system, and originates the system of calculation called "decimals," because the whole system of numeration consists of so many tens, of which the first is a type of the whole.

Completeness of order, marking the entire round of anything, is, therefore, the ever-present signification of the number ten. It implies that nothing is wanting; that the number and order are perfect; that the whole cycle is complete.


-http://www.biblestudy.org/bibleref/meaning-of-numbers-in-bible/10.html


So here we go, 2010!  Feels good doesn't it?  Even rolls off the tongue easier than 2009.  And to top it all off we're already better off than 2012 according to the Mayans and Hollywood.  2010 for me is a year of promise and a year where I personally have nothing left to loose.  2009 left me rather beaten and with some battle scars, perhaps it did you as well, but I find them rather becoming and distinguished if I'm honest.   I can say that I've stood up to opposition and having done everything to stand, I stood, and still stand firm.


This puts a certain swagger in my step as I walk into a new year.  Not that I claim a confidence in my own ambition, but rather I am confident in who I am and more sure of my calling than ever before. This is something I have to cling to as I know that there will be more obsticles I will have to face, but I now face them knowing that I can overcome them. Be it temptation, hardship, persecution from those close to you (which it usually is) or whatever may come, I now know that I am more than a conqueror through Him who loves me. (romans 8)


So a toast to new obstacles, new adventures, new friends and old friends and everything life can throw at us.  May we face them like lions and roar in the face of fear!  And may you become the one He has purposed you to be!