1 Corinthians 9:19-23

I have been watching Chuck tonight and it got me thinking.  How does this relate to Christianity.  I mean the whole spy thing, is there something here for us as Christians?  I was struck with I Corinthians 9:22 where Paul said “I am become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some”.  This point made me think about how we are kind of like spies.  We are not out saving the world from the next big threat, we are saving the world from the thief of souls, one soul at a time.  We are not protecting humanity, we are building Gods family.  The spy work we do is not to be hidden or deceptive but to be seen clearly and understood.  We are to be able to infiltrate our surroundings, gain their trust, and share the truth of the Gospel.

Hello 2010!  This is going to be the year of faith, hope, and love.  2009 became the year of breaking for my family.  2009 started out with such great promise, I had a great contract with a great company.  Jodi was pregnant with our 6th child and even though the pregnancy had been a rough one, our family was healthy and we had a good living coming in.  We had need of nothing.

God took my job away.  In March, just after our sixth child was born, I lost the contract with the great company.  I was paid on a Net 45 basis so I thought , I will be ok, I get paid in 45 days for this work like before, I have money coming in and I should find something before that.  45 days came and went.  I had a couple of small contracts that either were very short or did not work out for one reason or another.  I could not seem to make anything stick.  We were about to lose it.  I mean really lose it.  We had spent all our savings and all our tax money we had saved for my business trying to keep up our lifestyle while I found that next job.  Our kids were in private school, we were eating out every night.  We lived like we had no worries at all.  No needs at all. One day my wife had a conversation with God where he basically told us that we loved money.  There was no way we loved money.  We were christians after all.  We loved God.  I mean after all now  man can serve two masters.  That is what the Bible says, right.  God asked, do you wake up every day looking and worrying about more ways you can make money?  We realized we were consumed by money.  We had to have money to live but it became more than that.  We had to have it for private school, basketball lessons, piano lessons, new car payments, eating out.  We had a lifestyle we wanted to maintain.  We realized that we were slaves to money.  We realized we needed to make some changes.

I finally got a job in July.  It was an answer to prayer from not only us but many caring friends and family.  The job was perfect in many respects but it was nearly half of my previous salary.  It was with a big company which I swore I would never work at but it was a new product venture so I was hopeful it would be good.  And it was for a while.  At least until my wife started talking to God again.  One day, out of the blue, God told my wife that I have not given my job over to him yet.  So my wonderful wife’s response to our new found trusting God for everything was; “Then take it.”.  I was not yet aware of this conversation but that afternoon my job started to go down hill.  I called my wife in a panic.  Something is going down, they are talking about canceling the project.  I was not centered at all and then she told me, “That may be my fault.”  We were both blown away how God was so involved in our little lives.  I was centered.  All of the sudden my perspective changed and I realized that I had not given my job over so I did.  The job did not improve and I could not seem to get anything that would please the manager and so ultimately I left the project and moved on.  I am now in an awesome job, close to home, and I can work remotely two days a week.  God came through in such a big way!  I was blown away.

We had need of nothing.  Those words ring out as I write this.  God is reminding me of Revelation 3 and the letter to the church of Laodicea.  I did not intend for this blog this way but God is telling me something I had to stop and read.  Revelation 3:13-22.  We had become like the church at Laodicea.  This is a hard realization.  If you know me I was a KCBT’er.  I went to a church that really studied the Bible.  Broke it down into its pieces and meanings and studied verse upon verse.  This is a well known passage to me.  One that I often referred to in my mind when talking about all those rich lost people.  I could never be one of those people.

This is going to be the year of faith, hope, and love.  I will walk by faith every day.  God is amazing me everyday and I want to continue in that.

Welcome to The Daniel Factor Blog!

The intent of this blog is more a place for me to journal and provide an outlet for my walk.  This could be interesting and it could be a snore, but it will be fun.

Raymond