Come to Jesus

Being a paramedic in a big city presents me with the unique opportunity to see people at their best and worst at times. Most of the calls that we go on in a 24 hours shift are usually benign and I would say that less than 5% of them are actually life threatening. So this allows us to spend a large portion of our time on calls with the patient just sitting and talking with them if we so choose to do that. Many crews tend to rush in and then rush out of calls but I really like to take an extra few minutes with the patient to really find out the whole story. There are many reasons that people call 911 but one of the biggest reasons is that people are often alone or scared. You never know what opportunities can arise when you just sit with people and let them talk.
One such example comes to mind from when we went on a call yesterday. We got dispatched to a 65 year old female who was in a care home and had slipped in the bathroom and hit her head. Well, she had very little to complain about but after asking about her history I found out that she had terminal cancer and was now in this nursing home for hospice care. So as we were asking questions I felt something pulling at my heart - kind of like when the rebels got too close to the death star and its tractor beam began pulling them into it. At first I tried to block it out but after a few minutes I knew exactly what it was. God was pulling me in to this lady and he wanted me to share Christ with her before I left the scene. I don't even know if you would call it pulling as much as I felt like if I didn't talk to her I was going to either have a seizure or throw up on her bed. That would have then started a barf- a- rama and that would not have been pretty. But that gives you some insight as to how consumed and bound up I was on this call by the time we finished assessing her.
So I sat down on the edge of her bed and mustered up the courage to ask how she was doing. She said that she was alone out here in Tucson with no kids or husband to leave behind when she died. I told her that it must be very tough to go through all of this alone and if she had a faith in the Lord at all. She had told me that she had an appreciation for everyone's religion and respected Jesus but faith was something that she had not given much though to up to this point. She also told me that she couldn't see herself as a believer in Christ because she had been deeply hurt by a christian family that she had worked for. I told her that it is hard being hurt by others especially those you were close with. I tried to empathize with her letting her know that others hurt us sometimes and that we tend to judge Christ based on the actions of people. I didn't want to press the subject too much so I told her that I would pray for her and she responded very warmly to my gesture. She told me that I was very kind and that she appreciated me taking time out of my day to sit and talk with her.
I don't know if she will ever give another thought to one word of our conversation that we had the other day. I would like to think that in some way I made a difference in her life for a few moments and that she may spend a little time thinking about what a relationship with Christ could mean to her. In the end isn't that all we can really do for others- Take the time to listen, love them where they are at, and pray for God to touch their hearts. We can put ourselves out there and knock at the door of the unbeliever and hope that they will open up. Then we need to just stand back and let God work his magic !!

The Call

I was at work on June 11 and it was evening time around 8:00 pm when one of the guys yelled my name from across the room that I had a phone call. I was in the office when I heard him so I walked over to the phone and picked it up. Then the sweetest little voice started speaking from the other end of the line. "Hi, Daddy," is what my youngest son said on the other line. At this point I was totally surprised because my youngest son does not usually call work. I'm thinking at this point that he wanted to confess one of his little trouble spots from the day or maybe that he even wanted to confess something for one of the other boys. There is a short pause on the phone after he said hello and then the words came out of his mouth. The sweetest words that I think a father could ever hear from one of his children came flowing through the phone. "I accepted Jesus into my heart today at vacation bible school today," he added. Now I was not expecting this at work so it kind of caught me off guard a little bit. There were several guys in the office and I started to well up with tears so I moved over into the corner to talk with him. I realized that everyone in the office would hear me if my voice started to crack with emotion so I pulled it together and told him that I was so happy for him. I wasn't just happy I was beaming with joy , and I wanted so much to jump up out of my seat and scream for joy. But... I held it together and told him that I would give him a big hug and a kiss as soon as I saw him the next day. Then we both said good-bye and hung up the phone.
The next day my boys were already at vacation bible school by the time that I got home from the station so I didn't get to see them. So when it was time top pick them up at noon I was wondering if my youngest son would remember my promise to him on the phone the previous night. I sure remembered and I was anxiously waiting to see him in the parent pick-up room. I walked thru the doors into the building and looked over to the activities room. As I made my way over there I saw him standing by one of his leaders waiting for us to come pick him up. As I walked in the room I caught his eye and he ran over to me immediately. As he got to me I bent down and gave him a big bear hug, then kissed him, and told him how much I loved him. As I pulled back after hugging him I looked into his eyes and saw him beaming with joy. He had a smile on his face that made my heart melt all over again. The type of joy-filled, contented smile that makes me thankful everyday for becoming a father and for Christ in heaven whose works never cease to amaze me !!

The Mud Run !!

So several of my buddies and me go out and do crazy adventure stuff every year so we can supposedly get the little kid out of our system and return home civilized once again. This past Saturday was one of those planned trips , and I got to run in one of the craziest events that I have ever had the chance to be a part of. It was the Camp Pendleton Mud Run which is a 10k run through trails, hills, streams, mud pits, water holes, lakes, and more mud pits. It was one of the funnest and hardest 10 k races that I have run in so far but it was well worth the effort of getting there. We had no idea what to expect on the course because this was a new one for all of us but we charged ahead nonetheless. We ended up getting to the starting line right before the gun went off so we were forced to start a ways back in the pack. After we did get to running though it was one obstacle after another that was thrown at us. At one point there were even marines jumping out of training compounds with water guns , and they were shooting us with water. We had to run up several hills, dive into several streams, swim across a lake, and trudge through several mud pits to get to the end of the course. I tell you this- it felt more like 10 miles than it did 6.2 !!! I was plumb tired at the finish line and very glad it was over for the time being. After I caught my breath though I started thinking about how I was going to do things differently for next year's race. None of us took top ten or even top 25 but the fun in all of it was just getting out there and once again proving that adventure comes from within !! Dare to dream big and go make it happen !!

Look at this short clip showing the last big mud pit at the race !!

The artist !!

Have you ever gotten the chance to walk amongst trees so tall that when you looked up at them you could have sworn that they were reaching straight for God's hand up in heaven. When you stopped to look around you heard the wind rustling the canopy overhead so much so that it sounded like running water was nearby. And while you were standing there in the middle of it all you realized that you couldn't hear a single noise outside of what God had breathed into the trees. Nothing around you and no distractions to take your mind elsewhere in the moment. Just blissful, mind clearing silence that filled your soul. I had the chance to do just that this past week at Hart Prairie in Arizona. I stopped in an opening in the middle of a grove of aspen trees and took this picture. No particularly important spot on the map but one that caught my eye enough to make me stop and enjoy God's awesome handiwork ! He is the master artist and creator of everything we know and it is almost impossible when standing in a place like this to fail to acknowledge that. The best thing about it is that His works are everywhere we go because He has had a hand in it all. All you have to do is take the time to look up and watch it all happen right in front of you !!

Empty Me Jesus - Why it's there !!

So I am riding my bike a few weeks ago to the firehouse in the early morning as I have been doing on and off now for several years. After trudging through what seemed like quicksand for the first 15 minutes I finally get into my groove and begin to take in the awesome morning sun while I pedal. I will usually ride the 30 mile course in about an hour and a half so I have time to think about a WHOLE lot of stuff. And for the most part my rides are very uneventful so I begin the day by praying. Ahhh... a peaceful morning started off with a prayer!! Nothing would be finer than a connection with God early in the morning but I always tend to get sidetracked. I start off my prayers with great fervor and focus but tend to change subjects about 30 times in my mind due to lack of discipline... or is it ADD? Okay, it's ADD but I realize that this makes for exciting times in my prayer life with a change in subject every 15 seconds!! So I am coursing through this prayer, subject to subject, and I have now forgotten where I am at about 10 times over. My passion for connection has long passed and I feel like I should be in a prayer care home for the lost and unfocused. So for the umteenth time I start over hoping to regain my zest for finishing this thing strong but something keeps nagging at me this morning. Like a rogue nosehair that won't stop tickling the old septum I felt something that kept grabbing my attention. It's like God was saying to me that we weren't changing course on this ship and we weren't coming back to the same place ever again. So I stop praying at this point and it is then that 'Empty Me' by Jeremy Camp comes on my mp3 player. So I begin to intently listen to the words of this song that I have heard probably a 100 times over and never taken notice of before this morning. But as I was pedaling it grabbed me and I felt like those words were talking right to my heart. Call it an epiphany, breakthrough, grand moment, or whatever else you want to but I know exactly what happened at that moment. God was speaking directly to me through that song and changing me. You see I had been praying for all of these years thinking that I had to hit so many targets in my prayer in order for them to count that I was missing the point all along. To me it was like I was in an 'Amazing Race' prayer and I had to get to reach the checkpoints along the course all in order before I could make a mad dash to the end of the stage. Except the only thing is that I had been running the same course for the past 15 years or so since I accepted Christ. So Jeremy Camp's words to this song shook me up me in a way that I haven't felt in a long time during my prayer life. As he sung the words to his song I sang along in my mind and for the first time in a while I felt a truly deep connection with God that morning.
Could it really be that simple for us that we tend to look right past it !! Have I had the tendency to just walk aimlessly through my prayers day after day so much so that I had lost what I was looking for in the first place. A connection with God !! For a long time I had been willing to make a check list of the things that I needed to hit every morning in my prayer so I could get through it and call it a day !! Mom, Dad, kids, thanks for it everything, thanks for heaven, protect me and the family- Amen !! Wow !! I wonder why I was uninspired fopr such a long time. My prayer life had become a chore checklist with nothing behind it.
So I listened to 'Empty Me' that morning and learned what it meant to be passionate again about prayer. I needed to step out of the way of myself and just ask the Lord to take over my life. No checklist and no rambling man but simple humility with a willing heart. After the song was finished I was so moved that I simply began repeating a portion of it again and again to myself.

Jesus Burn Away

My Desire For Anything

That is Not of YOU and is of Me

I Want More of YOU and Less of Me

So simple and yet so profound that it was life changing for me.

Christ please empty me of myself and fill me with you, Amen !!

HE knows what to do with the rest.