It has been one week since I have spoken about the session.  There was so much that happened in that session that I wanted to make sure I took my time and communicated everything effectively.  With that, however, came my business trip to Africa where I will be gone for one month.  With me leaving this Saturday, my schedule has been booked solid with friends wanting to see me off.  Of course, majority of that time is spent my son. This Friday, I am going to take him out of school and go have fun until he passes out.

In this series or any series where I mention my ex-wife, please keep in mind that, out of respect for my ex-wife, I cannot go into minute-by-minute details of the session.  In my next posting, however, I will write about something that I want others to keep in mind and something that my ex-wife realized.

My ex-wife did say that she came upon tons of revelations in that session.  She didn’t go into any detail and I didn’t ask.  I am certain that, like myself, she wanted time to process it.

At the end of the session, the counselor walked us out the office.  She had to use the restroom and he then took the opportunity to chat with me a moment.  He turns to me and says, "You know God has something incredible for your life."  Apparently, I had this really stunned and surprised look on my face.  I was stunned not by what he said but with the conviction he said it with.  Since I was speechless, he spoke again with greater conviction, "You do know that, right?".  Which, of course, I agreed with him wholeheartedly.

Despite the emotional 3 hour roller coaster ride we were just on, my ex and I were in a good mood and very chatty.  Somehow, my career ambitions came up in conversation when she asked, "What do you really want to do in life?"  You see, because of her life as a PK and thus a loathing for all people in ministry and ministry in general, I never told her about my desire to go into ministry.  I thought, if I went into ministry, that our relationship would dramatically change for the worse… similar to that of me dating again.

Despite my initial hesitance to be totally honest, I went for the gut and told her, "I want to be a minister/counselor.  I really want to serve people."

She blew my socks clean off with her enthusiastic response: "That is awesome.  You being a pastor makes more sense than anything else you have done or could possibly do.  I can see that for sure.  You would make a great pastor because I know your heart."

I was lightheaded for the rest of the way back to my job.

At 10am this morning, I am going to see my ex-wife’s therapist in a joint counseling session.

If you think God has done a real work in my life, I am nothing compared to what God wants to accomplish in her life.

I still have a lot to work on and I know the work that God is doing in my life is nothing short of supernatural.  I know that today’s session is part of that big plan.  I hope anything that I need to have fixed in my life, this and future sessions will help to fix that.  However, in these sessions, I hope that I can be a real testament to our awesome God in sharing what God has done in my life and share that testimony with my ex-wife and her counselor.

You might be asking yourself, "Can’t you share that testimony with you ex-wife, one-on-one?  Why do you need a therapist for that?".  I could share my testimony with my ex-wife but it always met with eye rolling and her saying something about the cult I am in.

Fortunately, the therapist is a believer so this should be a blast.

As overjoyed and excited as I am, I am coming into this as humble as I can possibly be.  Everything that has happened in my life, especially what has happened in the last 5 months, has been God and God alone.  I dare not take one single stitch of credit for anything that has been going on.

How does one switch careers and yet makes even more money right from the word go?  God.

How come I have a wealth of friends who have helped me so much?  God.

Being trained over and over in areas of leadership and ministry without setting one foot into a seminary?  God.

How can I gone from wasting away in all of my discipleships to completely turning it around and actually moving forward in the direction that God wants me to go?  That’s right, God.

The work that God has to do for my ex-wife?  She would say that all the work that God has done in my life recently was not because of God.  God is not interested in our lives at that level.  He wants us to try to succeed on our own.

I hope to have more to write on this but for now, I am going to keep this series open ended.

Please pray for me.

Officially shot down the NBC opportunity.

Officially shot down the Microsoft opportunity.

With all due respect to those organizations, working in those companies would be retreading old tires.  I would say the exact same thing if I went to work IT for my church.  I needed to get out of Information Technology.  God was ever so faithful and he has shifted and shaped my destiny in order to take me on a whole new direction.  I believe I am at the place where God can bless me even further.

The next stage in my life begins now.  Beyond the mere career change, God has taken me to a whole new level in just five months.

Before, I never understood what it meant to give my entire life to Him.  Before, I didn’t have the slightest clue on what it meant to actually dispose of my will for His will.  Before, I didn’t know how to give or serve.  Before, there was no way I could lead.

Before, the hellish existence of mediocrity and denying God cursed me in every way.  Before, I was so tightly chained to the ground with curses and diseases that it caused me to hunched over and I could not even stand straight.

Pardon my incivility but there is no way in hell I can go back to that way of life.  So long as I know that every single day of my life that my provisions, strength, protection, wisdom and understanding comes from God in heaven and he will most certainly provide enough for that day.  He will provide enough for me to make it to bed that night.  If I get up the next day, I will ask for it all over again.

I will not want things to happen.  I want His will to happen.  I desire not the things of this world.  I just want His righteousness.  I don’t ask for more money because it isn’t mine in the first place.  I pray not for healing.  I ask for the Kingdom of God to come over us all to not only heal us of pain, curses, wounds and sickness but to end all of the suffering.

I am not saying that I am at a true understanding in all things.   However, I can say with absolute certainty that I now stand at  the cusp of the Kingdom of God and all of His righteousness.  I can absolutely see what God has in store for me and the man of God that he wants me to become.

Let me break down the significance of tithing and how it has blessed and cursed my life in the last week:

1. Check No. 1, Total: $1200, Arrived 8/29: Before rent, before child support, before even gas for my car, at 9PM at night, I went by an ATM, then drove 15 miles out of the way to drop off my tithes off that check.  I still have 80 bucks left over from that.
2. Check No. 2, Total: $900, Arrived 8/31: I had two large bills that ate up the entire check so I figured I can pay tithes next time.  I am looking at the $8 left over from that.

Oh yes, I am savoring the lesson learned and it tastes ever so bittersweet.  Yum.

After just realizing that lesson earlier this weekend, I started back reading "The Blessed Life" by Robert Morris.  Guess what Chapter 1 was all about?  Yes, the emphasis of getting God what is due to him first before you do anything else.  First harvest of your crop.  Firstborn of your stock.  Firstborn of your family.  First ten percent of your check.

God asked for the ten percent first.  He did not ask for you to make $1000 first and then give Him $100.

Through my lesson learned, inadvertently I put God to the test:

Malachi 3:10 (NIV) 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.

Pay the ten percent and trust Him to bless you.

Looking back at my writing with Part 4 and Part 5 in a side-by-side comparison, I really haven’t come to any sort of conclusion.  All I did was compare the two jobs.  Maybe, in some way, the decision would become more crystal clear if I laid it out before me.

It hasn’t become more crystal clear.

It gets better (i.e. it gets tougher), NBC called and said that they could not start me by Monday.

In essence, we are still at square one.

God’s timing is unreal at times.  Let me see how this unfolds.