First I announced it to everyone tonight at my birthday dinner. Now I’m going to share it with you. I’ve typed up a document explaining what I’m doing and why, so please read on and feel free to comment if necessary.

It’s not very often that I will honestly and openly admit to making a grievous mistake in my life.

In fact, I tend to be honest with people on a variety of different subjects — just not very personal things about my own life.

However, I’m writing this today to let you know that because of a recent mistake I made, my life will be taking a new direction in the next two months.

On November 15, 2006, I somehow fit every item I owned into my Chrysler Cirrus and headed out West. I stopped in Springfield, Missouri, to visit with family and see all the folks from Crimson House Ministries, the church that I had felt compelled earlier to join after I left the military.

My huge mistake happened on November 19, 2006. I left Missouri and drove, heading west again — straight for Oregon.

For a girl.

Wait a minute, didn’t I say I had felt God call me originally to move to Springfield after I left the Air Force? So why on God’s green earth would I reject that call and move on to the Northwest, where my own delusions of grandeur had me moving to Oregon, spending time with a girl I loved at the time and once again attending the church I grew up in?

I moved in with my girlfriend’s parents, and it wasn’t long before I was hired on to a local TV station as a freelance videographer. I began driving from St. Helens, Oregon to Washougal, Washington to attend New Horizons Church, the church I grew up in. I had everything going for me.

By March, I was thinking about getting an apartment in Hillsboro so I could be closer to my job and I would try to advance and become a part- or full-timer. On March 13, I moved into an apartment complex a little far away from everything. I enjoyed it, I really did…for awhile.

Mid-April, I had everything going for me. I was getting hours at the TV station, I was being paid well, I was attending the church…what could possibly go wrong?
Everything.

And believe me when I say, everything.

Listen to me for one minute here. If there’s nothing else you get by reading this, let these words soak in.

God will not bless you if you knowingly operate outside of his will. I’m sure he’ll allow you to continue doing what you’re doing for awhile, but then your life will — and I guarantee it — become like that of the Prodigal Son in the book of Matthew.

Mine sure did. KPTV hired a regular editor and I promptly lost the regular hours I had been receiving. It became so bad I had to pick up a second job as a service deli slave at Albertson’s. I only had enough money to pay the bills, and barely enough to make it across the river to church in Washougal.

Church…let me talk about that for a minute. New Horizons Church had changed dramatically since I had last attended there in 2002, and while it was tough for me to accept, I attended there because it was an environment with which I was familiar. Friends near and dear to me attend NHC, and I went there because I would be in good company rather than going there for the Lord.

Once again, God didn’t bless me in the environment I was in. My spiritual needs and vision weren’t even aligning with the church’s vision. I began to scale back my attendance at NHC. No sooner did I do that than the event I call Black Thursday hit me like a tsunami would destroy a remote fishing village.

My girlfriend broke up with me on April 26. The worst part about that day, was that I had a dream the night prior that she had broken up with me and began to date around. The dream was so real that after a tough day of work, I called her to tell her about it.

Instead of offering comfort, she told me that the dream was in essence true, save for the part of her dating around. Over the phone, she told me our relationship needed to end.

I didn’t eat for days afterward. I couldn’t think, and I really don’t remember much of the month of May. Except that I tried to go to church, did my best to put on my happy face, and appear that everything was okay and I was going to recover.

In reality, my faith was devastated. I tried unsuccessfully for two months to blame God, to try to come up with an excuse as to why I was in the situation I was in. My money had run out, my church — save for three people — offered me little or no support during my time of grief, and the reason I had moved to Oregon was now a vapor.

So what do I do now? was my question heading into Senior Camp in late June. Here I was spiritually recovering, and God was going to use me to minister to a good group of teenage boys at Camp, yet I still lacked direction in my own life.

I began to pray and seek. Fast, pray, read the Word. Fast, pray, read the Word. Do some jumping jacks. Sit around. Play Tecmo Super Bowl. Fast some more. Pray some more. Read some more. Eat shells and cheese. Yum.

Come the final night of Senior Camp, God would hit me so hard upside the head that it would have taken Him to have clogged my ears for me not to receive a word He gave me.

On that final night of Camp, we all prayed with our church youth groups. Kirkland Family Church, Rivers Fellowship, High Point, NHC…we all went into a respective area and prayed. Only…there was one thing wrong. I couldn’t pray.

I asked God why I couldn’t pray, and no sooner did I do that, than he gave me a word. Four words, in fact.

“This isn’t your church.”

I didn’t even question it. I knew it was God, the voice I had failed to hear for months, and I just stood there. The youth of NHC were laying hands and speaking all sorts of tongues over Rainier Camina, and I just stood there. I watched it continue while I began to formulate a hypothesis as to why God would tell me what he told me, there, and then.

A couple of weeks after being home from Camp, I began to discover that instead of continuing to seek God’s voice on the subject, maybe He’s already spoken to me.

You see, I believe God speaks to us in everyday circumstance as much, if not more often, than Him directly speaking to us. I also believe He gives us three strikes until He smacks us around a bit.

So let’s review. Strike one was when I lost my hours at KPTV and had to scrounge around for cash to pay my bills, much less eat. Strike two was when I lost everything I had come to Oregon for in the breakup. And strike three was when God told me that New Horizons Church wasn’t for me.

As if everything collapsing around me over the past few months hasn’t been a sign from God. I must have been blind to notice it. God shut the doors I had flung open, right back into my face.

Reading my Bible over the past few days has allowed me to gain some extraordinary knowledge and confirmation as to what I need to do next. Especially Revelations 2:4-5. Why in the world was I reading Revelations, I don’t know. But Revelations 2:4-5 is extremely clear.

Yet I hold this against you: you have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

I took that as a clear direction from God for my life. I had forsaken my first love, God, for my earthly love. I’m in the position where I need to repent and change the course of my life to match God’s will.

And on September 1, I will be doing my first works over. The time has come for me to move to Springfield, Missouri. And I’m for real this time.

My current plan is to move in with my parents for the time being and find a job. I’ve got a good path set for my life and I feel comfortable spiritually with this direction change.

It’s a direction change that I should have done in the first place.

But that’s not to say that what has transpired during my time here in the Northwest — all nine months of it — hasn’t been a blessing. In fact I think God toughened me up spiritually. I learned many lessons, I made even more friends and I gained a great perspective on life.

So I admit to you all today that I made a grave mistake in moving here. It hasn’t been without its blessings though. The greatest blessing, however, is the call God has placed on me to branch out.

Branch out — outside of my comfort zone, outside of what I know, and into a new direction in my life.

The greatest blessings in my life are yet to come. And I look forward to them.

Thanks for everything. You all have my prayers and best wishes. I ask the same in return.