this blog is for those who continue to journey with us in your prayers and petitions…those who loved us thru thick and thin…and for those who know that what some may view as crazy, immature whims may in fact be the path of obedience for us….we love you and cherish your prayers….i have spared a lot of the “details” because this entry is about the joys of a  journey of progress, not the pointing finger of loss and frustration…. 

for the last four years i have been wrestling thru what exactly the Lord was saying to me….i know i am called to be His mouthpiece but i was unsure of what avenue that meant for me to travel….well the Lord began to shape things up for me through a series of dreams and conversations….i will spare you the details on that but just know that they have prophetically defined where i am today…through all this i knew the Lord was saying “recognition and impact”…not my recognition but His, not my impact but His…..and He continued to say to me, “brad, if you will learn to surrender, fully surrender, i will make you a modern day joseph…i will make you influential to the influential”…..so i resigned from the church i was employed by and started to quest in His word for the biblical method of surrender….as i searched i found that to surrender the way guys did back in “bible times” it looked so very different from any example i had in my own life and in the lives around me…so i prayed for direction…i felt the Lord was leading us to a place…simply that…a place to recklessly surrender….the Lord continued to show us Atlanta, Ga….so in october of 2005 we left for hotlanta..jobless, therefore “income-less”, and so excited about life!…up until this point in my journey with the Lord had been one where i would listen for 10 secs and then run strong for an hour only to find out that He wasnt finished explaining the directions to me before i ran off…so in this move i learned for me the first step of surrender was to learn to wait..not sit and stare like some might think of waiting, but a selfless attentive catering to His principles, mandates, and commands…this process changed me and my family in ways that are still hard to explain…but changed we long to remain….anyway the second thing that was being accomplished thru our move was that we were totally dependent upon the Lord for our provision…when you go from the security of a paycheck (even though it is a false security) to not really sure how things are going to meet up it changes your prayer life, your social life, your priorities, and your resolve….things that were once important quickly lost their glimmer in the moment of “crunchtime”…also going from home owner to apartment renter caused us to grow closer, mostly because the 1100 sf paled in comparison to our 4200 sf we had left behind…hahaha….but we trusted and He was true to His promise to tend us….i had made a commitment to not look outside supernatural provision for our family financially until january…i was believing the Lord for our provision and trusting Him to fund our freedom to serve Him solely…(this account so far is void of scripture references but please know that every decision recorded in it was saturated by His word)…i guess the Lord was wanting us to see just how big He wanted to have us trust Him because about a month after living in atlanta He began to open a door for us to have a home…not financially mind you, but a series of divine appointments we found ourselves divinely purposed to purchase a home…a big one at that, nicer than anything we would have EVER entertained before…but God was so deliberate with us about this there was no denying His promptings…so we prayed….well (leaving out a ton of miraculous details) we put an offer on the house as an act of obedience….unable at this point to even produce an income much less have proof of one…but we knew He had directed us…that is when He spoke to me again, so soft, so gentle, yet so firm, and so detailed…”this house is for Me…the top floor is for revelation from me and intimacy with me…the second floor is for rest for your family and renewal for your minds…the first floor is for community and fellowship with your peers leading to their salvation…and the basement is for healing and replenishment for My warriors…it is My house…tend it”….so now we had a vision with our obedience…now we just needed the funding….so we sat down and made a budget of what we thought it would take to do all the Lord was leading us to do…so with budget in placed we prayed…..then the phone call that changed it all…God’s man, His channel of provision for our lives and promptings was on the other end of the line with a prompting from God for a specific amount of money specifically for our family…the money the Lord had told him to give was exactly our budget needs….and the thing that killed me was when he said,”brad, is it cool if i just start sending you checks in january?” January! the very month i had believed to be the sign that if God had not provided for our needs that He wanted me to fend for my family by getting a job….that was two years ago…in that time we have seen over 30 families stay in our home that were dealing with issues of ministry burn out, ministry wounds, marital issues, health issues, or various other struggles….God has used this home…it is His afterall…and i have continued to not work a job…but to serve Him as He sees fit…it is an amazing place to be where you have nothing to entertain but the Lord’s voice on where you need to be or where you need to go…over the past two years i have watched the Lord put me in places of influence that i would not have ever gotten on my own and He continues to open doors of opportunity to be His channel of blessing in the lives of very influential people….so i still continue to speak of God’s truth and His unending love for His people…sometimes to thousands…sometimes to hundreds…and often to a handful at a time….that is afterall what He has called me to do…i got a new address, but i walk in obedience to the same call…”Go and make disciples….” so i guess in conclusion i say..TO GOD BE THE GLORY, FOR TO HIM, THROUGH HIM, AND BY HIM ARE ALL THINGS…TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

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