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Having a spirited conversation with someone the question was asked to me why are there so many denominations within the Protestant faith. I responded with, -that is a good question.- the person said the Catholic Church is one church, again my response was your right. With 42 years of experience in ministry, living in other countries for almost 25 years I have come up with this, a great deal of what people said the Lord told them to do really has not come from the Lord. The world looks at the church with confusion and unbelief because of what they see within the church. When someone says Baptist church my response is what type or from what branch of the Baptist Church. There must be at least if not more than 20 different varieties of Baptist churches. Some believing in the total opposite of the other. Now you and I both know that God does not split churches, he has never said take 50 people to start another church because the former church allows women to wear pants. When God truly is the center of the church there will be no division, no backstabbing, no malicious gossiping or just plain dislike for one another. I am often amazed at the number of people who go from church to church and have never been content enough to call it home. My question would be what exactly do we believe? Throughout the years I have been ripped apart by a number of people because of my doctrine and belief. I've had an old preacher woman from the Anderson Church of God branch point her finger in my face and say I was going to hell because I was not a member of that church. I have had Baptist people in my face stating that the gifts of the spirit have done more damage to the church and has nothing to do with the church of today. I must confess the early years of my ministry was to please everyone I quickly found out the impossibility of such a thing. As the years went on living in other countries all the baggage that I used to carry was slowly being stripped from me. I saw God's Spirit move in tremendous ways. I saw people being healed, I myself was told two times in my life I would make it through the night and here I am still plugging. I have seen people delivered from witchcraft in black magic, I have seen the hardest of hearts beautifully transformed by the power of the gospel. Can we get out of our small little boxes and allow God to do what he wants. I heard someone say it would be great to take the good from all of the churches and have just one church, the answer is simple it's called a Full Gospel Church. Let's not fall into the trap of allowing ourselves to say God doesn't do that anymore just because we don't believe it. Let's not stand in his way by pointing the finger and criticizing something or someone because we have not experienced what that person has experienced. We are not a mass of individual islands we are the body of Christ who holds up the light of the gospel to a crazy mixed up confused world. No, we don't need more churches we need the people in the church to make a full surrender to Jesus Christ to stand on his word and believe it from cover to cover.

 One of the most prevalent emotions that I feel on a consistent basis through out my depression is loneliness and hopelessness.

The definition of loneliness goes as follows: sadness because one has no friends or company; (of a place) the quality of being unfrequented and remote; isolation. I can be surrounded by tons of people who care so much about me but yet feel so lonely; like someone drove me out to the middle of nowhere, completely isolated, and left me there all by myself with no way back. It honestly sucks.

I constantly have these thoughts that run through my mind. Will I ever find someone? Am I going to live the rest of my life all alone? Even if I do have someone who cares about me, will I still feel so lonely? Do they really care? What if they leave me? What if everyone leaves me? Where are you? Where were you when I needed you? Why do I feel so alone? I don't know to be honest. Who cares? If people cared, they would reach out. 

I never know why I feel so lonely. I just simply do. One morning I'll wake up and feel okay or even happy. Then there are mornings where I wake up and feel like I've been locked in a tower, in the middle of isolation, with no one around. I feel like I'm invisible. Like no one knows or cares who I am.  It's not a great feeling, feeling lonely, especially when you have no clue as to why you feel that way. Sometimes you wish you had the attention and company of others 24/7 and then other times, you feel as if you want nothing to do with other people. When you do want other people around you, but they leave to go do something else or something along those lines, you feel like you aren't important. You know that you're not the center of their world and that their lives don't revolve around you but you feel like it should. It's not great at all because that also brings a feeling of guilt, jealousy, and even anger at times.

There are also times in which loneliness makes me feel like I don't belong or fit in. I don't know if it's just me or something but, the majority of the time, I feel like I don't fit in at all; like I don't fit in with American society or something. I don't find the various things that other people my age are doing appealing. It's not who I am; I'm not into it. As a result, I feel like I'm all alone because I feel like I don't fit into this category of "perfect normalcy". If that makes sense. I haven't felt like I fit in for quite some time now. That is, until recently. I returned from a trip to Estonia a little bit over a week ago. I won't go into much details because I do plan on writing a post about my trip experience. However, I will say, that for the first time in a long time, I felt alive. In this foreign country, in which I only knew two words in their language (tere which means hello and terviseks which means cheers!) and where I only knew a hand full of people, did I finally feel like I fit in. I didn't feel lonely; I felt like I belonged. Walking down those Estonian streets, I felt like I finally belonged somewhere, like I had purpose. Although, the reason behind that could have been that Estonians are extremely introverted, just like me, so....

"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He counts the number of the stars. He gives names to all of them. Our Lord is great, vast in power, His understanding is infinite. The Lord helps the afflicted..." -Psalm 147:3-6. Time can't (won't) heal a broken and hurting heart, only Godcan do that.

Now onto feeling hopeless. The definition of hopeless is as follows: feeling or causing despair about something; inadequate; incompetent. There's this constant feeling of inadequacy. That I'm not good enough for anything or anyone. And if I'm not good enough for anything or anyone then what's the point in life? You want to be positive but it's like you can't mentally help it. Like you don't really believe it to be true. And when you DO have a good day, you hear or see something that just brings your mood right back down, like a trigger. There's no avoiding it. It makes your life feel bleak. And when you feel hopeless, your dreams and aspirations seem so ridiculous and unrealistic. Your mind and heart are constantly at war with each other. Your heart tells you that your dreams are worth pursuing but your mind tells you not to waste your time. Then you're not really sure what to do because your torn right down the middle. There are many times in which I felt hopeless about my future.  All I wanted to do was give up and throw it all away. Although, deep down, I've always been a huge dreamer; my mind and heart have always been in the clouds. As a result, there was something inside of me giving me that tiny bit of hope that I needed to keep going. Without it, I might have not been able to do have the things I have accomplished or been given the many amazing opportunities that I've had. I have always felt like I'm inadequate, but I'm slowly starting to get over that by keeping my eyes, mind, and heart on God and those dreams of mine that I WILL turn into my reality with His help. It's just going to take time, which is perfectly okay. It's all in His timing, not mine.

Well, I think that's all I have to say about these two emotions. One of the people in one of my classes last semester asked me when I was going to post again because she really liked what I had to say. I really appreciated that comment, so I'm sorry this is so late but here you go! I would promise that I'll have another one up soon, but we all know I won't keep it. I would just be lying to you, just like I lie to my journal every time I write an entry months, even years, apart. But, I won't make you guys wait years, so I will try my best to write and post my next topic in this series as soon as I can and/or have the time.

Also, I've decided to use Psalm 13 as the "main" verse for this series. It just really stood out to me when I was reading my bible and doing some research. I understand that the people in which David is speaking of are the people who want to kill him but for the purpose of this series, I'll be referring to my "enemy" in this scripture as my depression.

Thanks for reading! Ciao!

Are you surrounded by thick clouds of darkness? Jesus wants to blast through with the rays of his Holy light, He will destroy the darkness that surrounds you, You will be embraced by his strong arms of love. Have a great day.

My heart goes out to the man I talked to. He said he would never enter a church again for the rest of his life because of the attitudes of the people inside the church. I asked him what happened? He had no place to stay for days he was on the street and decided maybe he could get some help by going to church. As he entered the church no one spoke to him, piercing, staring looks as people seem to be in shock at the number of tattoos and a smell coming from him. When will we ever stop playing the church game? When will we be able to throw away the denominational rule book? And when will we finally understand we need to start loving people. Not enough to raise our hands, not enough to shout and sing, we are called to be witnesses for Jesus and we don't do that for you well. Yes, my heart goes out to all the people who have been hurt, judged and in many ways crucified by Christians.

We are living in a hateful confused world I'm convinced with all my heart the answer to all this is Jesus. Over the course of more than 35 years of ministry, I have seen people transformed by the power of Christ love. But yet we are so comfortable in our denominational boxes week after week we preach to the choir that never seems to change we make little or no impact at all we don't want to get involved seems to be our favorite phrase our own comfort and reasoning determines our action. Somehow we are convinced everything is fine. A large church may think the solution is to plant sister churches but why would we plant a sister church within 5 min. of six other churches that have been there for decades. Do we think that will be the solution? But yet we cannot hear the cries of the hearts that break day after day, we don't want to talk to anybody who is perhaps sketchy looking or different. What will it take to awake a sleeping church? What will it take to bust out of our denominational thinking and present Jesus to the world as the Bible clearly lays out for us? There is no better time in our history than now. Someone who you will be in contact with his longing to hear about Jesus, do not let your attitudes or your personalities blow it. Christianity is not a club you join it's a lifestyle.

For all of you who were going through a very difficult time this is for you. Isaiah 50:10 reads, “who among you fears the Lord and obeys the word of his servant? Let the one who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord”. You have dedicated yourself to the Lord, you love him, you worship him and you obey his his word, but you are in a very dark place right now it's hard to see any kind of a light shining through the darkness, but the Lord is saying to you right now trust in the name of the Lord and rely on the Lord. Some of you are facing issues with cancer, some of you are facing MS and other crippling diseases and it seems like there is no light shining on this problem. The Lord is saying trust me, trust me, I am in control, I will not leave you, I will not forget about you I love you with a love that is indescribable. You may say why doesn't God heal me? I can't answer that. I have seen people healed, I have had miracles performed in my life I should have been dead long time ago. But it is God who chooses what happens. In those times of darkness our focus must be on him and him alone. And yes in those times of darkness there is joy to be found in trusting a loving God.

Something to think about. Have Christians become lazy? I am reminded of the days when people would carry their Bibles to church with such pride and honor. Now everything is provided on a PowerPoint software. Which makes it impossible for you to cross check another Scripture that the Lord may lead on your heart. Remembering the days of the hymn book where you physically had to pick it up and searched a number for the song. Yes the book contained a strange thing that seems to be missing in today's worship leading that is called notes. I discovered as a young boy that 4 lines of notes were called Harmony again something missing from today's worship. Somehow we think this will make it easy for people to enter the church but it does not. We have come up with all kinds of methods from free coffee to free food and still even a large church can't find 10 people to come out for a evening Sunday service, so we cancel evening services all together. It used to be good Holy Ghost preaching that would bring in people and later fill the altars. Brother or sister would poorly bang out something on the keyboards but still there was such a thing called the anointing. But somehow something has happened that does not make a happy future. I am the most techie, greeking, gadget loving person you can find, but something has to change in the church. There has to be a baptism of love for God's word and for his people, inner circles must be destroyed and yes they do exist in every church, worship leaders must have a heart changing experience with the Holy Spirit before they lead people into worship. I'm not saying we need to go back to the old days, but we have to learn from those days and figure out what wrong lane we have gone down.

I fear we have become very casual with our approach to church. I had noticed the majority of people don't carry Bibles to church anymore. Now I know they may have a Bible app on their phone and that's okay the word of God still is the word of God whether it's digital or hard copy. But the question I have is this where or when did we make that radical turn into our nonchalant casual approach to church? I myself have not worn a tie in years in some circles I realize that is not accepted. But more importantly is our approach and our attitude to church. In Third World countries you walk into church and the altar is filled with people hours before the service even starts crying out to the Lord and asking his blessings and his miracles to come for that service. On the other hand we walk in church and the chatter is so loud, there is canned music playing in the background, the worship group is trying to get together. Have we lost the sense of holiness and awesomeness here in the United States? Is the world coming to us or are we drawing closer to the standards of the world? I remember growing up walking into church you could sense Majesty and glandular. Now in so many churches you're bombarded by an array of lights that put on a pretty good light show and a sound system par excellence. In most cases a pulpit does not exist any more. The question I have is where have we gone and where are we going?

After having a mental and physical meltdown last Thursday shortly after that I lost everything in my computer, 10 years of work. Over 1000 video clips, pictures, interviews, CD artwork, all the pictures from my books that have been published and much more. Now you would say that you have it backed up? Yes I did just the music. But it would take multiple external hard drives to have backed up everything which I cannot afford. The following day on Friday my tablet received a virus destroying everything including the tablet itself. At this point I felt the lowest I have ever felt ready to quit and throw in the towel. So on Saturday after being shut down by a few people about the Jamaica project I headed off to the mall for my daughter's eye examination. While I was at the food court waiting at a table and for the family as they went to other stores, the enemy came to me strong. Out of nowhere this beautiful African American lady who looked just like Ethel Waters ( now I grew up listening to Ethel's music. She was the first African American to really hit it big on Broadway back in the the 20s and 30s. But in 1955 she rededicated her life to the Lord at a Billy Graham crusade and from then on sang only gospel songs). When I saw her I immediately reached out to her and said “You look exactly like Ethel Waters.” She said “You are the second person who has said that to me. I am a pastor from Toronto.” She knew my friend Bishop Williams in Jamaica. I said to her where are you from originally she replied “I'm from Jamaica”! I was totally blown away. She then said “ I need to pray for you.” In the middle of the food court she started to pray like she was in her church on Sunday morning. On the other table were 10 teenage girls observing what was going on. I don't know what happened but I started to sing - his eye is on the sparrow- and the dear sister joined in she stopped and I finished the whole song everybody in the food court heard, when I was done the table of teenage girls applauded and cheered. About 15 min. more of preaching from the sister her last words were “don't give Satan the victory, don't give up”!