When I was a kid, I had a recurring dream where I was He-Man and Skeletor was going to boil my parents (who were in the form of sheep) in a vat of boiling oil, and I had to save them… I never got there before waking up.

A few years ago, I had a vivid dream where I was being chased through a warehouse by a were-shark (yeah, half man half shark… Kind of like a mermaid, only backwards… And a shark) and I was running for my life because, in true were-animal fashion, if it bit me, I’d become one too. I’m pretty sure I woke up right after punching it in the face. That’s what you’re supposed to do to sharks when they attack right?

Anyway, back to the matter at hand.

In last night’s dream, there was a dragon. Not a big nasty, Harry Potter type dragon, but instead it was a slightly cartoonish (yet still ferocious) dragon. Regardless, in my typical dream fashion, it was trying to kill me. It was probably 9 or 10 feet tall, because it hid behind a house at one point, and while I wasn’t fighting it head on, I wasn’t running from it like that were-shark. Again, odd for one of my dreams. I’m typically doing one or the other.

Then, out of nowhere, friends started showing up. People from my life, people on TV (like Mike Holmes from Holmes on Homes… Thank God, too, because that guy is huge!), and strangers alike showed up to help me. They fought the dragon inside and outside of the house where we were, but I kept in my holding pattern. Not running away from the house, but not fighting the dragon, either.

Then the dragon flew from the back of the house to the front, where I was, and roared, but was distracted by a parade coming down the street. It flew to a car in the parade and got ready to attack when Mike Holmes and a few other guys chased after it and defeated it. I ran there quickly, gave high fives all around, and looked down at the small, bloody, pathetic, dying dragon lying on the asphalt, and tore off one of the spines from it’s back (it kind of looked like a Stegosaurus’ back) to remember that day by, as did many of the others.

I heard emergency sirens coming closer. I assumed they were police, but I never saw the cars… I woke up.

As I lay awake in bed, going back over the events in the dream, I couldn’t help but think that this particular dream held some significance, because it wasn’t like my usual dreams. And as I was getting ready for the day, it hit me. The dragon was sin.

In my book, In Case of Armageddon, Break Glass, I talk about “The Beast” in the Book of Revelation representing sin. So, it would make sense that the beast in my dream would represent sin as well. Add to that the fact that in Revelation, Satan is represented by a dragon, and my interpretation of my dream makes a lot of sense:

I can’t run from nor fight the sin in my life. Not alone, anyway. I need to surround myself with people capable of helping me defeat it – accountability partners, if you will. Yes, I have a life group whom I’m incredibly grateful for, and they were many of the people helping me fight the dragon in my dream.

But aside from Mike Holmes, I never saw the faces of the people who actually defeated the dragon. All I know is that they were all men. I’m in need of an accountability group solely dedicated to being 100% open, honest, and dedicated to helping each other live the way Christ lived, and I’m going to seek that out as soon as possible. (Though, I doubt Mike Holmes will be a part of it, I don’t think he lives anywhere around here…)

Who around you can you bring in close to help defeat your dragons, and likewise help defeat theirs? Can you find the time to meet with a group of 5-6 people, once a week, and share everything? I’m talking everything. Even the deepest, darkest things you swore to yourself you’d never tell anyone.

When you build that group, you’ll find that together, you can conquer sin and live the Jesus way more easily than you can alone. It’s time to build that group.

It wasn’t the big publisher book deal I was thinking it would be, but then again, “God works in mysterious ways,” right?

I didn’t want to be a millionaire, or even “rich.” In fact, I thought my goals after publishing the book were very God focused: I didn’t want to keep more of my income than my family needed. I was going to take everything beyond that and give it away to church, to family members who needed it, and to friends of mine who are missionaries, etc.

But instead, I got nothing. No mounds of book sales; no word from God about what to do next, or where to go from here; no pull to write another book right away; no money falling into my lap that I could use to support my family, let alone give to others. Nothing. In fact, I had gotten so used to hearing God speaking and inspiring me almost daily while I was writing the book, the silence in my head was deafening. Why wasn’t he speaking? Why wasn’t he acting? And after a few weeks of silence from God, I even started to ask “Why did he forsake me?”

I was praying on the day before New Year’s Eve (New Year’s Adam, if you will) and I got my answer:

“Quit assuming you know what I want for you.”

You know those scenes in movies where the main character is on the phone with the bad guy, and the bad guy says something that blows your mind, then the music stops, the good guy’s jaw hits the floor, and people in the movie theater gasp because it was so earth shattering? That’s what happened to me: Earth. Shattered.

After I picked my jaw up from the floor, scenes from the previous three weeks replayed in my head. Time and time again, I saw that God was showing me what he wanted me to do, and it was always the same thing: write.

But I was chasing what I really wanted, even though I didn’t realize it: the money. I wanted to be a big name author that made a ton of money, regardless of the fact that I thought I wanted to give it away. I was putting those desires for myself onto God. I was assuming he wanted the book I wrote to be a best seller in the same way I did, and that he would just make it happen.

But that’s not what God wanted… he wanted me to put in the time to write articles for blogs and magazines to spread his message and glorify his name. I just wanted to sit back, let him do all the work, and get paid for it. After all, I spent a year and a half to write that book for him, right? Silly me for thinking my work was finished…

Even as I write this article, I’m still struggling with this; I won’t pretend that separating my wants from God’s wants has been easy. But the more I do it, the louder God’s voice in my life becomes.

Are you really listening to and taking action on what God wants from you? Or have you been putting your desires in the place of God’s desires in your life?

Pray about it, really pray, and God will show you what you’ve been missing for so long. Listen to his reply to you, and don’t put your own desires onto him.

What do you feel that God wants from you?

Surprisingly, 3 days later, I got an email back saying that they’d love to have me mail them my book, and they’d forward it on to Lee! Now, not only did I think that was the best answer I could have gotten (I knew they wouldn’t just send me a link…) but it also piqued my interest in the possibility of having someone at Zondervan read my book. Getting noticed by, and possibly published by Zondervan would be awesome!

But God had other plans. Here it is, almost 18 months later, and my book is finally done, finally on the Amazon shelves, and I seemed to have forgotten that I have a mailing address that I can send a book to that will get to Lee (I hope, it could be a cookie cutter response to unknown authors soliciting book reviews from him… But I’m going to be optimistic and say it’s not).

I just sent another message to his team to verify that the address is still the same – to make sure they didn’t switch PO Boxes, and the person whose name I was sending it to didn’t leave the organization. I don’t forsee being told no, as I already have an address. I just hope they get back with me soon, so I can get it in the mail.

I think in order for this to do anything but waste $5 of my money for the book & shipping, I am going to need a lot of prayer that the right person gets ahold of it, reads it, and likes it. Whether it’s Lee, one of his staff, or someone at Zondervan, it doesn’t matter – as long as it’s the person God has in mind.

So, would you pray for this for me? I think that ICoA could do a lot of good if it was picked up by a publisher and marketed properly, and while I’m making strides to “build a platform” and whatnot, it could be done much faster by an established name in the industry.

I’ll keep you all informed.

Built into the typical Internet Marketer is a pretty hefty amount of ADD. You’re constantly being inundated with new products, new schemes, the latest and greatest “make a billion dollars in seconds” deal of the century… Then add to that you’re running your own business, and when you have a successful product, you want to do whatever you can to replicate that success.

So you create products, try other methods of driving people to your websites, you get into social networking, try your best not to spend time in Facebook Apps, and on and on. With all that hammering away at you every day, you can easily lose focus. I have in the past, and so have most of the people I know who don’t have a staff to handle things for them.

What I came to realize today, after researching what the most effective and profitable people in various online niches are doing, is that the lack of focus is what keeps you down. Now, I’ve always considered myself focused. I work more than 40 hours a week on my business, (often more than 60 or 80) and I thought that meant that I was a focused entrepreneur. But what I did during those hours was the problem. A lot of the time, I was spinning my wheels.

It’s time to focus, and focus on my passion.

Before now, I was focused on making money – lots of it. But that’s not my passion. I have a “meh” relationship with money, meaning it’s not something I feel is overly important. It’s nice to have, but as long as I have enough to live how I want to live and also tithe, I’m okay with that. I don’t need to be a millionaire.

My passion, however, is my faith. I want to do whatever God is leading me to do, and in a big way (like writing In Case of Armageddon, Break Glass), but in order to do that, I have to FOCUS on it. So I am.

No more social bookmarking, no more Internet Marketing traffic tricks, just good old focus, faith, and the real me. That’s what this blog is going to be about. If only one person reads it and gets something out of it, then I’ve still done my job.

It’s time to stop being polite, and start getting real.

First, Robertson and Jerry Falwell blame 9/11 on the ACLU and other “liberal” groups (feminists, homosexuals, etc) on national TV just a few days after it happened.

Then, Robertson blamed the devastation that Hurricane Katrina wrought on abortion.

Now, only a day after a massive earthquake hit the nation of Haiti, killing tens of thousands – possibly as many as 100,000 people, Robertson said this:

[Something] happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it.

[The Haitians] were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever, and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.’ True story. And so, the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’ You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other.

So, Pat, I want you to tell me what Jesus died for. Who did Jesus die for?

What about when he protected the adulterous woman, and put all of her accusers to shame. Or when he invited Judas to his last supper, knowing that Judas would betray him. Or when he did pretty much anything else in the Bible. How do you fit that into your fundamentalist “Christianity?”

I say you’re wrong, Pat. The Haitians aren’t being punished for something their ancestors did hundreds of years ago. No, they experienced an unfortunate side effect of humanity living in the world, instead of Eden. Bad things happen.

I’m not downplaying the significance of the earthquake here. Possibly 100,000 people died because of it. That’s just too much to even think about. My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone in Haiti, as well as anyone around the world with friends or relatives there.

But throwing around damning accusations of deals with the devil isn’t showing Jesus’ love, Pat, as a Christian leader, you should know that. How about instead, you pledge some of that fortune of yours to any one of the Haitian relief charities and funds? That would be MUCH more productive, and MUCH more loving than writing the tragedy off as getting what they deserve.

Want to know how you can help? CNN has a great list of charities here.

Or, if you’d rather be there in person, consider volunteering at one of those charities, or becoming a missionary to Haiti. The people there need to hear the Word of God now as much as before.

Christian Fail.

I made a pretty long comment (most of my comments are typically short and to the point, but I couldn’t resist) but I doubt it’ll make it out of moderation, so I’m posting my reply to that post here. I don’t want such beauty to be wasted

——————

On January 10, 2010 at 10:14 pm, I wrote:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Seriously? This is all you have to do with your time?

Yes, you’ve figured them out! Google is out to single-handedly destroy Christianity by sending us subliminal messages! GET OUT YOUR TIN HATS, GARLIC CROSSES COVERED IN HOLY WATER, SILVER BULLETS AND PRAY YOU GET RAPTURED, BECAUSE IT’S HITTING THE FAN!
/sarcasm

Google has better things to do with its time than force it’s auto-suggest tool to display anti-christian things when you type “Christianity is.” I’m a Christian, and I’ve never typed in “Christianity is” into Google, or any search engine, for that matter… Whew, and that’s a relief, because if I did search for that before seeing your post, I’d have surely believed it, because Google told me so!

Think about what you’re saying here. You’re saying that Google’s search assistant tool is so incredibly helpful that a Christian who is searching for “Christianity is good” or “Christianity is truth” is going to see those suggestions and stop believing?

Or, are you worried that someone who doesn’t know Jesus is going to do the same? I’ve got something to tell you – they’re already getting that from elsewhere. If they’re searching the ‘net for it, they’re already looking for something. Whether it be “Christianity is” … truth, a lie, evil, stupid, awesome, a flying spaghetti monster, or whatever, they’re not going to get sidetracked for long because of a Google suggestion.

You’re blowing this out of proportion, just like oh so many “journalists” and “bloggers” do to so many other things in our society.

——————

I’m especially fond of when the post author says “Google’s Anti-Christian Cowards Are Shaking With Fear Of Islamist Terrorists!”

What does he or she have to say about the TSA, then? I could probably sift through the posts there and find out, but I’m too tired for an all-night laughing fest.

This sort of thing is why Christianity gets blasted by people, gets ignored by people, and gets looked down upon by people. It’s sad, really, what does this have to do with anything? Is it interfering with you (or anyone for that matter) from believing that Jesus died for your sins? I doubt it. But if it does, then I’m guessing you had doubts long before Google got involved. (Or you have an unhealthy relationship with Google that you should get checked out…)

When will Christians stop focusing on what others are doing and instead focus on actually FOLLOWING Jesus?

I think it’s time for us to do just that.

What do you think?