Well, I have arrived at my England home. Thirty-plus hours after flying out of Dayton, I was reunited with Daniel, Karlie, Micaiah and Ava, and I met Naomi, my newest niece, for the first time last night. It feels good to be home.

In my quick post from Amsterdam yesterday, I mentioned that I met a friend of a friend during my twelve-hour layover. Her name is Eva Ellingsworth. She’s a fellow singer/songwriter, and a darn good one at that. She took me to one of her favorite cafés in the city centre, where we chatted about music and church planting. I got out my guitar and we each shared one of our own songs with the other.

Afterwords, we met up with a couple of her friends, and we all had lunch together at Eva’s apartment. (Do they call it a “flat” in Amsterdam?) They all made me feel immediately at home, which is probably why I quickly fell in love with Amsterdam. It’s always the people that make a city great. (You hear that, Paris?)

I’m planning to return to Amsterdam for a couple of days at the end of January, which I am very much looking forward to. But for now, I am more than satisfied watching cartoons with my beautiful nieces. So if you’ll excuse me, Dora the Explorer is about to embark on another adventure.

Cheers.

It’s been seven months since I last flew. Which was apparently enough time for me to remember just how much I hate flying. Well, I should say, I have a love/hate relationship with flying. I don’t mind the actual flying so much, it’s really just everything up to and including the security check point.

Apparently these days you can’t walk up to a check-in counter and have a friendly lady check you in. You have to stand at a kiosk, press a computer screen, and wait for an unfriendly lady to come scold you for not doing her job correctly.

Then after you pay fifty dollars to get your luggage on the same flight, you get to watch it get tossed upside-down onto a conveyor belt. At this point, it’s usually best to take a good mental picture of your luggage, because it is the last time you will see it in its current condition.

Today I was startled and disappointed to discover that all airlines have discontinued their policy of giving you a simple envelope in which to hold your boarding pass. Seriously? You’re trying to save your airline money by withholding from your passengers a simple folded piece of paper? Maybe if you spent less money on self check-in kiosks, you’d have more money for things like paper, or perhaps customer relations training for your employees.

Well, that’s enough complaining for now. It’s time to board my first flight. I’ll complain more when I get to Detroit.

Cheers.

The longer I live, the more I can attest to this truth: “In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9)

When I moved to Dayton, Ohio, fifteen months ago, I came with a pretty open mind as to where my life could go, but I still had a few ideas. I was working with a different church than the one I am with today, and I thought I would be there for at least a year. But shortly after the commencement of the year 2009, the tectonic plates of my life began to shift.

Through a random encounter at a coffee shop I met Jeremy Mix, who is now my manager, main booking agent, record producer, and one of my best friends. Suddenly, a new stream of musical opportunities began flowing my way, and in such a manner that only God could be given the credit.

At the same time, however, things at the church which I had moved to Dayton to work with began to go south. The church leadership was having a difficult time reconciling in their own minds my service to Christ and my desire for a music career. I was essentially given the choice to stay with the church and endure their disapproval or go find another church.

So I found another church. Or, I should say, God placed me in another church. I’ve been serving as the chief musician (worship leader) at Mercy Hill Church since May 2009. It’s a new church plant, and I’m the only single guy among a dozen young couples with toddlers, but they love the Gospel and are passionate about planting new churches. I could never thank God enough for placing me among brothers and sisters who have encouraged me in my musical endeavors, and, what is more, who have spurred me on to a deeper appreciation for what Christ has done and continues to do for me.

So by the middle of 2009, my world had moved into a completely unforeseen realm in which everyone around me were people I hadn’t known six months earlier. And it was all because of a random encounter at a coffee shop.

And now I’m staring at a messy bedroom, wondering how I’m going to compress my life into a suitcase. In forty-eight hours I will be somewhere between Detroit and Amsterdam, on my way to three months abroad – part of which I will spend with family, part of it on a mission trip, and most of it on a solo tour across Europe. I feel like I’m lying when I say that, but it’s true. I’m going on a European tour.

And I don’t write all of this to brag, except to brag about Jesus. These events are clearly not the result of my own efforts. No one is better at wasting time than me. And I’m a pretty proficient sinner, too. Without the grace of God, my life would be in ruins. I am absolutely certain of that. The only explanation I have for all of this is Jesus.

I think we Christ-followers tend to try to over-analyze the will of God. I know I do. Our mindset is that if we’re not exactly where God wants us to be, if we’re not doing exactly what He wants us to do, then we’re missing out on our only chance to live the life God made us to live. So we had better get it right, or God is going to be really mad.

But the longer I live, the more sure I am that God knows exactly what He’s doing, and we humans have no clue about anything. My favorite songwriter, Paul Simon, said it this way:

God only knows
God makes His plan
The information is unavailable to the mortal man.

I don’t believe it’s God’s desire for us to know what He’s up to. Faith doesn’t ask questions. Faith simply believes. And I believe God’s desire for all of us is that at the end of our lives we are able to look back and see exactly how precise His timing and how intricate His orchestration really was, and how very little we had to do with any of it.

So if you’re wondering what God’s purpose for your life is, I will tell you…

God’s purpose for your life is to get more glory for Himself.

And that’s the way God works.

Cheers.