Freeing My Mind

Let’s start at the beginning. My life, up to this point, has seemed to be a continuous journey to discover both my Creator and the reason for my creation. While I discovered my Creator eight years ago, or rather He discovered me, those eight years have found me trying to understand my purpose on this earth in relation to the way I view both the world, myself and God. For some this statement might seem a little strange. Most of my ministry life has been spent helping others to understand their purpose.  So it would just make sense that I already understand mine. The truth is that for all over us, our purpose and the realization of that purpose isn’t really a one time thing. It’s a journey that, if we walk it, takes us through various stages of enlightenment and maturity. For me, it seems that over the past two years my journey has picked up the pace quite a bit and has also taken more than a few unexpected turns.

In my previous blog I described my different tastes in music over my lifetime and how they continually evolve. In the same way, my understanding of my life’s purpose has seemed to take the same course. The difference is that I am able to look back over my walk with God and pinpoint exact moments where my focus and understanding shifted and that shift led me to a better understanding of where I was being led. Somewhat like a connect-the-dots puzzle. My journey hasn’t been plotted with random pit stops, but rather intended destinations that cannot be skipped.

I always encourage those I am mentoring to pinpoint moments in their life where they said to themselves, “I could do this for the rest of my life” and then find a way to do that for the rest of their life. While I have somewhat accomplished many things in my short time walking my journey, I have never actually walked in the true place of my passion. I have encountered moments of where my heart connects with something deeper than excitement or happiness, but there has not been a sustained season of actually both being and functioning as I was created to. I believe I am about to finally step into the place where that happens.

This past August (2009), something happened to me overnight. I am usually able to explain these moments with some semblance of insight, but to this day this one eludes me. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but I went to bed one man and I woke up another. When I arrived to my home in Moravian Falls, NC from the trip that I had been on, both my mind and my heart began to swim with new vision and previously unimagined possibilities. The journey that I had been on for a year and a half prior seemed to be coming to a head and finally making sense. Why had God branded me with this message of love? What was I supposed to do with it? Why did everywhere I look, I saw needed change without the wherewithal to do anything about it? Why did I find myself so frustrated with what I was doing? I felt out of place in ministry. I felt disconnected with my peers in ministry and even with the people that I was ministering to. Overnight, it made sense. If I was going to be used to create change, I had to make radical change myself. A message becomes a reformation when that message becomes reality in the culture around us. If was I going to be an agent for reformation, I had to begin to reform. If I was going to reform, I needed to go the place where that reformation could take place. I knew that we would have to move. I also knew that I would have to change both the structure and focus of Awake as a ministry. The problem was, it was all still theory. I didn’t know where to go or what to do. Thus, the greatest place of frustration I have ever been in began. Have you ever felt that you were on the brink of lifechanging breakthrough, yet you couldn’t see the means for it? That was until the first week of December.

Let’s back up a bit. In 2006 I was on my way to Santa Rosa, California.  I had rented a car at the San Francisco airport and was making the hour drive to Santa Rosa. As I crossed the Golden Gate bridge I heard the voice of God deep in my spirit. He said to me, “If you want to change a culture, go to the cultural center. If you want to see grace run rampant, go the place that needs grace the most.” When Lori and I left Canada in 2007, the Lord reminded of His word to me concerning San Francisco. I asked the Lord if we should go there, in fact we almost did. Although we knew North Carolina was our place for that time. This past December I was in San Diego speaking at a couple of churches and visiting our friends Jerame and Miranda Nelson. We were at lunch one day and I was talking to them about our changes desires and our frustration with where God was calling us to implement this new vision. Jerame reminded me of the word God gave me concerning San Francisco, immediately and without warning, I looked at my wife…. “We’re moving to San Francisco aren’t we?” She smiled and said, “I think so.” That was it. Which brings me to today.

We’re moving to San Francisco. There I said it. Over the past two month, we have been praying, thinking and somewhat planning. I have never felt so excited and so alive in my life. One of the most important aspects of discovering your purpose is discovering the people that you are called to. Until that point, you will never understand and walk in the fullness of that calling. I know this is my place. God tried to launch this message of love once there and I believe there is a people who are ready to fulfill that call in that city. This is where some of you come into play. The following are two videos that I made to send out to a few of our close friends and family. I am posting these for everyone now. The most important part of our initial strategy involves the building of a team to come with us. This call isn’t just for anyone and we don’t expect just anyone to drop their lives and move to San Francisco, but it is for some. We cannot do this without an initial core group of people to say, “I not only believe in your heart and vision, it is my heart and vision.” It’s not about following a ministry to a place to help them, it’s about following YOUR destiny. It’s important that we’re surrounded with people that have various gifts and talents. It’s going to take all of us. You will know if it’s you. God’s faithful like that.

I’m also going to include a video clip that I found two weeks ago. It comes from a night that I was speaking in Florida in 2008. You never know what God is showing you.

At the end of this month we are going to San Francisco for a few days to do a little more specific planning and to meet with some local leaders. After that trip, we will know more specifics. I’ll be blogging the whole time, so look forward to it. If you want to talk more with me, hit me up on Facebook.

It’s going to be an amazing ride and I can’t wait to ride it with some of you. Like one of my favorite artists, Kristene Mueller said, “Keep hoping St. Francis, you’ll be a free man yet. You’ll see the sun shine again over your city streets.”

So, I’m starting a blog. I’ve gone through some drastic changes in my life as of late. Most of you reading this will know that I’m, for lack of better words, a speaker/minister. I have been for about 5 years now. I’d have to say that I’m pretty good at. In fact, I know I’m good at it. Although, over the past while (vagueness intended), I have grown increasingly frustrated with my where we are as a ministry. You see, my desire isn’t the same as many of my counterparts. I don’t want just a big ministry that does what every other ministry has done, but my passion is that which has never been. Something different. Therefore, frustration is a part of my life. Although, that frustration also is what keeps me moving forward.

Now, back to the drastic change. So, about 3 weeks ago I was in Alberta, Canada. Over a period of about 24 hours I began to feel a change inside me. I can’t really explain it. In the past, during drastic changes in my life, I was able to explain just exactly what happened. This wasn’t like that. I still can’t tell you exactly what happened, but something did. One night, during this process, I was watching the UFC on my computer just before bed. If you don’t know what the UFC is, it’s a mixed martial arts organization that has grown in popularity 10 times over in the past few years. Anyway, when I was about 15 years old I started watching the UFC. At this time there were a few fighters who were completely dominate. They never lost and seemingly couldn’t lose. Many of these fighters are back fighting now. During this one particular fight a fighter by the name of BJ Penn was being discussed by the commentators. BJ was one of these dominate fighters during the early days of the UFC. In fact, they nicknamed him, “The Prodigy”. He was good, really good and the thiing about BJ Penn was that he didn’t really train. He didn’t have to, hence the name “Prodigy”. Anyway, during this particular fight, Joe Rogan commented that BJ was having to train now. The fighters around him had caught up to his natural talent and he found himself having to put in hard work in order to keep up with the growing talent within MMA as a sport. As soon as I heard this comment, I also heard the voice of the Lord. He simply said, “Craig, that’s you.” Those words hit me hard. I knew it was true.  You see, I’m good at what I do. I’m talented. I’m gifted. Many people would even say that it isn’t “fair’. Although, what is “fair”? But, I have never had to put effort into it. What God was saying is, “If you add hard work and effort to your natural abilities, nothing could stop you.”

The next morning I woke up different. Changed. Completely. I felt as if I had been born again, again. Certainly, drastic change. I came home more focused than ever. It’s not that I just decided to change. It was as if God’s voice change me. Just His words, they created something new within me. I imagine our whole team is thankful. I have had more fun in the past few weeks brainstorming, creating and changing with our whole Awake “family”. I’ve never had so much vision and belief in what is in my heart. I think we’ve got more projects in our heart that we can even keep up with. The good thing is that, now, we are trying to keep up with them.  I’ve said all of that to say, here’s my blog. A part of that change. I’ve committed myself to writing more. I’ve got more formal writing projects in the works, but I want to use this as an avenue to express my day to day  thought process. At times it should be somewhat insightful and at other times it might simply be random thoughts and goings-on within my life.  Seriously, thanks for taking the time to read. Feel free to comment. much love