The Texas Conclusion

4/16/09

Not just another group:

Not going to lie, today was a beast. We rolled up to the work sight at 8:35am and we rolled out at 8:20pm. The group at the other sight worked until 6pm. They rocked it out. They dominated their project. Good work guys!

Me and four other freaks (KB, Katy, Mel, Danielle,) stayed at Steve’s house until we finished sheet rocking the entire house. It was great. Steve is one incredible man. He really taught me what a truly selfless, humble person is like. Steve was so real, so thankful, and extremely laid back. Seriously, he had middle school boys and high school girls building on his house and it didn’t faze him!

Before we left, Steve wanted to make sure that he got our e-mail address so that we could stay in touch. Steve and I hugged four times within the last ten minutes that I was there. It was great! As he walked the five crazies, who spent their spring break rebuilding his house, to the van he continued to thank us. As I gave him my last hug he teared up and couldn’t finish saying thank you for the last time. That right there tells me one thing; we were not just another group who came to Bridge City Texas. We impacted a life for real. Not just a smile and a helping hand but hopefully a spiritually altering, eternally lasting impact. I know that I can close this day out in confidence that this group from UCF reflected Christ to the fullest of their abilities and Steve, John, Pastor Bobby, and the others saw what it looked like to be a follower of Christ. Don’t get me wrong, we still had our slip ups, and I know that I didn’t do perfect dry wall work, but I do know that the people we served saw an incredible reflection of Christ.

“Dear Lord I thank you for using us this week. Thank you for including us in your tool box and allowing us to partake in your plan. You are good. Thank you for Steve and his life. Lord I pray that he draws closer to you than he has ever been before. Allow him to feel you love, grace, mercy, joy, and peace. I pray that you bring healing to John. He is sick Lord. You know what his body needs and I pray that you place your healing hand upon him. I pray for the work that we completed. Keep those walls up and allow them to create an intimate, comfortable setting for whatever community may take place between them. You are truly awesome God! Thank you for teaching me and using me. Amen.”

Texas Mission Trip Day One

The Texas Mission Trip: 4/13/09

Devon, Jerad, Sam, Ryan, Robert, Mike, Erik Anderson & Kari, Don Z., Nate, KB, Paige, Katy, Melissa, Danielle, Stephanie, Megan Foster…….and B. Todd.

Today was the first day on the work sight. It was a pretty typical day one. We rolled in to a church, stood around in a room for a while, waited for instruction, and then we got the move on. Me, KB, Devon, Robert, Jerad, Mel, and Danielle were sent to an individual house and the rest of the group stayed at the church.

The house: owned by a man named John. John is in a wheel chair. John’s house was flooded with 4 ½ feet of water from Hurricane Ike. John’s brother Steve is awesome. Steve is staying with John and is helping to get his house back to a livable state again. Steve has this glow about him. Even though his house was mangled, he really didn’t care, he just takes life as it comes. I’m thankful to have met Steve.

So here is what stumped me today. Steve was telling me the story about how his house was flooded, and how insurance covered nothing, and then he began to talk about all the past groups that had come to help. He said a 7^th day Advent group came, a Korean church, A Buddhist community, a Baptist group from Arkansas….and so on. And hearing that just crushed me. This made me question some things. Who are we? What are we doing? What do we represent? Are we just another church group that goes down in the books of Nehemiah’s vision?

The Challenge of the Day: As a group we sat down after dinner and debriefed the day. We went around and shared our rocks and Rubies. After that I closed the night with the challenge of the day. I told everyone what Steve told me about all the other groups that came before us. The challenge is this. The challenge is to look deep down inside of ourselves and figure out what is driving us on this trip. Are we here to just be “another” group that was “nice” and came to serve? If we are truly focused on reflecting Christ and His love then there is no way we can just slip through the cracks and just be another group. If we are reflecting Christ to the best of our ability then I truly believe that the people who cross our path on this trip will never forget us and more importantly, what we are all about…..J.C. They will never forget the authenticity of our faith. The challenge this week (and every other day of our life) is to reflect Christ to the fullest extent.

Birds and the Bees

Birds and the Bees: 4/1/09

I went to Charlotte One last night and they are in the middle of a relationship series. The talk was an absolute home run. We broke down the difference between virginity and purity. Never in my life had I separated these two terms before but they are sooooooooo different. Virginity ends at marriage. It’s the act of sex. It’s just about me and my physical state. Virginity is just a classification. Purity is a continuous pursuit. It’s for life. It is everything about you. It continues through marriage. Purity is allowing God to lead you.

“God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they WILL see God.” (Jesus) Ma. 5:8

Your sexual activity is such a small piece of your over all pursuit of purity. Those who are truly saved shall see God. These are the pure in heart. Their lives have been transformed by the grace of God. They are not yet sinless but their position before God has been changed. They have the new birth, saving faith, and holiness. The process of sanctification is a continual transformation of them to the image of Christ.

“Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.”

James 5:16

When you want to be healed, you need to name the places that are broken. You need to be honest, transparent, and open. James recommends telling someone about your struggles. And so do I. I carried around a lot of pain and hurt throughout different times in my life and it wasn’t until I told somebody about all my junk that I carried that I felt relieved and burden less. At the least be honest with God. He knows you. You can’t hide your junk from Him. Just get it all out there on the table with Him. Authenticity, that’s what He wants. Psalm 139 is a good prayer to pray.

Birds & Bees continued with the GF.

Oh my what a great sermon to sit through with a girl who I’ve been dating for 5 days. God, way to just throw the tough conversations right in our face! Thanks though, I appreciate it. Honestly, there has been no conversation too tough for Em and I. We are both very up front and ridiculously transparent, it’s great! It is so obvious that Em is in such an intense pursuit of Christ that it makes no conversation hard because really, we both have a take it or leave it philosophy. “This is who I am, this is how Christ calls us to live, if you don’t like it then that is just too bad.”

Windy Gap

March 18, 2009

Windy Gap:

It seems it is always the trips that I get least excited about are the ones that change my life forever….funny how that works.

Today I arrived at the Young Life Windy Gap camp. I’m up here for the UCF first annual staff retreat. This place is absolutely mind blowing; Mountains, lake, water sides, diving boards, zip lines, cabins, big fire places, sand volleyball, no cell phone service, 70 degree weather, oh and did I forget to mention……….awesome people. David, Mendy, Keri Burns, Paula, Mitch, Nate, Lindsay, Gray.

On this day I experienced the greatest hour of my entire life. From 2:47-3:55pm I laid out in the wilderness on a bench with my arms spread and my feet crossed as if I was on a cross. My mind has never been so clear. I had an out-loud conversation with my Creator. I commanded the Holy Spirit to dominate my body and take total control. I want nothing more than to be lead by the Spirit and do whatever is necessary to carry out the business of The Kingdom. I’m tired of getting in the way. I’m tired of my flesh slowing things down. If I maintain the Spirit as the conductor of this body, true productivity will acure.

I cried today……a lot. It felt good. I was over due. I cried when I prayed for David and Mendy. I cried when I explained the overwhelming experience that I had with my Creator from 2:47-3:55pm. I cried when I talked about my brother. I cried when Mitch talked about his sons. I cried when I closed out our man time with prayer. My eyes are pretty dry right now.

As I lay there, in the wilderness, in the shape of a cross, I tried to experience the thought process of Christ. Every time I felt my heart beat I imagined more of my blood forced out of my wounds. I thought about the point of no return. The point of no return is when they drove the nails through His hands and feet for if for some reason someone was to stop the process at that point, and the nails were pulled back out, the feet would not work right ever again and the hands could never function correctly. As I laid there I wiggled my fingers and wondered what it would have felt like doing that with a nail through the center of my forearm bone. When I move my fingers I can feel ligaments moving, and I considered the thought of how that would actually work out with a nail being ran straight through them. Oh what an indescribable pain that must have been. Along with that, being spit on by the mockers, stared at by your family and friends with pity and sorrow on their minds. I do not know pain.

I got a little star gazing time in as well. I laid down and stared up at the never ending vastness of space. Out of all of that creation, who am I to be called God’s masterpiece? As I laid there I began to say out loud, “God, I would sure love to see a…..” and sure enough, a shooting star bolted across the sky. It lasted about four seconds and then it was gone. The odds of a piece of space debris entering the earth’s atmosphere over this part of the world at that exact moment are…..well, lets just say the odds were not really favoring the accurance. But you know what, it happened.

Again, as I laid in that cross formation I saw a bird fly over. Was the purpose of that bird’s entire life to fly over me at that moment in time? If it was raised and hatched by its mother three years ago, received a proper diet and stayed alive just so we could cross paths? Is that how God works? No other human being may ever see that specific bird except me. Did God create that bird to just remind me of Him and His awesomeness? Cause if that is the case, then it worked. Thanks for the reminder God!

BT

His plan vs. my plan

Ever since I was six years old, I’ve loved car racing. As a kid I would spend hours, upon hours, upon hours in the sand box with my hot wheels. Some kids built sand castles; I built race tracks in the sand. I would get chore money every week for mowing the lawn and cleaning the downstairs bathroom and every week I would hop on my bike and ride up to Walgreens to by two more 1/64 scale NASCAR hot wheels. In 1998 I had all 43 cars that participated in the Winston Cup series that season and all 43 were raced around the tracks which I built in that sand box. Racing has always been a big part of my world.

In March of 2001 I was introduced to one of my Dad’s friends, friend who raced a super stock out at Colorado National Speedway. My Dad walked me up into that shop, introduced me to Bill, the driver of the car and Bill’s first few words to me was; “Alright, well son, do you know what stagger is on a racecar?” “Nope.” I said. And so he grabbed his coffee mug, dumped it out, rolled it across the table and it turned in circles in a counter clockwise rotation (left). And he went on to explain to me how the same setup is applied to a racecar to help it turn left…and that is where my passion for making a career out of NASCAR racing began.

In August of 2002 I moved to Phoenix AZ and spent a year and a half down there attending a tech school. When it was all said and done, I left with a two year degree in automotive and diesel technology with one plan in mind, to work in NASCAR. But there was a problem, NASCAR was probably the most unpopular sport in Colorado (home state) and I wanted to make a career out of racing. So, where would be the best place to go to make that happen; Charlotte NC, the center hub of NASCAR racing. At the time I knew two cousins that lived in Charlotte. Needless to say I didn’t have the most confidence in myself to actually get plugged in and make it on to a team.

One Sunday evening in May of 2004 I was hanging out with Bill and we were watching a race. I vented off a bit of discouraging steam to Bill and said, “I just don’t think it’s possible for me to achieve my dream.” As we sat there and watched Dale Jarrett take the checkered flag Bill said to me, “Brandon, one day I bet you will be working for that team right there. I believe in you.” Completely encouraged and recharged, I took the leap of faith and moved across the country to NASCAR central, Charlotte North Carolina.

The shortened version, in January of 2005 I found myself sitting in the office of the guy who ran Robert Yates Racing at the time, (which was the team that Dale Jarrett drove for) and he offered me, Brandon the Colorado kid, a job. He said, “Son, we like what we see in you and we have a position available if you’d like to take it.” I thought about it for about 4.2 seconds and accepted his offer. The prophecy of Bill was fulfilled! I had arrived!

Another shortened version, I along with nine other guys on the team were “let go” in April 2005 do to cut backs and team down sizing. So, that deal was short lived for the Colorado Kid. And here is where I introduce God into the scene. Obviously he’s been a part of this whole thing but this is the first place in my racing Journey that I acknowledged His hands in the whole deal. Motor Racing Outreach held a shop Bible study at Robert Yates Racing two times a month. While I worked there, I attended this shop study. It was there where I first heard about this awesome motor sports ministry. How cool is that, God and racing together, Brandon’s ultimate combination!

After I was let go from that team, I moped around in my little puddle of pity. I couldn’t dare to build up the courage to call Bill and tell him that I was fired from the team. Ugh, that was such a lame time in life. Anyways, while I was hanging out in my puddle, I met a friend. His name was also Brandon. This kid kind of went through the same exact life cycle as me and we both collided right at the same point in life. We shared a bit of bitterness towards our so called “dream.” We were good for each other.

Once we got to know each other he came to learn that I was passionate about youth ministry and said; “Dude! My brother-in-law is the Youth Chaplain at M.R.O. You should come to their youth meeting one time and see what it’s all about.” So, I did, it was awesome and I’ve been going ever since that day in April of 2005.

That entire background story leads up to my original thought that motivated me to write this; God is ridiculous, in a good way. This past Sunday (Oct 5, 2008) at the Church that I now currently work at, I was approached by a former NASCAR driver who I grew up watching. In fact, back in my sandbox days I had two different hot wheels 1/64 scale collectibles that were of the car that this man drove. He pulled me aside at church, put his hand on my knee and said, “Brandon Todd, I need your help man. I don’t know what to do about my son.” Later that afternoon, long after that conversation, it hit me like a ton of bricks; God is ridiculous! I was massively humbled in that moment as I looked back at my life and viewed “the plan” that I had worked for myself and really how lame it was in the big scheme of things. I saw how God orchestrated every detail to get me to where I was that day. From that kid on his knees in the sandbox dreaming to be a NASCAR driver, to having that same NASCAR driver who was represented by those hot wheels, ask me for wise council on how to reach his son. Ummmm God, this is not what I had in mind growing up but it is nine thousand times greater than anything I could have ever dreamed about!

^{1 Corinthians 9:22-26 NLT}

When I am with those who are weak, I share their weakness, for I want to bring the weak to Christ. Yes, I try to find common ground with everyone, doing everything I can to save some. I do everything to spread the Good News and share in its blessings.

Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win! All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing.